Kickstarter Day 5 (24 days left) Mountain Pic & Book Rec

The Kickstarter for The Labyrinth of Flame is humming along, heading toward the short story stretch goal.  Yesterday I let structural and line editors know that the project is a go, and this weekend I'm working on a sketch to give the map artist.  (A very rough sketch.  An artist I am not.)  Depending on how busy he is, I might even have a draft of the map to show off before the Kickstarter ends, which would be really cool.

For today's mountain pic, thought I'd go a little further afield to New Zealand, where the peaks are indeed just as impressive as they look in the Lord of the Rings movies:

Peak in the Darran Mountains near Milford Sound

I took this pic while heading back to Queenstown after kayaking Milford Sound. Just about killed me to drive past so many gorgeous mountains without climbing them.  I really need to go back to Fiordland!

Keeping with the New Zealand theme, for today's book rec I'll go with Karen Healey's YA novel The Shattering, which is set in a seaside town on the rugged and isolated west coast of New Zealand's South Island.  (Very disappointed with the publisher for not portraying this on the cover, especially as the notorious beauty of the town factors quite heavily into the story!  Obviously they should have catered to me, and not the desires of the vastly larger YA market. :)

I had some issues with various plot elements but those were well overshadowed by how compelling I found The Shattering's characters.  Their friendships and their emotional struggles are very well drawn; the book does an excellent job conveying the different ways people deal with grief and loss.  Healey also strikes the right note of creepiness in many of the scenes with supernatural elements.  If you enjoy fantasy with contemporary settings, give this one a go.