- a new book (in stores TODAY!)

- an awesome book trailer contest (you could win an iPad!)

- a Goodreads video chat, and…

- possibly even opened a door in my local cemetery to the Underworld, releasing all the vengeful spirits who feel that they were wronged by John Hayden, Lord of the Dead. Of course that could be my imagination. Don’t mind me.

But before we get into all that, let’s talk about the usual stuff that’s supposed to show up in May, such as:

1) Prom. Aw, so cute!

2) Sweeps week: Who will win on Dancing With the Stars? Will Nick move out on The New Girl? Will Leslie Knope win the Pawnee City Council election on Parks and Rec? And will Dani get her dragons back on Game of Thrones?

3) Movies with aliens in them are a May staple: The Avengers! Men in Black 3! Battleship! I plan to see them all!

4) May means summer vacation is on its way! Which means lots of time to read . . . .

5) . . . New books!

This May is bringing one of my new books, Underworld (the sequel to last year’s spring release, Abandon), out NOW in US (and Canadian and Australian and NZ) stores (and on ereaders)!

Click here for a complete list of Underworld‘s worldwide release dates, as well as other updates and Extras (including a list of Isla Huesos’s MOST WANTED, a map of Isla Huesos, an Underworld playlist, FAQs, and more, coming this week!)

In case you didn’t already know, Underworld isn’t just about a girl and a boy. It was inspired by the myth of Persephone, but really, it’s about a storm . . . not a a silly April shower, or a “storm of love,” but the kind of storm that wipes out entire populations. The kind of storm we get here where I live in Key West (also known as The Island of Bones, which are commonly found scattered across the island after such a storm). The kind of storm that looks like this:

The New York Times called Abandon (the first book in the series) “scarier than senior year”:

“This is Hades as seen through the eyes of a 21st-century teenager . . . . Pierce struggles to regain the life of a normal teenager now that she’s seen what lies beyond . . . .

Death is just getting warmed up.”

And Seventeen Magazine says:

“Pierce is a rockstar narrator. She’s bold, gutsy, and hyperaware – she might even be too brave for her own good. We love a girl who isn’t scared to take action. Pierce might be a little reckless, but at least she’s never a damsel in distress.”

Yes! Thanks, New York Times and Seventeen, and thanks so much to all the bloggers who have already given Underworld so much love (and who appreciate the obstacles in John’s and Pierce’s way, some of which, as Book Chic astutely pointed out, aren’t of the meteorlogical OR paranormal variety)! I’m so grateful for all your comments (which sometimes made me squee!), especially YA Crush, who mentioned loving the relationship between John and Pierce (“Near the end I thought the pages were going to go up in flames. That’s how good it was between those two“) and Lost Among the Shelves, who warned readers they’re going to “fall even harder for the King of the Underworld!”

Oh, sorry, I forgot! John can’t be photographed (to the frustration of local law enforcement). You’ll just have to use your imagination to picture what he and Pierce look like.

What else is happening in May (uh, besides the sequel to Underworld that I’m writing right now, which is why I’m freaking out about giant storms wiping us all out, because the storm in Underworld is raging even harder in Book 3)?

How about a Goodreads Skype chat with Meg Cabot? Click here to RSVP (the chat is May 17 at 5PM)! I’ll be talking about the inspiration for Underworld and the Abandon series, as well as answering your questions (about writing, my cats, what to wear to prom, my obsession with Weatherunderground.com, etc).

Wait! There’s more!

How about an Underworld book trailer contest? And for the prize, a brand new iPad?

Yes, I am giving one of these away.

That’s right, I want YOU to make a book trailer for Underworld! Anyone (in any country) may enter this contest. Just read and follow all the contest rules and details here.

Remember, the purpose of a book trailer is to lure readers in, not give the whole plot away! So you just want to give them a taste of Underworld (like a movie trailer gives you a taste of the movie).

Here are some book trailers from the first book in the series, Abandon, in case you haven’t seen them:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So you see? Pretty much anything goes. To help you out a little, here’s a photo of the main characters of Underworld in their natural setting:

No! The characters in Underworld are NOT tiny dolls! Actors were unavailable for this shoot so we had to substitute them with tiny dolls. Admittedly, these tiny dolls only vaguely resemble the characters as described in Underworld. But they were better than what else we had on hand:

I’m sure your Underworld video will be much better! That’s why we want YOU to do it!

Meanwhile, don’t forget to check your favorite bookstore/ebook retailer for this, which it is my understanding April showers have brought forward everywhere:

Happy May, happy reading, and see you on Skype at the chat!

More later.

Much love,

Meg

(If you’re like me, you assumed every week was Princess Week and were surprised to learn this isn’t true.)

But according to Disney and Target, they only “officially” recognized Princess Week is this week. That’s when they will be promoting all princess-themed books and toys and movies in their stores, under the Julie Andrews Collection.

This collection includes Julie Andrews’ own books (yes! She wrote some! So did her daughter. They’re really cute), The Princess Diaries books and movies, and a lot of other great princess books, like Shannon Hale’s fabulous Princess Academy.

This is awesome in many ways. Who’s a better spokeswoman for princesses than Julie Andrews? (Some of you might be saying “Princess Mia Thermopolis,” but she was not available due to a “scheduling conflict.”)

It seems fitting to me that Princess Week should come in between Earth Week and the release of Underworld (May 8), since every truly empowered woman recognizes how important it is that we keep our planet safe, and Pierce, the heroine of Underworld, finds herself trapped in a royal palace beneath the earth (as you know if you’ve read the sneak peek opening chapters of the book), of which she may become queen (or blow up, depending on how things work out with her new boyfriend, ruler of the dead).

In a little less than three weeks, Underworld will be in stores (and available on ereaders) …

… but someone at Scholastic snuck me a special advanced copy!

Even though I’ve had over fifty books published, I still get really excited when I find a padded envelope in the mail addressed to me and I open it to discover a BEAUTIFUL BOOK inside that someone made from a bunch of words I wrote (and then actually paid me for)!

When this happens, I get really excited and dance around the house and show the book to whoever is around, usually the UPS delivery guy or the exterminator, neither of whom is ever impressed, though they politely fake interest.

It would be nice if getting your published book in the mail was as exciting in real life as it is often portrayed in movies. In the 90s so-bad-it’s-good cult classic, Aspen Extreme, for example, in which TJ Burke and his friend Dexter move to Aspen in hopes of finding themselves (and true love) on the slopes, TJ writes a tender article about his love for skiing and his wish that his good friend Dexter had not become a crackhead and (spoiler alert) been crushed to death in an avalanche, and sends the article off to Ski Magazine.

A soulful montage ensues that includes a hot air balloon floating in the distance over the mountains (as often happens to us writers when we send stories off and are waiting to hear if they will be published).

Less than a minute later, TJ goes out to his mailbox, and what does he find inside? An envelope containing a copy of Ski Magazine with his name and the title of his story on the cover!

TJ is understandably very proud, especially since never in history of printed material has it taken such a short amount of time for a story to get published (although TJ seems weirdly unconcerned that he was never notified by the magazine that they were publishing his story, or that he never signed a contract or received financial compensation for it. If I were TJ, I would have immediately gone inside and called Ski Magazine and gone, “Did you mistake me for Dexter? He was the crackhead, not me,” but that was not the direction in which the screenwriters chose to go).

My other favorite opening-the-envelope-to-find-your-book scene is in the Wynona Ryder version of Little Women. Wynona plays Jo March. I hope it will not be a spoiler to you if I reveal that at the end of this movie (and also the book), a major character dies. I won’t say who, but in the movie this character is played by an actress who cruelly misjudged Damian Lewis last season on the Showtime original series Homeland. So now when I watch this version of Little Women, I’m quite eager to see her character die.

Anyway, Jo/Wynona is acting very sad about this character dying when suddenly she is called to the kitchen because someone (hint: it’s Professor Baer, played by hot Gabriel Byrne, pre-In Treatment but I think post-divorce from Ellen Barkin, who then went on to marry Ronald Perelman and then divorce him and get a $40 million settlement) left a package for her. Jo/Wynona opens this package and is surprised to find page proofs of her book, Little Women (meta)!

This is especially surprising since Jo/Wynona never sent a copy of this book to a publisher. Professor Baer/Gabriel Byrne did so in the hopes of getting Jo/Wynona to forgive him for saying that the last book of hers that she let him read was total crap (I would never have let any guy who said something like that about one of my books read anything of mine again, but Jo is clearly more forgiving in many ways than most of us. She even forgives Amy for that other thing).

I always thought it would have been even better if sitting on top of the page proofs was a sizeable check in Jo’s name, but I suppose it all turned out for the best since Wynona Ryder went on to star as Mr. Spock’s mom in the Star Trek remake. I think she was even a Vulcan princess, unless I’m mistaking her with the character she played in Black Swan opposite Natalie Portman, who was Princess Leia’s mom.

Did you see how I brought it back around to princesses? Because everything gets back to princesses eventually.

This is why when princess-haters pop up in the media to insist that loving princess is detrimental to the developmental growth and maturation of young girls (and boys), I always point out that it was my admiration for princesses that helped me through the most difficult times in my life, since I strived to be like them: hard-working ladies who followed their dreams, didn’t listen when mean people bossed them around (such as Nazis or Dark Lords of the Sith), knew when to accept help from friends (or fairy godmothers or wookies), and never, ever quit, especially when the going got tough.

That’s why I’m excited about Princess Week, though every week is Princess Week as far as I’m concerned.

More later.

Much love,

Meg

1) School’s out for Spring Break in a lot of places, so Key West (where I live) is packed with vacationers.

2) Some of those vacationers are staying in my house!

3) But that doesn’t mean new books aren’t getting written (and read and reviewed. More on these below)!

4) Official sneak peek excerpts are getting posted (see below) and Advanced Reader Copies are being released (again, see below)!

5) Ladies Fussypants and Slutty McSluts-a-Lot are ready to party.

During what I’m calling “Spring Breakaggedon 2012,” Lady Fussypants has already managed to develop a nasty addiction to catnip . . . .

EXPOSED: SNIFFING THE NIP!

. . . and Lady Slutty McSluts-a-Lot has been caught red-pawed in the company of several highly inappropriate suitors with whom she has been spied cavorting in the backyard, and from whom she has picked up some very unladylike habits . . .

CAUGHT IN A BOX!

Both have disgraced the House of Downton Cabot. We fear an advantageous marriage will now be impossibility for either of them. More on their slow descent into madness later.

On a brighter note, Underworld is officially on its way to a bookstore, Kindle, Nook (or whatever form of reader you prefer) near you! It will be available in the US and Canada on May 8th.

Henrietta during one of her more lucid moments

For those of you who can’t wait, click here for a sneak peek at the first two chapters of Underworld!

For the date Underworld is coming to your country, click here (coming soon).

What will happen to Pierce and John in Underworld? A LOT. In answer to one of your many frequently asked questions, yes, someone dies at the end.

But Spring is about rebirth/reawakening, so the real question is, will he/she STAY dead?

Release the Kracken!

On March 20 (the first day of Spring. Get it? The day Persephone was released from the Underworld?), I received a big box of uncorrected proofs, also known as ARCs, from Scholastic. There was much celebrating! Lady Fussypants even laid down the catnip pipe in honor of the occasion.

Some of you have already won copies of these ARCs, like Katie, whose amazing Pinterest board won our Meg Cabot Pinterest contest!

(Click here to see links to all the fabulous finalists!)

And one amazingly generous bidder won a copy by donating to the Red Cross to help victims of the Midwest tornadoes in the Authors4Henryville auction. Thank you SO MUCH (and special thanks to all the Hoosier authors who worked so hard to put Authors4Henryville together, and to everyone who bid. You are the BEST. Winners, expect your books and goodies soon)!

I bid on some books myself, from the amazing picture book author Jean Reidy. As an extremely picky person, I love her books for kids about clothes and food that are “too …” something.

Since Spring is all about starting over and second chances, there’ll be lots of opportunities to win an ARC of Underworld of your very own if you missed out on the ones above and can’t wait for the nice, non-error-filled real book in May. Here’s how:

You can enter my new web contest here (simply by correctly answering our trivia question). Or you can enter my creative writing contest here! The winner gets to choose one of any of my books he/she wants!

And don’t miss this very cute blog hop sponsored by the Romance Bookie and Little Drama Queen! There’s a strong possibility (OK, probability) they’re going to have copies of my books to giveaway, as well!

In Spring, many new books (besides mine) are being released. Here are just a couple of the ones I’m looking forward to:

Author Liza Palmer’s new book More Like Her (coming April 17).

Not only does More Like Her have all of Liza’s trademark wry humor, romance, and warmth (her book, Seeing Me Naked, is one of my all-time faves), but it has a twist that I did NOT see coming (granted, I didn’t read the back of the book first) that was so shockingly realistic, it had me OMGing until I got to the very end. Three cheers for Liza! This one took my breath away.

Mariah Frederick’s Girl In The Park

OK, I haven’t read this one yet, but I’ve read the reviews and they’ve been insanely good, stars all over the place. I’ve loved all of Mariah’s other books, so how can this one not rock? Plus it’s a mystery, and lately I can’t read enough mysteries. GOTTA get my hands on this one. This one will be in stores April 24.

In the mean time, enjoy this trailer from something else I’m looking forward to: Will Ferrell’s new movie, Casa De Mi Padre, which I’m determined to see as soon as it gets to my town.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Wishing you a very warm and wonderful Spring Breakaggedon 2012 . . . may everything you’re hoping for come true, and may your Kracken get released!

More later.

Much love,

Meg

Tons of authors (including this one) are offering up autographed books to raise money for the Red Cross for the recent Midwest tornado victims, many of whom lost everything, but especially their school libraries!

Here’s your chance to be a hero not just to book lovers in need, but whole families! And you get something GREAT out of it (besides a warm fuzzy feeling). Bid on one or more of these signed books these authors have generously donated to Authors for Henryville (Indiana)!

Click here!

All the money will go to the Red Cross, and YOU will get an amazing autographed book (or series of books) by your favorite author(s)!

The auction will run until there are no more books, and/or until we have stamped out tornadoes (sp?) FOREVER! (OK, maybe not that last thing.)

I’m donating a complete signed set of The Princess Diaries (this auction happening now! Bid soon!):

A complete signed set of the Size 12 is Not Fat series, with an ARC of Size 12 and Ready to Rock to come! (this book will be out this summer) This auction going on now!:

A complete signed set of The Mediator series (this auction happening now! Bid soon!):

A complete signed set of the Insatiable series (this auction going on now!):

And a signed copy of Abandon, with an ARC of Underworld to come (Underworld will be out in May)!

So stay tuned to the Authors for Henryville site to watch for these signed books, and many more by many of your favorite authors, as they come up for auction!

Remember, every little bit helps!

You may not actually have been born a Hoosier* or live in Indiana now, but we Hoosier authors COMPLETELY appreciate your help! Donating automatically makes you an honorary Hoosier.** THANK YOU!

More later.

Much love,

Meg

*Hoosier = anyone born in or who lives in Indiana. No one really knows why.
** Or not, if you don’t want to be. Totally up to you.

Lady Henrietta “Fussypants” Cabot has begun rising before 7AM every morning, insisting on being fed Whiska Temptations by hand.

Portrait of Lady Fussypants in the Powder Room, waiting for hand feeding

As there is no butler (I tried to hire one, but annoyingly, he wishes to remain with his current employer. Ungrateful wretch!), and I do not rise until 8AM (preferably 10AM) at the earliest, this is annoying.

The local surgeon (mobile vet) has been consulted to see if Lady Fussypants’ odd behavior can be explained (she’s also begun to express sympathy with a local street cat who claims to be the amnesiatic heir to Downton Cabot, and has had an affair with a married farm cat for which she’s yet to express the slightest remorse).

Lady Fussypants, caught in scandal!

Meanwhile, Lady Fussypants’s sister, Lady Gem “Slutty-McSlut-A-Lot” Cabot, killed a visiting Turkish noblecat with her vagina. Obviously none of us knew such a thing was possible, but somehow she managed it.

(Technically she might have done it with another orifice. The details are a bit sketchy.)

Like her sister, no remorse has been expressed, except remorse that killing a Turk with her vagina has made it impossible for her to marry the cat of her dreams.

GUILTY!

Just when we thought things were calming down, the Spanish Influenza broke out. The local surgeon (for humans) was summoned to Downton Cabot.

“My God,” the surgeon cried, looking at that weird thermometer they stick in your ear at the doctor’s office. “100.7? You’ve got a fever! Does your throat hurt?”

Me: “Wait. I’m actually sick for once? This is awesome!”

“She always thinks she’s sick,” He Who Shall Not Be Named In This Blog explained, and pulled a list from his shirt pocket. “Let me tell you the diseases she thinks she’s had in the past few weeks. Spinal meningitis, dengue fever, that thing you get from cleaning out the litter box, walking pneumonia, whatever kind of cancer it was that guy had in the movie 50/50—”

Me (to doctor): “SHOULD my throat hurt? Are sore throats going around?”

Doctor: “Here, take Tamiflu if your body begins to ache. How long have you felt sick?”

Me: “How would I know? I just sit in bed all day reading my own writing and hand feeding Whiska Temptations to my 20 year old demented cat. I always feel sick. Wouldn’t you?”

Doctor: “Good point.”

Husband: “—whatever they got in the movie Contagion, whatever all the people have in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, every disease anyone has ever had on Dr. G. Medical Examiner—”

Lady McSlut-A-Lot retires to her bed of Padded Envelopes in shame

Lady Fussypants is far from a saint, but that won’t stop her from acting holier-than-thou.

Armed with Tamiflu, on Saturday, February 18
 from 12 noon until 3:30PM, 
I will be enjoying a champagne lunch at The Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, TX (1321 Commerce St). You are both welcome and encouraged to attend.

There we will be discussing Lady Fussypants’ scandalous behavior, among many other things, such as the joys of writing romantic, YA, and children’s fiction, as well as what He Who Shall Not Be Named In This Blog said when I forced him to go see the movie The Artist and he discovered that it was both a silent and in black and white.

(Actually we will not be discussing that because what he said is unmentionable in polite circles.)

The Saturday after that I’ll be in Long Beach, California, on February 25, 
for the Passion and Prose Conference, all day, at the Westin (333 E Ocean Blvd). Do sign up because the event has been moved to an even cozier room and now will be even more fun (and affordable) than ever.

At Passion and Prose, I will be discussing many things, including but not limited to whether it is indeed possible to kill a visiting Turkish noblecat with one’s vagina, and the thoughtful goodbye gift left by Lady Fussypants on the office floor upon my departure for this trip. (Spoiler: It was poop.)

In between these two events, it was He Who Shall Not Be Named In This Blog’s intention for us to go on something I have been told is called “a vacation.” I am, of course, unfamiliar with this term, as I always have some incomplete work to do saving war refugees finishing a book that is usually late, to the everlasting delight of my agent and editors, who adore my insouciant work habits.

But if we were to take a vacation together (to, say, visit Carmel-by-the-Sea to do research for the next Mediator book), who would hand feed Lady Fussypants her Temptations, or keep Lady McSlut-A-Lot from stealing someone else’s boyfriend, then possibly killing him with her vagina?

It is an ever present worry, and one that will have to be continued here, at Downton Cabot. Stay tuned!

More later.

Much love,

Meg

But what do you do when you get to OfficeMax and the only calendar choices left over in the store are Indy 500 and Glee? No offense to either of these fine institutions but sometimes I fall asleep in my office (aka my bed). I do not want to wake up and see a car crash or Mr. Shu looking at me first thing in the morning.

Although it’s a bit ironic because I’m from Indiana (home of the Indy 500), and I just found out from D-Listed that Heather Morris (Brittany from Glee) and I have the same birthday (making us both February 1st D-Listed Birthday Sluts). Which I should have known because Brittany and I have so much in common, given our mutual love of cats, rainbows, and unicorns.

Since I didn’t get what I wanted for my birthday (a cat, rainbow, and unicorn office wall calendar, or to wake up in the body of mixed martial artist Carla Gugino), I decided to order Rob O’Neal’s wall calendar online. He’s a local Key West photographer who was badly injured in a scooter accident. All the proceeds from sales of his calendar to go to help his recovery. His photos of the ocean are very soothing to wake up to, I find.

Anyway, I was so touched by how many of you wrote to wish me a happy birthday! You’ve already made my year, and the year’s just getting started! There’s still so much to do before I leave for my mini-book tour for the release of Overbite in paperback on February 7 though!

Overbite’s sexy Italian cover

I have to, for instance, learn how to become a mixed-martial arts expert like the guys in Warrior (which the Oscars ignored, except for Nick Nolte. Whatever, Oscars! And no best supporting actor for the guy who played the monkey in Rise of the Planet of Apes? I give up).

It’s gonna be OK, buddy. Look, my arm grew back from last year.

I’m leaving for Dallas, TX (LOVE YOU DALLAS) where I’ll be on Saturday, February 18 from NOON to 3:30PM (check it out! This event had a time change!) for Tea at The Adolphus on 1321 Commerce St!

(Actually, with the time change, this is now more of a lunch. YUM)

I hope I’ll see you there! There are still some tables left, so click here to make a reservation!

What you’ll get if you go to this event:

*A delicious lunch.

*One of the first copies of Overbite in paperback, signed (I’ll sign all your other books, too. Even books not written be me. I’ve done it before. Sorry, JK Rowling, the kid was convinced I was you. Also, I signed that copy of Webster’s Dictionary. I wasn’t going to tell that kid no.)

*An edifying talk about unicorns princesses Keynesian economic theory writing, the creative process, how to get published, and live your dream. Or at least how to deal with the fact that you are not a mixed-martial arts fighter (yet) but that dream could still come true if you get a trainer now!

Click here to read more about DFW’s fabulous author teas!

Then on Saturday, February 25 I’ll be in Long Beach, CA at the Passion and Prose Conference! If you’re a book lover or an aspiring writer and you haven’t signed up for this YA Rom-Con you need to do so NOW! There’s still time…. and you can get 25% off the conference rate if you click here. Moms and daughters can get a special rate too! Attendance is limited to the first 450 readers who register.

What you get:

*Delicious breakfast buffet

*Meet and greet with the authors

*Interactive author activities

*Delicious lunch with one author at each table

*Young Adult author panel featuring these authors:

*Three keynote speakers (I’m one of them!)

*Incredible memories that will last a lifetime

*Edifying talk about Keynesian economic theory writing, the creative process, how to get published, and how to deal with the fact that you are not a mixed-martial arts fighter (yet).

*Multiple book buying and signing opportunities

*Free goodie bags to all participants, and

*An opportunity drawing to benefit WriteGirl, a non-profit organization that promotes creativity and self-expression through writing to empower girls.

And much much more!

Don’t miss out!

Click here to register

So . . .

Do you Pinterest? Because I’m having a contest on Pinterest, and I’d love for you to join in. I’ve been working on pinning pics of some of the places that appear in my books, plus random adorable kittens, and of course, food that I like (click here to see my boards)!

So if you’re on Pinterest, and you’d like to win a free copy of Abandon (not to mention an advanced reader copy of the sequel to Abandon, Underworld, not out officially in the US until May), just make a Meg Cabot book-themed Pinterest!

Post the cover (or covers) of your favorite Meg Cabot books, along with photos that remind you of the story or series’ setting, plot, and characters, etc, and go to town! The possibilities are endless!

Just go here to read the full contest details and rules! You can enter as many times as you like! Hmmm, creativity.

Finally, the new web page for Underworld is up! We’ll be putting up lots of fun extras, like excerpts, FAQs, deleted scenes, and maybe even some videos, and a map of Isla Huesos and the Underworld itself closer to the pub date. But for now, it’s just looking pretty. I love it (blue is my favorite color). So stay tuned! Take me to the Underworld!

Coming May 8, 2012

Now I have to get back to work bailing Heather Wells out of her latest jam. Look for
Size 12 and Ready to Rock in stores in July 2012, God and massive amounts of Coke Zero willing.

Coming July 10, 2012

In the meantime, here’s a quiz that author Michele Jaffe and I came up with a few years ago to help you tell if the guy you have a crush on likes you back, and whether or not you should give him a Valentine, or just wait to see if he gives YOU one. GOOD LUCK!

Remember: Be Safe, Be Happy, but most of all, Be YOURSELF!

More later.

Much Love,

Meg

You would think that as a royal, I’d be the busy one, what with going to college and helping my dad to rule a country (for the last time: he only died in the movie version of my life. He is alive and well in real life).

But I’m getting pretty good at multi-tasking. I’m actually writing this during my Interactive Media class (blogging counts as interactive media, right?).

Anyway, a lot of you have been writing to ask where I’ve been lately, and why I haven’t updated my own blog in so long.

Unfortunately, blogging isn’t as emotionally therapeutic as I’d hoped. I hadn’t counted on the fact that everyone can read it (hi, Mom).

I thought Tweeting might be more fun so I’ve been doing that a bit (you can follow me here), but again, those pesky privacy issues.

I really think I’m better off journaling. Who knows, maybe I’ll have something else for my royal biographer to publish someday. We’ll see how it goes.

In the meantime, since so many of you seem to have questions for me, I thought I’d try to answer a few of them. So here goes:

Dear Princess Mia,

Do you still go to the Plaza in New York City for tea with your grandmother? Because I went there over winter break hoping to get your autograph, and you never showed up.

Wondering If You’re Even Real

Dear Wondering,

As a matter of fact, I am real. I don’t get to the Plaza for tea as much as I used to because I’m in college now and don’t have to take princess lessons anymore (thank God).

I did, however, spend winter break in Genovia, where the median temperature is always seventy-five degrees. (Please plan your next vacation in Genovia!)

Due to my busy study and travel schedule I won’t be making many public appearances in the near future. However, if you’d like to meet my biographer, Meg Cabot, she’s got TWO public events planned for the month of February in advance of the release of Overbite in paperback! If you’ll be in either Texas or California, you can have tea (or lunch) with her, and even sit at her table (if you buy a ticket in time).

The details of those events are:

Saturday, February 18

2:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Tea at Fresh Fiction
The Adolphus

1321 Commerce St

Dallas, TX

Friends, books, chat, and high tea! Who could ask for anything more? Not me. An exclusive luncheon with Meg Cabot in the famous French Room at The Adolphus!

This will be Meg’s only appearance in Texas and a perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon! Click here to sign up!

You’ll also get one of the first copies of Overbite, which will be out that month in paperback, which Meg will sign! (She says she’ll sign all your other books, too. Well, the ones you bring/buy at the event that were written by her.)

Maybe she’ll even give you some spoilers about the next book in the Heather Wells series, Size 12 and Ready to Rock, coming out this July, and the sequel to Abandon, Underworld, coming out in May, too!

Click here to read more about DFW’s fabulous author teas!

and

Saturday, February 25

Passion and Prose Conference
 

12:00 PM to 2:00 PM

333 E Ocean Blvd

Westin Long Beach

Long Beach, CA

What is Passion & Prose, you ask? Well, it is a daylong conference especially designed for readers
, aspiring writers, and published writers, particularly of books containing romance (right up my alley, since, as you may or may not know, I have a published romance novel of my own. All the author proceeds go to Greenpeace).

This 2012 inaugural event features bestselling authors Meg Cabot, Christina Dodd, and Gail Carriger, among the fabulous 50 romance authors in attendance. From the Passion and Prose conference brochure:

We can’t think of a better place to spend a winter day than in sunny southern California at the luxurious Westin Long Beach. The event commences with registration and a fun breakfast buffet meet and greet with 50 authors. You will love this unique opportunity to mingle with authors, readers, fans, and aspiring writers.

After breakfast, you are guaranteed to be seated with an author for the day of festivities. Once seated, a passionate round of speed dating will ensue, where authors will circulate table to table to woo you with their tales of romance and love.

Since we know that you would love nothing better than to chat with the authors, multiple book buying and autographing sessions will be available as well. Here is your chance to collect autographs from your favorite authors, as well as some of the new authors with whom you will be introduced.

The Passion & Prose continues with special luncheon keynote presentations by bestselling authors Meg Cabot, Christina Dodd, and Gail Carriger.

Our passion for reading and writing would not be complete without passing along community support. Join us in an exciting opportunity drawing to benefit for WriteGirl, a non-profit organization devoted to supporting disadvantaged and at-risk girls with the means to achieve success thru the creativity and self-expression of writing.

And of course we know you love giveaways, so every attendee will leave with a goodie bag filled with fun giveaways!

Share the love, share the passion, and share the prose!

Click here to register!

So, everyone who lives in Texas or California, please come to one of these events!

Dear Mia,

Where can I get a nice boyfriend like yours?

Shevonne

Dear Shevonne,

The minute you stop looking, you’ll find him, the same way Little Bo Peep found her sheep.

Usually the perfect guy shows up when you’re least interested (like when your dad’s been arrested and you’re about to leave to go study in England, as in the case of Diane Court in the fantastic teen movie Say Anything).

Or maybe he’s the guy who’s always mowed your lawn and you never even considered dating him until that time you spilled that drink on your mom’s suede jacket and he said he’d pay you to go out with him and you did because it was the only way you could pay for the dry cleaning and then you discovered that he was actually kind of special and even cute, just like Cindy Mancini did about a young Patrick Dempsey in the amazing teen movie Can’t Buy Me Love.

Or maybe you thought he’d never give you a chance because you have low self-esteem and he’s your best friend’s brother and you’ve decided it’s safer to think you’re in love with some shallow hot popular boy than risk your feelings on the guy you truly like, like a certain princess who shall remain nameless (hint: it’s me).

Whatever the case, just stop looking. He’ll show up at the exact worst possible moment, guaranteed.

Hopefully like all of the above, your story will have a happy ending (but not without some heartache and probably a lot of fights and maybe even some kick-boxing and journaling).

Dear Princess Mia,

I got into one of the best Ivy League schools in the country early decision (I know, yay me!).

Unfortunately I received no financial aid or scholarships. My parents already told me that I will have to take out student loans to pay for tuition myself since they can’t afford it, as I have two other siblings in college as well. I did the math and this means I will owe $200,000 upon college graduation.

Or I can go to the local state college, which I am pretty much guaranteed to get into, and which my parents said they will pay for.

The problem with the state school is that it has a reputation for being a party school, all my friends will make fun of me for going there, and I won’t get nearly the education I would at the Ivy League school, severely limiting my job prospects after I graduate.

What should I do?

Signed, Freaking Out

Dear Freaking,

It’s a little awkward for me to answer this question since I’m a princess and so rich that my cat has his own tiara (although I refuse to make him wear it).

But I did some research for you, and I found out there are a ton of famous people who have attended so-called “party” schools, either because that’s the only school they could afford (hi, Mom!) or the only school to which they were accepted (hi, Dad!). And they did just fine.

In fact, a huge amount of the CEOs in the Fortune 500 went to large public universities. 200 out of the 500 had no graduate degrees, many were college drop outs, and 19 had no college degrees at all!

“This information should help allay the anxieties of many parents and their college-bound children who believe admission to a top-ranked school with a powerful alumni network is a prerequisite to success in the upper echelons of business management,” says an article in a Wall Street Journal.

“Today’s crop of chief executives are, of course, at least a generation older than current college students, but they are in the position to hire and say they don’t favor job candidates with certain degrees.”

“I don’t care where someone went to school, and that never caused me to hire anyone or buy a business,” says Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, who graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

What counts most, CEOs say, is a person’s capacity to seize opportunities. As students, they recall immersing themselves in their interests, becoming campus leaders and forging strong relationships with teachers. And at state and lesser-known schools, where many were the first in their families to attend college, they sought challenges and mixed with students from diverse backgrounds — an experience that helped them later in their corporate climbs.

Apparently even my royal biographer Meg Cabot went to a state school. She says the advantage of graduating “owing nothing to anyone” was that she did not have to feel guilty about failing to pursue a career in her major (art), or when she took the first job she got that paid benefits.

“That was as a receptionist at NYU. Later, I got a promotion to assistant manager of a dorm at NYU, like Heather Wells from Size 12 is not Fat. I did that for ten years while also writing novels on the side, until eventually I made enough money from my writing to support myself. Not having to pay back a lot of loans made that all possible.”

Meg says to tell you that, like anything else, your education is what YOU put into it, whether you go to community college or Columbia.

I am certainly putting a lot into mine, sitting here in class writing for someone else’s blog. Which is why I’m going to stop soon. But not before I say that I think I will pawn Fat Louis’s tiara and donate the proceeds to a scholarship fund….

But before I do here is a brief photo essay Meg is making me include of her cat Henrietta discovering the paperbacks of Abandon, which she says just arrived in the mail:

Henrietta: “What is it?”

“Smells delicious.”

“I think I will rub my face on it.”

“Nevermind.”

“No, wait, maybe I’ll come back and rub my head on it some more.”

“Or maybe just against this wall.”

Thanks for reading! Come back soon!

More later.

Much love,

Mia

I don’t know. All I know is that 2011 went by like lightning.

Like most writers, I am a person of deep reflection (mostly when it concerns the lives of my characters, and celebrities, too, of course), so I realize that most of the highlights of 2011 — for me, anyway — involved all the traveling I did for the books that I wrote that came out this past year (Abandon and Overbite, not to mention my short story for the anthology What You Wish For) . . . not just this past month in France , but over the summer, too, when I got to go to places like Cedar Rapids and Tulsa and Boston and San Francisco.

Shop window in Strasbourg

Amazing French rugby shirt and fun poem courtesy of Florence – who wins the prize for coming to the most signings in a single country: every single one of them except one! Florence, you rock. I can’t thank everyone involved in my French tour enough for all their kindness. Merci!

2011 was especially meaningful to me since it was the year I finally found the answer to a question that is asked in nearly every interview I have:

“Which 5 people, living or dead, would you most like to have over for dinner?”

How can anyone answer this? I know everyone thinks you can tell something really deep and important from the way a person answers this question, but I personally feel that this question is incredibly stupid, and that no one can tell anything about anyone from the way they answer it – at least not anything deep or meaningful, unless the person mentions 5 dead members of her own family. And this is why:

Everyone expects authors to answer that they’d have someone literary to dinner, such as Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte or maybe Ernest Hemingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald. And I’m ashamed to admit that upon occasion, I have answered in this way.

But the truth is, I was lying. Except for a few of my author friends, I do not want to entertain any authors (except ones I already know) in my home. If you look at the great writers in history, almost all of them have had some kind of mental problem (presumably from being tortured by the burden of their genius, as one of my professors in college explained to us), and have self-medicated to numb the pain of their exceptional intelligence and creativity. This is true of nearly every great artist and musician as well (poor Amy Winehouse).

Most of us who grew up in large Catholic families already know how dinners like this go (generally there is a fist fight, then someone passes out on the living room floor).

It would totally spoil my enjoyment of Pride and Prejudice if its creator came over to my house and threw up on my carpet after too many vodka and cranberries.

Jane Austen. Crazy eyes?

Another way people expect you to answer the “5 People” question is with religious or political figures. Like, “I’d just love to have Jesus Christ, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, and Buddha to my house for dinner.”

Even though I have actually said things like this in answer to this question in the past (sorry, I panicked), I was totally lying, and it was only because I just wanted to get on to the next question and finish the interview and get back to sleep and/or to my deadline or whatever. I totally would NOT have these people to my house for dinner – not because I dislike Mother Theresa or think she might throw up on my carpet, but because one of the first rules of etiquette is never to discuss politics or religion over a meal.

But what else do you think these people would want to talk about over their supper? Probably not the things I like to talk about, such as whether or not Kate Middleton is pregnant (Jesus would totally give spoilers).

The same goes with celebrities. I would never have any of the Kardashians or Scar-Jo or Rhianna or Marilyn Monroe or LeBron James or anyone super famous over for dinner. I’m sure they’d be very nice (to my face) but afterwards they’d call their publicist and be like, “OMG! SHE SERVED STEAK FAJITAS! I TOLD YOU, I’M VEGAN!” Honestly, it would just be too stressful. What if the towels in the bathroom weren’t soft enough? What if Lamar’s dad showed up? Just no.

It wasn’t until this year I realized I had the perfect answer all along to the 5 People question and just didn’t know it:

Fictional characters. Not my own. Other people’s.

Most of the books I read this year featured serial killers (I went on a heavy duty Laura Lippman kick. So delicious), so honestly, I wouldn’t want to have THEM over. For the Meg Cabot book club this month, we’re reading an excellent YA book by Josie Bloss called Faking Faith about a girl named Dylan who gets into some trouble at school (something you or I could easily have done. Well, I would have when I was her age. She did it for love), gets suspended, and starts spending a lot of time online, reading—innocently enough—the blogs of girls who lead lives very different from her own…homeschooled fundamentalist girls.

Eventually Dylan begins to envy the seemingly simpler world in which these girls live (one in which what happened to her would never have occurred), and starts a fake blog of her own…an action which leads to an adventure that changes her life, and the lives of others, in both good ways and maybe not so good ways (I think mostly good, personally).

I enjoyed reading this book so much, I wanted it to go on and on. I wanted sequels . . . which is why it’s so fun to talk about it on the message boards, so join us! (It doesn’t hurt that Asher, the boy in the book, is totally hot!) More importantly, the book gently raises—and argues—a lot of important points about faith and religion (and feminism) without being judgmental (at least in my opinion. Maybe someone who belongs to the religion the girls in the book follow —it is never named, though— would disagree, which also makes it fun to discuss).

I’d definitely have Asher, his sister, and Dylan over for dinner (and Josie, too).

But if I could have ANYONE to my house for dinner, it would be the casts of my favorite TV shows of 2011. Not the casts as themselves, aka the actors, but the fictional characters that they play.

Because I think 2011 was an EXCELLENT year for television, one of the first we’ve had in a long time that wasn’t dominated by reality television…no offense to reality TV, because I certainly have gotten sucked into my fair share of marathons of Dance Moms and Hoarders and I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. Because guess what? A lot of people in history have NOT KNOWN THEY WERE PREGNANT.

But I got sucked into way more excellent scripted TV series in 2011 than I have in a long, long time.

I think it would be fun to invite the characters from all the new shows that made 2011 such a great year. How awesome would it be to have the entire cast of Downton Abbey over? Difficult, yes, because not only is their new season debuting Jan 8 so I’m sure they’re quite busy, but some of them are members of the aristocracy in turn-of-the-century Britain and expect to be waited on, so I’d have to hire help for sure (but that’s OK, because you know who I’d hire? Yeah, you got that right, the 2 Broke Girls), while some of them are “servant class”, so ARE the help. How on earth would I do the seating chart? Plus some of them are helplessly in love with others, while others are murderers, or attempted murderers at least, which only we, as the viewers, know. Awkward!

Then of course I’d HAVE to invite the cast of Game of Thrones, which presents the same problem as the Downton Abbey cast with the aristocracy thing and the serving class thing, not to mention the murderer thing (oh, and the romance thing! And the incest thing! And the dire-wolves! Plus, when last we saw her, one character had just given birth to not just one, but three dragons. Now everyone in the seven kingdoms wants to kill her. Where am I going to seat HER? Plus, what will I do with the dragons while we’re eating?)

Oh, well, maybe the cast from Happy Endings could babysit the dragons. I’m pretty sure baby dragons wouldn’t faze Max too much. He’d be like, “Oh, look at the fun dogs with wings!”

I will definitely seat Penny next to Tyrion from Game of Thrones because I could see her being all over a cynical dwarf.

And even though it didn’t debut in 2011, I’m inviting the cast of Courtney Cox’s Cougar Town, the show with the worst name ever, because this show needs the love…and after dinner, we can all cheat at penny can, and make Prince Joffrey super mad!

Okay, so obviously if I’m allowing Cougar Town on my list, I can’t not invite one of the best shows of all time, Friday Night Lights, even though it didn’t debut in 2011. But it did END in 2011, so I’m counting it (it’s my party, I can do what I want).

Of course this means Tim Riggins will be there. So how am I going to keep the girls from the casts of Awkward and Suburgatory away from him? I can’t not invite these shows, because they both debuted in 2011, and they’re both great, but let’s face it, those girls are going to be all over Tim, and he’s too old for them. What to do?

I know, I’ll invite Brody from Homeland! He has a teenaged daughter and is a Marine sniper, so he’ll keep the girls in line, even though he might be actually be a turned Al Quaeda terrorist (no one, not even his castmate Carrie, the CIA agent investigating him, is sure).

So I’ll get the members of the UTF (Undead Task Force) from Death Valley on MTV to keep an eye on him (they battle vampires and zombies all day so a possible terrorist should be easy for them).

For entertainment I’m hiring The New Girl to sing (if she promises to bring her roommates and Winston plays the bells).

There are a few other shows I liked that are on the backup list if any of the members of the above shows can’t make it—for instance, I liked The Hour, and Enlightened, and Louie, but I’m not sure they’d get along with the other shows. I would have liked to invite Episodes or Once Upon A Time and Grimm, but I really think we have enough. Other favorite shows, such as Parks and Rec and Parenthood and The Closer, will have to be invited at another time, since this is a 2011 Debut party only, with just a few exceptions for special circumstances.

Those exceptions, by the way, include you guys. YOU are totally invited to my hypothetical party, of course, because 2011 wouldn’t have been the same without you. I’m sure we would have the best time. I know because I’ve met so many of you (and/or heard from you online) in the past year, and I know we’d get along (even with the dragons and the dire-wolves and possible terrorists and murderers).

So THANK YOU. Not only for making 2011 so incredibly great, but because next time anyone asks what 5 People I’d have over to dinner, I’m finally going to have an answer that isn’t a lame lie: I’m going to say you . . . and our fictional friends.

Feel free to add to the invitation list on Facebook!

And I hope your 2012 is filled with health, happiness, and plenty of good books.

More later.

Much love,

Meg

But here’s a little known secret: in real life, hopping on a plane to Paris for your book tour turns out to be less than glamorous (at least if you’re me).

Because right now I can’t find the leggings I just bought (two pairs!) for this very trip.

And I’ve suddenly realized I only have one hour to change planes in Atlanta, which means my suitcase (which weighs 75 pounds even without the leggings, because I’m bringing 3 pairs of boots) will never make it onto the plane.

And my 19 year old cat Henrietta has decided that the floor of the office across the hall from the laundry room where her litter box is actually located is really the most convenient place for her to go to the bathroom (number two only).

Oh, and the touchpad of my MacBook Pro died, just when my revisions are due for Underworld. I have my trusty MacBook Air, but it only has 2 hours of battery, for some reason. Perfect for a 9 hour plane ride during which I hoped to get some work done.

Obviously I shouldn’t complain because

a) I am incredibly lucky (and thrilled) even to be having a book tour in France, and

b) things can only improve, right? By the time I get there and see all those smiling French faces, everything will be fine. Even my suitcase will show up eventually!

But until then, zut alors!

Anyway — yoga breath — this week, Abandon is being released in France. It has the same title in France as it does in America (and England).

Tres jolie!

My French publisher’s amazing website has the lowdown on all the contests and fun stuff that’s going on online while I’m there. But below are some of the places you can stop by to say hi to me in person (sorry I don’t have links for all of them. You should contact the stores to make sure the information is accurate and up-to-date. I do think you might need bracelets and stuff in advance to get in to some of them, so it’s worth double checking).

Lille
Friday, December 2
Signing at Le Furet du Nord bookstore
5:30 – 6:30PM

Montpellier
Saturday, December 3
Signing at Sauramps bookstore
3:00 – 4:30PM

Paris
Sunday, December 4
Signing at the Montreuil Book Fair
4:00 – 6:00PM

Strasbourg
Wednesday, December 7
Signing at La Librairie Kleber bookstore
4:30 – 6:30PM

Paris
Thursday, December 8
Signing at FNAC Montparnasse
6:30PM

And if you have questions you’d like to posez you can posez them here (I have a question. WHERE ARE THOSE LEGGINGS?).

On the days I don’t have events listed, I will still be working — behind the scenes, doing interviews and videos and stuff you’ll see later! I do get a little time off, but this is a work trip! Besides, I used to live in France, so going there is like going home!

OK, I’m completely making that up. But when I was six, my family moved to Grenoble, France for a year so my dad could teach there on sabbatical. I went to French school and actually learned to read in French, from some of the best books of all time . . .

. . . because they saved me from my overwhelming confusion at suddenly being plopped into first grade in a foreign country:

Martine!

Oh, la belle Martine! No one can understand how much she meant to me! I was a lonely little American girl who understood no French, but I could look at the pictures in my Martine books (by author Gilbert Delahaye, available at any grocery store in France in the 70s) and tell exactly what Martine was up to (always something incredible).

Because of the amazing Martine (and my mom, who bought one of her books for me every time she went to the grocery store), I was inspired to WANT to learn to read (in both English and French. Now I remember only the English, alas)!

Isn’t it cool how books can transcend language barriers? I took my Martine books to my French school, and instantly had an “in” with the girls there.

I still have all my Martine books (I was very choosy and only liked the ones where Martine looked like she was about to die or become famous. But I pretended to like all of them).

Oh, Martine! You were my inspiration! What did you become when you grew up? I hope it was this:

Whatever Martine became, I bet unlike me, she can still eat wheat-gluten. This will be my first trip to France since being diagnosed with celiac disease.

Although I’m happy to no longer have weird rashes on my face and the feeling that there is a bee inside my head — which were the mild but annoying symptoms that finally drove me to the endocrinologist who diagnosed me — French bread is basically my favorite thing in the world. It’s going to be REALLY hard not to eat it.

Anyway, last blog post we had a very exciting contest to see which cover you liked best for my July 2012 release, Size 12 and Ready to Rock. The votes have been tallied, and I know who won . . . but I can’t tell you which until the official unveiling! Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, I seriously can’t believe Thanksgiving is already over, which means Christmas and Hanukkah are right around the corner. I am NOT ready (obviously. I can’t even find my pants).

But if you’re looking for things to give, the nice people at Bookwish are having an interesting contest for aspiring YA authors looking for professional input on their work here! I guess you can’t actually give that to someone, but you could give them a copy of the anthology What You Wish For, which was recently named one of Penguin’s books best YA of 2011! And the contest would also make a nice classroom assignment.

In the meantime, I’m off to France, where I will not only be touring (and letting people who come my signings in on spoilers about the sequel to Abandon, Underworld!) but looking for cool gift ideas for you all for the holidays (and of course, for more Martine books – and leggings – for me).

In the meantime, be safe, be happy . . . and be sure to read some books!

More later.

Much love,

Meg

Which is not good because I have so much to get done before I leave for my mini – book tour at the end of the month in, of all places, FRANCE. I have deadlines to meet and French to learn and suitcases to pack for the Salon du Livre Jeunesse! (If you’re going to be in France at the same time, also look for me in Lille, Montpellier, Strasbourg, and other bookstores of Paris! I’ll be putting up a real schedule soon, but in the meantime, check out my French publisher’s site, Lecture Academy, for updates.)

Meanwhile, both the covers for my 2012 releases have been released, and, if I do say so myself (and I can, since I had nothing to do with them), they’re pretty gorgeous.

But your input is vitally needed for one of them.

But first, OK, the cover for Underworld? OMG. So amazing. Don’t even get me started, I love it so much:

Underworld won’t be in stores until May 8, 2012!

Yes, that’s the same model from the first book! Isn’t she amazing? Just LOOK at her. And yes, that’s John’s arm.

Blue is my favorite color (to look at, not to wear), FYI.

But for my next book in the Heather Wells series, Size 12 and Ready to Rock (in stores in July 2012), I completely need your input! Because we’ve got two covers and we couldn’t decide which one was better! So I was like, “What if we just asked everyone what THEY thought?” and my editor, Carrie, was all, “YES.”

So take this uniquely rare opportunity to VOTE on which cover you like better here on the Heather Wells Facebook page (voting ends Sunday)!

This one?

Or this one?

I know some of you are looking at these covers and thinking, “What is the difference?”

But to some speople (like me) there is clearly a major difference (I will not tell you my preference so as not to prejudice the voters, but I do have one. Although honestly, either one would be fine).

And thank you to the amazing people at William Morrow for letting everyone have their say! You have no idea how many covers we went through to narrow it down to these two! We saw Heather in black dresses, gold dresses, red dresses, green dresses, jeans, on and on.

But this was hands down our fave. It’s just so . . . Heather. Sometimes you have to let your heroine dress up a little. Even if she’s solving a MURDER.

Anyway, here are some of the other things in my life that I’m excited about:

Of course, Princess Mia Thermopolis has a Twitter page and has started Tweeting. Mostly she’s just quoting Grandmere’s advice right now, but occasionally she has her own stuff to say. If only that lazy royal would update her blog.

(It was pretty sad when Princess Mia went to start her Twitter page and her own name and just about every variation of it was already taken by people who are not her, as was The Princess Diaries, etc. But of course Mia is too princessy to complain. Not.)

Did you know we’ve launched something called the Fab Five for Friday? That means every Friday we pick five fabulous commenters from my message boards and give them a free book (of mine or the author whose book we’re reading on the book club, or sometimes both or sometimes some completely random ARC I have lying around. YOU JUST WON’T KNOW)!

All you have to do to be a potential Fab Five winner is comment on the message boards (in the Books section, duh). So go do that right now while I wait.

Hi, thanks for coming back.

OK, also, next week I’m doing a webinar with the Girl Scouts of New Jersey. Yes, I was a Girl Scout! I freaking LOVED Girl Scouts, and not just because of the cookies (which I can’t eat now because of celiac disease, so we need to work on a gluten-free cookie, Girl Scouts)! I loved the Girl Scouts because all the fun, creative girls were in it.

Love this. Although no real Girl Scout would ever do this.

Speaking of fun girls, I’m so excited about this new addition to the Betsy-Tacy series (which also has all new covers) with a forward by Judy Blume, Ann M. Martin, and Johanna Hurwitz (it even got a mention in the NY Times)!

So cute, right?

Honestly the reason I think I’m so into the Betsy series is the old-fashioned hand-holding (“No!” Betsy cried. “I won’t do it! I just won’t!”) and gossipy misunderstandings and sandwich-making. With all the bad news to which we seem to get subjected week after week, I find slipping into an “old-timey” book more and more comforting.

(My favorite in the Betsy series is the one that I wrote the forward to, Betsy Was A Junior, but I receive no financial kickback if you buy it, dammit! And it’s probably good to start with the treasury to find out how it all began.)

Betsy-Tacy is very nice for comfort reading, but what I love BEST for this is Mary Stewart novels. They do have murders in them, but Mary Stewart’s books are never TOO shocking, and they always have a sensible but pretty heroine, and handsome men with strong, chiseled profiles, who urge the heroine to drink whisky–”Drink it, dammit!”–after she’s had a shock. Plus, there’s kissing.

So that’s why most exciting to me of all (because in case you haven’t guessed by now, I’m a total cover NERD) was my very tardy discovery of the re-release of the entire romantic suspense collection of Mary Stewart, with ALL NEW COVERS.

Ta da!!!

Lady Mary Stewart (yeah, it’s official. She’s a lady) is pretty much my all time favorite living writer. She did most of her writing in the 50s-90s, and is now retired and lives in Scotland, so it’s unlikely I will ever meet her. I will just have to blog about her instead, which is OK, because that’s the next best thing (besides reading her books).

I think these American covers capture the eerie romance of Mary Stewart’s books, but not the wittiness of them (they’re often quite funny) like the new British ones above, although I worry the quirkiness of the new British covers (which of course I’ve already bought) might not attract younger readers used to, say, The Hunger Games:

It’s important to remember that while some of Mary Stewart’s books have elements of magic in them (usually explained as coincidence), almost all of them have MURDER in them! Like The Hunger Games, this book below features children being murdered (for money, not food). But you wouldn’t know it from the cover:

Nine Coaches Waiting is about a modern day English governess (well, modern for 1958) looking after a young boy in a fancy French chateau. She is just doing her job and trying like crazy not to fall in love with the devastatingly handsome elder son of the chateau owner (hint: she fails. It is not her fault, his name is Raoul and he takes her to Monte Carlo in his fancy car one night. How could she NOT fall in love with him?) when she stumbles across a terrifying plot to MURDER THE CHILD FOR WHOM SHE IS CARING.

(Okay, maybe the child murder plot of Nine Coaches Waiting is nothing like The Hunger Games, in that it is a secret plot, and the heroine is trying to stop the child murder, not commit it. But it’s still quite alarming! And the heroine does have to run through a lot of woods, like Katniss.)

This was my original copy (my BFF Beth, who introduced me to Mary Stewart, gave it for me). I have no idea who the hot chick on the cover is supposed to be. I suppose the heroine, though she is barely in her twenties.

Frankly I like my cover best.

There are no coaches in the story Nine Coaches Waiting. There is, however, a BALL (and a fashion designer)!

I don’t know which Mary Stewart novel is my favorite since there’s one for every mood. Right now I’m quite fond of Madam, Will You Talk in which a young lady visiting Provence meets a nice little boy at the hotel where she’s staying. Too bad he says he’s so scared of his widower dad, the crazy MURDERER!

Then later she runs into this very handsome gentleman with a chiseled profile who, when he learns that she’s met this adorable little boy, ABDUCTS her, because it turns out he’s the boy’s dad, and he thinks SHE’s kidnapped his kid, and he wants her to tell him where he is (which she won’t do, because she thinks HE’S a crazy murderer).

Maybe he should just realize what a horrible mistake he’s made after he sees how pretty and nice she is and take her out for a really nice dinner and make her drink brandy to get over the shock of being abducted by him and say how sorry he is and then maybe accidentally try to kiss her because she’s so pretty and then apologize for doing THAT, it’s just that he is so overcome by how CRAZY he’s been on account of being set up for a MURDER he didn’t commit, and he’s desperate to clear his name and get his son back. Also maybe he’s in love with her.

Will the heroine talk, and tell him where his son is and try to help him get him back, or turn him in?

(OMG almost all of the above covers are HIDEOUS and in no way convey how amazing this book is. Here is the new one, but it’s set in the parched Provencal landscape during summer, so why does it look vaguely Christmasy?)

I should probably admit I was asked to write a forward to this re-release of Mary Stewart’s novel Thornyhold, but this edition is currently out of print (and obviously I did this for love, not money)!

I should probably also admit I’ve never read what are considered Mary Stewart’s “scholarly” novels, the King Arthur ones (shut up. I know! I wrote a King Arthur novel myself). But I’m saving these books for when I have a terminal disease and desperately need something new by Mary Stewart to read.

Anyway, one of Mary Stewart’s books, The Moonspinners, was made into a movie by Disney, starring the delightful Hailey Mills.

In the tradition of Disney movies based on books, The Moon-spinners doesn’t exactly follow the plot or tone of the book, which is about a young lady on vacation in Crete who stumbles across an injured young man, and obviously suspects him of having done something terrible when she learns the injury is a knife wound and the young man urges her to get away . . . for God’s sake . . . just get away.

But he is quite the handsome gentleman, so she’s hesitant to leave him to die . . . .

Big mistake? Or best decision of her life? What do you think? Perhaps there’s a MURDER . . . (there is).

It is said that Lady Mary Stewart “took a friend to see the film opening, only to find that the producers had wanted to buy the rights to the title but not the plot, and the story line was unknown to her.”

Ha! But I do remember seeing this movie as a kid and LOVING it. Though not as much as I love the book, of course.

The Mary Stewart novel I just finished reading was about the crazily named Gianetta (don’t worry, her crazy name is explained), a fashion model who is quite tired after all her busy fashion modeling and needs a vacation in the Isle of Skye because it’s so TIRESOME living in London during the coronation of Queen Elizabeth (actually if you liked the TV show The Hours on AMC, which I did, this is the book for you because everyone in it smokes and drinks sherry, even when they’re fishing, and also they listen to the wireless about horrible news coming out of the USSR, which I shouldn’t have found hilarious but I did).

So Gianetta goes for a nice relaxing stay in a swanky inn on the Isle of Skye, and what does she find there?

Not only her bitter ex-husband whom she had to divorce because he was all post-traumatic stressy from the war (and he’s also a novelist, so divorcing him was quite understandable), but . . . multiple MURDERS!!!

I highly recommend Wildfire at Midnight to anyone with an ex about whom they dream of one day reuniting. Or anyone who likes reading about the Isle of Skye, or drinking sherry by the fire, or models.

OK, that’s enough cover chat for one day (obviously I could go on for much longer, but I will spare you). If you want to know more about Mary Stewart, you need to go to this excellent blog.

And of course don’t forget to vote for MY covers here. Lately my poor heroines too have a tendency to be going about their business in a perfectly normal fashion, and then suddenly stumble across a MURDER.

Fortunately they’ve got feisty personalities, handsome (if moody) gentlemen friends, and all of you to help them out. They couldn’t ask for more, and neither could I.

More later.

Much love,

Meg