Zero Title Ideas

Hello, everyone! Just a quick one today to share a few things.

I'm over at the brilliant Author Allsorts blog, talking about what it's like after you get the coveted book deal.

The US edition of The Lost Girl made it into the top 100 Kindle bestsellers today! I still can't quite believe that. I keep looking at it just to make sure I haven't imagined it (and obviously I've saved a screenshot, because it won't last!)

Crime thriller fans? Karin Slaughter's Will Trent books are awesome. I started the first one last week and am now on the third. They're so addictive.

It's out there!

To those of you who follow my page on Facebook or who've seen this on Twitter, this may be old news. But I wanted to share it here anyway!

My book.

In a real bookshop.

On real shelves.

In a lot of ways, this was the moment I spent years waiting for. This was the moment it was supposed to, finally, feel real. And to be perfectly honest, there are few things - very few things - more exciting and squee-worthy than seeing your book on shelves. (It's also kind of embarrassing to stand there taking photographs while people stare, but we'll disregard that part.)

I loved it. But I also realized, when I saw it, that my book had already felt real. It had been real for a couple of months and it was only in hindsight that I realized that. I think it became real the moment I got my first email from a reader, from someone who didn't know me or my mother or my husband in the slightest, from someone who completely randomly picked up my book and loved it. It felt real then.

So seeing my book was brilliant. I will always, always treasure the moment I spotted it and spotted subsequent copies of it elsewhere. But getting your emails is even more brilliant. Thank you for that.

What are you excited about this week?


PS. I know the book's been out there in the US and plenty of other places for months, so this is probably in no way exciting for you guys, but this was the first time I got to go see it. So it was a win for me.

Cover Talk: interview with Bella Kotak

I am super, super excited today to introduce you guys to the totally awesome Bella Kotak. I managed to wrangle Bella into doing an interview with me (thanks, Bella!)

Bella is the cover model on the UK edition of The Lost Girl, which is now officially available - yep, that's her face below! - and she also happens to be the photographer too. Which seems twice as cool to me. I'm normally so intrigued by cover models, and the process behind designing book covers, so when my editors at Random House Children's Books told me about Bella, I jumped at the chance to find out more.

Hi, Bella! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Hi Sangu! Alright, well my name is Bella and at the moment I work as both an architect and a photographer. 

Did you always want to work in photography? Or was it just something that happened?

Photography for me began really as a hobby. I'd always been interested in taking pictures and in 2006 discovered Flickr and the incredible amount of talent on that site. I came across a few people who were doing a 365 project ( a self portrait a day for a year) and that inspired me to pick up a camera and see what I could create. It was this project that really challenged and fuelled my passion and by the time I bought my first dSLR I was completely hooked. After that it really was a case of friends seeing my work and either hiring me or recommending me to new customers. I wouldn't have come as far as I have if it wasn't for their support.

The photo on the UK cover of THE LOST GIRL is a self-portrait, right? So you were the photographer and the cover model. Can you tell us what that was like?

Yes it's a self-portrait. Taking one is relatively straight forward, it's just a simple case of setting the camera up on a tripod and using a wireless remote to release the shutter. The edit is later done in photoshop.

I was given a synopsis of the book as well as several precedents of the style / look the publisher was going for. They'd already been through my work so were able to tell me what they liked and wanted me to provide expressions that was akin to the concept of feeling lost, watchfulness and so on. 

I provided them with a selection of images and we then began discussions.

What are some of your favourite books?

I guess anything with an element of fantasy and adventure. I love Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and South of the border, West of the sun both by Haruki Murakami and of course Harry Potter! I also love flicking through photography books, my favourite is Pictures, by Tim Walker. It's huge and bursting with creativity!

And finally: you're stranded on a desert island. What three things would you take with you?

Shampoo, ipad, hammock. If I had to be stranded at least I could be comfortable ;)


Isn't she fab? Hope you're all having a fantastic week!

It's PUB DAY!!

...I really don't know what else to say. I mean, really. What can I say? I've been waiting for this day for a very long time and now it's finally here. I'm not even going to try putting how I feel into words, it would just be a mess.

 

Eva’s life is not her own. She is a creation, an abomination—an echo. Made by the Weavers as a copy of someone else, she is expected to replace a girl named Amarra, her “other”, if she ever died. Eva studies what Amarra does, what she eats, what it’s like to kiss her boyfriend, Ray. So when Amarra is killed in a car crash, Eva should be ready.

But fifteen years of studying never prepared her for this.

Now she must abandon everything she’s ever known—the guardians who raised her, the boy she’s forbidden to love—to move to India and convince the world that Amarra is still alive. 

THE LOST GIRL is out in stores today. Find out more and read the first chapter here. EpicReads.com also has an awesome Browse Inside feature for the book if you want to check that out! You can buy the book online at (click for the links)

Amazon

The Book Depository

Barnes & Noble

Indie Bound

Today marks the end of the TLG Blogpalooza and is also the last day you can possibly comment or enter the giveaway. So any entries coming in after tonight won't be counted! The winner will be announced on Friday.

I also need to say a few thank-yous. First to Steve, my long-suffering husband (who would also like me to tell you that he's very handsome and very clever), because he was the first person to ever read THE LOST GIRL, the first one to tell me it was something special, and the one who made me keep writing it when I (almost) gave up. And, of course, because he makes me eat when I forget to. Second, to my agent Melissa Sarver, for believing in the book, and in me, and for being so flippin' awesome at selling it! Third, to my editor Sara Sargent, who read the book and wanted it, who has promised to go to a bookstore and tweet me photos of the book, and who helped me make THE LOST GIRL the best it could possibly be.

And finally, I think I really owe the biggest thank you to all of you. For all the comments, and reviews, and emails, and tweets, and support, and love. You're all fantastic.

Okay. That's the mushy over.

IT'S PUB DAY! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

TLG Blogpalooza: Thank You for the Music

ONE WEEK TO GO!

So, that title. Yeah. I am cringing, if you were wondering. Quoting ABBA in a blog post title has to be my lowest point thus far.

And can you kneel before the king

And say 'I'm clean, I'm clean'?

-Mumford and Sons, 'White Blank Page' 

I've never made a secret of the fact that I need music to write. It's like a magic wand, music: it can set a mood, define a scene, inspire a whole emotion. Sometimes I use instrumental, movie-soundtracky stuff. Sometimes it's a pop song. It varies and THE LOST GIRL's playlist was no exception. Some songs define a character's relationship with someone else (usually Eva with someone else). Some songs fit a character's thoughts at that point in the story. Some songs kind of even tell you what's going on (like the lyrics I used above this paragraph). Well, they do a little. Whatever they do, they all have one thing in common: they helped me shape this book.

I've had the playlist posted on my website for a while now, so that's nothing new. But I'm going to repost it here today because, like Friday's word cloud, it teases.

1. Francois-Paul Aiche – Chimerical Dream
2. Michael Jackson – Beat It
3. Plumb – In My Arms
   
4. Coldplay – Fix You
5. Fleetwood Mac – Go Your Own Way
6. Florence and the Machine – Rabbit Heart
7. Snow Patrol featuring Martha Wainwright – Set the Fire to the Third Bar
8. Madonna – This Used to Be My Playground
9. Lenka – Trouble is a Friend
10. AFI – This Time Imperfect
11. Damien Rice – 9 Crimes
12. Adele – Set Fire to the Rain
13. Declan Flynn – Ease My Pain
14. Death Cab for Cutie – Soul Meets Body
15. Oasis – Stop Crying Your Heart Out
16. White Lies – Farewell to the Fairground
17. Trading Yesterday – For You Only
18. Jessie J – Nobody’s Perfect
19. Snow Patrol – Run
20. Mumford & Sons – White Blank Page
21. Adele – Someone Like You

 
If you know any of these songs, you're already one spoiler up! They're arranged in order, to match the book, so it's almost like a story in songs. Oh, they won't give a whole lot away, but they will give you hints about relationships, about the mood, and about what may or may not be happening at that point of the book. Hopefully it'll drive you crazy trying to figure out what each one really means.

TEASE OF THE DAY

“Where are you?” I ask her. “You haven’t really gone, have you? I had this idea that I might be free if you were dead. But I’m not free, you’ve managed to trap me anyway. I’ve got to live your life and be you better than you ever were. Are you laughing? You’ve done it, you’ve died but you’ve stayed. You must be laughing. . . .”

-THE LOST GIRL 

And, just in case you missed it before:  

ONE WEEK TO GO!

TLG Blogpalooza: Word Cloud!

I'm going to skip my TEASE OF THE DAY today, because this post is going to be one giant tease. Enter: a word cloud.

Word clouds are, quite simply, awesome. Not only are they fun and pretty, but they've been incredibly useful for me. A word cloud taught me that I use the word just way, way, way too often when I write. I still do, but at least I've caught and removed some of them since.

Most importantly, though, they make an incredibly fun teaser.

Here's one of my favourite scenes from THE LOST GIRL. Full of spoilers, heartbreak and a whole lot of other things, it's also one of the most important moments in the book. And I'm giving it to you now.

In a word cloud.

 
It's also not too late to start entering to win stuff, so if you haven't had a look at the Blogpalooza page yet, go on over.

Happy Friday, everyone!

TLG Blogpalooza: A Little Bit Whimsical?

Happy Tuesday, everyone! I'm very pleased to say that we have over two hundred entries into the giveaway already. Many are multiples, of course, but it's still very cool!

Now onto today's post:

I get asked about the inspirations and influences behind THE LOST GIRL all the time, and I thought it was about time I talked about the latter. I've mentioned FRANKENSTEIN several times, which isn't surprising considering that's the story I stole the bones from and went on to add my own flesh (not literally) to. And, of course, as the book's inspiration, it's certainly influenced it. 

But I'm not going the FRANKENSTEIN route today. Instead, today's teaser is going to be me talking about what you can expect from the book; basically, talking about two people (well, their work) that influenced not what story is, but how it's told.

Tim Burton
I'm going to say this just once and then resist the urge to gush like a fangirl: I love Tim Burton. (I also love Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter too, incidentally, so when you throw the three of them together (as they often are), it's like Christmas for me.) I love (almost) everything he's ever done. And when the first little twiglets of THE LOST GIRL started sprouting in my head, and Eva started talking to me, it was Tim Burton I thought of. 

Think about Edward Scissorhands (which probably owes a great deal to FRANKENSTEIN too!). A sad, lonely boy with scissors instead of hands, created almost from scratch by the man he considers his father? That's creepy, but cool. Whimsical. Eerie without being grisly. And think about Corpse Bride. An awkward young man accidentally marries a sweet dead girl. It's sad, touching, eerie. 

I guess that's what I wanted to create with THE LOST GIRL: something eerie, something sad, something whimsical. (I don't know about how well I succeeded, if at all. That's for you to tell me.)

Daphne du Maurier
I talk about her all the time, so if you're a frequent visitor to the blog, you may well be sick to death of be going on and on about how much I love some of her books. They're full of some of the most beautiful, lyrical, poignant, gorgeous writing I've ever read. I don't think I could never write as wonderfully as that, and truthfully I wouldn't want to copy anyone else's style, but I will say that that's where my love of reading (and writing) beautiful words has come from.

Also, almost all of her books (that I've read) have made me cry. I didn't deliberately set out to make anyone cry when I wrote THE LOST GIRL, but I did want readers to feel the way I felt when I read Frenchman's Creek or The King's General. I wanted them, quite simply, to feel.

TEASE OF THE DAY

No quotes today. Instead, the most beautiful things arrived last week, and we're two weeks from pub day, so I just had to show them off instead! 

 

TLG Blogpalooza: The Eva Tour

A lot of THE LOST GIRL is pure invention. The Loom doesn't exist (that you know of, anyway). Echoes don't exist (ditto). The characters don't exist (I can't believe I just wrote those words. Egad.) So, you know. Fiction is lies and all that. But some of it, some things, are real.

Months ago, I talked about going up north on holiday, visiting my old university (Lancaster) and taking photos of places that feature in THE LOST GIRL (mostly the Lake District). Well. In today's teaser post, I'm taking you on a tour of the book - well, of some of the real-life places in the book. Ordinary, sometimes lovely places. Places you can actually go to, were you so inclined.

And, even more significantly, something important happens to Eva at/in each of these places. Maybe it changes her life, maybe it's purely emotional, maybe it's a moment that marks a turning point in her relationship with someone else.

Of course, I won't be giving you any details. Just this photo

and me, telling you what those pictures are of.

A coffee shop (in Bangalore. Coffee Day is a popular cafe chain in India)
Lancaster Rail Station (northwest of England)
A lake in the Lake District (again, the northwest of England)
Covent Garden tube station (London. Disclaimer: this one is a real place, but a loose image of a landmark moment in Eva's life. The moment actually happens about half a mile from here.)
Crossword (Bangalore again. It's a chain of bookstores in India.)
Windermere (the town. Again a slightly loose image, because the key moments happen to Eva in more specific places than The Whole Town, but this picture was as close as we were going to get to reality.)

Maybe, when the book is out, I'll have a contest. Match the Picture to the Moment. What do you guys think?

But if you want to win a signed, annotated copy of the book and other fun stuff in the meantime, don't forget to enter here!

TEASE OF THE DAY

'You've always been our monster,' says Adrian. 'Don't ever forget that.'

TLG Blogpalooza: Sara's Side of the Story

We've discussed my knack for sad alliteration before, so let's ignore this particular example, shall we? 

Today you're going to want to tune in, blogosphere, because we'll be hearing from Sara Sargent, of Balzer + Bray, who worked as editor on THE LOST GIRL!

I'm so happy to have her here, so thanks for stopping by, Sara!

---

A Labor of First Love

As an adult, your “firsts” grow fewer and further between. Long gone are those days of first dances, first kisses, first loves. But two years ago, I was given the most precious first in the life of a young editor: my first acquisition.

THE LOST GIRL—then titled Woven—came to me from Melissa Sarver at Elizabeth Kaplan Literary. I read this manuscript in a matter of days, quickly passed it along to my team, and set up a call with Sangu within the week. Back then I was an Editorial Assistant who had only been acquiring for two months when THE LOST GIRL crossed my desk, and it was the only manuscript I’d read that I could see myself editing. I felt about this novel the way I have felt about few novels since: it was beautiful, it was stirring, it was epic and romantic, and I knew I would be heartbroken not to get it. And because there was interest from other editors, that was a very real possibility. Sangu had already wooed me, and now I had to woo her with my incisive editorial insights and the general sparkliness of my personality. Now, I never asked what made Sangu choose me as her editor; I believe it’s one of those industry mysteries better left unsolved. I do remember, with startling clarity, when Melissa called to say that Sangu had decided to publish with Balzer + Bray. I burst into tears. All I could say was “Really?” over and over; surely Melissa questioned her client’s decision in that moment of my utter inarticulateness. But there was no questioning the wonder of what I had just accomplished—not only for my career, but also for the career of this young writer whose life she had just inextricably tangled with mine. Needless to say, the next two days involved a lot of champagne.

We put THE LOST GIRL on our Fall 2012 list, which meant that we had eleven months before the manuscript was due to Copyediting. Over the course of those months, we went back and forth as she sent in revisions, I sent back notes, she sent revised pages, and I sent back more notes. Oh, and somewhere in there, Sangu had a baby. Not to mention that one of my favorite writers, Lauren DeStefano, offered to blurb; I was as excited about that blurb as Sangu was about her newborn child. Sangu and I fell into a kinship inspired by our mutual love of her novel and its story and characters (coughSeancough), but also by the fact that this was new for both of us. I couldn’t wait to see the final cover art or the book’s case or the galleys, and she couldn’t wait for me to show them all to her.

And now here we are. Mere weeks from pub. Just waiting until those buxom bound beauties hit my inbox and, from there, shelves across the country. I’m not sure what I’ll do when I finally hold one in my hands. I imagine that I’ll burst into tears once more, then smile, then perhaps continue to cry. Never again will I have the unique pleasure of seeing my very first book for the very first time, and I don’t intend to waste that moment. It’s the best first in a line of luminous firsts that originated with Eva and Sangu’s desire to tell her story. I don’t know what the future holds for many things in my life, but I do know that this book will forever occupy a place of immense joy, and for that, I wish it everything as it goes off into the world.

---

*sniffs* Okay, so maybe her post made me a teeny bit teary. DON'T JUDGE ME. I'm only human. Follow Sara on Twitter (@Sara_Sargent) for more awesomeness.

Now please excuse me while I go stop a baby from eating a phone charger...

TEASE OF THE DAY

The first chapter of THE LOST GIRL is up on my website! Click over for the teaser. 

TLG Blogpalooza: The Imaginary Cast

So, this post was originally supposed to be me answering the fun hypothetical: if someone made a LOST GIRL movie and asked me who to cast (I know it ain't happening, but this is imaginary, remember!), who would I pick?

...only I have absolutely no idea who I'd cast in over half the parts. Like, nothing. I suppose, ideally, I'd want a complete unknown playing Eva/Amarra, Nikhil (Amarra's brother), Sasha (Amarra's sister), Ray (Amarra's boyfriend), Lekha (who is awesome), and pretty much a whole lot of other people. So, given I've got virtually nothing, I'm abandoning the imaginary cast idea and am, instead, making Team Buttons!

(If you're confused, my Team Buttons are pretty much your way of proclaiming eternal love for the face on the button. I've had a lot of emails and Twitter messages declaring the sender's love for certain characters, so here's my way of thanking you for that. No, they're not prize pieces of art. I have no doubt other people could make far better buttons, but it's the thought that counts, right?)

Team Sean

Currently the reigning favourite. And after months of thinking there was no one in the world I would pick to play Sean, I FOUND HIM!

 

That's Jeremy Irvine, of War Horse (the movie) fame. Granted, he may already be a tad old for the part, but this is imaginary. Also he shares a name with my son, and I don't come across many Jeremys, so I think it's meant to be. (And I can't be sure, but I think he even has Sean's green eyes.)

Team Ray

A reader called him '[her] hottie Hamlet' in an email, which made me laugh for practically a whole day, so while Ray isn't (yet) as popular as Sean, I thought he deserved his own button.

 

You may have noticed he's distinctly lacking a face. He has no face because I don't know who I'd cast! But feel free to adopt the button and add a face of your choosing!

And a surprise favourite:

 

Team Matthew

He's not young and romantic. He's not even one of the good guys. But he's had his fair share of admiration. I'm fairly certain my editor Sara, anyway, would demand to be president of Matthew's fan club if such a thing existed.

 

YES! Another Jeremy! Is this magic or what? (That's the totally amazing Jeremy Irons, if you didn't already recognize him.)

So read the book, pick your favourite, and take a button, any button...

(Boys: sorry. I realize this is a very girl-centric post. I promise this will be THE ONLY ONE!)

TEASE OF THE DAY

One of the book's most important characters never actually appears on the page.

PS. A massive, ginormous thank you to all of you for the LOST GIRL-related comments, tweets, emails and support. It's been amazing and I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate it! Don't stop now, though: you still want to win stuff, don't you?

 

TLG Blogpalooza: Interview with Agent Melissa

I find it scary that with each post, and week, we get closer to THE LOST GIRL's pub day! Eeeek. I'm giving stuff away, though, so if this is your first stop, go over here or to the TLG Palooza page to find out what I'm giving away and how to enter.

  

I'm VERY excited today. I have Agent Melissa with us (she doesn't know that this is how I refer to her, always, but I do. But if you must know, her real name is Melissa Sarver and she's my agent (I know! Cool, hey?). She's with the Elizabeth Kaplan Literary Agency and she's here with me today to tell us about what she does, what she likes, and why she wanted to rep THE LOST GIRL/me.)

 

Hi, Melissa! Can you tell readers a little bit about yourself?

But, Sangu, don’t you know everything about me already?  Oh, ok.  I’m a literary agent and have been with the Elizabeth Kaplan Literary Agency for 6 years after a brief 3-year stint as an editorial assistant at a women’s magazine.  That was not for me.  I moved to NYC 11 years ago after college in Boston and more than a few internships at magazines and newspapers.  I knew as soon as I started working in book publishing that I had found my “home.”   I enjoy being on the agency side of the business because I can essentially choose the types of projects I work on.  I’m never going to inherit a project someone else took on and left, the way editors often have to.  I represent fiction and non-fiction, so in any given day I’m working on a cookbook, a YA novel, a memoir, etc.  It keeps my job very interesting.  What else do you need to know … I am a musical theatre nut and spent much of my life (age 3 – 22) in a ballet studio.  I love food (but hate the word foodie) and do a fair amount of cooking and baking at home, and eating out at some amazing restaurants in NYC.  I love French and Italian wines that aren’t fruit-forward but a bit dusty and earthy (hint, hint).   Moving right along...

I think we were meant for each other. I love musical theatre! And food! Okay, I can't cook, and I don't know anything about ballet, and the only wine I like is ginger wine... huh. Um, yeah. So what’s an average day like for you?

Hectic!  I think most people have an image of me loftily reading manuscripts all day but that couldn’t be further from the truth.  All that reading is done at home at night or on the weekend.  I like to say I have homework for life.  During the day I’m on the phone with authors and editors, I’m answering emails, I’m vetting contracts, I’m having lunch with editors and meetings with clients or potential clients, I’m occasionally reading queries (though most of this happens at home also), I’m emailing our foreign co-agents to alert them about the exciting things going on with our books, and probably 10 other things I’m forgetting to mention here.

I love words like 'clients' and 'contracts' and 'foreign co-agents'. They make me so happy. (That's me, guys! I'm a client! ME!) And speaking of clients: what made you want to represent THE LOST GIRL when you saw the original manuscript? (obviously apart from the fact that it’s the best thing ever…)

The voice grabbed me instantly, which is priority for me.  Overall the story spoke to me because there are cool fantasy elements but it’s a character-driven story. And that character, despite her special circumstances, is a typical teenage girl dealing with many of the same identity issues as all teenage girls.  That’s what was appealing to me but that I also thought would be appealing to readers, that teenage readers could instantly relate.  I also loved the settings of London and India, as I really enjoy reading about other cultures and places and you don’t see that enough in YA lit, in my opinion. 

A lot of people seem to like the book's settings! What’s one of your favourite—and somewhat spoiler-free!—lines from the book?

“I brought milk,” I say.

And I love when Mina Ma tells Eva she hopes her other dies:

“But if you replace her, you might be safer. So if only for my sake, child, hope this happens.”

“I won’t wish for her to die!”

“Then I will wish it,” she replies, ruthlessly, “Because I don’t know or love her.”

I think Mina Ma is my favourite character, if I do say so myself. THE LOST GIRL was hugely inspired by Frankenstein. What classic do you wish you could have represented?

A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN; I adore that book and re-read it every few years.  Makes me cry every time.  I also love Steinbeck’s EAST OF EDEN.  It’s a family saga and big juicy soap opera.

I haven't read either of those books. Is that sad? I think it's sad. But YAY! That's two more for the To Read pile. And finally: name two things you’d take to a desert island. (I know the standard form of this question asks for three things, but as I’m assuming a copy of THE LOST GIRL would, naturally, be one of them, I’m only asking for two.)

My eyeglasses because I am practically blind without them … but if those are on my face already (yes, they are. I'm not that cruel)… I’m bringing Alice Waters’ cookbook THE ART OF SIMPLE FOOD because we’ll need to eat and I can’t for the life of me ever remember how to make a simple roast chicken without her guidance.  And probably my iPod (assuming there is electricity).  I think life without books and music isn’t really worth living. (So true!)

Yay! Find out more about Melissa at the EKLA website or on Twitter (@mjsarver). Huge thanks to her for that awesome interview. And huge thanks, too, for giving me today's

TEASE OF THE DAY 

“I brought milk,” I say.

-THE LOST GIRL 

TLG Blogpalooza: Echoes and Encyclopedias

First: A BOOK TRAILER!

(Am I excited about it, you ask? Who, me? Excited? Heavens, no. Just... moderately pleased. Excitement is for sillies. Oh, who am I kidding... I am excited about the book trailer. Not because it's, like, the most spectacular thing or anything - it's not - but because I had a lot of fun making it and it's finally out in the world. It's my way of practicing for when the actual book is finally out in the world.)

SO HELLO, TRAILER!



As for the book: well, some of you have read it already. But some of you have probably only read the description or nothing at all. So I wouldn't blame you if you were a teeny bit confused sometimes. There are lots of words in THE LOST GIRL (lots. I'm sure the sheer volume of them has made every editor and/or copyeditor at HarperCollins Children's Books cry), words that mean one thing in normal everyday use and mean quite another in Eva's world. So I've consulted Sir Matthew, a Weaver, and he somewhat grudgingly allowed me to use extracts from his (I quote) 'definitive encyclopedia on echo behaviour'.

Echo (n.) Sentient being. Copy stitched exclusively to replace its original (better known as its 'other') in the event of the original's demise. Though these copies possess remarkably human characteristics, including (on occasion) a decidedly inconvenient impulse to be individual, it is important to remember that they. Are. Not. Human.
(edit: it is also worth noting that Adrian insisted upon that last bit.)

Weaver (n.) Creator of echoes at the Loom (London, England). Possessor of extraordinary knowledge and skill. The first Weaver was one Henry Borden, Adrian's great-something grandfather, a madman by all accounts (though brilliant. Funny how those traits often go hand in hand). Currently there are three Weavers: Adrian Borden, Elsa Connelly and yours truly, Sir Matthew Mercer. I am by far the handsomest, cleverest and most charming. Moreover, I know everything.
(edit: Elsa thinks I should focus on the task at hand and not wax lyrical about myself. I'll never understand why everyone feels compelled to stick their noses into my affairs.)

Hunters (n.) Lunatics. And minus the brilliance.

Eva (echo.) Irksome brat. 

I hope that clears a few things up.

Tease of the Day

When he pulls away, I catch a look in his eyes that tells me he will never forgive me.

-THE LOST GIRL

Don't forget I'm giving stuff away! If you haven't entered already, here's how.

Happy weekend, everyone!

THE LOST GIRL Blogpalooza is here!

Update: before I get to the post, I just want to point everyone to The Book Addict's Guide, where I've been interviewed. Brittany asked some awesome questions and there's a giveaway, so stop by.


WELL. Here we are. It's a six-week blogpart-ay! We're celebrating the upcoming release of THE LOST GIRL. Am I excited? Maybe. Am I terrified? YES. A small part of me wants to hide the book away so that no one (else) ever gets hold of it. A small part of me is all WHAT WAS I THINKING?!

But we're ignoring that small part. FUN STUFF ONLY. And here's a sneak peek at what you can expect over the next few weeks

Book trailer

Character interviews and posts

An interview with my agent Melissa

A guest post from my editor Sara

Teasers (Photos, quotes, etc)

I talk about inspiration, editing, music andmore

And no blog party would be complete without a giveaway, so YES I'M GIVING THINGS AWAY! This bundle of goodies,actually:

 

What that is: a signed, annotated copy of THE LOST GIRL, Eva's personal Post Its, Mark stickers (what is the Mark? You may well wonder...), a pen, bookmarks, (maybe) a few temporary Mark tattoos, a copy of FRANKENSTEIN (not pictured) and a wooden elephant (not pictured), all wrapped up in that nifty bag! 

The giveaway is open internationally. The winner will be announced on August 31st.

How to Enter
1. Comment on posts in the event. The more posts you comment on, the better your chances. Every new comment earns you ONE additional entry. (PLEASE make sure you include an email address with your comment(s).)

2. Tweet about posts with the hashtag #tlgpalooza. ONE additional entry per tweet. (I may miss tweets without the hashtag, so don't forget to include it.)

3. The palooza will wrap up on pub day, August 28th, and I'd love for it to be a grand finish! So you can help by blogging about the book. A pub day splash! You can make a short announcement, or write a full post, or write a review (if you've read the book), whatever you want to do. Don't worry, I'll email all the information you may need about a week before the post date. Doing this will earn you TEN additional entries. (Please make sure you signup here to do this, or I won't know to count you in!)

So there you go!

Also: if you're on Twitter, there's some fun planned there too! My editor (@Sara_Sargent) and I (@SanguMandanna) thought we'd tweet favourite lines/quotes from the book a couple of times a week. My agent (@mjsarver) may get in on the action too! Some of my picks may show up here as my Tease of the Day, some probably won't. Either way, if you want to follow the teaser trail, we're using the hashtag #lostgirlquotes.

And finally

Tease of the Day

  

And her lips move. She’s telling me to defy them too. Because like Frankenstein’s monster, I could win.

-THE LOST GIRL