SUPER SECRET ROMANIA PROJECT

Remember AGES and AGES ago when I went to Romania? Remember when we had that fun contest where you guessed where Shardas was? And he was in Bucharest and Sigisoara (can't spell that) and Sinaia? That was awesome, right? Then remember how I didn't talk about it for a looong time?

Well, guess what? I'm going to start talking about it again!

See, I came home from Romania in spring of 2010 and I really did write a book, using my travels as research. But then . . . I sort of sat on that book for a while . . . and that 'while' became four years. Because Super Secret Romania Project was so different from anything else I'd done, my editor and I kept pushing it aside. First because I wanted to finish my Twelve Dancing Princesses story arc, and get rid of the King Under Stone once and for all. Then there was a Castle, and that Castle needed some griffins. And then one day I was talking to my new editor about some story ideas and what to write next, and I said, "Or we could dust off SILVER IN THE BLOOD, ha ha!" and she said, "What's that?" And I found out that I had been sitting on that manuscript for so long that my trip to Romania had fallen into myth at my publisher, and people didn't even know if I'd managed to write a book about it or not.

But I did!  A book that I, personally, love so much that I'm about to wax biblical:

For thus the manuscript was duly brought out of hiding, and dusted off, and inspected from all angles, and lo, it was as good as I remembered. And my editor and I did work upon it, and we did love ye story.  But behold, it was very different from all previous books. And my editor said, "We should do something totally different with this cover."  And I did say, "Oooh, yeah."

And a choir of angels sang....

And thus we see this cover of this Advanced Reader Copy. Which I will soon be giving away, once I can think more clearly thereon. And the book may be procured July 7th, 2015, and is for Young Adults, and those who are Young Adults At Heart.

And furthermore: Check out the EVENTS page here on ye websyte, for there are book tour dates for THURSDAYS WITH YE CROWNE.

Technical Difficulties- FIXED!

First off, my humblest apologies to anyone who has tried to email me through my website for the past, um, three months or more. Seriously. HUMBLEST APOLOGIES. We don't know how it happened, or why, but about three months ago when we updated the site (and by "we", I mean: my husband, but he's not solely to blame, and I'll explain why in a sec), something happened. Whatever that something was (I don't know, because I think email is delivered by fairies), it blocked any emails that came through the website. So if you sent me a nice message in that little "contact Jessica" message box thingie, I didn't get it. We don't know where it went, but it didn't come here, and it didn't notify you that it was blocked either. I am very, very sorry.

And this is why my husband isn't entirely to blame: I didn't notice. For three months. At least. One day I'm getting a steady stream of emails, the next day nothing. And it takes me months to say, to the person that I LIVE WITH, Hey, I'm not getting any emails from the site, could you take a look? It's not that I'm stupid (really, it's not!), it's not that I'm THAT busy (those of you who follow me on Twitter know I do have SOME free time), it's actually this:

I am an author, and we are insecure.

Yep. You guessed it. I have seriously thought that what was largely fan mail dried up overnight because I suddenly had no fans. Or people reading my books. I have seriously been thinking, Well, I had a good run. I got some cute emails from kids that loved my books, some rocking high fives from librarians and adult readers, it's time to go away now . . .

Yep. We're THAT insecure.

So my husband fixes the email thingy today, with the greatest of ease, because he is awesome (and sent a message through the site saying he was awesome, in case I didn't notice). And I've already gotten two other emails.

Which means two very nice things:

The email dealie on my website is working.

I don't suck!