Amy Plum's Blog, page 20
March 25, 2013
Julesfest: Day 1
WELCOME TO JULESFEST!
Jules? Is that you?
Welcome to Julesfest, a week+ -long celebration of that undead hottie with the Pépé le Pew accent: Jules Marchenoir. Every day I will post a different photo of the sizzling hot revenant (or anyone who might slightly resemble him…like this guy who appeared when I googled “Jules model”).
Here are his vitals:
Name: Jules Marchenoir
Born: 1897, near Paris
Died: September 1916 at the battle of Verdun, age 19.
Hair: Sandy brown, curly.
Eyes: Tawny brown/chestnut.
Other vitals: 5’9”, scruffy hair, large rough hands, often has razor stubble, freckles on arms.
Defining characteristics: Gesticulates enthusiastically when he talks. Is an artist (painter).
Preferred weapon: Sword.
The whole reason for this fest is the April 2 launch of Jules’s own book, DIE FOR HER, which is an e-novella. You can pre-order it here.
And here’s the pretty cover, which is so Paris-licious it makes me want to roll around in a mountain of macarons. Hmm…where was I? Oh yes…
DIE FOR HER – Here’s the official summary:
Set in the romantic and death-defying world of the international bestselling Die for Me trilogy, this digital original novella follows Jules, a brooding, immortal French artist who has fallen in love with his best friend’s girlfriend.
Jules Marchenoir is a revenant—an undead being whose fate forces him to sacrifice himself over and over again to save human lives. He’s spent the better part of the last century flirting his way through Paris, but when he met Kate Mercier, the heroine from Amy Plum’s Die for Me trilogy, he knew his afterlife had changed forever and he had found the love of his life. Until Kate fell for his best friend, Vincent. Now Jules is faced with an impossible decision: choosing between his loyal friend and a love truly worth dying for.
So how do we celebrate Jules? Every day I’m going to be giving away a present, each one bigger than the day before. For example, today, Day 1, I’ll be giving away one of my brand new bookmarks, signed.
Tomorrow I’ll be giving away my brand new bookmark and the UNTIL I DIE bookmark, both signed.
Thursday, it’ll be the two signed bookmarks plus a signed and dedicated bookplate:
And the prize will keep getting bigger until April 2, on which those of you who have pre-ordered DIE FOR HER will be able to pick up your e-Readers and read it yourself!
On April 3, I will have the final JULESFEST GIVEAWAY, which will include 9 gifts!
And then on April 4, the JULESFEST will come to a close with the first day of the YA Scavenger Hunt, for which I am posting a video where I will read you a BIG CHUNK (maybe chapter 1) of DIE FOR HER.
Today, Day 1 of JULESFEST, all you have to do is leave a comment below telling me what your nickname for Jules would be if he were your boyfriend. Oh yes, I want to see inside your private life with the sexy revenant. So DO TELL!
I will randomly choose a winner every day and announce it on the final comment and on FB. Be sure to give me some way to contact you!
Let JULESFEST begin!!!
March 18, 2013
CONTEST MONDAY…in French!
Aujourd’hui j’ai un livre en français à donner pour CONTEST MONDAY.
(Today I’m giving away a French book for CONTEST MONDAY.)
Il s’agit d’Élégie pour un Ange par Marie-Alix Thomelin. J’ai rencontré Marie-Alix à la convention “Welcome to Mystic Falls 2″ à Paris l’année dernière. Elle m’a donné un exemplaire de son livre, et je l’ai bien aimé. Alors, j’ai voulu donner aussi à quelqu’un parmi mes lecteurs l’occasion de lire ce livre magnifique.
Pour qualifier, il faut juste “liker” son page FB ici, jeter un coup d’oeil sur son site web ici (il y’a un “video trailer” qui explique le livre), et me laisser un commentaire en me disant que vous l’avez fait. (Soyez sûr de me donner une façon de pouvoir vous contacter.)
Je vais choisir le gagnant mercredi matin.
Présentation de l’éditeur:
Marion est une jeune violoncelliste qui vient de réussir le concours d’entrée d’une prestigieuse école de musique. Elle fait la connaissance de deux séduisants musiciens qui ne la laissent pas indifférente : Gabriel, proche mais insaisissable, et Sam, qui lui propose un pacte qui pourrait changer sa vie. Marion va partir en quête de la vérité et aller au devant de bien des dangers. Au moment fatidique, fera-t-elle le bon choix ? Prélude est le premier mouvement du dyptique Élégie pour un Ange. Un roman en plein coeur du quartier latin, emporté par le son du violoncelle de Marion. Envoûtant et fascinant.
Biographie de l’auteur
Née en 1975, Marie-Alix Thomelin a grandi entre les quais de la Seine et l’embouchure de la Touques. Partageant son temps libre entre ses cours au conservatoire et la bibliothèque de Trouville, elle a vite dévoré tout ce qui lui passait sous la main. Elle a lu avec autant de plaisir les grands classiques que les maîtres du fantastique et de la science-fiction, mais ce n’est que bien plus tard qu’elle a osé se mettre à l’écriture, ou plutôt à sortir ses poèmes, nouvelles et romans de ses tiroirs pour les faire lire. Sa harpe l’a accompagnée tout au long de son chemin jusqu’au bac, où sa décision de ne pas devenir musicienne professionnelle l’a définitivement brouillée avec son professeur. Le conflit fut tellement destructeur qu’elle est restée plusieurs années sans toucher son instrument, mais heureusement, elle rejoue maintenant ! Vivant actuellement en Allemagne, elle partage son temps entre l’enseignement et l’écriture.
March 14, 2013
POISON Blog Tour stop: my first job (and how it changed my life)
This is Bridget Zinn, librarian and YA author from Portland, Oregon.
A couple of years ago I donated a French care package full of scrumptious goodies to a charity auction to help pay for her colon cancer treatments. At the time, Bridget was full of hope for life and excitement about the publication of her very first YA novel, POISON.
Not too long afterward, I was very sad to hear that Bridget had died. She never got to see her book come out. She never got to see the final version, which was released this week, on March 12.
I preordered it a few weeks ago…
Me with my pre-ordered copy of Poison on my iPad
Today, I am honored to take part in the POISON blog tour, in which we’re celebrating Bridget’s first book by telling about one of our own firsts. But before I tell you about my VERY FIRST JOB, let me tell you more about Bridget and her book.
About Bridget Zinn
Bridget grew up in Wisconsin. She went to the county fair where she met the love of her life, Barrett Dowell. They got married right before she went in for exploratory surgery which revealed she had colon cancer. They christened that summer the “summer of love” and the two celebrated with several more weddings. Bridget continued to read and write until the day she died. Her last tweet was “Sunshine and a brand new book. Perfect.”
Bridget wanted to make people laugh and hoped readers would enjoy spending time with the characters she created. As a librarian/writer she loved books with strong young women with aspirations. She also felt teens needed more humorous reads. She really wanted to write a book with pockets of warmth and happiness and hoped that her readers’ copies would show the watermarks of many bath time reads.
ABOUT POISON:
Sixteen-year-old Kyra, a highly-skilled potions master, is the only one who knows her kingdom is on the verge of destruction—which means she’s the only one who can save it. Faced with no other choice, Kyra decides to do what she does best: poison the kingdom’s future ruler, who also happens to be her former best friend.
But, for the first time ever, her poisoned dart…misses.
Now a fugitive instead of a hero, Kyra is caught in a game of hide-and-seek with the king’s army and her potioner ex-boyfriend, Hal. At least she’s not alone. She’s armed with her vital potions, a too-cute pig, and Fred, the charming adventurer she can’t stop thinking about. Kyra is determined to get herself a second chance (at murder), but will she be able to find and defeat the princess before Hal and the army find her?
Kyra is not your typical murderer, and she’s certainly no damsel-in-distress—she’s the lovable and quick-witted hero of this romantic novel that has all the right ingredients to make teen girls swoon.
Doesn’t that sound fabulous?!?!
Here’s how to purchase your copy:
Add Poison to your Goodreads pile!
Okay…so here’s my part of the blog tour, in which authors are asked to talk about one of their “firsts”…
AMY PLUM: MY FIRST JOB (AND HOW IT CHANGED MY LIFE)
My first real, non-babysitting job was at Orange Julius at Brookwood Mall, Birmingham, Alabama. I was 15. I wore a polyester outfit and matching visor in an eye-catching palette of poop tones (brown, brownish-yellow, brownish-orange). The job involved serving chili-cheese-covered hot dogs and fruit flavored drinks called Orange and Strawberry Juliuses. The only job skills required were the capacity to count change in your head, since the ancient cash register didn’t do that, and the ability to turn on a blender and slather hot dogs with chili-cheese sauce.
I was embarrassed by my outfit. I felt ashamed any time my crush, Joe Johnston, wandered by with his stoner friends. And I was completely mortified by the fact that, as the newest employee, the job of taking out the trash fell to me.
Taking out the trash meant rolling a big plastic trash can across the cobblestone floor of center atrium of the mall. The noise the garbage can made as it clattered across the stones was so loud and attention-grabbing that I might as well have been marching across the atrium banging a metal ladle against a frying pan.
Let me remind you that I was wearing poop-colored polyester bell bottoms, and this was the early 80s.
The faster I wheeled the garbage can, the louder it clacked against the stones. If I booked it across the atrium the noise level raised to an alarming machine gun-style rat-a-tat, turning every head in the vicinity. And if I went slowly it just dragged out the agony.
Here I must mention that Brookwood Mall was where all of the teenagers from my high school hung out. And the place they chose to sit was around the fountain in the center of the atrium, smack dab in the middle of my path. Of course, they found my garbage trek highly amusing.
One I reached the Employees Only door on the atrium’s far side, I huddled alone next to my garbage can, shaking and out of breath from my humiliating trek, before proceeding to the service elevator that carried me and my smelly burden to the ground level behind the mall where the huge metal trash receptacles were hidden. I would then lift the burgeoning trash bag out of the rolling can and heave it through a little window in the side of the metal receptacle.
Quality trash bags were not considered a priority by the management of Orange Julius. So inevitably the thin bags would burst as soon as I hefted them high enough to jam through the window. Or sometimes my arm would just go right through, plunging into a putrid sludge of rejected mustard, ketchup, and chili cheese.
In either event, many was the occasion where I stood next to the metal bin behind the mall, arm covered in chili sauce, crying.
It was on one of these occasions that I came up with my plan. I would escape Alabama, and its jeering teenagers, and move far far away. Like to New York. Or even London, where I would move deftly within a high society that had never heard of polyester or chili cheese dogs. But to do that, I had to prepare myself for how high society worked. I realized that with my modest upbringing, I would never reach my goal.
So I bought a 500-page copy of Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette and memorized the whole thing. I knew which spoon to use for aspic. I knew acceptable gifts for a nun’s birthday (television, luggage, or cash).
I even knew how to address the American ambassador (The Honorable). Which came in handy when he invited me to a cocktail party at his residence in Paris about ten years later.
True story.
Of course, I had forgotten to zip my cocktail dress up the back. But hey, I had reached my goal. And deep inside me there was a chili-smeared, polyester-clad teenager who was jumping around, whooping, and cheering me on.
To visit other sites in Bridget’s blog tour, go here, to Inara Scott’s site. And be sure to stop by Bridget’s page here.
March 12, 2013
Juneau Has a Title
A few days ago I sent a list of 62 possible titles for Juneau Book 1 to my editor. It was a total crazy brainstorm of a list, more meant to provoke thought than to offer a final choice, and some were pretty silly. (Juneau, for those who don’t know, is the name of the main character, and wasn’t ever meant to be a title.)
Today, while sitting in the hot tub with Anna Carey, Tara Hudson and Michelle Krys (okay…that was just so fun to write) I heard my iPhone buzz and saw an email from my editor that had honed the list down to three choices.
I told my hot tub companions the summary of the book, and the three potential titles, and we all voted for the same one. I reported the unanimous decision back to my editor, and she confirmed that the title of Juneau Book 1 will be…
are you ready?…*drumroll*
AFTER THE END
I hope it’s mysteriously vague enough to tempt you to read it. I can’t wait to see what the design team does with the cover!!!
And because I’m NOT going to give you a photo of the hottub where the voting action went down, here is a photo of the river running through our backyard. (I swam across it and back today. It was pretty cold. I’m the only one who has ventured in.)
February 25, 2013
CONTEST MONDAY: Cowgirl Camp (okay…authors’ retreat in Texas)
For this CONTEST MONDAY, I’m giving away one of my last ARCs of IF I SHOULD DIE…but you’re going to have to work for it! 
In two weeks I’m going to a writer’s retreat in Texas with the following folks:
Anna Carey, @AnnaCareyBooks
Rae Carson, @raecarson
Corinne Duyvis, @corinneduyvis
Sonia Gensler, @soniagensler
Tessa Gratton, @tessagratton
Bethany Hagen, @Bethany_Hagen
Tara Hudson, @thudsonwrites
Emily Kate Johnston, @ek_johnston
Gretchen McNeil, @GretchenMcNeil
Myra McEntire, @MyraMcEntire
Amy Parker, @amychristinepar
Natalie C Parker, @nataliecparker
Amy Plum, @AmyPlumOhLaLa
Beth Revis, @bethrevis
Carrie Ryan, @carrieryan
Victoria Schwab, @veschwab
Amy Tintera, @amytintera
Kim Welchons, @Kim_Welchons
Stephanie Winkelhake, @StephieWink
Brenna Yovanoff, @brennayovanoff
Fun, right? I promise to post lots of pics and bring back some good stories!
As for the IF I SHOULD DIE advance reader copy…I’m giving out points this time.
For each of the above authors that you follow on Twitter (or are already following on Twitter) you get 1 point.
For each author that you follow on FB (or are already following on FB) you get 1 point.
Post a photo of yourself with 1-5 books by these people on my FB page. For each book you get 5 points, up to 25 points. (Try to group all books into 1 photo – it’s easier for me to count! You can show me the book on your e-reader if you have a digital copy.)
You get 1 point for commenting below and telling me how many points you have. And please give me some way to contact you (twitter handle, email address, etc.) If you’re reading this on Goodreads, please leave the comment on my blog, not the Goodreads page!
I’m giving you a whole week for this contest, so will close it on Monday, March 4, 9am Paris time and announce the winner on Tuesday. The contest is international, as usual! Can’t wait to see what books you have!
February 14, 2013
Happy Valentine’s Day! (DIE FOR HER teaser)
I wanted to give you something romantically mushy on this VD, since I think you’re so cute and all. I can’t really give much mush from IF I SHOULD DIE without totally spoiling, so here is a tiny snippet of DIE FOR HER.
This happens after Georgia’s boyfriend’s concert. Jules is with the Italian girl he brought as his date—meanwhile Kate, Arthur, Violette and Georgia are facing off with the numa in the alleyway behind the concert hall.
The air in her studio is heavy with perfume. Giulianna drapes her coat over a chair and turns to face me. I lift her chin with my fingertips and touch my lips to hers. She’s soft and warm. I pull her closer, feeling my pulse accelerate as she presses her chest against mine. She runs one hand through my hair and traces circles behind my ear with her fingertips. Our kiss deepens.
Guilianna starts fumbling with the buttons of my shirt, and in seconds I’ve torn it off and am holding her in my bare arms and we’re stumbling toward her bed unable to stop kissing even while we’re pulling each other down to lie atop the scattered cushions.
I know what’s coming next. I look at Guilianna’s expertly made-up face, sink into her catlike beauty, and then close my eyes and I’m kissing Kate. I don’t even try to stop it any more—this happens every time. With every girl.
February 3, 2013
IF I SHOULD DIE theme song(s)
I listened to the IF I SHOULD DIE playlist several times, and there are two songs that stand out, both in 1. the lyrics being perfect for Kate & Vincent & the storyline of IF I SHOULD DIE, and 2. the music being the kind of thing I can imagine setting a Kate & Vincent scene to, if the book were a movie.
So there will be two theme songs for IF I SHOULD DIE:
Everything Good – by Ashes Remain (first nominated by Amanda Brown)
Keep Holding On – by Avril Lavigne (first nominated by Taliah)
both Amanda and Taliah will win an ARC of IF I SHOULD DIE!
Thank you EVERYONE for participating. As I listen to it, I will keep adding scene suggestions beside each song on this page. I love our playlist, and hope you do too!!
January 30, 2013
IF I SHOULD DIE playlist
Here is the final IF I SHOULD DIE playlist!!!
How I chose: I listened to your whole list of suggestions (only 1st on list) and picked out a couple I liked. Then you voted on your top 5, and I took that vote into account (but still took a couple off that I didn’t love). And then I added the last two songs because I listened to them a lot while I was writing the book.
As you’ll see, I’m little by little adding scenes that go well with the songs.
Coldplay – The Scientist
Evanescence – Bring Me To Life
Sleeping At Last – Turning Page
Coldplay – Fix You
Avril Lavigne – When You’re Gone
Jason Mraz – I Won’t Give Up
Avril Lavigne – Keep Holding On
In The Mourning by Paramore
State of Grace by Taylor Swift
My Darkest Days – Still Worth Fighting For (fight scene in the Passage du Cerf)
Florence + the Machine – Seven Devils (for the walk into the Arenes de Lutece)
Ashes Remain – Everything Good (the walk in Brooklyn)
The Wanted – I found you
Parachute – forever and always
Gorecki – Lamb
Sufjan Stevens – The Dress Looks Nice on You
The XX – Angels
You can listen to most of them on this Spotify list.
Now I have to decide which song best represents the book as the THEME SONG in order to choose the winner of the ARC!
January 29, 2013
IF I SHOULD DIE: teaser #4
I could have had a love like that with Vincent. I had felt it. There had been something right about us: It was bigger than just two people in love. When we were together, it had been like one of nature’s true and rare beauties; like an impossible beam of sunlight piercing through black clouds, bathing the patch of earth before you in gold. Together, Vincent and I had created something beautiful.
(from page 63).
For the other teasers, go here!
Just a little taste of wintertime Paris for you!
January 23, 2013
CONTEST WEDNESDAY – IF I SHOULD DIE playlist
Okay, people…I can’t do it. I can not listen to 154 songs and choose a dozen, 1. because I am doing edits on DIE FOR HER that are supposed to be done today, and 2. on Friday I’m giving a writing workshop for teenagers at the American Library and need to prepare, and 3. I tried and my eardrums exploded. Not literally, thankfully. But…I NEED YOUR HELP.
So this is the deal. Go see the songs in the links, give them a listen if you don’t know them, and then give me your TOP FIVE SUGGESTIONS in the comments below. For your time and effort, I will randomly choose someone in the comments to win a hardback copy of UNTIL I DIE. And then, as I said, whoever suggested the song that becomes the theme song will win an ARC of IF I SHOULD DIE. (I will choose that out of the final list of songs.)
Go here to see the entire suggestion list
If you do not have access to Spotify, here is the list.
This will count as next week’s CONTEST MONDAY, and I will close the voting at noon Paris time on Tuesday, January 29.
Note: I had to remove a few of the songs, including A Thousand Years, since they are already on the UNTIL I DIE playlist.
And just because I hate a blog post with no picture, here is a photo that I took in THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, Oregon (or was it Idaho?) a few weeks ago.
Me and Mater
And now, people, put your headphones on and…GO!!!
