squeetus

Awards, posters, new covers! As you were, Monday.

Big day for literature! The ALA Youth Media Awards. Especially excited for my pals:

Dan Santat wins the Caldecott for BEEKLE

Cece Bell's EL DEAFO and Jacqueline Woodson's BROWN GIRL DREAMING win Newbery Honors

Candace Fleming's THE FAMILY ROMANOV wins a Sibert Honor

Jason Reynold honored with the Coretta Scott King John Steptoe Award for New Talent for WHEN I WAS THE GREATEST

I always love what I think of as the Newbery morning. Reminds me of the call that woke me up nine years ago. Still such a powerful memory that when I retell the story I tear up. Congrats to all the winners. Though awards aren't everything, honoring books is a great way to remind us of the power of literature.

This year PRINCESS ACADEMY celebrates it's tenth anniversary. The final book in that trilogy, THE FORGOTTEN SISTERS, publishes in just three weeks. Preorder a copy, either ebook or hardcover, from anywhere and get this free poster. See here for more details.

 

Also announcing the paperback of DANGEROUS, coming in May with a brand new cover. What do you think?

Can white writers write non-white characters?

This past week, a group started a campaign on twitter #WeNeedDiverseBooks that trended for days. Blogs, twitter, tumblr, instagram facebook were lit up with people sharing photos, stories, ideas about how diverse books are both wanted and needed.

Diversity just means "reality," i.e. books (and movies, etc.) work best when they reflect the richness and variety of the real world rather than only representing one sliver of it. But diversity most often connotes race. And so lots of race questions rise up in this conversation, such as, is it okay for writers of one race to write from the point-of-view of a character from another race? Lisa Yee wrote her thoughts about this, which I appreciated.

Here's my own experience. When I was drafting The Goose Girl, I originally was going to make Bayern an African-type continent, everyone there having a deep-brown-to-black skin, while Kildenree would be the European-type continent with pale skin. I was inspired by Le Guin's Earthsea books. But I quickly realized the story required Ani to hide in Bayern, so she couldn't look too different from the Bayern people. I could have chosen to make Ani dark skinned as well but I decided not to, out of misguided respect and fear. As a white person, I was hesitant to try to speak from the point-of-view of someone of another race, even in a fantasy setting. I felt like I only had access to the heritage of my own bloodlines. So I based Bayern on Germany, both because the tale was recorded by the brothers Grimm and because it is one of the lands of my ancestors. I'm not saying that was the wrong or the right choice (I don't believe there was necessarily a right or wrong here), but that this was my creative process.

When I began a new series with Princess Academy, again I felt that I only had rights to the lands of my ancestors, so I chose to base the setting on Scandinavia. And the research and writing was a lovely experience for me.

While I was drafting Book of a Thousand Days, I was also studying about Mongolia, because my parents were about to go live there for two years. And the more I learned, the more the research slid naturally into the story I was working on. Perfectly. As if that had been my intention all along. I had a moment of crisis. I wanted to base the setting on medieval Mongolia, but did I have the right to appropriate a land I had no blood or familial ties to for my story?

Eventually I decided, yes. I am a human being. I can take inspiration from the stories of our shared planet. It was a little easier for me to make this jump since I wasn't writing a true historical setting but a fantasy kingdom inspired by a historical setting.

Dangerous is my first young adult book not set long-ago-far-away but in our own world. I don't remember my exact thought process in deciding to make my main character biracial with a Paraguayan-American mother and white American father. There was reason to have a bilingual character and the choice seemed interesting for the story. The supporting cast also has a Russian-American, African-French, Korean-American, German-American, and African-American. These choices make sense in the story, but if this had been my first book, I don't know if I'd dared to make them. Again, out of misguided respect and fear, I might have been hesitant to try to embody the experience of a character who has a different race than me. I think that would have been a mistake. This story makes more sense, is richer, and is truer with the diverse cast. If I'd tried to write this story with an all-white cast, that would have been forced and untrue, because it wouldn't have reflected the actual world the story takes place in. Making creative choices from a place of fear (even fear mixed with loving and honest respect) is never a good idea.

I appreciate writers who are respectful of other cultures and experiences. And I don't think that every book needs to have a diverse racial cast. A book set in a town where everyone is white can exist. Those stories matter too. But I always want to make sure I'm open to what the story needs. And all stories (ironically perhaps, but especially fantasy and science fiction stories) need to have a foundation of truth in order to work. And the truth of our world is colorful, rich, expansive. I think it's wise, as writers, that we're always checking ourselves, making sure we're not just defaulting to all white, straight, able-bodied, non-religious, etc., characters. Not defaulting to Neutral. But keeping our stories open for the possibilities of diversity.

Two Dangerous covers

Very busy week. No time to post! Here's a cheat post so I can keep up my goal of blogging every Monday. The UK cover of Dangerous is almost the same as the US. What do you think? Which do you prefer?

 

In which I say "toot"

The Dangerous tour continues. I'm in the mid-West this week. And Utahns, don't forget the annual Writing for Charity one-day writing conference for beginning, intermediate, and advanced writers. In addition to traveling I'm on deadline, so instead of writing a new blog post I'm lazily pasting in some blurbs and reviews. Is that tacky? That's probably tacky, isn't it? But...but did you know Dangerous is a Spring 2014 Kids' Indie Next book? Also tacky to mention? Nevermind, I have this horn here and I'm going to toot it. (teehee, I said toot)

"Fast paced and action packed, bubbling over with ideas and full of heart, Dangerous is a dangerously addictive read."
--Scott Westerfeld, NY Times bestselling author of the Leviathan and Uglies series

"One of the best books I've ever read. Ever. It's chock full of intrigue, suspense, and clever, authentic, wonderful humor. I'm in love with this book."
--James Dashner, NY Times bestselling author of The Maze Runner

"Master storyteller Hale takes readers to dizzying new heights. Layered with gritty action and heartfelt characters, DANGEROUS is a can't-miss adventure."
--Kiersten White, NY Times bestselling author of Paranormalcy

"Hale mashes up her science and her superheroes, then stirs in just the right amount of wonder and delight. I loved this book."
--Megan Whalen Turner, NY Times bestselling author of The Thief

"DANGEROUS is exactly that--you will not be able to put this book down, nor will you be able to get its fantastic heroine, Maisie Brown, out of your head."
--Ally Condie, NY bestselling author of Matched

"This fast-paced science fiction novel with echoes of the "Fantastic Four" comics doesn't let up for a moment. Maisie is a strong, smart heroine with a wry sense of humor, and readers will be rooting for her to save the world. A must-read for fans of superhero adventures."
School Library Journal

"Hello, Book Love! This is one crazy awesome, fun book...A fast-paced hybrid of science-fiction, action thriller, superheroes, and romance, Dangerous smartly combines witty and flirty repartee with pulse-pounding action that rarely slows down to breathe...Oh, sweet awesomeness, I loved this book!"
USA Today's Happily Ever After blog

"Dangerous is a thrilling, dark, sci-fi adventure and is somewhat of a departure from Shannon Hale's usual work for children...What has not changed in this new work is Hale's ability to craft a captivating plot while creating memorable characters that are rich in complexity and intrigue. While Dangerous is a save-the-world novel, it is also much more. Hale successfully combines adventure and science fiction fantasy together with real issues of family, first love, disability, multi-culturalism, relationships, and the process of growing up while making very difficult and real moral choices."
IRA Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy

"Hale delivers an action-packed SF thriller with plenty of surprises and an intriguing premise."
Publishers Weekly

"Hale's fans may be surprised at this new direction in her writing, but they certainly will not be disappointed...This adventure, sci-fi, romance novel will keep readers engrossed."
Library Media Connection

"This novel is a whirlwind of excitement."
RT Book Review

"It's thrilling to find a satisfying page-turner of this kind at all, let alone one that risks giving a heroic voice to someone who doesn't look like any other hero you're likely to find."
City Weekly

Is your default character white and male?

Thanks for all your great comments on the last post! I'm very interested in your thoughts in this matter, and please keep talking. Here are a few more thoughts.

The default character is male. I first realized this was true for me when I had my first child. I found myself identifying all of his toys and stuffed animals as "he." In books, too, animals and characters that didn't have obvious girlie eyelashes or wear skirts were all "he." The characters that made up my son's world were 95% male. I began to question that in myself and supply "it" instead or assign "she" to several stuffed animals, in a perhaps ridiculous attempt to help him grow up surrounded by a more diverse cast of characters. Parents, have you noticed this male-first tendency too?

When I do school visits, often I'll bring up 4-5 students to make up a story on the fly. The first question I ask them, one by one going down the line, is "What is the name of your main character?" I try to put the girls on the end and start with them. Boys always choose a male MC, and if the girls go after the boys, they also always choose a male MC (this data is based on doing this exercise perhaps 100 times). But if the girl goes first, sometimes she'll choose a female (though 75% of the time she chooses a male too). This is a strong indication to me that we are used to main characters being male, even in the younger generation when the world is filled with book choices that feature girls. Are movies to blame, which rarely feature female MCs? Are these kids not getting the books that have female MCs? Or do girls not feel like the MC in their own lives? Do boys have the imagination to consider girls potential MCs? Is it possible that some boys do not think girls really matter as much as boys, aren't worthy of their own stories, aren't, perhaps, even as real as boys are?

The default character is white. As a writer who is white, I definitely fall into this trap. If a character isn't white, I often describe that, but if they are white, I don't describe because it's assumed. For the first time writing this book, from the POV of a character who isn't white (she's half white, half Latina), I found myself realizing I had that habit. In Dangerous, when we first meet two important characters, Dragon and Howell, I had Maisie describe Dragon as a "black man" and Howell as a "white woman." Interestingly, the copy editor noted that and asked if the "white woman" signifier was necessary. Because "white" is default, assumed, even if you don't specify. But I thought Maisie would specify so I left it.

I want to challenge myself and all of you to become more observant of this. To toss out the "male and white are default" ideology that's so deeply written into our brains. Change comes after awareness.

I remember when I first told my husband that some suggested that teens wouldn't be able to identify with Maisie because she was too unique in too many ways. That teens like to read about a character most like themselves. And Maisie just had too many points of difference: she was half Latina/half white, she had one arm, she was home schooled, she was a science geek, she was obsessed with space.

He said, "When I was a teenager, I couldn't relate to growing blades out of my knuckles or having super powered healing, or being chased by the Canadian government or having no memory of my past. But I could relate to feeling like a freak, to being an outsider." (he's talking about Wolverine)

I really believe it's not the details of a character's appearance or particular circumstances that most draw in a reader but the shared human the emotions. Books are a great place to realize that, where the visual is in our head and we are inside the character's head. I think we just need to read more books about characters who don't look like us, whatever we may look like, and eventually any misgivings that may still linger about Specific characters being unrelatable will become meaningless.

Thanks to everyone who is talking about this book. You really make writing a book like this possible. Thanks to everyone who came out to my events in Massachusetts and New Hampshire last week! It's great to be home. I'm back to touring next week and I have lots more events this spring so check out my event page.

On neutral characters and relating to the specific

When I was in the rewrite stage of Dangerous several years ago, a Smart Person read the first 50 pages and immediately let me know her concerns. She said, "Your main character is unrelatable. You made her a home schooled, science geeky, one-armed, half-Paraguayan." Until this person said all that I had never thought it. I mean, of course I knew knew those things about her, but I'd never strung together all those adjectives in my mind, maybe because the decisions about her character came about piece-by-piece while writing the story, not all at once.

1. Science geek - I know science geeks. I was writing science fiction. Allowing her to be into science seemed a good way to include cool science stuff. Because if I was going to write science fiction, I wanted to write SCIENCE fiction, really have fun and celebrate that part of it.
2. home schooled - the story would be more interesting if she began it sheltered in some way and then released into a wider world. This idea always intrigues me (girl from a mountain village, girl locked in tower, etc) and homeschooling was one way to introduce this idea in a contemporary setting. Besides, I hadn't read a lot of books with home schooled main characters, and it's something that's becoming more and more common. Seemed like an interesting idea.
3. One-armed - Whenever I have babies, I spend a lot of time trying to do things with one hand (while holding a baby with the other) and that always gets me thinking about what it'd be like to have one hand permanently. I had a teacher once with one hand and my sister's father-in-law has a lame arm. It's something I think about and I thought it was worth exploring, especially in a superhero action genre. Again, I'd never read a book where the main character had one hand, and it seemed interesting.
4. half-Paraguayan - I lived in Paraguay for a year and a half. I love Paraguay and Paraguayans. In the outline stage, there was reason to go to a foreign country and spend time there, and I'd always wanted to include Paraguay in some way in a book (I did, but ended up cutting those chapters). There were also story reasons for the character to be bilingual, and the story takes place in present day US (or just a few years into the future), so a US parent + Paraguayan parent made sense. And again, I thought this choice would make the story more interesting.

Always with any book, writers ask themselves, what choices will make this story more interesting? What will help raise the stakes? What kind of book would I want to read? What will help make this book unlike any book I've ever read before? These character choices just made sense to me.

But the Smart Person told me, "Teens will not relate to someone so unlike them. Maybe with middle grade you could get away with this, but not in YA."

I was shocked. I'd been writing this book off-and-on for years already and never considered this. And then I got a little mad. People exist who are half-Paraguayan or half-anything, or one-handed, or home schooled, or science geeky, or girls, or all of the above. Why can't someone like Maisie be worthy of a story too?

I've encountered similar opinions over the years and began to come to an uncomfortable understanding, one that others before me have also discovered.

In stories (all stories, be they novels, movies, television commercials...) we (in the US) easily accept a certain kind of character as Neutral. Neutral is white, male, able-bodied, straight, not too young (in children's) and not too old (in adult), and not especially extraordinary in any way. For example, Maisie is called "half-Latina" (rather than "half-white," which is also true) because the "white" part is Neutral, assumed, and the "Latina" part is Specific. Traditionally all readers/viewers who are not Neutral have learned to relate to Neutral. E.g.:

1. Adults have learned to relate to younger characters (after all they were young one once) but not much older than themselves
2. Teens have learned to read up in age--but not too far
3. Girls have learned to relate to boys.
4. People who have disabilities have learned to relate to people who don't
5. People of color have learned to relate to white characters

But often, apparently, the reverse is not true. Not boys to girls, not whole-bodied to disabled, not young to old, not straight to gay, etc. One result of this is that parts of our population are developing empathy for people different from them but others aren't.

In stories, you can fairly smoothly take one step away from Neutral, maybe two, but more than this is risking turning off a wide audience. This theory was confirmed for me with one of my novels for adults, The Actor & the Housewife. I learned that there's a reason most female main characters in fiction for adults are in their 20s. Many people don't want to read about a woman much older than 30 or (heaven forbid!) in her 40s or 50s. In addition to being older, I made her a mother and a Mormon. I was 3 steps away from Neutral and it was too far for many readers to travel.

Now, with Dangerous, I went even further, taking at least 4 steps away from Neutral. She's not "normal" enough. Too much defines her. Maisie is way too Specific.

Or this is the fear. I really, really hope they're wrong. I really hope that despite not being Neutral, readers find other ways to relate to Maisie. I do think that this is partly what literature is for. If the main character is a lot like us, we learn more about ourselves, which is awesome, but when the main character is different than us, we gain more empathy for the Other, which is also awesome.

I wasn't going to talk about this. I wanted the focus to be on the story and not on a list of adjectives about the main character. Talking about it might make it an Issue and I really don't think this is an issue book. Besides, despite the Smart Person and others, I just didn't think Maisie's 4-steps-from-Neutral would be a big issue for most people. But then the reviews started to come in and I realized that those adjectives would be an issue, no matter what I do.

Here's the beginning of one review: "Maisie Danger Brown (really), smart, home-schooled, one-handed half-Paraguayan daughter of scientists, has always dreamed of being an astronaut." This reads to me like a list of what makes Maisie different from Neutral. My hope is that after reading the entire book a reader will find plenty of ways to relate to Maisie, regardless of her being such a Specific character: she's interesting IMHO, loves her parents, gets excited and scared and overwhelmed, falls in love, is curious, is funny, makes big choices, makes mistakes, has a best friend. I don't mind that reviews mention her one-handedness and girlness and geekiness and Latina-ness. They're not secrets, after all, as we learn those things about her in the very first chapter. But in listing them like that all together at the top of a review, I feel like they put focus on her differences, spelling her out as unrelatable, freaky, perhaps not worth your time.

Maisie was worth my time. I really hope she ends up being worth your time too.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about Neutral and Specific characters in the comments. Who do you relate to? Are there characters or kinds of characters so different from you that you can't immerse yourself in the book? Has that changed at all with your age? Does reading about Specific characters make reading more challenging? A different experience? Or a non-issue for you? Teens, was the Smart Person right about you? Feel free to share anonymously, I really want to know your thoughts. Now that I've listed all those adjectives about Maisie, how does that affect your feelings about this book and your inclination to read it?

 

Dangerous is on bookshelves Tuesday, March 4. Come see me on tour!

A Dangerous history

I love superheroes.

I grew up watching Wonder Woman, my sister and I spinning around in the family room in our Underoos and pretending to fight bad guys. I watched Super Friends, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, He-Man, Jem and the Holograms, and later Batman and Superman. The Spider-Man segments on Electric Company were my favorite part. Our family loved the Superman movies (all but 4, of course) and yes, even the Supergirl movie. I didn't know it was terrible. It was Supergirl!

And I was a voracious reader. But I never came across a superhero book.

My husband grew up reading superhero comic books. I didn't have access to comic books growing up. They were a "boy thing." But I'm certain I would have loved them. I began to read them as an adult--Wonder Woman, X-Men, Justice League, Invincible, Runaways. Dean and I saw all the superhero movies in the theater and walked away feeling as though we could vanquish all the bad guys ourselves!

I was still a voracious reader, but still never came across a superhero book. Why are superhero stories so fundamental to movies, cartoons, and comics but mostly skip novels altogether?

I wanted to write that book. The one that I would have loved when I was younger. The one I would gobble up now.

The superhero genre is a subset of science fiction. Growing up, our library coded books by genre with a sticker on the spine. The fantasy books had a unicorn, the scifi had a Saturn. I went straight for the unicorns. The Saturns, I understood, were for the boys, not for me. Not until adulthood did I question this. Why is science fiction only for boys? And science too, for that matter?

So, yeah, I definitely wanted to write science fiction. As a girl. Starring a girl. Superhero YA scifi, something I hadn't seen before but to my mind so logically needed to exist.

As a writer, what excites me is crossing genres. A western-fairytale-graphic-novel. A literary-princess-story. An Austen-romantic-comedy-murder-mystery. With this book, I wanted to take the realism and depth allowed in novels + superhero adventure story + young adult. Could I pull it off? And would people accept a popcorn movie/Saturday morning cartoon type story in a realistic medium?

Smart People told me that it wouldn't work, and for many reasons.
1. The only kinds of science fiction you can do in young adult books are dystopian and steam punk. You can't do YA scifi in a contemporary setting (which is what the superhero genre typically is).
2. Girls don't read science fiction, and boys won't read about girls, so there's no audience for this book.
3. Superhero stories are the domain of Saturday morning cartoons (targeted at boys) and Hollywood action movies (targeted at men). You can't do it for a teen audience, and certainly not a female teen audience.
4. The superhero story has passed over into the overdone realm. In novel form, you can only parody it, not take it seriously.

But I have this problem. When people tell me I can't do something, I want to do it all the more. It took me time to get it right, no question. The book creation spanned a decade.

2003 I knew I wanted to write a YA scifi superhero story and began to invent it.

2004 I first named a character Daisy Danger Brown (changed her name to Maisie several years later).

2005 I sold a synopsis and outline of the book to my publisher, Bloomsbury.

2009 I finished a first draft.

2013 I finished a final draft.

Maybe in 2003 we weren't reading for a superhero-female-MC-contemporary-scifi-YA-novel. Hopefully by 2014 we are. At least, I am ready for Maisie Danger Brown. If I had Maisie Brown Underoos, I'd put them on right now and spin around in the living room.

 

Dangerous comes out in a week! Remember to preorder by tomorrow and email your receipt in to get the prize pack. And check my events page to see if I'm coming near you on book tour.

My dangerous side

Coming March 4, 2014...

Get ready for a side of Shannon Hale you've never seen before...

Shannon Hale is...

 

Since this book was "a whole new side of Shannon Hale" my publisher asked me if I'd take a new dangerous-looking author photo. But naturally there was no way for me to attempt such a thing without embracing total silliness. My family and I cracked ourselves up doing it, even if these photos are totally unusable for official publicity.

Behind the scenes! Here's what you see when we zoomed out a little:

Danger Mama!

If you missed it, check out the awesome prizes Bloomsbury is giving to everyone who preorders Dangerous!

A Dangerous offer

I'm so excited Bloomsbury is offering such cool incentives for preorders! If you plan to buy a book anyway, preorders help an author so much. Preorders show a bookstore that there is interest in a title and encourage them to order more copies. And copies on a bookstore shelf attract buyers that might not have known about it otherwise. Like the opening weekend of a movie, early sales of a book can make or break its success.

So snap a photo of your receipt and email it to Bloomsbury or forward them your electronic receipt. Include your mailing address to claim the prizes!

Preorder a hardcover or ebook anywhere books are sold, including:

The King's English (this is my local bookstore. I will sign and personalize all preorders purchased here and they can ship to you)

In the US, locate your indie bookstore here

Any bookstore in person or from online retailers, such as:

BN.com

Amazon

Kobo

iBookstore

Offer open for all US, UK, Canada, and Australia addresses!

And here's the book trailer:

  

Literary pumpkin carving

Pumpkin sorceress Laura has done it again! I'm so honored to have been part of her yearly carving extravaganza.

Ooh, a lovely homage to Ever After High. So happy that The Storybook of Legends has been a New York Times bestseller for four weeks now! (Just to clarify, Mattel invented the world, made the dolls, and asked me to write a book, not the other way around. Gotta give credit to the great creative team at Mattel for the concept.)

In celebration of the Austenland movie! Some three months later, it's still in some theaters and moving into the discount theaters. I imagine the DVD will be released in early 2014. It looks to me like it did really well for an indie movie.

Look at this gorgeous symbol from the cover of Dangerous! The date's been moved up, so it releases the first week of March. I'm so excited to share this book with you all.

Thank you for the pumpkins, Laura! And thank you to all the readers who allow me to keep writing and publishing books so that Laura can carve them into pumpkins.

My next 2 years: 6 books and a movie

So I have a lot of schtuff going on (and I promise, no new book announcements for sometime). To sum up:

August 16, 2013 - AUSTENLAND premieres in LA and NYC, more cities and dates TBA.

September 17, 2013 - GUYS READ: Other Worlds, an anthology of a science fiction and fantasy short stories. I have a story in it titled "Bouncing the Grinning Goat."

October 8, 2013 - EVER AFTER HIGH: The Storybook of Legends, a middle grade book about a boarding school for the children of famous fairytales, a tie-in book with Mattel's new Ever After High line of products.

April 1, 2014 - DANGEROUS, a young adult, scifi, superhero adventure novel. (btw, the setting is contemporary. Some assume that YA scifi is always dystopian.)

July 2014 - the fourth book in the SPIRIT ANIMALS series. Like 39 Clues and Infinity Ring, this is a 7-book series, each book written by a different author, supported by a huge online video game. The first book, written by Brandon Mull, launches Sept '13.

Fall 2014 - THE PRINCESS IN BLACK, the first book in Dean's and my early chapter book series, gorgeously and wittily illustrated by LeUyen Pham.

Winter 2015 - PRINCESS ACADEMY: Dragonfly Sisters (working title), the third and final PA book. I imagine it'll be Jan or Feb '15.

And then, who knows? Well, there will be at least three more PIB books, and I have other books outlined and stories to tell. I want to write more Austenland books and wish I could have gotten to one to time it with the movie's release. It's almost maddening, how many books I want to write! And book writing takes so much time I have to tell those other stories just to sit down and shut up for a minute please, I can't get to you yet!

So...I thought I was slowing down, taking it easy for a few years. Funny what happens as soon as you say that. Thanks for sticking with me, guys! I'm excited about all the different kinds of stories and fun books I'm getting to create, and so grateful there are readers who are excited about them too.

Next post I'll tackle that question I get as often as any: how do you manage to write while being a mother? In the meantime, if you have specific questions about that or have thoughts about how to balance parenting/your work, school/your passion, etc. let us know in the comments.

At last--a book cover, title, and pub date!

Announcing for publication on April 1, 2014 (no joke):

This is the cover of the ARC, so it may change slightly. Previously titled Daisy Danger Brown, I started on this book in 2005 and have poured more time into it than anything else I've written besides The Goose Girl. And I love it. Still many months away but I cannot wait to share!

On Monday, Mundie Moms revealed the cover. They also posted a short excerpt and a chance to enter to win one of 3 ARCs! The winners will have a chance to read the book a good 10 months before everyone else. If you win one, please let me know what you think. I can't wait for this one to get read. So, what do you think of the cover?