CREED Cover Reveal

I'm SO EXCITED to be part of CREED's cover reveal today!

I adore Lindsay Currie and Trisha Leaver--as friends, writers, and critique partners, and together they're the brilliant minds behind CREED. (I LOVE Y'ALL!!!! *sends all the hugs*). The duo are kind, funny, and smart…and did I mention FANTASTIC WRITERS? #TeamCleaver is a force to be reckoned with in the YA world…especially in the horror genre.

Here's why:

CREED – November, 2014 from Flux

Three days.

Three of us went in.

Three of us came out.

None of us even a shadow of who we once were

(seriously--don't you have shivers already?! Knew it.:D)

About the Authors:

Trisha Leaver resides on Cape Cod with her husband, three children and one rather excitable black lab. She spent most of her childhood living inside her own mind, creating characters and stories that only a child's imagination could dream up. She now spends her days breathing life into those characters, writing realistic fiction for young adults. Today, Trisha is a free-lance editor and a proud member of the SCBWI, YA Scream Queens, The Horror Writers Association, TheBookYards, and OneFourKidLit, a community of authors with debuts upcoming in 2014. More information about her solo and co-authored projects can be found at the links below.

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Blog

Lindsay Currie lives in Chicago, Illinois with one incredibly patient hubby, three amazing kids and one adorable, but irreverent Bullmastiff named Sam. She graduated from Knox College in the heart of the Midwest and has been writing for as long as she can remember. She is a freelance editor for young adult, new adult and middle grade fiction, and is a proud member of SCBWI, The Horror Writers Association, The YA Scream Queens, The BookYard and OneFourKidLit, a community of authors with debuts upcoming in 2014.

Website

Facebook

Twitter

BLURB: 

Dee Langley is seventeen and mere months away from total freedom and a life where state social workers, counselors, and foster parents don’t dictate her every move. She has spent years trying to eke out a normal existence, hiding from her past and walking the tenuous line between denial and self-preservation. A weekend away with her boyfriend, Luke, and his brother, Mike, seems like the perfect opportunity to forget and start over. Little does Dee know that she's just trading one hell for another.

When an unexpected storm and a lack of gas force their car off the road, Dee, Luke, and Mike find themselves with no other choice but to wander into the nearby town of Purity Springs for help. But it’s not good Samaritans they find, but rather complete and utter silence, every store and every house abandoned. Forced to seek shelter in one of the deserted homes, they uncover a disturbing book with explicit instructions on how to correctly rear a child, complete with a hand written record of its use. It’s not until the next morning, however, that they discover the alarming truth – the town isn’t abandoned; it is populated by a deadly cult, and the leader, Elijah Hawkins, has plans for the three of them. The group’s only hope for survival lies in the hands of Elijah’s son, Joseph. But is Joseph really their ticket to freedom or is his game just as deadly as his father’s?

Mark it to read on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17720829-creed

Vote for it on the 2014 Debut Authors Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/47089.2014_Debut_Author_Challenge_YA_MG_NA_

Pre-order: click here   

DON'T YOU WANT TO READ CREED ALREADY??!!

But first you want to see the cover, right? I mean, it's why you're here. :)

So scroll down . . .

keep scrolling . . .

one more click . . .

BOOM.

HERE YOU GO! The epic cover of CREED:

AHHHHHHH!!! LOVE!!!! The spooky sky . . . the even spookier red letting. And that touch of turquoise in the title --what's that all about!? WANT! A creeptastic cover all around!!!

Congrats Lindsay & Trisha! Thanks for letting me be a part of your big day today! 

Readers, what's your favorite thing about CREED's cover? 

TRANSPARENT is out!

My sweet friend Natalie Whipple's debut novel, TRANSPARENT, hits shelves today. Woohoo!

I'M SO STOKED FOR HER! Natalie's such a sweetheart, always giving her time and support and encouragement to other writers. One Twitter, on her blog, in contests. And she's truly as sweet and kind and giving as she seems on her blog.

And I've been dying to spread the TRANSPARENT birthday love!

Here's the fantastic cover:

Awesome, right?!

Want more? Thought so.:)

Here's the blurb:

Plenty of teenagers feel invisible. Fiona McClean actually is.

An invisible girl is a priceless weapon. Fiona’s own father has been forcing her to do his dirty work for years—everything from spying on people to stealing cars to breaking into bank vaults.

After sixteen years, Fiona’s had enough. She and her mother flee to a small town, and for the first time in her life, Fiona feels like a normal life is within reach. But Fiona’s father isn’t giving up that easily.

Of course, he should know better than anyone: never underestimate an invisible girl.

***

I get shivers every time I read it.:)

Curious to know what readers have said? Here you go....

"Fast-paced, fun, and so original I was downright giddy, TRANSPARENT is a truly awesome debut from an author destined to be on my auto-buy list." —Rachel Hawkins, owner of best awkward foreign cover EVER. (And NYT Bestseller)

“Debut author Natalie Whipple deftly explores painfully real teen experience through delightfully unreal stories. Transparent is a smart, funny, tense gem of a book, and Fiona claims a spot as one of my favorite heroines.” Kiersten White, New York Times bestselling author of the Paranormalcy trilogy.

Yay! A fun, fresh YA read has hit the wild! Happy book birthday, Natalie! :)

And go TRANSPARENT!!!!!

Shout out to Robin Mellom, author of DITCHED

Hey sweet YA readers!

YA contemporary is so hot right now, and so fun. Lots of great reads out there, like . . .

JUST ONE DAY by Gayle Forman
(and a sequel is coming soon!)

LOLA AND THE BOY NEXT DOOR by Stephanie Perkins
(companion novel to ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS . . . so good!)

BODY AND SOUL by Stacey Kade
(the finale of THE GHOST AND THE GOTH series--just love!)








But here's one you definitely shouldn't miss:

I know Robin personally (we actually went to high school together, can you believe it?!) and she's as sweet as she is talented. Crazy thing is, I read DITCHED (and LOVED it!) before I realized this Robin was the same Robin I went to high school with. It was that whole maiden-name-changed-to-married-name thing that threw me off. 

So let me say it again--I LOVED THIS BOOK, even before I realized I loved the author.  

Here's the blurb from Goodreads:

There's a girl.
Justina Griffith was never the girl who dreamed of going to prom. Designer dresses and strappy heels? Not her thing. That said, she never expected her best friend, Ian Clark, to ask her.

And there's a boy.
Ian, who always passed her the baseball bat, handle first.
Ian, who knew exactly when she needed red licorice.
Ian, who promised her the most amazing night at prom.

Then there's a ditch.
But when Justina is ditched, figuratively and literally, she must piece together--stain-by-stain on her thrift store dress--exactly how she ended up dateless...with only the help of some opinionated ladies at the 7-Eleven.

To get the whole store, Justina will have to face the boy who ditched her. Can losing out at her prom ultimately lead to finding true love?

Doesn't it sound amazing? *nods* It really is.:)

I'm over at the YA Valentine blog today getting the full scoop from Robin. Pop over if you can, find out Robin's favorite scene, and say hi.:) 

Plus, if you've got middle-grade readers, Robin had a new MG book coming out next month from Disney-Hyperion! Woot!

Happy Tuesday y'all!

Happy New Year!

Hello 2013!

To kick off the year, I joined a cool group of YA & MG authors debuting in 2014, One Four Kidlit. Yay! Feels like the perfect way to start today. Want to check out the blog-in-progress? Go here. :) There are so many awesome books coming out in 2014 from new authors, and I'm honored to be part of this group!

Ok, now for the promised 2012 wrap-up.

These kinds of summaries are hard for me; it's why I don't have a "family letter" inside our Christmas card (not that I sent cards this year...ran out of time LOL). But 2012 was amazing. Full of quiet moments and many highlights, writing-wise. Here's a few:

I found my agent, Jennifer Unter, who is made of awesome. Truly. I couldn't ask for a more perfect champion for NIL, for me, or for my writing. Thanks Jennifer, for EVERYTHING.

Jennifer sold my book, NIL, to Macmillan/Henry Holt, for publication Winter 2014. Just--WOW. Talk about a culmination of years of work . . . of a dream come true. Again, thank you Jennifer. :) And thank you Kate, for falling in love with NIL too. :)

I met my awesome crit partner from Omaha, Tonya Kuper, in person--not once, but twice. (Which also meant I got to see Snow Patrol live twice as well--both times with Tonya. Woot!) I'm so grateful to my friend and CP, Laura Stanford, for introducing us through Backspace (a killer conference if you ever have the chance to go). Hugs, Laura! Tonya landed an agent in 2012 too and that made me HAPPY. Like over-the-moon happy. To watch a friend succeed when you have been there for the ride is pure sweetness and a highlight all its own. :)

I made more writing friends on-line than I ever dreamed possible. Like the amazing Lindsay Currie and Trisha Leaver (through Tonya!), who gave me the opportunity to read one of their blow-your-mind awesome manuscripts and who are as nice as they are talented . . . like Jay Spencer, a talented artist-writer-music fan (alert: Jay writes kick-butt MG) who kick-started a music blog for writers and gave me the chance to be a part of it . . . like Eliza Tilton and Laura Stanford, both writers from Backspace, who each celebrated personal/career successes this year (publication! dream job!) which make me happy too . . . like Jessie Harrell, who is an amazing writer and CP (ok, Jessie is local and I love her and I can lunch with her when the stars align and neither of our kids are sick, but this wrap-up cannot NOT include Jessie, who has been with me every step of my writing journey.:D) . . . like Natalie Whipple, whose blog I stumbled across when I first began pursuing publication and who I'm honored to count as a friend (Natalie is honest and smart and Talented and kind and I want to read EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HER BOOKS -- and possibly her grocery list, because her writing is just that awesome)  . . . and like dozens of other writers who make me smile when I read their Tweets. The writing community is tight on Twitter, but not in an exclusive way, and I feel blessed to be a part of it.

I learned--again--that publication really is about patience, and perseverance. Patience while you wait to hear from your agent while on submission, patience while you wait on your book contract, patience while you wait to receive your edits . . . (see a trend here? The waiting in publishing never ends. I'd heard that before and it's so true!) But while you wait, you must still write. You still have to sit and push through the block when the words won't come, or the muse doesn't show, and you can't let the waiting kill your writing. It's hard, at least it was for me at times, because the emotional roller coaster of the WAITS (the flats in between the highs and the lows) are like mental quicksand. At times it's hard to keep going, but you can't stop, at least not for long, because you'll get stuck.

There were personal highlights too . . . I celebrated my 17th wedding anniversary, watched many gorgeous sunsets and sunrises over the ocean (sometimes on a paddle board), fell back in love with painting (oil, preferably, but acrylics are fun too), figured out I suck at yoga but like it anyway, watched all 4 of my boys do amazing things in sports and school, and read over 150 books. Lots of good books out there to be read, which makes me stoked for 2013. :)

So Happy New Year! Here's to a fresh start, a new year, many months of GREAT books and good times. :) *clinks glass*

Oh, one more thing: my resolution. Balance. I'm REALLY going to work hard on juggling the family/life/health/writing balance. It's hard for me, because when I'm into something, I do it 100%. But sometimes as much as I want to write for 14 hours straight, I can't--or shouldn't. So I'm working on balance, with a time management component.

What's your resolution for 2013?

To you! Cheers!