Can't Wait Wednesday #12: Strange Alchemy by Gwenda Bond

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they're books that have yet to be released. It's based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine.  This week I've picked something a little different.  This is actually a book that I read several years ago.  It is the book that introduced me to one of my favorite authors, Gwenda Bond.  But shortly after it was published, it soon became almost impossible to find a copy of it. Well it seems the author has found a new publisher, and they're bringing it back under a new title, and I hear a few changes to it.  I'm excited to have another chance to read this story that I so enjoyed, and am eager to see what changes the author has included.  The original title was Blackwood, and it had to do with the whole Roanoke tale, one that has been given the spotlight again after the last season of American Horror Story used it as its setting.  You can read my original review HERE, and see what the original cover looked like.  Here is the new, improved blurb and cover from Goodreads:

Gwenda Bond's first book Blackwood has been reimagined and brought back to life with new vision.  On Roanoke Island, the legend of the Lost Colony - and the 114 colonists who vannished without a trace more than four hundred years ago - still haunts the town.  But that's just a story told for the tourists.

When 114 people suddenly disappear from the island in present day, it seems history is repeating itself - and an unlikely pair of seventeen-year-olds might be the only hope of bringing the missing back.  Miranda Blackwood, a member of one of the island's most infamous families, and Phillip Rawling, the sheriff's son, who has demons and secrets of his own, find themselves at the center of the mystery.  

As the unlikely pair works to uncover the secrets of the new Lost Colony, they must dodge everyone from authorities to long-dead alchemists as they race against time to save their family and friends before they too are gone for good.

So, did you read this back when it was called Blackwood?  Have you read any books by this author?  Does this sound like something you'd like to read?  What book or books are you eagerly awaiting this week?