What’s that you keep asking me? When are you going to get to see the cover to Runaway, the final book in the Airhead series?
Why, that’d be today!
I got the final manuscript turned in, the revisions completed, and now I’m just awaiting copy edits (a copy editor works to improve the formatting, accuracy, and style of manuscript, not the content).
So I think it’s safe to finally reveal the front cover:
I know, isn’t it great????
I wish I could give out the name of the cover model, because a lot of you keep asking about her….
But you seriously have no idea how many guys email me about her!
Who is she? Where does she live? Can I have her email? I promise I’m not a stalker.
What? Excuse me, but do you really think I’m going to fall for that?
I can only assure you that she’s totally fab, and also a complete brainiac—she’s going to Stanford!
Thus she is way out of the league of any guy writing to the author of a book cover on which she has appeared, unless he happens to be a fireman or works for Doctors Without Borders or something.
(But even if you do, don’t email me about her because I still won’t trust you with her. Look what happened with that guy and poor Annie Hathaway. And he said he worked for the Vatican!)
Here she is with adorable Cosabella, on the back:
As you can probably tell from the cover, the action gets WAY RAMPED UP in this book. I can’t tell you a lot because I don’t want to spoil it, but Stark goes CRAZY EVIL!
I can’t tell you how though. I even kept it from Scholastic: it’s not in any of the proposals I gave them. NO ONE KNEW. My editor was like: WOW!
(And I don’t get wows from her very often, because she’s been in this business for a long time. She’s the one who bought Princess Diaries 1 as a tiny baby editor, like on her first day of work when she still had an N Sync calendar on her desk.)
The dark secret that got Nikki killed?
IT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND.
When I was originally researching Stark’s Dark Secret, of course I consulted a number of Computer Geeks–of whom I know many because when you write novels on laptops, you often need to have them rescued (from viruses, cats knocking them off beds, being left on top of air conditioners so they freeze to death, etc, all true BTW and why I own 8 laptops…the shame).
And so computer geeks become your best friends.
Mine are basically like Felix (from Being Nikki) and Sheldon from Big Bang Theory combined, only with less social skills.
And they were all like:
“Make the computers be hypnotizing people.”
Me: To do what?
“To take off their clothes.”
Me: Um…okay. Do you maybe have some other, less R-rated ideas that I could put in a book for teenagers? Also that make sense?
“The computers could be taking people’s money.”
Me: Um…Richard Stark is the richest man in the world. Why would he need people’s money?
“What if all the computers are connected to one vast network and are trying to take over the world and human beings have been forced to form a ragtag rebellion against them and some of the humans are actually robots and you don’t know which are robots and which are humans?”
Me: Yeah…that is the plot of The Terminator. Also The Matrix. And Battlestar Galactica.
“The real problem is that you have no imagination. It is amazing that you even have a career.”
Although because they love computer inhalant, YouTube, and the show Intervention, my Felix/Sheldons did show me this, about which I have no comment and on which you should click at your own discretion.
Fortunately, I was able to come up with an amazing secret for Stark without their help.
The bad news is, it is so amazing, I don’t know if we’ll be able to give out Advanced Reader Copies of this book, because…well, for the safety of the nation, we have to keep the explosiveness at a minimum.
I’ll be posting an excerpt closer to the pub date of May 2010, though.
If you want to join the Airhead Facebook page to discuss what Stark’s secret could be amongst yourselves, it’s right here.
And, I might as well warn you now so you don’t FREAK OUT….
This site is getting a small facelift.
So if you come here one day and it looks totally different, that’s why.
It wasn’t Stark.
Then again….
Maybe it was….
More later.
Much love,
Meg
