And here’s the second big review for FIERCE KINGDOM…I might quibble a wee bit that the toddler is not “cranky” and that it’s not exactly a “horror story.” But, okay, quibbling would be pretty ungracious. It’s a starred review and the Pick of the Week!

https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-7352-2427-8

Alright, so I’m not sure if Kirkus Reviews counts as the first official review of FIERCE KINGDOM. But I’m old school and think that an actual printed version you can hold in your hand MATTERS. So, to my knowledge, this is the first print publication with a review. (Which is actually online. Tricky.)

I’ve spent a lovely couple of days in Toronto thank to Penguin Random House Canada, but this may be the highlight: cookie versions of Fierce Kingdom. So tasty, too.

 

I’ve just firmed up the first leg of my FIERCE KINGDOM tour schedule in the U.S., although I hope to add a few more Southern cities in the following weeks. But here’s what I’ve got so far…come by and visit!
July 11–Foxtale Book Shoppe in Woodstock, GA (outside Atlanta)
July 12–Alabama Booksmith in Homewood (Birmingham)
July 13–Square Books in Oxford, Miss.
July 14–Lemuria Books in Jackson, Miss.
July 17–Page & Palette in Fairhope, Al.
July 18–Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, Az.
July 19–Vroman’s in Pasadena, Calif.
July 20–Town Center Books in Pleasanton, Calif. (Bay Area)

I’ve been lucky with book covers…I’ve liked every one of them for all five of my books, and I’ve loved most of them. (It’s a bit of a different thing in terms of foreign covers. There was an Italian–or was it German?–version of The Well and the Mine done in black and red tones with an apocalyptic-looking cornfield that left me really perplexed.)

So we have a lot of odd Christmas traditions around my house–we like our traditions to be a little off-kilter. For instance, we make a gingerbread structure each year that is never just a house…one year we did Loch Ness. And we also always watch the old clay-mation  Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which we accompany with a reindeer-themed meal.

 

Margot Robbie Developing Thriller ‘Beautiful Things’ for Warner Bros.

 

 

 

Margot Robbie Developing Thriller ‘Beautiful Things’ for Warner Bros.

So, first of all I love Halloween. Every part of it. Big gaudy decorations and scary movies and trick-or-treating. For a long time I had a huge collection of hideously tacky Halloween earrings–plastic rats and spiders and light-up ghosts. But several years ago a burglar broke into my house while I was out of town, although he was immediately spotted by neighbors who began shouting and banging on windows. Pressed for time, the burglar apparently had time to grab only one thing and make a mad dash for it…and he chose my jewelry box full of plastic Halloween earrings. (In fairness, it was a nice-looking jewelry box.) I have passed many happy minutes imagining the moments after he finally stopped running and opened his prize…and found those plastic rats. Surely the least valuable haul he ever made.

I’ve just sold my next novel, Beautiful Things, to Viking! My editor will be the wonderful Laura Tisdel, and here is the most shocking part: they plan to release the novel in MAY 2017! That’s an eight-month turn-around from the signing of the contract to the actual book in customer’s hands, which is, oh, maybe half the time it normally takes. And–hey, did I say the release date was the most shocking part?–the book is being released simultaneously in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.

For anyone who is obsessed with Hamilton as my entire family is….or, really, for anyone who likes seeing five-year-olds pretend to be singing Founding Fathers….

Here’s a little video.