Black-haired girl; New Book

As for the new book, Amazon.com still lists it as "Sequel to Hero and the Crown," publishing date Dec. 1997. I don't think this is right. We knew about _RD_ (in its incarnation as _Rose Cottage_) months and months in advance, and *its* predecessor didn't win the Newbery Award. I think if the sequel were actually coming out in December (and would that it were!) we'd have a definite title and plot outline, and we probably would have seen some reviews by now (the Kirkus review of _RD_ was posted four months before the book was published). It's possible they're thinking of the new edition of _Hero and the Crown_, which will be printed in 4-6 weeks (according to B&N.com). The coming-books-in-print catalog lists the sequel as 1998, anyway. -- Sorry if I've dashed anyone's hopes (and I hope I'm wrong!); but it looks like we'll have a new Damar in a year, if not a couple of months.