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I am really, really, really excited for the release of BLACK HEART on April 3rd.  It's the final book of the Curse Workers series, full of twists and turns and reveals that I hope you'll be surprised by.  This series was a real departure for me and I've had a lot of fun writing them.  

I've just come back, two weeks ago, from my annual writing retreat to the mountains of Mexico and am settling back into my real life with some reluctance.  Cindy Pon did a great job of blogging the retreat over at her journal (much better than I have done, clearly).  The last time I was there, I wrote the last half of BLACK HEART and this time I wrote the middle of COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN.  Writing the middle of a book has many inherent frustrations, but I still got a lot done.



Here's the city at night, view from the room where I slept.


The city streets - and yes, it was as warm as it looks.  Warm enough to swim in a pool, for instance.



Like this one.


And lots of inspiring (and sometimes strange) happenings around town.  

Now that I am home, I have switched brains and am in the middle of editing DOLL BONES. And sometime this week, I will post my "how I wrote" for BLACK HEART, listing the day-by-day word counts that let me finish it.

Here's an excerpt from the very beginning of the very first chapter of BLACK HEART:

My brother Barron sits next to me, sucking the last dregs of black milk tea slush noisily through a wide yellow straw.  He’s got the seat of my Benz pushed all the way back and his feet up on the dash, the heels of his pointy black shoes scratching the plastic.  With his hair slicked back and his mirrored sunglasses covering his eyes, he looks like a study in villainy.

"This is punk-rock, DIY fantasy, full of harsh reality and incandescent magic...a masterful anthology."
--Kirkus (starred review)

“Bordertown has reopened to a new generation of runaways, misfits, and dreamers.”
-- School Library Journal (starred review)

Thank you to everyone who came together to make this book a reality, everyone who contributed stories and poems and comics, and everyone who told us how enthusiastic they were to see this innovative and influential series have a new installment, everyone who made art for the book, and everyone who posted about it online, everyone who reviewed it, and who chatted it up to their friends. Thank you to everyone who read the original books and wanted more. Thank you to everyone willing to take the trip to Bordertown for the first time with this one. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And most of all, thank you for letting me be part of it.

Since it's midnight back home and 6:15 in the morning in Sweden, it is officially the 24th, WELCOME TO BORDERTOWN is officially out as of today!

To get your copy, you can go to:

- Indiebound to get it from your local indie bookstore.

- Amazon.

- There is also the Kindle edition.

- Or you can go to B&N.

- There's the Nook edition.

- And the Sony Reader edition. (thanks, inaurolillium!)

- If you are overseas, The Book Depository offers free shipping worldwide.

There will be an audiobook coming from Brilliance, but there isn’t one yet, I’m afraid.

If you’d like to help others find their way to Bordertown, you can:

- You can use an icon reminding people that Bordertown Lives!

- You can review WELCOME TO BORDERTOWN on your blog or goodreads or amazon or any of those places. Or all of them, if you are feeling ambitious.

- You can link to our BIG SWEEPSTAKES GIVEAWAY.

- You can ask your local bookseller to carry WELCOME TO BORDERTOWN.

- You can request WELCOME TO BORDERTOWN from the library. Free for you and good for us too.

- You can link to our crazy awesome trailer (since I had nothing to do with it, I can love it unreservedly):



- You can talk about WELCOME TO BORDERTOWN. Word of mouth matters more than anything else. Whether it’s in person, on twitter, or through email, the reason most people pick up a book is because they heard good things about it from a trusted friend. You can be that friend!

Again, thank you! And welcome to Bordertown!