a cocktail inspired by rose gold
Hi friends—
First, a warm welcome to all the newbies on the list. I hope you enjoy these monthly updates about my writing, reading, and publishing news. If you'll allow me, I'm going to start with a recap of the end of October, which included my first-ever publicity tour!
My US publisher put on the Brought to You by Berkley road show, with stops in Minneapolis, Chicago (woo, hometown!), Boston (woo, grad school town!), and New York. The goal was to start meeting booksellers, librarians, and media folks around the country in order to build buzz before Darling Rose Gold (DRG) makes its way into the world in March 2020. The people I met could not have been nicer, including my two fellow authors (photo 1). I was lucky to get early copies of Laura Hankin's Happy & You Know It, as well as Kathleen West's Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes. They're both absolutely brilliant books that you should pre-order right now (links above). If not, I'll remind you closer to their pub dates (May and February, respectively).
Photos 2 and 3 are of some of the lovely booksellers I met in Chicago and Minneapolis. Photo 4 was taken after my interview with Abby (pictured) of Crime by the Book. Not only is Abby's blog a great resource for the thriller lovers among us, but she was an absolute gem to chat with. You can find my interview with her on my Instagram highlights ("cbtb interview"). I think I managed to sound somewhat coherent, considering that was day four of the tour and I'd woken up at 4:15 that morning. 🥴
After the US tour finished in New York, I flew to Toronto to meet with my Canadian publishing team at Simon & Schuster. They hosted a delicious meet-and-greet lunch, where I met two more fellow debut authors, Andrew David MacDonald and Samantha C. Bailey (photo 5). I haven't gotten a chance to read their books, When We Were Vikings and Woman on the Edge, yet but am eagerly awaiting my copies.
In more thrilling news, Rose Gold officially has a cocktail named after her! I'm not even going to pretend I didn't geek out over this. You can find the recipe and review at the Drinks with Nick blog. Hint: gold tequila is involved.
Now for a book 2 update. One of my favorite parts of writing a novel is the excuse to deep dive into a topic I'm obsessed with. In this case, it was cults. Check out the stack below to see some of the sources I read and watched before I started writing.
Speaking of the actual writing, I'm deep into revisions. I won't lie to you: there are definite highs and lows to this whole process. Some days I feel certain I have something special. On others, like today, I feel a little lost. I start questioning the structure, which leads to pacing issues, which reminds me of character issues, and just like that, I've lost confidence in the project. It's hard to know how to remedy each mini crisis—do I walk away and give it space? Or do I keep pushing until I find the solution? I wish the answer was as simple as replicating what I did with the first book, but it's not because this story has entirely different issues than that one did. This is all a very long-winded way of saying: it's a work in progress. Stay tuned!
Onto some fun links:
Guess what's included on She Reads' The Most Anticipated Books of 2020 roundup?! And right next to Emily St. John Mandel too—promptly faints—whose Station Eleven is one of my all-time favorite books.
If you want an early copy of DRG, here's your chance. My publisher is giving away 25 copies of the book to US residents. Entries are accepted through October 31st. You can enter the sweepstakes here. Let me know if you win!
November is going to be all about book 2 revisions, as I prepare to share the manuscript with my agent and editors. Is there anything you want me to cover next month? I love hearing from you guys. Happy Halloween!
As always, here are the US retailers where you can pre-order my book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books A Million | Apple Books
IndieBound | Kobo | Google Play
And UK retailers: Amazon | Waterstones | iTunes | Kobo
5 months until publication!