First, I’m beyond thrilled to announce that Wendy Higgin’s amazing Sweet Evil Trilogy made the USA Today and NYT’s coveted Bestselling Series lists. How fabulous is that?
Don’t forget my four Pick Any YA Novel giveaways this month! You can find a list of them right here.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
YA GIVEAWAY OF THE WEEK

Life by Committee
by Corey Ann Haydu
Hardcover
Katherine Tegen Books
Released 5/13/2014
Some secrets are too good to keep.
Tabitha might be the only girl in the history of the world who actually gets less popular when she gets hot. But her so-called friends say she’s changed, and they’ve dropped her flat.
Now Tab has no one to tell about the best and worst thing that has ever happened to her: Joe, who spills his most intimate secrets to her in their nightly online chats. Joe, whose touch is so electric, it makes Tab wonder if she could survive an actual kiss. Joe, who has Tabitha brimming with the restless energy of falling in love. Joe, who is someone else’s boyfriend.
Just when Tab is afraid she’ll burst from keeping the secret of Joe inside, she finds Life by Committee. The rules of LBC are simple: tell a secret, receive an assignment. Complete the assignment to keep your secret safe.
Tab likes it that the assignments push her to her limits, empowering her to live boldly and go further than she’d ever go on her own.
But in the name of truth and bravery, how far is too far to go?
What is your favourite thing about LIFE BY COMMITTEE?
My favorite part of my second novel is the character Sasha Cotton. I wanted to capture a very specific type of girl to be my main character, Tabitha’s foil. I didn’t want your average enemy– the kind that has hurt you and is mean to you and that you hate for those reasons. I wanted a character for Tabitha to be jealous of and pained by even though Sasha never actually does anything to her. I wanted to capture something more complicated and, in my experience at least, common. Obsessing about someone and hating someone who you desperately wish you could be more like. Mistaking truly deep envy for distaste or anger.
Sasha Cotton feels full and real to me, and I don’t feel that I’ve seen many characters like her in YA fiction. She’s spacey and sexy and unusual and sad and needy and dreamy. She’s everything Tabitha could never be. And she exposes something ugly in Tabitha, which makes her even more exciting to me. Some people are catalysts– not necessarily of actions, but of feelings. Some of them bring out the very best of us and some bring out our very worst. I wanted to write a character who would stir of the very worst in Tabitha. And I wanted her to be somewhat unassuming. Not cruel. Not flashy. Just quirky enough to drive someone crazy.
Purchase Life by Committee at Amazon
Purchase Life by Committee at IndieBound
View Life by Committee on Goodreads
BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS
Did you see the post at Cuddlebuggery that posted the tweets of the convo between JK Rowling and George R. R. Martin on the 16th Anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts? No? Go now.
The Indie’s Choice winners were announced a while ago, and I missed posting the news and congratulations. Congrats to:
- Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell (WINNER)
- Dark Triumph, by Robin LaFevers (HONOR)
- The Dream Thieves, by Maggie Stiefvater (HONOR)
- More Than This, by Patrick Ness (HONOR)
- Rose Under Fire, by Elizabeth Win (HONOR)
- The Summer Prince, by Alaya Dawn Johnson (HONOR)
A first edition set of the Harry Potter Books sold at auction for $19,000. Yes, you read that right. And no, they weren’t signed, but there was one card included with her signature.
Lionsgate talked about why the Allegiant book is going to be split into two films.
Oh, and by the way, Divergent sold eight million copies the first quarter of 2014. Eight. Million.
I loved this letter from a young Eudora Welty to the New Yorker pitching herself for a job.
And this graphic on how to tell if you’re reading a Gothic novel? Awesome.
WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK
Insecurity is just an ordinary hound tricked out with phosphorous to make him look scary. ~ Margo Berendsen








