Paperback Promotion

So this week THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE is coming to paperback, and to celebrate (and to try to er, promote it), I am going to do an exclusive giveaway to help get the word out. So tell your friends--if this is a book you think they'd like to read, NOW is the time to get it.

Between now and Tuesday only, when you buy the paperback, I will send you a signed THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE bookmark (while supplies last). All you have to do to receive this is to :

1. Email me a screenshot of your purchase or your receipt or whatever form of proof you can produce that you've bought the book during this promotion time.

2. In the email, tell me your mailing address. Please make sure it's complete.

3. If you're interested in winning a signed advanced copy of MY LADY JANE, click on the rafflecopter contest below and follow the instructions. No international entries, sorry. You can get an entry for just tweeting about the contest, but you'll get FIVE entries if you actually bought the TLTWSG paperback.

4. Enjoy TLTWSG while you wait for your awesome bookmark (and possibly, your ARC)!

5. Accept my many many thanks. You rock.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Last Time We Say Goodbye in Italy

It's June! (How did that happen?!)

This month THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE is coming out in Italy. (June 16, to be exact). The publisher there (Harlequin Mandadori Editore) has been so wonderful and proactive, so there's going to be an official Italian blog tour, starting today, featuring lots of exclusive content from me and other sources.

And here is the Italian cover:

Beautiful, right? I love it.

So if you're Italian, or if you speak Italian, here's the link to where you can buy the Italian version.

Ciao!

Backstage

Tomorrow THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE is on the shelves. I have nervous stomach. This is normal. Usually it feels like Christmas Eve at book launch; I'm excited that the day has finally arrived, and nervous to see if readers will respond to it, and thrilled to see the real book on a real shelf in a real bookstore. Usually at this point I'm swimming in newly-purchased swag, exhausted by all the blog tour stuff I've been writing (one year, I think it was with HALLOWED, I actually wrote nearly 20,000 words worth of interview/marketing stuff in the weeks leading up to publication. Good grief--that is like 1/4 of a book!) determined to enjoy the day (which to me means a mani-pedi, lunch out, and a trip to the bookstore to see the book in the wild), and just slightly nauseated.

But this book feels different.

Last night I had a dream that I was backstage. I spent my high school and college years as an actress in local theaters, so this is a typical dream of mine. It usually goes like this: I'm backstage, nervous, and then I go out there and either a) can't remember my lines and have to improv the whole play (which I suck at, btw) or b) go out there and get that beautiful-and-slightly-out-of-control high of simply letting myself go. That's when the magic happens. I perform, but it doesn't feel like performing. It feels like me.

You can tell I miss the theater.

In last night's dream, I was waiting backstage in that cozy blackness with the smell of sawdust and hairspray, waiting, waiting, for the show to begin. I took my place at center stage, and the curtain rose. Slowly. There was a huge crowd out there in the dark, the biggest crowd I'd ever seen. A spotlight flared up on me. Silence fell over the crowd. And I felt. . .

Naked. Not physically naked (although I'm sure I've had those dreams, too, gah), but naked in the way that  all of those people had come and bought their tickets to see ME. Just me. Standing there in front of them. No lines. It wasn't that I'd forgotten them so much as there were no lines, in this play. No costumes. No makeup or fancy hairstyles. Just me.

And I had a choice: improv (which remember, I suck at) or let go.

I took a deep breath, and woke up.

It's hard to describe how vivid the dream was, or how perfectly it captured what I'm feeling now, as I wait for February 10 to arrive, the day of my book, this book that I put so much of my heart (and tears) into.

Tomorrow.

Another Giveaway and A Bit of News

Wow, time is moving fast. THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE comes out in two weeks!

I got another wonderful package in the mail--5 real copies of the Australian version of TLTWSG.

Pretty, right?(See below for how another rafflecopter, where you can win a copy or one of the last 2 ARCs before the book actually comes out.)

Which brings us to how, yes, TLTWSG is going to be available in some other countries:

Here's the list so far:

• Australia from HarperAustralia (Happy sigh--I love my Australian fans and I will someday finally get over there to meet them!)
• Italy from Harlequin Mondadori
• Germany from Darkiss
• Hungary from Maxim Konyvkiado

I also wanted to announce that TLTWSG will be available as both an ebook and an audiobook, all out on February 10th.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

28 Days From Now

This morning I got a package from HarperTeen! As usual, it took my breath away to open up the box and see my own name on the cover of this beautiful book. My own book. About to go out into the wide, wide world, only 28 days from now.

I am so proud of this book. I mean, I'm proud of all of my books. They all take so much time and energy and passion to write. But this book was especially difficult, and especially close to my heart, so it feels like something of a miracle to see it actualized.

So what do I want to do now? I want to give it away! Enter my rafflecopter contest to win this book, signed by me. I am also giving away some signed ARCs of the book this week. Just follow the directions below. (Contest starts tomorrow. U.S. entries only, please. The contest officially starts tonight at 12am, and you can do some things to get an entry every day, so check back.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Also, I have some tour news. I am going on the Epic Reads Winter Tour with Victoria Aveyard and Jasmine Warga. So here's where and when you can come see me and get your books signed:

February 18, 7pm at Anderson's Bookstore, 123 Jefferson Ave, Naperville, IL

February 19, 7pm at Flyleaf Books, 752 MLK Jr. Blvd, Chapel Hill, NC

February 20, 7pm at Barnes & Noble Orlando, 481 N. Alafaya Trail, Orlando, FL

February 21, 2pm at Vero Beach Bookcenter, 325 Miracle Mile, Vero Beach, FL

Check my Events page for more upcoming appearances, and leave a comment there with the name of a bookstore and city you'd like me to visit. I will seriously take that under consideration in my travel planning for the year.

*goes back to stroking the pretty pretty book*

The Reviews Are Coming In

Two good reviews this week on The Last Time We Say Goodbye!

This one is from Kirkus:

After her younger brother's suicide, ordinarily rational Alexis starts seeing her younger brother's ghost.Seven weeks after Ty shot himself with a hunting rifle, Alexis' mom announces she's seen him in the house. Alexis, a math student with aspirations of attending MIT, is skeptical but soon sees visions of her own. Alexis watches Ty die in recurring dreams, reluctantly relives firsts and lasts in a journal suggested by her therapist, and tries to stay strong for her mom, who is drinking to cope and certain that her own life is over. Alexis herself hasn't cried since her brother's death. Instead, moments of intense emotion open what Alexis powerfully describes as a "hole in my chest." The hauntings here are more emotional than paranormal, and Alexis' journey primarily entails reconnecting with estranged friends and family and slowly moving on. The characters involved are many—a childhood friend-turned-occultist stoner, Alexis' emotionally absent father and Ty's last girlfriend, to name a few—but each storyline is distinctly important and carefully woven in. Details of Ty's last days, Alexis' sense of guilt and the incident itself are revealed slowly and are often unexpected but always believable. Evocative and insightful. (Fiction. 14-18)

And this one from the School Library Journal:

Gr 8 Up-For Lex, since her brother committed suicide, questions about their last 
goodbye have haunted her. Filled with regret, she ponders their last words and 
not being able to show him how much she loved him while he was still alive. The 
narrative unravels in perfect pacing, drawing readers into this emotional story. 
With a rocky home life in a small town in Nebraska, Lex begins pulling away from 
her friends, breaks up with her boyfriend, and struggles with life in general. 
When her therapist, Dave, assigns her the task of writing down her thoughts in a 
journal, flashbacks of the siblings' relationship and the protagonist's 
interactions with their parents fill in the gaps. Readers will be drawn in by 
the even pacing, the heavy moments never overwhelming the teen's story. Raw, 
emotional, and gripping, this book is Hand's first realistic fiction title, and 
fans of her popular "Unearthly" series (HarperCollins) will follow her genre 
change willingly. Libraries should jump at having this book, not only because of 
the author's previous work, but because it is an excellent and thoughtful 
exploration of grief.-Stephanie Charlefour, Wixom Public Library, MI

Whew! I am always a little fretful about reviews,  but this book is especially dear to me so the good reviews mean even more.

Cover Reveal

The day has arrived! I have finally been given the green light to share the cover of my latest novel, THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE.

Here it is:

And here's the description from the book jacket:

There's death all around us.

We just don't pay attention.

Until we do.

The last time Lex was happy, it was before. When she had a family that was whole. A boyfriend she loved. Friends who didn't look at her like she might break down at any moment.

Now she's just the girl whose brother killed himself. And it feels like that's all she'll ever be.

As Lex starts to put her life back together, she tries to block out what happened the night Tyler died. But there's a secret she hasn't told anyone-a text Tyler sent, that could have changed everything.

Lex's brother is gone. But Lex is about to discover that a ghost doesn't have to be real to keep you from moving on.

From New York Times bestselling author Cynthia Hand, The Last Time We Say Goodbye is a gorgeous and heart-wrenching story of love, loss, and letting go.

So there you have it! A cover! A description! A release date: February 10, 2015! It's all coming together!

I feel that I hit the jackpot with this cover. It's gorgeous, first of all --the colors, the image!--but beyond that, I feel it truly reflects what happens in the book. And that is a rare thing. Covers, you see, are meant to be advertisements--their sole purpose to to get some poor unsuspecting reader to pick up the book and then buy it. So often what's on the cover is more a reflection of marketing than what's at the heart of the book. That's okay--it's meant to be like that. I mean, I loved my covers for UNEARTHLY, but at no time did my main character Clara ever stand around outside in a formal gown. But the covers did their job--they got people to buy my books.

But this cover does both so beautifully. It is pretty and enticing and just begs to be picked up. And it FEELS like the story. I can feel Lex in that room, looking at that note.

Happy sigh.

So what do you think?

New Book, New Title!

Yesterday I officially finished my fourth novel.

Which made me feel like:

Also:

Because this novel just about killed me to write. To an extent, all of my novels have made me feel like I might not survive the process (this writing thing is HARD, yo), but this novel. THIS NOVEL, you guys. There were entire weeks were I unabashedly wept every day while writing this novel.

Also:

It's that kind of novel. You might need tissues, is what I'm saying.

There are a couple of things I can tell you at this juncture:

1. The TITLE!!!!!

I love the title. It's the only book I've written to date where my working title became the actual title, and for that I am very proud. It is:

THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE

2. The book (I call it TLTWSG for short) is a YA contemporary stand-alone. Meaning that it is not Unearthly-related. It is not a paranormal romance (although there are parts of this book that are so romantic, sigh) and it does not feature anyone with supernatural powers. That said, I will add that I am always interested in stories where mysterious things happen, and this book is no exception.

3. I say the novel is not Unearthly-related, but TLTWSG is about a girl who is trying to deal with the death of her younger brother, and I think fans of Unearthly will be able to see the connections between what I was writing about in the Unearthly series and what I'm writing about here.

3. The book will be out sometime in early 2015. I know that's a long time to wait. Believe me, I know. Publishing a book is often a game of hurry-up-and-wait. But I will be here in the next year to keep you updated on all of the news: the book description, the cover, the release date, all the fun stuff, as it happens.

So that's what I'll give you for now.

*Takes a deep breath.*

*Eyes the notebook for the next novel.*

 Um, EXCITED. Sheesh, gif people. Spell check.