Newsletter

Deal News! Cover Reveal! And Thoughts on Protecting Time

Books, Nattering, Newsletter / By /

Thanks to everyone who kicked in on the Lexington Writer’s Room fundraiser — we are so pleased with how we did. Reminder: We’re taking on new fully vaccinated members now. Yay.

I do have some news items to share, including another glorious rom-com cover, but, first, an attempt to get back to using this as a space to think through things. One of the things I’m thinking about a lot at the moment is making and protecting time. The most precious resource a writer has, maybe, besides stubbornness. As things begin to reopen a bit, and return somewhat to normal, I am certain many of us have forgotten what it means to protect our time.

For many of you, it probably wasn’t an option for the past year, especially if you have children. For the rest of us, as things start to return to the previous state of business, there’s the temptation to say YES. TO EVERYTHING. YES, I will teach this. YES, I will go there. YES, I will do that favor. YES, let’s have this event or go to this place. And some of these are extremely good YESES.

I do my best to live by the rule of only saying yes to things I would say yes to if I had to do them tomorrow. Not agreeing to things that will disgruntle you at yourself for saying YES is important. Particularly, if you — like me — need to not feel all that busy in order to do your best work. When I’m in an intense writing period, I try to protect my space as much as possible. I put as few things on the calendar as I can. Because I know I need that time and space, even if I’m only actively writing during a couple hours of it. If I have a bunch of appointments or meetings, there goes the day. I’m not saying I always get to do this; sometimes life is busy and the work has to happen anyway and that’s okay. But it’s a great way to flirt with burnout (been there) and I’m trying not to do that anymore.

So, as we move ahead, and begin saying YES, a gentle reminder to remember that saying YES to what you need for your work is also important, valid, and something you absolutely can do. Even if it means saying no to other people and things that you wish you could say yes to (and that you don’t, real talk). I’ll be working on it too.

Speaking of work, I’ve been feeling incredibly energized this spring. If you follow me on social media, you may know that I signed with a second agent to handle my books for adult audiences, the wonderful Kate McKean at Howard Morhaim (and will continue to work with the wonderful Jennifer Laughran at Andrea Brown on kids/YA projects). Well, one of my news items is that Kate and I just sold our first book together. Another rom-com with St. Martin’s, and one I’m so excited to dig into and bring to life:

Y’all, this one’s going to be big fun.

And speaking of big fun, here’s the cover and description for The Date from Hell, aka Callie & Luke book two. The design is once again by Kerri Resnick (genius) and the illustrations by Louisa Cannell (so good). Voila!

About the book, coming April 2022:

After saving the world and stopping the apocalypse, Callie and Luke are looking forward to a quiet, romantic weekend together. When you’re human and dating the Prince of Hell, quiet moments are hard to come by. But their romantic weekend in Hell takes a turn when Lucifer tasks Callie and Luke with chasing a wayward soul around the world. If they can prove it’s possible to redeem a soul, Lucifer will allow the two of them to make some changes in Hell.

But this wayward soul, Sean, doesn’t have any interest in being redeemed. Instead, now that he’s back on Earth, he’s decided to take a leaf out of Callie and Luke’s book and wants to find the Holy Grail. Now Callie, Luke, their friends—and enemies—must race Sean around the globe on a Grail quest and bring peace between Heaven and Hell before they can finally (maybe) get around to that date.

In The Date from Hell, the sequel to Not Your Average Hot Guy, New York Times bestselling author Gwenda Bond brings the journey of Callie, Luke, and their friends to a wonderful close. This is another laugh out loud, action packed romantic adventure you won’t want to miss.

Preorder: 

Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/books/the-date-from-hell/9781250771766​
Amazon (Kindle): https://amzn.to/3uHkl08  (*Note that the paperback edition isn’t available yet for weird data reasons, but soon.)

B&N: https://bit.ly/3hiwcOt

IndieBound: https://bit.ly/2Qcq671

BAM: https://bit.ly/3w14ABp

Apple Books: https://apple.co/3ocrZgv

Kobo: https://bit.ly/3eEy7Lx

Google: https://bit.ly/3eHbEgX

Look how pretty they are together:


You can find all the preorder links for Not Your Average Hot Guy right here. Preorders are the most important thing you can do to support an author’s upcoming books! As I’m moving into a different career space, I have a lot riding on these and, also, I hope they will delight you. So if you can preorder, please do. *smiles non-creepily* (A p.s. for reviewers and bloggers: NYAHG is now available on Netgalley for your requesting pleasure.)

And that’s all for this week! Be well and say NO with abandon.

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A Very Giant NEWS Post!

Admin, Adventures, cult faves, Nattering, Newsletter / By /

Greetings, lovely humans. Um, this is such an overdue post/tinyletter. I look forward to getting back to newsletters are that are me hemming and hawing about the creative process, because this one is going to have a lot of news about Cool Projects That Help Feed Humans, Dogs and Cats, so buckle in.

Probably the most shameful thing about not having done a newsletter is that mine and Christopher’s second middle grade came out! At the end of May! This means you can now get two books where smart kids solve mysteries in a hotel for monsters by this crack husband-and-wife writing duo. The Lost Legacy is now out in paperback, and The Sphinx’s Secret is in hardcover. These are books we wrote for our childhood fantasy-adventure-loving selves, to delight each other, and for the children we love best. They make great gifts for pretty much every type of middle grade reader in your life, and hey, you might even dig them as an adult. We put lots of little jokes and references in for each other, so it’s a little like unpacking the layers in a Pixar movie. The Sphinx’s Secret has: a secret Cabinet of Wonders in the basement of the New York Public Library, sphinxes now and in ancient Egypt, time travel, a sword with a name, an evilish wizard, and a very good dog! Who can resist?


Get this series wherever fine books are sold (if they don’t have it in stock, they can order it for you). Handy links to Amazon, B&N, HarperCollins, and Indiebound. And if you or your kids read and enjoy, Amazon reviews are always appreciated. They help people find books!

(Speaking of which the Lois Lane series is also all now in paperback, with Triple Threat’s paperback release in May — but there is so much NEWS I’m not even going to belabor that.)

I’ve told you guys about the super-fascinating collaborative style of Serial Box before, and now I can finally blab the details of the serial I created and wrote with the AMAZING Rachel Caine and Carrie Ryan. Dead Air grew out of my love of true crime, radio shows and podcasts, my town of Lexington and accurate southern stories (!!!), and mysteries. And I got to do it with two of my favorite writers and people who are also into those things. The details:

Explore your true crime obsession in a whole new way with Serial Box’s latest multimedia innovation in storytelling from three of today’s hottest storytellers Gwenda Bond, Rachel Caine, and Carrie Ryan. 

Welcome to Dead Air, where M is for midnight, Mackenzie…and murder.

Mackenzie Walker wasn’t planning on using her college radio show to solve a decades old murder, but when she receives an anonymous tip that the wrong man may have taken the fall, she can’t resist digging deeper.

It doesn’t take long for Mackenzie to discover gaps in the official story. Several potential witnesses conveniently disappeared soon after the murder. The victim, a glamorous heiress and founder of a Kentucky horse-racing dynasty, left behind plenty of enemies. And the cops don’t seem particularly interested in discussing any of it.

But when the threats begin, Mackenzie knows she’s onto something. Someone out there would prefer to keep old secrets buried and they seem willing to bury Mackenzie with them. Thankfully, she’s getting help from a very unexpected source: the victim’s son, Ryan. The closer she gets to him, however, the more important it is for Mackenzie to uncover the truth before he gets buried alongside her.

Read or listen to weekly ebook and audio episodes of the serial novel Dead Air and then check out Mackenzie’s podcast for a uniquely immersive experience. Does the truth lie in the serial, the podcast…or somewhere in-between?

This is going to be SO COOL, you guys! And I have a special discount code you can use to order that gives you 25% off the entire first season of ten episodes — you’ll get weekly episodes as synced up audio and ebooks in a nifty free app on your phone (or on your desktop or other device, whichever you prefer) and then you can check out weekly episodes of the podcast that are timed to go with the novel.

You can find out more about all this and how Serial Box works (think HBO for reading) here: https://www.serialbox.com/deadair​

Or if you’re like, I don’t need anymore I want to ORDER PLEASE — bless you — go to:
http://serialbox.com/redeem​ and use the code DEADAIRAPO18

It works out to $10.50 or basically a buck an episode and is only good until July 31. I can’t wait for people to get this one. I’m so proud of what we made together. Being a showrunner is a lot of work, but really fun.

You may be like, Gwenda, that is enough news. Surely that’s all the news, but um, sorry? Two more things!

I’m writing the first Stranger Things novel, which is a prequel about Eleven’s mother Terry and her experience with MKUltra. Cool, huh? I’m in the deadline cave hard on this one, feeling so lucky and grateful, and having an absolute blast. It’ll be out in February!


Annnd last but not least, I’m co-hosting a new podcast called Cult Faves with the one and only Cher Martinetti (who founded SyFy Fangrrls and is its editorial mastermind). We’re exploring our shared obsession with cults with each of us picking and leading a discussion of a different cult each week. It’s been a lot of fun so far and our first episode just dropped — we discuss our first introduction to cults, why we’re so fascinated with them, and then dive right in on a little known cult called The Source Family. So check it out and consider leaving an iTunes review? We’re doing this all DIY and every share or subscribe helps. Plus, I think it’s going to be such a fun trip. Take it with us!

We’re on iTunes and most everywhere else (or will be soon) (you can also find us by searching!) — or you can listen from our Anchor page. Because I love you, I’ll give you a sneak preview of what we’re doing for next week’s episode — we’re going to be talking about all about a cult that never actually existed, the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. SUBSCRIBE, Y’ALL.

And that is truly all the news! For now. More soon. That is actual content. In the meantime, I hope summer is treating you nice.

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Newlettered

Newsletter / By /

The site had a little downtime yesterday, so just posting here that, yes, I did finally do a newsletter. They'll be quarterly from here on out, or when I have news to share that can't wait (aka that I can't wait to share!). You can read it here and sign up to get future installments. And if you have requests for future installments, just let me know.

Bonus content in this one includes a sneak peek at the full hardcover jacket and paperback cover for Girl on a Wire. Both are gorgeous, and I feel so, so lucky.

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