Second Book News!

Most of you know that I sold two books to HarperTeen last year, but the second was an option book instead of a sequel. Well, I'll get to the point and say that HOUSE OF IVY AND SORROW has officially been chosen for the option! Woohoo!

I really love this book, and I haven't talked too much about it online since finishing the first draft last year. It was a book I actually put away for a long time while editing TRANSPARENT. I couldn't get back to until a few month ago, but I love it and I really hope you guys will love it, too.

I've never written a query for it, but here is the small summary I wrote when attempting to pitch it to Editor Erica:

Josephine Hemlock lives with the mythic town witch, who just happens to be her grandmother. But when a mysterious man shows up at her gate, best friends, a new relationship, and her own budding magical powers will be thrown in the path of the evil blackness that murdered her mother. If she doesn't uncover her mother's killer soon, it'll be the end for the Hemlock witches and their magical house of ivy.

That's the bare bones summary, which I don't think captures how...magical HOUSE OF IVY AND SORROW is. That might sound a little cheesy—of course a book with witches would be magical—but the novel itself was that way for me. It reignited my love of paranormal/fantasy writing. It helped me regain confidence in myself as a writer. It made writing itself magical again for me. And considering the deep depression I was crawling out of at the time, that was a miracle.

So yay! HOUSE OF IVY AND SORROW! Coming Winter 2014 (as far as I know)!