COVER REVEAL: We Three Heroes

I’m SO thrilled to reveal the stunning cover for WE THREE HEROES — the next book in my bestselling series, The Medoran Chronicles — coming August 29th!

(Click on the images to expand them):

And the full cover with the GORGEOUS spine and back:

Unimaginably Surreal!!!

So this happened this week as reported by Books+Publishing!!!!

I can’t believe my books are at numbers #1, #3 AND #5!!!

*Passes out in dead faint*

It’s three days later, and I’m pretty sure I’m still walking around in a daze!! Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has bought a copy of any of my books and helped make this happen!!

As for my newest book, WHISPER, it only came out in May so it’s not included in the above, but it’s holding strong at number #3 on the YA charts (behind the incredible Sarah J. Maas and Becky Albertalli!!! Omigosh!!!)

AKARNAE excitement — Top 51!!

If you’ve been following my social media, you’ll know that AKARNAE has been nominated for the Dymocks Kids’ Top 51 list, which is unbelievably awesome!! I would be so, SO grateful if you could take a second to cast your vote for it (before Monday) — every vote counts!!

AKARNAE is listed about half to three-quarters of the way down the page (unless the order changes with each reload), and it looks just like this:

With the craziness of multiple book releases this year, I haven’t had a chance just to sit down and share the surreality of everything that has been happening, but please know that something like this is just insane to me. (In the BEST possible way.) I’m pretty much in a constant state of shock that The Medoran Chronicles have become a bestselling series and that so many people love following Alex and her friends on their adventures!

So thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for loving these books so much — and for making it so they even hit lists like this! YOU’RE ALL AMAZING!!

You can find the link to vote either by clicking on either of the above images, or simply by going here: https://www.dymocks.com.au/votes/top-51-voting

HUGS!

WHISPER — Available Now!

Eeeeee!!! This year is passing by SO quickly, but now that it’s May, the first book in my new series, WHISPER, is officially available!In a nutshell, WHISPER is like Stranger Things meets Divergent and it’s about a girl who has been locked away in a secret government facility for nearly three years, and in that time, she hasn’t spoken a single word. The question is, why?

I had the tremendous honour of working with Kate Egan on this (the editor of The Hunger Games) and I’m so thrilled that it’s my US debut! As of today, you can grab a copy from all good bookstores in US/CAN (blue cover) and AUS/NZ (white cover), or online from all the normal retailers like Amazon, etc., as an ebook (or to purchase the hardback or paperback with shipping).

I hope you all love this one! It’s also been blurbed by two incredible authors:

Sarah J. Maas, the #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Throne of Glass series and the A Court of Thorns and Roses series said:

“Compulsively readable, compellingly narrated, and so full of twists and turns that I couldn’t put it down until I’d turned the final page. I loved every sentence of Whisper.”

And Maria V. Snyder, the New York Times bestselling author of the Poison Study series said:

“A gripping and heart-wrenching tale. I was enthralled!”

On top of that, it’s been receiving some amazing praise from trade reviewers:

Overall, I’m soooooo excited for this to be out in the world!

HAPPY READING!!!

What does “YA fiction” mean to me?

I completely forgot that I was interviewed during Supanova last year! They’ve just posted the episode, so click on the video below to hear me chat about everything from what “YA” means to me, to my take on insta-love in fantasy fiction! (Plus some other fun answers!)

I’m up first, but after that you can keep watching to listen to the super-cool Vic Mignogna, or just skip straight to the end to watch the magnificent “God of Thunder” himself — Chris Hemsworth!

Three Weeks of Graevale Magic

The last three weeks have been filled with wonder after wonder, starting with the release of the fourth book in my Medoran Chronicles series. The Brisbane launch was held a week before the official release date, and over two hundred people RSVPd for the event (!!) which led to it being an incredible night! You can watch a recap of it here, along with a short Q&A I did with the lovely Jeann from Happy Indulgence Books:

There was also an AMAZING cake on the night (with the most delicious frosting!!) that displayed the tagline for Graevale — “Resist the shadows”:

Next up was the launch on the official release date — February 1st — at QBD Books in Maroochydore. So many people from all across the Sunshine Coast (and beyond) came out to the signing event, which was amazing! This is me with the seriously lovely QBD team at the end of the night:

Two days after that, I flew to Sydney for two launch events — the first at Galaxy Bookshop with a Q&A hosted by the lovely Annie from Read3rz Re-Vu:

… and the second at Dymocks Books with a YA Bookmeet hosted by the ever-wonderful Emily:

That was a HUGE day full of awesomeness and soooo many people — and I loved every second!

A few days later, I had the final launch event for Graevale at my local indie bookstore, Books of Buderim:

And all that brings us to the conclusion of the launch events! Since then, it’s been amazing news after amazing news, including the following: 

– Graevale topping the charts at #1 for Australian YA Fiction!

– In its first two days alone, Graevale sold more copies than Akarnae did in its entire first year of publication (!!!!!)

– After only 9 days of sales, Graevale had to go back for another reprint because the astonishing amount of sales were clearing out the warehouse! 

On top of all that, just a few days ago I received the following AWESOME news:

I’m still in happy-happy-yay-yay land from seeing both Akarnae and Draekora on this bestsellers list (at numbers #1 and #5) and I’m so grateful to everyone who has helped put them there — thank you!!!

A few of the other exciting things that happened in the last three weeks include a visit to QBD headquarters in Brisbane to sign a gazillion copies of Graevale:

… and to just check out their fabulous warehouse full of books, which was SO cool:

And speaking of signing heaps of books, when I was in Sydney, I dropped around to my publishers’ office to sign a few hundred copies of Whisper in preparation for its release on May 1st:

So, all in all, it’s been a MASSIVE couple of weeks (all of this since January 25th!) and in the background I’ve been editing We Three Heroes (coming September 1st) as well as slowly drafting the sequel to Whisper… along with a heap of media responses and emails etc. So it’s been busy, busy, busy but suuuuuuuper wonderful. And I’m SO excited for everything that’s coming next in this huge year ahead!!

Again, thanks so much to everyone for continuing to support me and my books! You’re all amaaaaaazing!!!!!

GRAEVALE LAUNCH DETAILS

Below are the details for the GRAEVALE launch locations. More information and RSVP links can be found on my events page. Can’t wait to celebrate the release of the fourth book in THE MEDORAN CHRONICLES with you!

The Last Few Months: An Overview

Oh, boy! It seems I’m a teeny bit behind on this post, since I’d planned to send this off at the end of October. So much for my monthly updates! OOPS! I promise to do better coming into the New Year!

A reason why this is so belated is simply because I’ve been so incredibly busy over the last couple of months that I’ve struggled to remember my own name at times! EEEK! So here’s a brief glance at all the seriously cool stuff that’s been happening:

First up, Akarnae was listed as one of the Top Ten YA Fiction Books for 2017 by Bookseller+Publisher, which completely blew my mind (and I still have trouble actually believing it). My publishers sent me the most GORGEOUS rainbow roses as congratulations and they stayed alive for ages, which was so nice! (The roses, not my publishers — though they’re still alive, too, haha.)

I also finished the final read-through of Graevale (coming February 1st) and the absolutely STUNNING cover was revealed across social media, as well as the blurb:

My US ARCs of Whisper arrived in the post, and it was so amazing to hold the international version of this book in my hands for the first time!

Since then, the Australian version of Whisper has also arrived, along with Graevale, so I’m surrounded by books — which is so cool!

In amidst all that, I finally took the holiday that my doctor told me to take a year ago (oops!), and I went to New Zealand for a couple of weeks. I honestly have no words for how incredible that trip was, and I got to do all kinds of fun things like kayaking (both sea kayaking along the Coromandel Peninsula and then again in a glacier-fed lake on the South Island), horse riding near Glenorchy (through Lord of the Rings scenery), a day trip out to Milford Sound, a helicopter ride up to Franz Josef Glacier and hiking over the ice for 3 hours, climbing all kinds of mountains and walking all kinds of trails, visiting Hobbiton, seeing glow worms — honestly, I just did so much and it was all AMAZING!! PLUS there was a freak snow storm that blew in and it was MAGICAL!!!

And don’t even get me started on the scenery itself! It was just like I’d stepped into a fantasy novel!! Photos do NOT do it justice!!

Once I was back from NZ, I did the final read-through of the US version of Whisper (coming May 1st) and then I flew to Sydney for “Holiday Part 2” which was seriously awesome as well:

Then, about a week after that, there was a surprise opportunity to fly to Melbourne to speak at the YA Showcase (which spotlights some of the books coming out next year), so I did a quick Q&A there:

If you want to watch the 4 (ish) minutes, you can do so here, because someone was kind enough to film an Instagram Live recording of it! (Boy, am I glad I didn’t trip and fall on my face! Just the day before flying in, I sprained both my ankle and my hand, so there was a very real possibility, haha):

While in Melbourne, I also snuck in a trip to see Aladdin the Musical with my amazing publisher, and omigosh it was soooooo awesome!!

And, also super unbelievably cool and fantastic, that same day I learned that Draekora has made it onto the longest for the Indie Book Awards, which is SO exciting!!

So that was all a crazy-crazy-crazy few weeks, and in amongst it all, I also did a Q&A at Avid Reader bookstore in Brisbane, as well as spoke on a panel at the Future Librarians Conference about the future of the book industry from an author’s perspective.

… AND THEN, on top of all that, just last week I finished writing a whole new book — in just 18 days! 

So, yeah, things have been a little busy of late, haha. (Understatement of the century!!) But I’m now sneaking in a few days of R&R for Christmas before jumping into everything again next week! And I have some SUPER exciting news coming up regarding launch events for Graevale, so stay tuned! It’s SO CLOSE now!!!!

Aaaaaand, because I’m a horrible person, I’ll leave you with a teaser quote for Graevale from the Rebel Prince we love to hate — or hate to love!

WHISPER – Full Cover Reveal!

So, so, SO thrilled to share the full cover for the AUS/NZ version of WHISPER, releasing internationally in May 2018!

(Click on the image to magnify!)

WHISPER Cover Reveal (AUS/NZ)

I’m absolutely thrilled to share the AUS/NZ cover for WHISPER — coming May 1st through Pantera Press (and KCP Loft in the US/CAN):

How stunning is it!!!!

And, even cooler, for a side-by-side look at both covers, check this out:

I am honestly SO EXCITED for this book to be released next year! You have NO IDEA!!!