Covers, News, and the Year in Review

Wow. What year. Most amazing year of my life! But I'll get to that later. First! Covers!!!!!

An anonymous commenter (I kid you not) left me a link to my Russian cover and it is gorgeous!! I am so stoked by it! Very sexy!



I mean, really. Isn't that awesome!!!!

And then we spotted my first foreign Spells cover this week too!



It has a silver chain for a stem, people! Height of awesomeosity. (Yes, I did just make that word up.)

Long-time readers will know this, but in case you don't, generally authors have little to no say in their covers. Closer to the "no" than the "little." And even less in the foreign covers! So all my awesome covers? I can brag about them endlessly because I had absolutely nothing to do with them. Nuh-thing. Nothing.

But aren't they great!!!:D

In news, I have my first event of 2010 next week! Whoo-hoo! Changing Hands, the illustrious Phoenix Indie, is hosting Yallapalooza! Check it out! No seriously, check it out. It is going to be AWESOME!!!! There is going to be live music! I have never been to an event with live music! And free food. Who doesn't love free food?? Anyway, there will be a ton of us there, including my new author friends Janette Rallison, James Owen, and the inestimable Janni Lee Simner. But the AZ authors are getting with a bunch of L.A. authors I've never met and we are SO going to par-tay! I am so excited! It is going to be amazing! There will be exclamation points! So if you are in the greater Phoenix area, or, indeed, anywhere in the Southwest United States, you should come! It's Saturday, January 9th from 4-7PM, at Changing Hands Bookstore. Seriously, come! All YA, all the time. :D

Anyway, it has been an amazing year. And not just for me! So here is my whole year in review:

January and February saw me on a pre-publication tour. It was my very first event for Wings and also my first time signing books. Yay! This was an amazing experience for so many reasons. I met a ton of librarians, readers, and bookstore staff who just fell in love with Wings. I also had to prick my head with a pin every night as they were determined to blow it up to astronomical sizes. :D

April was my husband's month. After three grueling years, he graduated law school! What a momentous day!! I was so proud. :D

May was Wings month. I spent the whole month traveling, often to places I'd never been before. I also went to BEA for the first time and became a NYT Bestselling author. Whoa. I have never had such a whirlwind month! And even if the release of Spells is exactly the same, this year will still be the most special release, because it was the first time, with everything new and sparkly!

June was my first event with other authors (Supernatural Summer, which I will be doing again this year, yay!). It also was the month I moved back to Arizona, which I have been looking forward too since I moved away from Arizona three years earlier.:D I moved into my gorgeous new house (courtesy of the crappy housing market) and have my own office for the first time and everything is wonderful here!

In July my movie deal was announced and I got to watch my own little media frenzy happen. I was mentioned on People.com, mtv.com, Variety.com, ONTD.com and on the TV segment The Soup on E! It was very strange, and unreal, and exciting!!

In August I finally fell off the list after spending eleven weeks there. Completely unreal. Eleven weeks!! And I promise you this; every week was a gift. Makes for some jittery Wednesdays though.:D

In October I got some really wonderful news I can't share yet, but it was important, so I'm mentioning it.:D

In November I hosted Thanksgiving with fifty people in attendance. 'Nuff said.

In December I kind of pulled away from the world and gathered my family in close and had a quiet holiday. Honestly, it was just what I needed. Because despite the wonderful, amazing things that happened this year, my life revolves around my husband and my kids. And they are what make everything worthwhile.

So, yeah, an amazing year. It wasn't all roses and clover. I cried over my books at least three times, determined I was a hack author who couldn't do anything right. I had someone I thought was a friend stab me in the back. I was separated from my family for almost three weeks when they moved while I was touring and that was really hard. And revisions . . . well, they are always soul-sucking.:D But all of that pales in the face of how many great things happened to me this year and the readers, bloggers, and fellow authors who have joined me for the ride. I got to meet so many amazing people in my travels. And readers. Oh, I love my readers! Especially the teen readers. They have such enthusiasm! I have been laughing at my Google alerts the last couple days as I have been placed on both Best of and Worst of 2009 book lists--because no list is as cool as a thirteen-years-old's sparkling eyes. That's what's important to me.

And you, dear readers, thank you for joining me again this year. It's been a long time since I started this blog in January of 2006. Quite. A. Ride. Thank you for coming with me. Whenever you started.

And buckle your seat belts, because this roller coaster ride isn't over yet!

For your viewing pleasure...



Happy New Year!!!

Ciao!