Holding my breath

I’ve sent out advance reading copies for FORGET YOU, which will be published by MTV Books on July 20, and so far I’ve seen nothing but good reviews. There may be bad reviews out there, but I have not seen them, which I think is a good place to be. The reviews I’ve seen are from Naughty Book Kitties, Princess Bookie, Girls Without a Bookshelf, Chick Loves Lit, Lorraine’s Book Blog, and Myriad Words, plus a review from Asamum that pegs what I was trying to do in this book so accurately, I got a little creeped out. Because of these book bloggers who have been kind enough to post early reviews, I’m no longer worried about the reception of this book when it finally comes out.

But ENDLESS SUMMER is a different story. It will be published by Simon Pulse in eleven days (!!!) and I did not get advance copies, so I will not be able to send books to bloggers until it’s already in stores.

A few months ago I was feeling a lot more confidence in ENDLESS SUMMER than FORGET YOU. ENDLESS SUMMER is the sequel to THE BOYS NEXT DOOR, which came out in 2007. I wrote the sequel because readers asked me to. It’s the only sequel I’ve written, mainly because in general I don’t like sequels. Too often it seems the author poured everything she had into the first book. By the second book, the characters have nothing left to achieve. So I thought about this sequel for three years before I finally wrote it, and I’m very proud of the result.

The copy that will go on sale also includes THE BOYS NEXT DOOR in the same volume. This means it is an Extremely Large Book, about 600 pages, and it has a beautiful cover.



I’m hoping, and I think Simon Pulse was hoping when they designed it, that it will really stand out on a shelf full of black-covered paranormals. In short, I hope that even with no advance reviews, readers will judge a book by its cover.

Before my work was published, I never gave much thought to covers. I figured I would write the best book I could, and readers would judge my books on their merit. It was a huge surprise to find that covers can make or break the sale of a book, and authors have little or no say in the matter. That’s why I am so gratified that Danielle and Barbara have such gorgeous covers for their upcoming 2010 releases—and why I am really happy to be published by MTV Books, where they understand that the cover is important to point-of-sale, and it even affects the reader’s perception while she’s reading. It’s unnerving, really, to give up that much control over how people will perceive your work. So when you get a great cover, you rejoice, and trust, and hope.

Still holding my breath, though.