Real quick, before I get into it, a fun announcement: in response to popular demand, Happy Medium bonus content will be in your inbox next month to celebrate spooky season. Tell all your Everett-loving friends to subscribe if they aren’t already!!
what’s on my mind
Nine months out from publication is when preorder links often start populating for a book. And guess what? We are officially nine months out from publication day1 for Finders Keepers and I’ve got links for you!
But I’ve also got some behind-the-scenes rambling to commemorate this mini-milestone in my third book’s journey. (I mean, of course I do. Have you met me? I am all words, all the time, baby. A hazard of the job perhaps?)
The idea for this one started after I wrote Mrs. Nash’s Ashes. Back then, I thought it would be about two childhood neighbors who are now living beside each other again and decide to un-truce their old prank war. It was a fun premise, but not one that particularly stood out to my agent as the best next move (and I totally agreed). So we shelved the concept, and I started working on something else that also eventually got shelved when I turned my attention to Happy Medium instead.
After I turned that in and it was time to come up with another premise, I sent a bunch of ideas to my agent as I usually do. One of them was about an oral historian and a puzzle that needed to be solved. It didn’t really work as-is, but my agent liked the idea of me doing something that included a puzzle-y element. I did too, so I kept thinking about how to combine that idea with another one to make something viable. Eventually I remembered these characters I’d played around with the year before. Their names were Nina and Quentin, and they were childhood neighbors.
Ah ha!
Suddenly Nina and Quentin weren’t resuming a prank war, but a hunt for a local turn-of-the-century seltzer magnate’s purported treasure. And the oral history component slotted itself in perfectly as Works Progress Administration-esque interview transcripts with said seltzer magnate, Julius James Fountain.
By the way, It’s very strange how easily Fountain’s voice came to me. Like, worryingly easy. Maybe I was an extremely wealthy and eccentric industrialist in a past life.
Anyway, this one challenged me in new ways. Mostly because it involves this whole mystery-esque element, where I had to make sure things actually made sense and happened in order and whatnot. Definitely not my usual strong suits! Several rounds of rewrites later, though, and I’m absolutely in love with this story. It’s a ton of fun, but it’s also got some deeper feeling to it (the Sarah Adler Special™). Nina and Quentin (and Fountain!) are some of my favorite characters I’ve ever gotten to hang out with. The banter, folks!! It is top notch, if I do say so myself. And the chemistry between these two is like… well, fireworks maybe? *wink*
I’m hoping you will fall in love with this book the way I did while working on it over the past year. If you’re able and willing, I would love for you to preorder it. Preorders help authors immensely by signaling interest to the publisher and other industry professionals, and help readers by ensuring enough copies are printed to satisfy demand.2
So, without further ado…
book stuff
preorder links
Once again, we’re offering signed/personalized copies from my local indie bookstore, Curious Iguana. The first 300 will come with an exclusive art print (TBA in the next few months)3. Personalization requests (who to make it out to, quotes, doodles) can be left in the order notes field at checkout.4 (It’s also currently 15% off the retail price!)
You can also preorder through the usual US retailers (UK links coming soon), including Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Target, and Amazon. Direct links to those options and more can be found here.5
upcoming events
Kick off Spooky Season with me on October 2nd at 6pm, when I’ll be in conversation with one of the booksellers at Bound Books in York, PA. I’m so excited to do an event near my hometown (Hanover, represent!) and to hopefully see some of your lovely faces. Bound Books has decided to make it the ultimate girls’ night out, too, with tarot readings and refreshments included in the ticket price, which also includes a copy of Happy Medium. Tickets and info here.
Also, you may want to keep your eye on the Love Y’all Book Fest Instagram…
what we’re reading at our house
me - Haunted Ever After by Jen DeLuca; Earl Crush by Alexandra Vasti (ARC)
H - That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf by Kimberly Lemming; Network Effect by Martha Wells
me & H together - The Finest Print by Erin Langston (ARC)
h - The Princess in Black and the Prince in Pink by Dean & Shannon Hale, illus. by LeUyen Pham
what i’m listening to on repeat
(Note: this song is NSFW unless your work is cool with frequent use of the F-word!)
you should check out
The Goes Wrong Show. It’s a troupe of actors who put on plays each week and everything that can go wrong does. It used to just be a stage show, but now it’s recorded and on Amazon Prime. It makes me laugh harder than anything else I’ve seen in a while. British comedy at its finest.
This can technically change if the publisher decides it should for whatever reason, but June 17 is currently the day my third book baby is scheduled to hit shelves.
I’m currently planning to commission typographical art of a quote from the book that will also make sense out-of-context to make it possible to hang wherever without people being like “what does that even mean??” or “who are these people??” or “why is there a ghost on that goat farm??”
When this is left blank, I default to just signing and usually adding a small doodle. If that’s not what you want, make sure to leave a note that says “Made out to [name]” or something!
Sometimes it takes a while for retailers to populate the preorder links. If your preferred site doesn’t yet have it up, just keep checking back over the next day or two and it will definitely be there at some point!