Into that world inverted...

Team Human's publication is really coming up fast... in a month and four days, on July 3rd, to be precise, and yes I might be counting the days...

I was so happy to receive the news--from a writer friend, meaning I got to tell my publisher and co-writer, so I felt fancy--that I have my very first Publisher's Weekly starred review. Behold it!

Larbalestier (Liar) and Brennan (the Demon’s Lexicon trilogy) affectionately poke fun at vampire tropes and, in the process, create a memorable story about love, prejudice, and the lengths to which people will go in service of both. High school senior Mel Duan is not impressed when a 150-year old vampire (who looks like a teenager and talks like a 19th-century poet) enrolls in her school. Sure, New Whitby, Maine, is known for its large vampire population, but the vamps and humans keep to their own. Mel finds Francis merely annoying until her best friend Cathy falls for him and decides to become a vampire herself, at which point Mel shifts into full-blown protective mode. This smart and entertaining novel—part Nancy Drew with vampires, part thoughtful and provocative story about assumptions—fully blooms in the second half. Themes of honest friendship and freedom of choice mix with zombies, accidental romance, a diverse and complex cast, and sharply funny dialogue to create a thoroughly enjoyable read with a core of unexpected depth. linky

You may recall that Kirkus also wowed me by giving Team Human a starred review!

VOYA, who have a different system from stars but this review as you can see is shiny!

4Q 5P J S
Larbalestier, Justine, and Sarah Rees Brennan. Team Human. HarperTeen, 2012.

Mel is a realist in an unreal town where vampires and humans have learned to cohabitate in relative peace. Unlike some of her fellow citizens, Mel does not yearn to work with or date vampires. In fact, when a vampire is a new student at her high school, Mel would like nothing more than to avoid him altogether. Unfortunately, Mel’s best friend, Cathy, starts to fall for the new guy. Throughout, Mel remains team human, even as she comes to better understand the vampires who are so important to the people around her.

What is interesting about this book is that the authors both uphold the conventions of the contemporary vampire romance and comment on it. The book remains sympathetic to the popular vampire story; however, antithetical to the Twilight saga, Mel, our teenage female protagonist, is critical of the romantic vampire mythos, especially the pederastic relationship between centuries-old vampires and real teenage girls. In the end, like so many readers, Mel begins to better understand the appeal and her inevitable connection to vampires, though she remains committed to human endeavors.

Reviews in trade (publishing and generally book-ly, the reviews official-like) magazines are a sort of sign to me: a beacon or a smoke signal. Your book is COMING! Here is what some people THINK of it! Because really, what people think of it is what matters.

I haven't been this nervous, in this way, since waiting for reviews and thoughts when the Demon's Lexicon was published three years ago. In fact, I wasn't this nervous back then, because now I am twice as nervous: for Team Human and Unspoken both, for the verdict of public opinion. The new book is another country: people might see you differently there.

It is also strange, to go from nobody having seen something you've written, to a few people, to what you've written being out there in the world, available to anyone. Strange and awe-inspiring, and terrifying. It does feel a little bit like waiting in a court room for a verdict to be pronounced: Good Book or Bad Book, happiness or sorrow, victory or defeat. Possibly this is not how all people feel: sound off about the importance of others' views or lack thereof below. ;)

But I'm very, very happy that people like Team Human so far. The book is coming! The book is almost real! The best is yet to be.

Every Gothic novel has someone tall, dark, devastatingly good-looking and dangerous to know... on account of they hate everyone they know.

Meet Unspoken's Angela.



Now let us speak of Nine Coaches Waiting, and its unusual Gothic hero.

LINDA: I have always dreamed of going back to my childhood home of France!
LINDA: Now that I am in Paris, I realise that home is where you make it, that wherever I go I bring myself with me, and that you cannot hope to revisit the past!
LINDA: Oh no, I got my epiphany over with in the first chapter, this book isn’t about my voyage of self-discovery through the beautiful sensual land of France at all, isn’t it?
LINDA: Now I come to think of it, the mistress of the lonely chateau to which I am going was oddly specific about her new governess not knowing the language of the country in which she was about to be stranded. And my parents knew Leon de Valmy, who manages the estate for his nephew, and my parents totally hated him and were glad he got paralyzed in a terrible accident…
LINDA: … Oh no. This is a Gothic novel, isn’t it?
LINDA: I would have much preferred to star in LINDA DOES FRANCE.

( Nine Coaches Waiting, or Waiting To Do France )

Mary Stewart is a fantastic writer, but her heroes usually drive me up the wall. They constantly keep super-important secrets from the heroine for her own good (TOUCH NOT THE CAT – why would you want to know the identity of the man you’re psychically dating? and AIRS ABOVE THE GROUND – Should I have mentioned before we got married that my entire life is a lie? Nah, I’m sure it won’t be important) and direct contact with them often makes her heroines, smart, competent, great ladies for the most part, start thinking about the weakness of women and how strong and manly manly men are.

But I actually really like Raoul, who is a pretty sensitive portrayal of a Gothic hero. Growing up in a Gothic family would be a nightmare! Being suspected of murder by the woman you love would be unspeakably horrifying and hurtful, but very few books engage with that.

…. So Mary Stewart made me think about Gothics, and what I wanted to do with a Gothic hero, in a different way.

The Gothic novel had come a long way from JANE EYRE, where nobody ever even discusses the fact that Jane’s charge Adele has been living in the same house as a bitey pyromaniac with a drunk guard for ages.

As ladies became less helpless, someone else had to be in danger. And that someone else could be a kid. So Philippe is really the Gothic maiden in NINE COACHES WAITING. Kids in danger, and being protected and rescued by the intrepid heroine, also feature in Jennifer Crusie’s super-modern (published 2010) MAYBE THIS TIME.

So, kids in danger. All kids are extremely vulnerable before adults—they can be moved to Gothic manors, they can be hurt, they can be afraid with that particular sense of powerlessness, they can be unloved without the possibility of divorce. Gothic novels and young adult fiction, man. It seemed a perfect fit.

So Gothic heroes in distress and kids in danger are a big thing in Unspoken.

Robin Scherbatsky: 'This just in' is what I'm going to say when I'm stabbing you.

Isn’t that a great opening line?



So, I was watching The Avengers last weekend with my roomie (good movie! Evil brothers, kickass ladies, just what I like) and an agent fighting on the side of light and wearing tight pants like all the important people in the Avengers do, caught my eye.

SARAH: That’s Robin! Robin from How I Met Your Mother! I love Robin!
ROOMIE: I know you love Robin.
SARAH: I’m going to go straight home and watch How I Met Your Mother.
ROOMIE: We’ve been down that road before. You know how that ends.

How I Met Your Mother has this very common problem. The HIT problem. HIT does not mean ‘is hugely successful!’

It stands for Hero Is Terrible.

It is a sitcom told from the point of view of a dude who’s telling his two kids how he… met their mother, who over seven seasons is yet to be revealed. It’s mostly about his wacky hijinks with his bunch of friends.

Side characters, awesome! Lovely couple Marshall and Lily, free-wheeling singletons Robin and Barney. Ted, the hero on a search for fairytale love who acts like fairytale love is owed him and is deeply narrow-minded, however, gets up my nose so far he hits brain.

It also has the common sitcom problem where there is very little character continuity or development and sometimes all the people in it are just amazingly awful for the sake of comedy. What can you do?

So I watch it on and off until I get annoyed/Ted becomes unbearable/I get annoyed because Ted is unbearable.

But I always love Robin. That does not change.

Let us talk about Robin Scherbatsky, Canadian lady reporter living in America, commitmentphobe and sass bucket, dedicated to fun times and good drinks.



Admittedly, Robin’s job is not a huge feature of the show, except for when it causes her to have comic mishaps.

Ted: So, you're a reporter?
Robin: Sorta, I do those fluff stories at the end of the show, like... Monkey can play a ukulele. I'm hoping for some bigger stories.
Ted: Bigger... like, a Gorilla with an upright bass? Sorry, you're very pretty.

(Thank God, Ted does not get the girl! TED, THE PREMISE OF THE SHOW—ALL ABOUT HOW THIS TERRIBLE DUDE MEETS THE GODFORSAKEN MOTHER OF HIS UNFORTUNATE CHILDREN-- FORBIDS YOU ROBIN'S HAND! PRAISE THE LORD, GLORY HALLELUJAH. Because though people put themselves down all the time, other people don’t have to put them down, and dudes do not have to dismiss ladies’ jobs.)

But it is always shown as an important thing to Robin, who is ambitious.

Don: Look, Robin. You seem like a nice kid, but this is my 39th morning news show, and from those 39 shows I've learned a few things. 1. Avoid the all you can eat sushi buffet in Bismarck. 2. Don't go to the bathroom with your lapel mic still on, and 3. Your entire audience at this hour is one half-drunk slob sitting in his underwear.
Robin: Well let's do a great show for that half-drunk slob.

( How I Met Your More Awesome Friend )

D’awwwwww. Reporter ladies who rock and boys who adore and support them for the win. Also, comedy!

I admit... I have a favourite fanvid. (Yes, you have correctly assumed from this confession that I have watched more than one.) It is, of course, from Robin's POV.



And of course, a lady reporter with an imaginary man is extremely relevant to my UNSPOKEN interests.

Ted Mosby: You are driving me crazy! No wonder your fake husband moved to Hong Kong!
Robin Scherbatsky: [deadly serious] He moved there for business!

I love you, Robin. Shut up, Ted.

I have just espied with my little eye that Ms Justine Larbalestier has put up the first chapter of Team Human!

Soooo, I hope you will all enjoy it.

We also recently got our very first Team Human fanart. And it's a COMIC STRIP! Isn't it gorgeous?

I hope you all enjoy ALL the things!

So, Anne Hoppe, the editor for mine and Justine Larbalestier's TEAM HUMAN, told us that they would be doing a photoshoot for the cover. 'Cool' we said. 'Very fancy!' we added, because often covers are made from stock photographs and not photographs taken specially.

Anne continued that she and other wise people at Harper Collins were going to choose models for the four characters they wanted on the cover: Mel, our sporty wisecracking heroine who thinks vampires are losers, Cathy her pensive, book-loving best friend who thinks vampires are dreamy, Kit, who was raised by vampires and is kind of a mommy's boy, and Francis, the dreamiest vampire and most accomplished lute player of them all.

'I can't wait to see them!' I said in an agony of joy.

'Wait,' said Anne. 'You will both be in New York around that time, won't you? Do you want to come to the photoshoot? It'll be quite bor--'

'DO I EVER!' I said. 'I must choose what to wear to the photoshoot?'

My roommate pointed out they were unlikely to be taking pictures of me, given that we would be surrounded by models.

'So... dress inconspicuously, you're saying,' I said wisely. 'Business ninja chic. I gotcha.'

Aside from the heels covered in polkadots, I like to think I accomplished my goal.

The photoshoot was located at the top of a very tall building. New York has no shortage of those. I, naturally, got lost and Scott Westerfeld, Justine's other half, was deputed to come find me. Having secured me, I was deposited with Justine and our editor Anne outside some large, black doors.

I was VERY nervous. I'm not sure why. I had never done anything so fancy as go to a photoshoot for my own cover before, so I didn't want to get going to the photoshoot wrong.

ANNE: Do you want a drink of water before we go in?

SARAH: Is that a trick question?!

We were ushered in to a large, warehouse-like room, with material fold-out chairs like directors' chairs where we could sit. And racks of clothes, and people bustling about four very attractive people.

We'd seen a rough sketch of the cover, so we knew how they were going to be positioned--three on the front, the heroine in the centre, one on the back. We hadn't seen the people actually chosen to portray the characters before.

I admit it, I was staring.

SARAH: There they are! THERE ARE OUR BABIES.

JUSTINE: No, no, no. There are people you don't know. Quit giving them the google eyes.

SARAH: *googles hard*

There was a black backdrop, and lights that shone like the eyes of intently watching vampires. There were outfit changes, and we got to leaf through the models' bios and hear how they were chosen. Justine took pictures, like a normal person.



Our Francis and Cathy, posed together under the lights.

I stalked the models, like a crazy person.

At one point I sidled over to the model playing Mel. She told me her name, but I continued to think of her as Mel.

SARAH: Hiiii. Oh, I, uh, I wrote the book. With the Australian one over there. Me. Me and her. Hiiii.

MEL: Hi. So, cool that I'm going to be in the center!

SARAH: Yes. YES. You are the star. You are the MOST important. You look JUST RIGHT. You have an EXCELLENT smile. And also eyes.

MEL: Oh... thank you.

MEL: *starts to edge away from the googly eyes*

I wish I could tell you that was where it ended, with me debatably hitting on our cover model. But... that would be telling you a lie.

The models playing Mel and Kit began to talk to each other. They were laughing and chatting, and seemed to be having a good time. Everyone was having a good time! Photoshoots are so much fun.

SARAH: Justine... Justine look!

JUSTINE: Why must we keep staring at these people?

SARAH: Look at them talking to each other!

JUSTINE: Sometimes people do that. And sometimes they hiss at other people like maniacs. Apparently...

SARAH: MAYBE THEY WILL FALL IN LOVE!

JUSTINE: Sarah, please tell me you are not matchmaking our models. Though they do seem to be having fun togeth... Sarah where are you going?

SARAH: I'm going to go lurk behind the sofa so I can see them better. SEE HOW THEY ARE GETTING ALONG.

ANNE: What is she doing? Can we stop her?

SARAH: Secret agent mannnnn... secret agent mannnnn... they've given me a sofa... and taken away my name...

I think the Mel and Kit models thought that I had lost an earring behind that sofa. Better that way. Much better that way.

On covers, models mostly look quite serious and dramatique, as they are on a mission. (Friends don't let friends date vampires!) But as the photoshoot went on, we did see that the Mel and Kit models both had really great smiles.

It seemed a pity not to record them.

ANNE: Do you guys want to go to lunch now?

SARAH: Noooo I don't wanna gooooo I wanna stay here with my people and my sofa and my--

JUSTINE: Yep. Lunch. Great idea! But before we go... Hi, guys, would it be okay to get a picture before we go?

MEL & KIT MODELS: Yes, of course! *model faces*

JUSTINE: Hey, relax, this is just fun.

KIT MODEL: Oh... okay then! Well, in that case...

That was when Kit startled Mel by grabbing her and lifting her right off her feet! We all started laughing. I also googled so hard it's a wonder my eyes didn't fall out.



ANNE AND JUSTINE: Bye guys thanks you were great!

SARAH: Goodbye I love yoooooo-

ANNE AND JUSTINE: *drag Sarah off*

I admit I find being a writer a super cool adventure. But I know other authors handle it with aplomb and elan. I cannot help freaking out and bringing shame to a legion of poker-faced badasses. Such is my fate.

ANNE: I hope you guys liked the models we chose!

JUSTINE: Oh they were amazing.

SARAH: I loved them! Maybe I loved them TOO MUCH. And I love staring creepily at people!

It is clear to all that, of the two of us, I have a natural affinity for Team Vampires. Vampires, good starers.

And this was the cover we wound up with...




My babies. *continues googling*

In Justine's native land of Australia, we are being published by Allen & Unwin, and they decided to use the same photoshoot but make the cover different, to suit the different Australian market! Thus is much beauty brought about by a photoshoot.

Behold!



I hope you guys like the models and the covers and most of all, I hope you like the book.

Just last week, we got confirmation that Kirkus like the book, because they gave Team Human a STARRED REVIEW.

Both lovers and loathers of teen vampire romance will revel in this hilarious satirical take on the genre.

Mel might not exactly have her own life sorted out, but she’s always been there for her BFFs, Cathy and Anna. She indulges Cathy’s passion for history, ruins and old things in general; that is, until Francis Duvarney enrolls in their high school. Vampires may be both dead and deadly, but they are also a legally tolerated minority and even tourist attractions—and Francis, with his mesmerizing good looks and stuffy arrogance, is irresistible to an old-fashioned girl like Cathy. Meanwhile, Anna sees Francis as an unbearable reminder of the collapse of her parents' marriage. Mel knows her duty to both of them: prove that Francis is up to no good, whether the clues lead her into the city's terrifying vampire district, the school's rat-infested basement, or even the arms of a cute guy. While primarily an affectionate parody of the genre, filled with clever allusions and devastating snark, the story also sympathetically illuminates the allure of vampire romance, for characters and readers alike. In an unexpectedly poignant turn, it becomes a celebration of love in all its forms: crushes and spouses, parents and children, brothers and sisters, families born and created, and, above all, friends tested and true.

Laugh-out-loud funny, heart-wrenchingly sad and fist-pump-in-the-air triumphant, this sparkling gem proves that vampires, zombies and even teenagers … at heart, we're all on Team Human.

I googled pretty hard at that, let me tell you.

TEAM HUMAN, coming to a store near you July 3rd.

RESTRAINING ORDERS FILED BY MODELS AGAINST ME, hopefully not coming at all. But you never know.

There is a Diana Wynne Jones tribute going on, and I have kept thinking and thinking about a way to contribute to it, and kept feeling entirely and massively inadequate.

I never met her, and if I had I don’t think she would have been terribly impressed. I would have just stared with damp adoration, and maybe said ‘I loooooove your books’ in tones more unutterably creepy than I can describe to you. It would have been like Gollum saying ‘I am rather fond of costume jewelry.’

Robin McKinley, in her tribute to Diana Wynne Jones, which is, fair warning given, much better than this one is going to be, said ‘I was a better worshipper than I was a friend.’ That is how I would have been if I’d ever met Diana Wynne Jones—I just flat-out would never have believed she wanted to talk to me or that I could ever have had anything interesting enough to say. (That is certainly how I feel about Robin McKinley.)

I cannot talk about her as a Fellow Writer because honestly I feel like as a writer she was like a star—so, so far away, and yet so illuminating to me. I’d be much too overawed to do that.

But I eventually thought I could talk about her as a reader, because I wanted to talk about her while the tribute was ongoing.

I always planned to write her a letter—a real letter, I mean, on paper that I’d post to her, because that seemed more Real and Like Tribute, and I started that letter so many times. It was an ongoing project of mine, starting the letter to Diana Wynne Jones, and then putting it by, in a desk, until I was better, until I could say it right.

I never sent any of the letters. I never even finished one. But I did want to write this.

When I found out Diana Wynne Jones had died, I just quietly shut up my laptop and immediately went to Belfast. This doesn’t sound like a very impressive reaction, but when I came home my roommate was a bit frantic. ‘You left your computer!’ she said. ‘OVERNIGHT! Is everything okay?’

I’d just wanted to be alone for a bit, with the weird feeling of loss for a woman I never met, and without torturing myself reading all about other people’s feelings about Diana Wynne Jones, which I knew I would do if near my computer. And indeed once I was back to my computer, that was what I did, and I cried and felt a little better.

Cassandra Clare and I were doing a bookshop event together, and we were asked about our favourite books and our favourite heroes in them, and she said ‘Howl in HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE!’ and I said ‘Oh, you wench, that was what I was going to say!’ Cassandra Clare at another time when she was not creeping all up on my fictional boyfriends, said: “People who know and love the same books you do have the roadmap of your soul. I believe that.”

I believe that, too.

A girl I was vaguely friends with in college said ‘I love Harry Potter and I wish there were more books like that’ and I said ‘I have something so much better for you’ and brought in an armful of books by Diana Wynne Jones the next day. She was, I think, alarmed and somewhat put off by my extreme fervor, but she read them, and she asked for more. She may have thought she’d be in trouble if she didn’t read them, mind you…

She now lives with me and has for years, and is one of my closest friends. She reads everything that I put in her hands. It’s possible we’re in some sort of hostage situation that I’m just really oblivious to.

Diana Wynne Jones has marked epochs in my life: not simply the first discovery of CHARMED LIFE, a battered paperback that neither of my parents seemed to have ever read, in my house (Magic book-lovin’ elves seems to be the only answer there), or the discovery of THE LIVES OF CHRISTOPHER CHANT on my first trip to the library when I was about twelve, where I also discovered Robin McKinley and Margaret Mahy and a lifelong love of fantasy. The first book I was ever sent for a professional review, when I sat about on a worn red sofa and felt like a Real Official Author, was ENCHANTED GLASS (of course it was a rave).

One such moment in my life stands out very vividly: being at a fair in Guildford, when I was twenty-three, wandering disconsolately around because living in England was new and I was having a hard time making friends and I missed both my Irish and my American friends. There were stalls of fruit and used clothing, mainly, and the bright orange fabric covering miles of melons and yards of shawls seemed frankly oppressive. I was in, if it is not obvious, a somewhat jaundiced frame of mind. The sky was grey and it was raining, that fine persistent drizzle that everyone always just tries to ignore. ‘Oh no, it’s not really raining, and it’ll let up in a second anyway!’ I call that rain Frizzle Drizzle, because your hair will frizz right up and your clothes will all be damp and one particular awful icy trickle will go right down your neck, and you’ll be miserable, and you still won’t go inside.

My jumper was damp, my spectacles much beflecked, and I think you have a picture of how my hair looked already. I saw the tiny stall with just a very few books in it, instantly gravitated toward it, and began rooting through them with my vaguely numb red paws. And I came upon a copy of THE OGRE DOWNSTAIRS, the 1977 edition (before I was born) with the cover illustration gone all sepia and an inscription inside with love to a stranger. A Diana Wynne Jones I’d never read before! Suddenly the whole day was bright. I passed over a 50p coin and retreated with the book clutched to me. I read it leaning against a gray brick wall by the fair, body angled to protect the book. My hair at this point might have been setting off cyclone alarms in the weather report and all my edges were chilled, but I was happy and at home.

Books can be like that, a light in a hearth or a beacon welcoming you, something to rush toward. Books like Diana Wynne Jones’s taught me that.

Her books taught me a lot of other things: that children’s books were just as smart and important as adult books, never to believe that fantasy or publishing were American-centric, that fantasy could seem real and true and near, always to have the magic on the doorstep with the milk bottles.

Her books left memories I have easy access to, which occur to me at random moments in my life like jewels on a chain

There are the horror of Christopher realising the packets of fish were mermaids in THE LIVES OF CHRISTOPHER CHANT, the ‘everyone’s got to have hobbies, and ours is human sacrifice’ moment in THE POWER OF THREE, the feeling like drinking bleach faced with the fact that people you love cannot be trusted to love you back or treat you well in FIRE AND HEMLOCK. I realise at this point I sound like some sort of book masochist, but I find misery in books really enjoyable. Crying madly over fictional death is cathartic! And if a book can make me feel anything deeply, then it’s a GOOD book.

But also, sometimes—and with Diana Wynne Jones, often—the misery in books tells you ‘You are not the only person who ever felt this way. You are not alone.’

I never met Diana Wynne Jones, but she kept me company.

And her books did a lot of fun things for me, too: Diana Wynne Jones has the dubious honor of writing the most heroes I have crushes on. Christopher Chant, Howl, Malcolm McIntyre, all have a place in my Fictional Boyfriends Hall of Fame. Her books did perhaps the most important thing that books do—they made me laugh, and taught me that smart, wonderful, heartbreaking books could make you laugh, and that humour never diminished them in any way.

In CHARMED LIFE, there is a moment when the protagonist Cat takes out a bunch of stuff from the castle of the nine-lived enchanter who is now his guardian, but even simple things like china plates are magic there—and they all start to shout out their protest.

‘I belong to Chrestomanci Castle!’ they say. ‘I belong to Chrestomanci Castle!’

Because of Diana Wynne Jones, who I never met, I was irrevocably altered: my purpose in life, the things I wanted, the way I think and the way I communicate with other people. Her words changed my world.

That means a lot. She meant a lot to me.

Part of me belongs to Chrestomanci Castle. It always will.

I was at the Sirens convention in Denver last year, sitting on a sofa and talking about my all-Gothic-novels-all-the-time project. Rachel Manija Brown spoke up, with a conspiratorial smile on her face.

RACHEL: Have you read anything by Isabelle Holland?
SARAH: Oh yes. Yes I have had that experience. Yes.

I am going to tell you guys about TRELAWNY by Isabelle Holland.

TRELAWNY was published in 1974, so it is one of the MODERN GOTHICS, and it is (and I use these words advisedly, as a Professional Writer and an amateur reader of all the things) totally cray cray. It belongs to the period of a few years when I believe everyone writing Gothics all decided at once that they could get away with ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING. Personally I blame Virginia Andrews? I’m not saying my case would hold up in court, but Virginia Andrews has a shifty look about her.

TRELAWNY is also set in America, which is a modern Gothic thing. The Gothics stretch out to incorporate the New World! ‘Guys,’ said America. ‘We can have manors and people being inappropriate with their relatives TOO. Hello we keep women in attics all the time? Please read Charlotte Gilman’s THE YELLOW WALLPAPER? Pass us a slice of the Gothic action.’

A lot of the modern Gothic is set in the South, and it is known, with brilliant originality, as Southern Gothic. Which is a big favourite of mine! But TRELAWNY is set in Maine, which I also enjoy because the vampire city Justine Larbalestier and I created in TEAM HUMAN is set in Maine. I like Maine! Mysterious things go on in Maine.

And in TRELAWNY, oh boy, they do.

So let’s proceed with the story of the most hilarious twins in literature. Because of course, a Gothic novel is nothing without its Gothic family.

STATE TROOPER: Ma’am I hate to ask but are you brutally murdering someone in the back seat of your car?
KIT TRELAWNY: That’s just my cat. She’s slightly Siamese. Since we’re talking, could you direct me to Poop Manor?
STATE TROOPER: …. Ma’am?
KIT: Uh. I mean, Trelawny. A huge mansion that used to belong to my snotty aunt, who despised my dying lower class mother, and my hotass but assfaced twin cousins Giles and Nicholas. My mother and I left the mansion never to return and I have built my life as a college graduate and successful book editor to show them I didn’t need them and spit upon them! And now they’re all dead and I get the mansion.
STATE TROOPER: I’m very happy for you.
KIT: I’m going to turn it into an artists’ colony. That will show my aunt! Take that, Trelawny assfaces!
STATE TROOPER: So you’re giving up your home, life and successful career in order to upset your dead aunt?
KIT: That’s correct, yes.
STATE TROOPER: Just take a left turn at ‘Emotionally Unhealthy Decisions’ and you’ll get there in no time!

( The Terrible Twins of Trelawny )

So that was Trelawny, perhaps the weirdest Gothic novel we have so far. It upholds the tradition of the cursed but beauteous manor, the jerk hero, the Evil Family and their Dark Secrets. It also reminded me how many Gothic heroes have scars—and made me think about how different having noticeable scars would be for a kid, rather than a grown up soldier dude.

And then there is the twins factor. There are twins in many a Gothic novel. Twins can be creepy. Twins, as we have learned in TRELAWNY, can be switched, sometimes over and over and over again.

So I thought it would be fun to have twins in UNSPOKEN. They’re identical. (OR ARE THEY?) (No, they are.)

And I'm not doing one now, but Saundra Mitchell asked if she could, and of course I said yes absolutely! She also said smart things about boys and girls: about which I agree completely. a) A girl is not a machine you put kindness coins into until a relationship falls out and b) a girl is not responsible for a dude's feelings.

She puts it more stylishly, of course. She writes historical: she wouldn't say dude.

"Do you know what I've missed since coming here? Books. I do miss reading novels, don't you?"
-Zora, The Springsweet

Even though there are two guys and one girl in THE SPRINGSWEET, it doesn't feature a love triangle. Instead, what it features is—I'll be honest—my reaction to a weird pop culture insistence.

Namely, the insistence that if a guy really, really likes a girl, she's somehow obligated to be his girlfriend.

If he makes a crazy big grand gesture like, I don't know, watching you sleep every night, or watching your whole life through a telescope, or following you around with a boom box*, then obviously, that's true love and you must respond in kind.

Except, no. There are lots of perfectly great people, but the brilliance of being an individual with agency means you get to decide your own destiny. You're in charge of yourself and your feelings. Other people's persistence isn't currency. They don't get to buy your love with enough extraordinary acts of attention.

So, I haven't written a love triangle at all. (I'm not sure I could, they're pretty complicated to get right.) But I have (I hope!) written a young woman who has agency and who uses it. I think if she weren't stuck in 1891, Zora would get along splendidly with Mae, actually.

You can make up your own mind, though. Enter to win a copy of Sarah's THE DEMON'S LEXICON, and a signed set of Saundra's THE VESPERTINE and THE SPRINGSWEET. All you have to do is comment in this entry, and leave an e-mail address where we can contact you.

And tell us about your favorite book, too. Growing a TBR pile is the best gardening there is! This is the only stop on the blog tour that will be open to international entries.



THE SPRINGSWEET
A Companion to The Vespertine
by Saundra Mitchell
Hardcover & E-book
From Harcourt

“A high-quality, absorbing drama.”

– Kirkus Reviews, 02/01/12

* A boom box? Whoa, this IS historical fiction... - SRB

Unspoken Mix from SRB on 8tracks.

Would you just look at what I did. This is a moment of proud technological achievement for me, folks.

I was asked twice about an Unspoken playlist in one day, and took this as a sign. Tah dah!

Explanations, and also other songs that I couldn't get on the playlist, below.


We should get jerseys, cause we make a good team – Must Have Done Something Right, by Relient K

(Kami Glass, and her determined creation of teams, and teamwork! Every girl reporter needs a street team.)

The more she ignores me the more I adore her – Just The Girl, by the Click Five

(Angela Montgomery Hates The World.)

It isn’t hard to love your scars, because that’s everywhere you’ve been – Be My Only, by FM Radio

(Jared Lynburn, human disaster. Do not let him get attached. Even if you are an inanimate object such as a book or house.)

I'm not perfect, but I keep trying
’Cause that's what I said I would do from the start – Perfect, by Hedley

(Ash Lynburn, conscientious soul, and the effort he puts in trying to be something he’s not.)

All the boys wanna catch me, but I’m just playing - Supergirl , by Saving Jane

(Holly Prescott, cheerful femme fatale. But also the other girls, too, now and then, when they’re on a roll.)

I got it all figured out
I got no worries that I’m worried about – Good To Be Me, by Uncle Kracker

(Rusty Montgomery’s life philosophy)

Are you gonna be like your father was and his father was?
Do you have to carry what they've handed down?
No, this is not your legacy, this is not your destiny – Family Tree, by Matthew West

(There’s a reason the series is called the Lynburn Legacy, and that’s because the Glass-Lynburn-Montgomery-Prescott Legacy was unwieldy. Everyone’s got a family, and terrible secrets that they don’t know—or even worse, they do—and there is always the spectre of history repeating itself.)

I’ve been keeping my mind wide open, yeah,
Oh your love is a symphony
All around me, running through me – Your Love Is A Song, by Switchfoot

(I know, I know, it’s a religious song, shame on me! But love of the invisible and yet surrounding, love of the dead but not forgotten, love and faith: it’s a theme.)

Half of my heart’s got a real good imagination, half of my heart’s got you – Half of my Heart, John Mayer and Taylor Swift

(Uncertainty about love, about how to define it, about the power of imagination. Also about my endless devotion to Taylor Swift.)

Wherever you go
If my heart was a house, you’d be home -- If My Heart Was A House, by Owl City

(The series is a lot about home, and what makes a home: a manor, a town, another person, you yourself.)

If you wanna slow down,

We can slow down together – Stay Here Forever, Jewel

(Specifics would be a spoiler. But I read the song as about the push and pull of a relationship, and the potential ease of it.)

Finally I'm worth it, though I'm not perfect – Best of Me, by the Letter Black

(Co-dependence, baby, and born romantics. Memo: my born romantics are almost always boys, and this almost always goes badly for them.)

She never let on how insane it was
In that tiny kind of scary house
By the woods – Black Dove, by Tori Amos

(The song for the Gothic novel, the woods and the house and the fear of madness.)

What about gold beneath the sea?
What about when buildings fall? What about that midnight phone call,
The one that wakes you from your peace?
Well, I am not in need. – What About Everything, by Carbon Leaf

(The theme song for the series, really: people are scared a lot, and running to each other’s rescue a lot through strange surroundings. Some of them are very damaged. But they’re strong people, too: they learn to be able to trust in their own strength.)

If I had not included Miss Marple in my Sleuth Thursday posts, I would currently be homeless.

In fact, I might be dead, murdered by my housemate the Durham Lass, who would be found sewing innocently and looking like Snow White and with a large ceremonial knife cleaned and back in its place in the museum where she works. She’d definitely get away with it, too.

My housemate is a big Miss Marple fan. We have watched the Miss Marple box set (the series starring Joan Hickson, and no other Miss Marple is spoken of within our walls). She plans, when old, to have a rose garden and solve crimes. In preparation for that day, we both drink a lot of tea and discuss lady sleuths. Miss Marple is her hero.

Of course, I was keen to write about Miss Marple anyway. Agatha Christie had a legion of imaginary friends as a child, which fits in well with UNSPOKEN, and is so very best-selling that Miss Marple may be the most famous lady sleuth we have.

Which is OK, as Miss Marple might be the greatest lady sleuth of all time.



One piece of writing advice I think is excellent is to read bad books. The things that are very annoying are often very inspiring. ‘I will do better than that,’ you think. ‘I will fix that.’

The thing that annoyed Agatha Christie when she created Miss Marple was a play of her own book, THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD. In it, the narrator has a spinster sister called Caroline. ‘Caroline can do any amount of finding out by sitting placidly at home.’

In the play they made Caroline a foxy young lady. Well, come on, we see it all the time… what good is a girl who isn’t there to be foxy? Agatha Christie was like ‘OK. OK. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! The elderly gossipy spinster lady who is always a side character is going to be the detective. You try to write her out then. You try. Come at me, bro!--Agatha Christie.’

( Miss Marple )

There’s another thing, and it is this: Miss Marple talks a lot. So does Kami of UNSPOKEN. So do I. Ladies are often seen as chattering away about inconsequential things. Chatty Cathys: not too bright, and in some cases actually crazy. ‘Mad, quite mad’ murmurs the colonel to the vicar in THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE, as Miss Marple begins to explain who the murderer is.

He has to shut up his face because Miss Marple is, of course, absolutely right. You can be very old, very young, very feminine, very chatty… and be the smartest person in the room.

And that’s why I love Miss Marple.

In non-Marply news, am having a fabulous time in Chicago at the Romantic Times convention and hoping to see any of you around: Teen Day is open to the public!