How I Spent My Summer Vacation

(Read all the way to the bottom for a chance to win a copy of Brimstone, which comes out next week!)

Whenever I go too long without Tweeting, my family and friends call or text to make sure I haven’t fallen down the stairs and/or been eaten by my dogs.

This says a lot about how often I tweet. It also says a lot about how I get distracted and forget to tweet. Or, you know, blog.  My Friend Kate (this is an official title, because friendship with me incurs certain privileges and responsibilities) pointed out that I haven’t blogged in two months and since my last post concerned a Potentially Life Threatening Incident, maybe I should put up an entry to say I wasn’t dead yet.

(See how smart my friends are? They have to pass a test. Also, this is the kind of responsibility that falls to them: Remind me of the passage of time. Tell me when people think I’m dead. Dynamite me out of my cave now and then.)

So, here is the recap of my summer since I last posted:

• Did not die from idiopathic angioedema. (Or as we call it in my house: swelling up for no good reason. And also: take two Benedryl and cancel your plans for the day.)
• Did not die from bug bite that turned out not to be a bug bite but a staph infection. Did not die from humiliation that a clean freak like me got a staph infection. (Right after being in the hospital. Coincidence?)
• Had to cancel going to RWA National Conference and presenting the Golden Heart Award. Tragic because I had the most adorable dress. Also tragic because I was supposed to spend the week afterward hanging out with My Friend Kate.
• Turned in final revision of Spirit and Dust. (Yay!!!!!)
• Made a playlist and a Pinterest board for Spirit and Dust.
• Was called for Jury Duty. Was not picked, possibly because I write for teens (case concerned teenagers), or because I have a Twitter and blog, possibly because I’m a smart ass.  (During the selection questions, the defense counsel asked what I did that I had a blog. I answered that I wrote books for teens. Counsel: So you tell lies for a living. Me: I’ll bet people say that about your job, too.)
• Celebrated the paperback release of Texas Gothic!!!  (If you’re too cheap (like me) to buy it in hard cover, now is your chance.)
• Did not die from a recurrence of the not-bug-bite.
• Managed to keep my plants alive all through the summer!  This is a record for me!
• Received a ginormous box of copies of BRIMSTONE which comes out on September 11^th. That’s next week.  OMG THAT’S NEXT WEEK!

 

Tell me in the comments what you did with YOUR summer vacation. It doesn’t even have to be true. I will randomly draw one name from the comments to win a copy of Brimstone for your very own.

News and stuff!

News! Texas Gothic has been included on the 2012 ALA list of Best Fiction for Young Adults. I’m thrilled to be included with some of MY favorite books of the year!

Also, central Texas folks, get ready. I will be at Book People in Austin on February 10th at 7pm, where I will be on a panel with fellow “spine-tingling YA authors” Jordan Dane, P.J. Hoover, Mari Mancusi, Cynthia Leitich Smith and LA Weatherly. We’ll dish on writing about scary stuff life vampires, ghosts, and falling in love.

Obviously, I’m back in the USA. Penny was so happy to see me when I got home. I fixed the line breaks on the posts from the cruise (now that I’m not paying tourist wi-fi rates) so if you want to read about the trip more or less as it unfolded, the first post is here.  

If you want the backstory on why I don’t sound quite as excited about the cruise as you might think, you can start with this post, which you should bear in mind was written days before that terrible cruise ship wreck last weekend. (Which, incidentally, I did not even hear about until I was ON the Carnival Magic, due to conspiracy of my friends and family.) 

However, in the end, I had a really nice time. Some enforced downtime was probably really good for me. I read four Agatha Christie novels and a Barbara Michaels ghosty-mystery. I did not get kidnapped by Pirates or Cuban Revolutionaries. I didn’t even get sunburned. 

I did, however, come home with a cold, which I am going to go nurse now with a cup of tea and the happy thought that the ALA thinks my book is good enough to include with some of MY favorites from 2011, including Beauty Queens, Enclave, and The False Princess. Congrats, my friends!

Texas Gothic in the Wild

I love it when people send me pictures of my book in the wild, whether it’s on a bookstore shelf, their desk, or wherever.  Especially when the picture includes an adorable dog.

(pic from reader @Laurenisaguitar on Twitter)

Here’s another one! It’s becoming a meme!

(From Kari’s IMM post over on A Good Addiction)

It’s no secret I love dogs.  Here’s one of mine (sans book) to round things out:

Texas Gothic Release Day

So, Texas Gothic comes out today.

!!!!!!!!!

I’m just a little excited about that. I would like to pretend I’m all blasé about a new book release and ho hum, it’s my fifth book so whatever.

But the fact is, I’m all tied up with nerves and hopes and fears and more hopes…

This is the book my dad and I plotted together when I was sixteen. This is the one I started first, the high school boyfriend I left behind when I went to college, but eventually met up with again. The setting is an eyes-open love letter to the place I grew up, not perfect, but beautiful and full of people and things that, good or bad, you won’t find anywhere else.

There’s so much of me in this book. There’s spitfire romance and matinee adventure and family dramady. There’s forensic anthropology and paranormal investigation. There’s girl power and there’s boy crazy. There’s Sonic cherry limeade and Dr Pepper and Shiner beer and coffee and chocolate chip cookies. There’s nods to Mrs. Radcliffe, Kathy Reichs, and Carolyn Keene. And yes, even to Scooby Doo.

Amy Goodnight is full of neuroses and awesome, who plunges into danger with a sense of righteousness and a bottle of Purell. Is it any wonder I feel so close to this book?

So, for me, book release day isn’t just about “will the book perform well,” or even about “will people like it.” A book is a collaborative effort, in a way. I put all these things in there, and ask you, the reader, to come along to the story. You bring your own experiences, which enhance and nuance the story so it becomes unique to you, too. So the excitement, in a way, is anticipation of what readers will take away from the book, and hope that it’s a wonderful shared experience.

Or, they will think I’m a nut. That’s okay, too, I guess. As long as they enjoy the read.

You can get Texas Gothic at your local retailer. (Ask for it if they don’t have it on the shelf. It may have sold out already and we want them to order more!) It’s also available in all e-reader formats and from online booksellers. There’s a whole list of online retailer links here.

Or ask for it at your local library! You don’t have to buy a book to help an author. Letting your librarian know there’s a demand for the book is important!

Here’s a list of my upcoming signings and appearances!

Saturday, July 16th at 1pm: Barnes and Noble at the Parks Mall in Arlington, TX.

Saturday, August 6th at 2 pm: Barnes and Noble at the Shops at North East Mall in Hurst, TX.

Saturday, August 20 at 4:30pm: Murder by the Book in Houston, TX.

August 26-28: ArmadilloCon in Austin, TX

September 23-25: FenCon in Dallas, TX

Happy Reading!

Win a copy of Texas Gothic

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Goodreads Book Giveaway

Texas Gothic

by Rosemary Clement-Moore

Giveaway ends July 20, 2011.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Texas Gothic Tidbits and other cool books

If you’re interested (which I assume you all are) there’s an excerpt of Texas Gothic now up at the Random House site.  (If that link doesn’t show the expert, go to “about the book” and click “excerpt.”)  It’s also up the book’s Amazon page, which means I’ll be posting it soon to MY webpage.

And in Googling this, I found that Random House Australia has the book listed, with the Australian cover, which I love as much as the US cover. I mean, when a cover image works, go with it! I think the Western font is fun, but I love the tagline, which I am hereby co-opting for my own use.

You can’t escape your inner witch…

If you’re looking for a book recommendation, be sure and check out April’s Fresh Takes column for interviews with Jenny Archer (Through Her Eyes) and Kirsten Hubbard (Like Mandarin).

Or, you could check out what the other Bookanistas* are talking about today!

• Shelli Johannes-Wells gives us THE ROYAL TREATMENT
• Elana Johnson hosts a blog tour stop for 101 SUCCESS SECRETS FOR GIFTED KIDS with a giveaway
• Shannon Messenger adores THE DAY BEFORE plus a giveaway
• Carolina Valdez Miller is passionate about POSSESSION and gives away an ARC
• Beth Revis shares some SOLSTICE cover love
• Lisa and Laura Roecker and Stasia Ward Kehoe marvel over MOONGLASS
• Megan Miranda and Veronica Rossi delve into DIVERGENT
• Shana Silver shows her desire for DEMONGLASS
• Carrie Harris is PUTTING MAKEUP ON DEAD PEOPLE
• Sarah Frances Hardy wants to be just LIKE MANDARIN
• Christine Fonseca is in love with DARK AND HOLLOW PLACES with a giveaway

*The Bookanistas are a group of bloggers and writers who love books, and on Thursday we talk about our latest love. Simple as that.

Teaser Tuesday

I feel guilty for getting so behind (again) on blog posts. You love me anyway, right?

Here’s a teaser from Texas Gothic to atone for my absence:

—
Phin had to show off a bit. “I heard that fossils and archeological finds can go for millions of dollars.”

“Yes,” said Mark, “but we’re not talking australopithecus. This is a modern skull.”

“But—” I started. That couldn’t be right. The bone had felt old. Literally and in some way I couldn’t quite define. “You said it wasn’t recent. And Dr. Douglas said the site by the river had been here maybe a century or two.”

He grinned. “‘Modern’ on an evolutionary scale. As in, ‘less than half a million years old.’”

“Oh,” I said, embarrassed because I should have known that. I mean, they did teach evolution in Texas public schools.

“It might still be prehistoric, though,” said Mark. “If this turns out to be a mass burial of some kind, the value will be in information.”

—

Teaser Tuesday

Since someone reminded me we haven’t had a Teaser Tuesday in a while, here are a couple of paragraphs from Texas Gothic: 

I stared at the spot on the highway were I would swear–where I would bet four tires, or possibly my whole car if I hadn’t managed to control her swerve–that someone had been standing just an instant before.

Nothing.

Fear crept up my neck with sharp, cold feet. When I say nothing, I mean, nothing. There was no man, there were no other cars, not even a distant house or barn light. I was completely alone.

Teaser Tuesday

In my ongoing quest to blog more often, here’s a snippet of what I’m working on right now. (Evil laugh)

I thrust my fingers into the dirt and pulled out two handfuls, dropping them to the side of the hole Lila had made. Quickly I widened it, uncovering a curve of bone, that became a dome, that became something unmistakable.

“Here.” Mark handed me a stiff-bristled brush, like I’d seen Caitlin using on the bones in the excavation by the bulldozer. “Use this.”

“Thanks.” I shifted to lie on my stomach. Mark took a mirror position, pulling the dirt away when it kept falling back in the hole, as if the earth didn’t want to give up what we’d found.

A sweep of the brush revealed the forehead–the frontal bone, I corrected, AP Biology coming in handy sooner than I’d thought. Then the nasal bone, the brow ridges, the cheekbones and maxilla. Even if I hadn’t remember the names, their shapes were iconic, the stuff of nightmare and mortality.

I gently smoothed the dirt from the eye sockets with my thumbs and wondered what was the last thing this man had seen. The relentless wave of a flood? The snake that had bit him? Did he stare his own death in the face before the end?

Or was that the end of him at all? 

Texas Gothic

I’m off by a day.

Long weekends always through me off. Yesterday I thought it was Sunday, today was Monday when I woke up. It’s a good thing I figured things out mid day or I would miss my plane. (I’m headed to Birmingham (Alabama) tomorrow.)

ANYway, last week I posted book news, which is that the paperback of The Splendor Falls comes out on January 11, 2011, and that I have a new book, titled Texas Gothic, coming out in early summer.

Then I asked y’all what you thought a book with that title would be about, which was a big mistake, because your ideas were so good, I’m totally stealing them intimidated that the actual plot won’t measure up. That’s what I get for having creative readers.

All the comments were so great, anyone who submitted one gets a prize. (You just have to wait until I get back from Alabama next week, provided I don’t wig out (again) on the plane and end up detained by Homeland Security.)  Just email me at rosemary at readrosemary dot com and I’ll send you a neato keen button… either Maggie Quinn or Splendor Falls. (Or both, if you ask nicely. But only one each.)

What’s the book really about?

Amy Goodnight is the only normal one in a family of psychics, ghost whisperers, kitchen witches and mad scientists. She’s looking forward to escaping her family’s reputation in college, but first she has to spend the summer farm-sitting for her Aunt Hyacinth.  Unfortunately, she can’t escape the freaky, as magic, ghosts, dead bodies, ancient secrets and modern feuds keep her hopping. (And one handsome cowboy just keeps her hopping mad.)

If you like the Maggie Quinn books, you’ll definitely like Amy and her sister Phin, and if you enjoy The Splendor Falls, this has a lot of the spooky romance from that book, plus the adventure of the Girl vs. Evil series. Something for everyone.

*Spoiler*

Except vampires.

Talk to you next from Beautiful Birmingham!

(Dear Homeland Security. Just kidding about wigging out. Really. I’ll be fine.)