So it’s been….sometime.
It’s not that things haven’t been happening, because they definitely have it’s just, well, I couldn’t talk about it.
Do you know how hard it is to keep a secret for four months? Pretty darn hard.
So back in January I had a really good day. It was January 29th and I got two phone calls. The second one told me that my mammo came back clear. Normally that is the best phone call I can get. But January 29th was so darn good that the first phone call was even better.
Because the first phone call was from my agent telling me I sold my novel to Harper Collins.
Since I’m not terribly good at talk about my books, I’m going to use the summary that my friend Tomi wrote because she is very good at talking about my books. (She’s also an excellent beta reader):
“It’s a supernatural thriller about three troubled children in a small town who create a bond of friendship by coming together to save their broken families from a devil masquerading as a savior and the whole thing is a kind of allegory about consent and the masks people wear to hide the pain they’re struggling through”
I grew up in the Hudson Valley, about an hour outside of NYC. My best friend, Dan lived around the corner. We were, (and still are) thick as theives. We spent many summer days traipsing through the woods, making up fantasy worlds like Narnia and Terabithia. We drew eyes on trees so they could watch out for us. We made up spooky stories like the BirdMan who had giant bird feet and would steal kids. We were convinced if we followed the spells in the Worst Witch we could also do magic.
I realize now we were, in fact, magic.
And this story was sowed in those woods, like a sapling that needed some years to grow. It would not exist without them.
People often talk about the “book of their heart” and this is mine. It’s not a flashy book, though I think it’s got a few good scares. It’s not a tearjerker. But it is something that has lived in me for a long time, since I was a little girl reading Madeline L’Engle books and realizing that someone had the very incredible job of making STORIES. From that point on it was the only thing I wanted to do.
I cannot wait for you to meet, Nellie, Elijah and most of all, storytelling, stubborn, towheaded Zee.
My GHOST GIRL
