My new YA romance, ANY BOY BUT YOU, is available for pre-order NOW!

Elena Chestnut has been chatting with an anonymous boy late into the night. It’s a very You’ve Got Mail situation, and she has no idea who he is. He can’t be Oliver Prince, hot-and-bashful son of the family running the rival sporting goods store. Their fancy sales strategies are driving Elena’s family out of business. Elena’s mystery boy has teamed up with her in their latest sales strategy, an augmented reality game, to help her win the grand-prize plane tickets. Money’s so tight Elena’s going to miss senior year spring break with her friends if she can’t win this game.

The girl Oliver’s fallen head-over-heels for online had better not be Elena Chestnut. She’s his angry, vindictive Latin tutor, the daughter of his dad’s business rival, and the one girl he’d never even think of kissing. She’s definitely not his online crush, because that girl is funny, sweet, and perfect.

When Oliver asks to reveal their names at the Valentine’s Day dance, their IRL relationship will either ruin what they have online, or they’ll discover just how thin the line between love and hate really is.

Disclaimer: This Entangled Teen Crush book contains swearing, snowball fights, and sexual tension that could melt the North Pole. Read at your own risk.

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I posted this already on the tweeter and on my Facebook page, but of course I need to make it blog official–and give you some more details (as I know them).

First of all, the big news is that I’m going to be writing a 3-book ebook series for Entangled Crush. The series is set in a small, fictional Minnesota town, which is a Christmas tourist trap. People travel from miles around to meet Santa and drink eggnog and take selfies with the reindeer. My initial idea for the series sparked when I decided I wanted to write a YA romance novel that reads like a Hallmark Christmas movie. That Christmas book is going to be the third in the series.

The other two books are also set in the Christmas-themed town, but they take place 1) in the doldrums of post-holiday winter, heading into spring and 2) summer vacation.

Each book follows a different (young adult) couple on their journey toward falling in love, but, since it’s a series, the same characters pop into and out of the various stories. The town is populated with quirky characters, who are deep into the town’s traditions and politics, making it (hopefully) feel like a lived-in universe. (My role models: Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls or Pawnee in Parks & Rec.)

I’m really excited about these books (if you couldn’t tell), and I’m so jazzed to be working with Kate Brauning again. She edited my first novel, The Sound of Us, which you should read. It’s not like Gilmore Girls, but you’ll still enjoy it.

The big difference between this book and the first one is that it took me about seven years to publish TSOU. The first one in this series will be published about seven months after I first started writing it. So…that’s a little scary, but I’m up to the challenge. I’m writing like a fiend right now. Take that, George RR Martin.

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My book comes out in less than two months (YIKES!!, but also YAY!!). Here’s all the information you need on one handy landing page.

 

The Sound of Us has a cover!

And you can read an excerpt of the novel here.

The Sound of Us will be released on June 7. Add it to your Goodreads list. Or preorder it right here!

This is bizarre.

I’ve been blogging for ten years and this is the first time I don’t know what to say. It’s probably because my usual deal is to snark on TV shows or complain about people in line at Costco. When it comes to bragging about my accomplishments, I get tongue-tied.

So, I’ll just get it out of the way. The reason I’m writing this, the reason I started this website in the first place, is because I just signed a book deal with Entangled Teen for my debut YA novel! A Place for Us is the story of a high school girl who decides to shake up her boring, TV-obsessed life by heading off to opera camp for the summer.

A little background…

• I studied voice in college for two years before getting LIFE PANICKY and changing my major to education.
• I taught Latin (a language which is not dead, just sleeping — thank you, Brooklyn 99) for several years before having kids and doing the writing thing. This is relevant because there’s a very decent amount of Latin stuff in this book. Look, Mom, I’m using my degree!
• I had the idea for this book in, probably, 2002. I started writing it in August of 2009. I started querying agents in January of 2011. I revised (again) and queried (again) in the fall of 2013. I signed with my agent, Beth Phelan, in December of 2013. I signed the deal with Entangled in May of 2015. If you’re sending out query after query and racking up rejections, welcome. You’re among friends.

In the future, I’ll publish writing tips and other tidbits about the book on this here blog. If you have questions or comments, drop them here or on my Facebook page or come talk Game of Thrones with me on Twitter.

Valete!