While I was browsing through the English-language section of Reykjavik's BMM bookstore, looking for things I couldn't get in the States, I stumbled upon what may be the best book title ever*: My Swordhand Is Singing, a young adult fantasy novel by British author Marcus Sedgwick. I didn't pick it up then, because I thought it might be available in the U.S., and it turns out I was right—but I have to admit that I love the British cover at left a lot more than its American counterpart, but that's probably just because I'm more about the swashbuckling than the chilling horror.

So what's it about, you ask? When the novel won the Booktrust Teenage Prize in England last Halloween, the Guardian provided a synopsis:

"It tells the story of a woodcutter, Peter, and his father Tomas, who arrive in the lonely Romanian village of Chust and settle there despite the heavy air of malevolence its unwelcoming inhabitants exude. With the arrival of a band of Gypsies, Peter's miserable life is transformed. They bring colour and music—but also the revelation that Chust is a dying community where the dead come back to take revenge on the living; and that the Gypsies are Vampire Slayers on a deadly quest. Menacing shadows, sudden disappearances and the reappearance of murdered inhabitants force Peter to uncover the threat to the village—and the secrets of his father's past."

If nobody's snapped up the film rights to that yet, they had better get cracking. Me, I'm just going to settle for finding a copy to read by this weekend.

*With the possible exception of Donald Westlake's Somebody Owes Me Money, which Hard Case Crime is restoring to print in early 2008.