Amy Plum's Blog, page 15
July 11, 2014
Wereboars and Easter Eggs (and an AFTER THE END deleted scene)
Sometimes, when a group of authors gets together, Things happen. Creative Things. Silly Things.
Like the 4-author easter egg that Josephine Angelini, Tara Hudson, Aprilynne Pike and I used. We all managed to get the phrase “Huzzah, death!” into the final draft of one of our books. (That story here.)
Another time, 6 authors swore to get the word “wereboar” into their books. It is a term we made up while staying in the Loire Valley. (I had told the others of how I saw an enormous wild boar cross the road in my headlights late one night, and could totally imagine how, with beasts like that running around, werewolves had been dreamed up. Thus the wereboar was born.)
To date, Natalie C. Parker has put it in BEWARE THE WILD, Tessa Gratton will have it in a novella coming out this year, I tried to put it in AFTER THE END. (It was deleted in edits, so I included it in the acknowledgements.)
Earlier today in my Specially Designed Reading Room (aka the bathtub) I was reading an ARC of Josephine Angelini’s upcoming TRIAL BY FIRE, and there it was on page 283!
So, to make up for the fact that I still haven’t succeeded in immortalizing the term in my own books, I thought I’d give you the deleted scene from AFTER THE END where I tried to slip in the word. It is in Tallie’s cabin, and she’s talking to Juneau. Enjoy!
I swallow my bread and nod toward a rifle resting in a rack over the door. “Is that for hunting?”
She shakes her head. “I’m too squeamish to kill anything unless it’s about to kill me. It’s more for protection.”
“From what?” I ask.
“Oh you know. The usual,” she grins. “Vampires, sparkly or no. Bigfoot. Wereboars.”
I shake my head in confusion. “Cultural references from the last three decades are lost on me.”
“You haven’t heard of Wereboars?” she says, feigning shock. “They’re normal looking men most of the time, but as soon as they step into Washington D.C. they turn into these huge, hairy, slavering pigs. Some people call them politicians.”
I laugh.
“As you noticed, I’m living a bit off the grid,” she explains. “No one knows I’m here. Especially Uncle Sam.”
“Why?” I ask. “Are you running from the law or something?”
She shakes her head. “You’re the guest, so I get to grill you first. But I’m not even going to do that until tomorrow morning. You done with the food tray?”
“Yes. Thanks,” I say as she clears it away. She comes back, pulls the throw blanket off the back of the couch and drapes it over me. Poe squawks and jumps down to the floor to avoid being trapped by the blanket, and then hops up to the back of the couch and closes his eyes.
“You sleep now. The door and windows are locked, although I have a feeling that if the people after you were headed this way, we would have already heard from them. But, as to not take any chances, I’ll take this to bed with me.” She grabs the rifle from off the wall and lays it on the ground next to her bed.
I fish my crossbow out of my bag, assemble it, and place it next to the couch. It’s cold comfort, and less powerful than Tallie’s shotgun, but I feel safer knowing it’s by my side.
June 2, 2014
My first kiss (a video for Bethany Neal’s debut novel MY LAST KISS)
Last year I read Bethany Neal’s upcoming novel MY LAST KISS and enjoyed it so much that I gave it this blurb:
So when Bethany asked me to host her in her pre-release run-up, I suggested that we each make a video about our first kiss. Here is Bethany’s!
(The author’s fingernail.)
LOVE IT!!! Sounds like it could be straight out of a middle-grade novel!
And here’s mine:
Sounds like it could be straight out of Deliverance. 
Ha! That took some real digging to remember, but it was worth serving up in honor of Bethany’s upcoming book! Want to hear more about it?
Great cover, non?
MY LAST KISS
What if your last kiss was with the wrong boy?
Cassidy Haines remembers her first kiss vividly. It was on the old covered bridge the summer before her freshman year with her boyfriend of three years, Ethan Keys. But her last kiss—the one she shared with someone at her seventeenth birthday party the night she died—is a blur. Now, Cassidy is trapped in the living world, not only mourning the loss of her human body, but left with the grim suspicion that her untimely death wasn’t a suicide as everyone assumes. She can’t remember anything from the weeks leading up to her birthday and she’s worried that she may have betrayed her boyfriend. If Cassidy is to uncover the truth about that fateful night and make amends with the only boy she’ll ever love, she must face her past and all the decisions she made—good and bad—that led to her last kiss.
AUTHOR BIO:
Bethany Neal writes YA novels with a little dark side and a lot of kissing from her Ann Arbor, Michigan home. The things she is obsessed with include, but are not limited to: nail polish, ginormous rings, pigs, dream analysis, memorizing song lyrics, pickles, dessert, predestined love, not growing up, sour gummy candies, music videos, Halloween, and fictional boys who play guitar.
MY LAST KISS is her first novel. Click here to read an excerpt! Connect with her online at www.bethanyneal.com and follow her on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @BethDazzled.
You can pre-order MY LAST KISS here:
Pre-order My Last Kiss on IndieBound
Pre-order My Last Kiss on Amazon
Pre-order My Last Kiss on Book Depository
Pre-order My Last Kiss on Powells.com
GIVEAWAY
If you would like to win a signed copy of Beth’s MY LAST KISS and my UNTIL THE END, just follow Beth on the following sites:
Goodreads (“want to read” the book)
Each follow puts your name in the hat once, so let me know how many points you have in the comments below. Contest ends on MY LAST KISS’s publication day (June 10). (International, as always!)
May 28, 2014
My first kiss (a video for Bethany Neal’s debut novel MY LAST KISS)
Last year I read Bethany Neal’s upcoming novel MY LAST KISS and enjoyed it so much that I gave it this blurb:
So when Bethany asked me to host her in her pre-release run-up, I suggested that we each make a video about our first kiss. Here is Bethany’s!
(Bethany’s fingernail. Mine don’t grow that long.)
LOVE IT!!! Sounds like it could be straight out of a middle-grade novel!
And here’s mine:
Sounds like it could be straight out of Deliverance.
Ha! That took some real digging to remember, but it was worth serving up in honor of Bethany’s upcoming book! Want to hear more about it?
Great cover, non?
MY LAST KISS
What if your last kiss was with the wrong boy?
Cassidy Haines remembers her first kiss vividly. It was on the old covered bridge the summer before her freshman year with her boyfriend of three years, Ethan Keys. But her last kiss—the one she shared with someone at her seventeenth birthday party the night she died—is a blur. Now, Cassidy is trapped in the living world, not only mourning the loss of her human body, but left with the grim suspicion that her untimely death wasn’t a suicide as everyone assumes. She can’t remember anything from the weeks leading up to her birthday and she’s worried that she may have betrayed her boyfriend. If Cassidy is to uncover the truth about that fateful night and make amends with the only boy she’ll ever love, she must face her past and all the decisions she made—good and bad—that led to her last kiss.
AUTHOR BIO:
Bethany Neal writes YA novels with a little dark side and a lot of kissing from her Ann Arbor, Michigan home. The things she is obsessed with include, but are not limited to: nail polish, ginormous rings, pigs, dream analysis, memorizing song lyrics, pickles, dessert, predestined love, not growing up, sour gummy candies, music videos, Halloween, and fictional boys who play guitar.
MY LAST KISS is her first novel. Click here to read an excerpt! Connect with her online at www.bethanyneal.com and follow her on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @BethDazzled.
You can pre-order MY LAST KISS here:
Pre-order My Last Kiss on IndieBound
Pre-order My Last Kiss on Amazon
Pre-order My Last Kiss on Book Depository
Pre-order My Last Kiss on Powells.com
May 8, 2014
Signed bookplate offer
I probably live very far away from you. Too far to meet me to get your book signed. That is why I came up with my signed bookplate offer.
The bookplate design was created by Johanna Basford, the Scottish artist who drew the swirls for the covers of the DIE FOR ME books.
My gorgeous bookplates are produced by BookPlateInk.com
And this is what it will look like inside your book:
The plates are my gift to anyone who writes an honest Amazon and/or Barnes & Noble review for any of my books. One bookplate per book reviewed.
Just send an email to katieloumercier at gmail dot com (add appropriate punctuation and squish everything together) telling me what your Amazon and/or B&N user name is and your mailing address, and I will send it to you.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to write a novel-unless you want to. Just a sentence is fine! And let me make this very clear – you can leave WHATEVER review you want. I am not buying positive reviews here. Just say what you thought of the book(s), and that’s good enough for me!
The offer is international and is good until I run out of bookplates.
Thank you all for your enthusiastic support!
Signed bookplate offer for AFTER THE END
I am happy to announce that I am doing a signed bookplate offer for my new book: AFTER THE END.
If you haven’t already seen them, here they are. Aren’t they pretty? The drawings were done by Johanna Basford, the Scottish artist who drew the swirls for the covers of the DIE FOR ME books.
My gorgeous bookplates are produced by BookPlateInk.com
And this is what it will look like inside your book:
The plates are my gifts to anyone who writes an honest Amazon and/or Barnes & Noble review for AFTER THE END. Just send an email to katieloumercier at gmail dot com (add appropriate punctuation and squish everything together) telling me what your Amazon and/or B&N user name is and your mailing address, and I will send it to you.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to write a novel-unless you want to. Just a sentence is fine! And let me make this very clear – you can leave WHATEVER review you want. I am not buying positive reviews here. Just say what you thought of the book(s), and that’s good enough for me!
The offer is international and is good until I run out of bookplates.
Thank you all for your enthusiastic support!
April 14, 2014
AFTER THE END blog tour
I am excited to announce that the AFTER THE END blog tour starts TOMORROW, April 15!
I will post more details tomorrow, but just to tell you that the tour is being hosted by the amazing folks at Mundie Moms, and will be including the following stops:
The Tour
4/15- YA Bibliophile, review
4/16 – Two Chicks on Books, interview w/ Miles
4/17 - Curling Up with A Good Book, author interview
4/18 – Page Turners Blog, review
4/21 – Myra McEntire, *truth or Dare
4/22 – Good Books & Good Wine, review
4/23 – Kimberly Derting, *truth or Dare
4/24 – Me, Myshelf, and I, guest post
4/25 – Colleen Houck, *truth or dare
4/28 – Courtney Steves, *truth or dare
4/29 – Beth Revis, *truth or dare
4/30 – Reading Lark, review
5/1 – Supernatural Snark, author interview
5/2 – Anna Carey, *truth or dare
5/5 – Mundie Moms, review
5/6 – Josephine Angelini, *truth or dare
5/7 – Once Upon A Twilight, review
5/8 – Aprilynne Pike, *truth or dare
5/9- YA Fantasy Book Junkie
Yes – we’ve got both bloggers AND authors hosting the tour this time, with the theme “Truth or Dare.” You won’t want to miss it!
And just to make things more fun, I will be giving away a prize for every day of the tour, including 6 iphone shells that look like this:
and 13 signed hardbacks of AFTER THE END, which look like this:
(But you already knew that.)Also, starting now, everyone who pre-orders a copy of AFTER THE END will receive this awesome water bottle:
The deets:A free AFTER THE END water bottle will be sent to the first 300 people to pre-order AFTER THE END!
Just send your mailing address with receipt to katieloumercier@gmail.com and a bottle will be sent straight to you!” Here are links to pre-order at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or order it ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD from Book Depository.
Check back tomorrow for a link to the first stop on the tour!
April 10, 2014
If I Should Die paperback is out – extras including an epilogue!
I am thrilled to announce that the U.S. paperback version of IF I SHOULD DIE has finally released! Why do you say “finally”, you ask? Because, readers, this version has some very juicy extras. For example:
For Kate: A Love Letter from Vincent
An Immortal Interview: Readers’ Questions for Amy Plum
Songs to Die For: The Official If I Should Die Playlist (Chosen with the help of fans)
Immortal Inquiries: An If I Should Die Discussion Guide
Sneak Peek: An Excerpt from Amy Plum’s Next Novel, After the End
and…drumroll…
The Epilogue
Yes…there is an epilogue to the DIE FOR ME series. So many readers had asked me what came next for our Paris friends that when Harper asked me to do these Extras, I immediately thought of writing an epilogue.
Or…asking Gaspard to write an epilogue, rather.
It’s around two pages long and starts: “It has been five years since the Champion took her stand against the numa of Paris.” I really hope you enjoy it. (Be sure to write me and let me know if you do!)
The US paperback can be ordered here!
Blurb heaven
AFTER THE END just got an awesome blurb from the oh-so-fabulous Marie Lu!
“Wonderfully riveting. A fascinating twist on the apocalypse, and a reminder that things aren’t always as they seem.”
—Marie Lu, New York Times Bestselling author of The Legend Series
This one joins a blurb from Sophie Jordan:
“Exciting and tense! Prepare for the unexpected! You’ll stay up all night with this one!”
— Sophie Jordan, NYT Bestselling author of the Firelight series
and from Kimberly Derting:
“Amy Plum creates a chilling world where the stakes are high and no one can be trusted. After the End will leave you breathless!”
— Kimberly Derting, author of the Body Finder series
I feel so honored to get such nice compliments from such amazing storytellers!
April 3, 2014
YA Scavenger Hunt: April 3-6
Welcome to the Spring 2014 YA Scavenger Hunt!
April 3-6 (noon pacific time)
For you first timers, the YA Scavenger Hunt is an online blog hop created by the lovely and talented Colleen Houck. It’s a chance for you to see bonus material by your favorite YA authors as well as winning amazing prizes.
If you came here looking for my bonus material, an exclusive VIDEO Q&A about my upcoming book AFTER THE END, you’ll have to keep hunting!
At each stop on the hunt, you not only get to meet a YA author and read their bonus material, but you get a clue to enter for a grand prize–one lucky winner will receive at least one signed book from each author on my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours—until noon PST on April 6!
You can start right here or you can also go to the YA Scavenger Hunt homepage to find out all about the hunt. There are TWO contests going on simultaneously! I am a part of the RED TEAM–but there is are also a blue team. You can enter both contests!
(If you get stuck as you are moving through the hunt, click through to this page.)
SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE
Directions: You’ll notice that I’ve included my favorite number at the end of the post. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the red team, and then add them up (don’t worry, you can use a calculator!).
Entry Form: Once you’ve added up all the numbers, make sure you fill out the form here to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the correct number will qualify.
Rules: Open internationally, anyone below the age of 18 should have a parent or guardian’s permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by April 6, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.
ARE YOU READY??? Here we go…
BONJOUR!
I’m Amy Plum, and I live in Paris.
Here I am on a French reality show with 2 famous French chefs (Norbert Tarayre and Jean Imbert) holding my French books. Is that French enough for you?
As my favorite French chefs are so kindly demonstrating, I’m the author of the DIE FOR ME series, a paranormal romance series set in Paris (which is where I live) featuring supernatural beings of my very own making called “revenants.” The first book of my new series, AFTER THE END, releases on May 6!
Now that I’ve introduced myself, I’m excited to tell you about the author I’m hosting today:
For this year’s scavenger hunt, I have the honor of hosting the creator of the scavenger hunt, Colleen Houck!
New York Times Bestselling author Colleen Houck is a lifelong reader whose literary interests include action, adventure, paranormal, science fiction, and romance. When she’s not busy writing, she likes to spend time chatting on the phone with one of her six siblings, watching plays, and shopping online. Colleen has lived in Arizona, Idaho, Utah, California, and North Carolina and is now permanently settled in Salem, Oregon with her husband and a huge assortment of plush tigers.
For more information about Colleen Houck, please visit her website at http://colleenhouck.com/.
The book Colleen is presenting today is from the Tiger’s Curse Books: TIGER’S PROMISE
About TIGER’S PROMISE:
Before the curse, there was a promise. A prequel to the bestselling Tiger’s Curse series, this much anticipated novella recalls the beginning of Ren and Kishan’s story. Before Kelsey there was a girl, raised by a villain, whose love for a hero changed the course of history.
TIGER’S PROMISE can be pre-ordered here on Amazon.
For her scavenger hunt BONUS MATERIAL, Colleen has given us an EXCLUSIVE VIDEO in which she answers readers’ questions about TIGER’S PROMISE.
How awesome is that? So the video is our exclusive content from the fabulous Colleen Houck. But that’s not all I’ve got for you! There are TWO contests you can enter.
YA SCAVENGER HUNT CONTEST
Enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of signed books by me, Colleen Houck, and many other authors! To enter, you need to know that my favorite number is 3. Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the red team and you’ll have all the secret code to enter for the grand prize! (See directions at the top of this post.)
My very own AFTER THE END Contest
You have a chance to win a fabulous prize pack including an ARC of AFTER THE END, a signed and dedicated hardback cover and a signed bookmark! (International.)How to get your points:
follow me on Twitter at @AmyPlumOhLaLa (1 point)
for each friend you get to follow me on Twitter you get 1 point (unlimited points)
like me on Facebook (1 point)
get friends to follow me on Facebook (1 point per friend)
subscribe to me on YouTube (1 point)
get friends to subscribe to me on YouTube (1 point per friend)
sign up for my newsletter (1 point)
get friends to sign up for my newsletter (1 point per friend)
Leave me a comment here under this blog post telling me how many points to give you. Just leaving a comment counts 1 point. (And if you have done 1-8, give me your user names and your friends’ user names so I can credit your points.) Please leave all of the information inside one comment, instead of a comment per person. The drawing will be random, but the number of points you get determines how many times your name will be put into the hat.
Note: to be eligible to win you also need to submit a valid entry for the YA Scavenger Hunt grand prize.
AFTER THE END WATER BOTTLE GIVEAWAY
And finally, I have one more thing to give away, thanks to our friends at HarperTeen. Following the “survivalist” theme of AFTER THE END, the first 300 people (U.S. and Canada only) who pre-order the book will receive an AFTER THE END water bottle that looks something like this:
author’s idea of what the mystery water bottles might look like
Although the bottles are already being made, there is no photo of the finished project, so this is just my best guess. If you want one of these bottles, pre-order AFTER THE END from one of these fine book purveyors [indiebound, books of wonder (signed, available June), amazon, barnes & noble] and send your receipt and mailing address to katieloumercier@gmail.com. We’ll zip your own Juneau survival water bottle straight to your mailbox!
Ready to go to the next website on the Scavenger Hunt?
March 21, 2014
Online Video Chat with Booktalk Nation, May 6 (w/Josie Angelini interviewing me)
Join me and Josephine Angelini for a special online video chat on Tuesday, May 6 at 7PM EST/4PM PCT!
Yes, Josephine Angelini, author of the STARCROSSED trilogy and of the upcoming WORLDWALKER trilogy will be chatting with me about AFTER THE END…live.
If you didn’t already know that Josie and I are book buds, here is proof:
Me & Jose w/Alyson Noel and Melissa de la Cruz
Josie, Heidi (YA Bibliophile) and me.
A witch and a zombie who just happen to bear a strong resemblance to Josie and me.
Um, yeah…things might just get a bit silly.
No matter where you are, you can sign up to join us. There will be time for your questions at the end, and you can even order a personalized, signed book. It’s like a live book signing except you don’t have to leave home to join and it supports independent bookstores.
Details can be found here at Booktalk Nation. Signing up is required, but this event is free!
See you all on May 6!
