About the book, from Tor/Macmillan:

“Arthur Parnassus lives a good life, built on the ashes of a bad one. He’s the headmaster of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six magical and so-called dangerous children who live there.

Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. And he is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth; Zoe Chapelwhite, the island’s sprite; and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.

But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.

And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.

Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur’s story.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a story of resistance, lovingly told, about the daunting experience of fighting for the life you want to live and doing the work to keep it.”

About the Author, TJ Klune:

“TJ KLUNE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The House in the Cerulean Sea, The Extraordinaries, and more. Being queer himself, Klune believes it’s important—now more than ever—to have accurate, positive queer representation in stories.”

Also, TJ is one of the Tucson Tome Gnome’s biggest supporters and is one of our nonprofit’s founding board members!

Why I selected Somewhere Beyond the Sea for the September 2024 Giveaway:

• Any book that TJ Klune writes is a book that this gnome wants to share ❤
• We launched the Tucson Tome Gnome by hiding The House in the Cerulean Sea back in September 2021, so it really was a no-brainer that we would HAVE to hide the sequel to that beautiful book on our three year anniversary.
• Revisiting this magical place (Marsyas Island) and the characters we’ve come to know and love (Lucy! Chauncey! Talia! All of them!) brings this gnome so much joy.
• We loved seeing the relationship continue to develop between Arthus and Linus, and their gentle parenting style makes us all wish we could be adopted by fictional characters 😉
• Like all of TJ’s stories, this one values inclusivity and focuses on queer joy. It promises to be comforting and full of hope for all who read it.

If you decide to go on a book hunt this weekend, keep your eyes peeled because these books will include some very special items from Tor/Macmillan AND our friends at Kingdom of Threads!!! If you’ve been paying attention, you might have realized that this month’s book hiding also marks our three-year tome gnome-iversary (can you believe we’ve been hiding books around town for three years?).

This also means that we have launched our campaign to raise funds for book hiding in 2025! We’ll share more information about our fundraising efforts in a post soon, but for now, if you want to help us get a head start on meeting our $10K goal for 2025, you can donate here (and, as usual, we will be forever grateful!):

https://www.gofundme.com/f/hiding-books-in-2025