Announcing THE QUEENS OF RENTHIA Trilogy!

I am so very, very excited to announce that I've sold a new trilogy of books for adults!!!  An epic fantasy trilogy!!!!!!!!!!!  In the biggest book deal of my career to date!  Series title is THE QUEENS OF RENTHIA and they will be published by HarperCollins / Voyager in 2016 and 2017.  Here's the announcement from this week's Publishers Weekly Book Deals:

Durst Delivers 'Queens' to Harper

In a three-book deal, Harper Voyager's David Pomerico preempted world rights to Sarah Beth Durst's fantasy trilogy, the Queens of Renthia. Durst, who was represented by Andrea Somberg at Harvey Klinger, said the series is set in a world "where everything in nature has a spirit -- and where those spirits are bloodthirsty killers who seek the death of all humans." Book one, The Queen of Blood, is set for a fall 2016 publication. Durst has written a number of fantasy novels for children and adults, including the YA title Chasing Power (Bloomsbury) and the adult title The Lost (Mira), both published in 2014.

I am doing a serious Snoopy dance of joy right now, complete with Muppet flailing arms and high-pitched squeals:  
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

As mentioned in the PW announcement, Renthia is a world where everything has a spirit: the willow tree with leaves that kiss the pond, the stream that feeds the river, the wind that exhales fresh snow...  But these are not the sweet, frolicking nature sprites from a pastoral tale.  The spirits that reside within this land want to kill all humans, the way white blood cells want to kill a virus.  Only a few women are gifted with the power to control the spirits.  To defend their people, these women must fight to become queens... or die trying.

Tentative titles and publication dates are:

Book 1: THE QUEEN OF BLOOD -- October 2016
Book 2: THE RELUCTANT QUEEN -- February 2017
Book 3: THE QUEEN OF SORROW -- June 2017

I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am about this trilogy.  I love epic fantasy.  Really, really love it, as in spent an inordinate amount of my childhood pretending that I was a magical sword-wielding princess on a quest, drawing massive maps of nonexistent lands, and reading David Eddings's The Belgariad so many times that Polgara, Silk, and Durnik felt like real people.  So to be writing books born from this tradition...  Let's just say my ten-year-old self would be doing a lot of cartwheeling if she knew.

Right now, I'm in the middle of writing book one, and I am loving working on it so much.  It feels exactly like writing is supposed to feel, as if I have plunged through a portal into another world.  I feel so incredibly lucky and thrilled and overjoyed, and I can't wait to welcome you to Renthia and share this world's stories and people with you!

Just don't try to visit Renthia in person, because those trees... they'll totally kill you.