Winner of Title Contest

AmandaB is the winner of the renaming Zero Day contest.  Congratulations!  Drop me an email at tracydeebs@gmail.com and let me know which gift card you want and I will order it right away :)  And to everyone who submitted a title suggestion, thanks so, so much!  As soon as my editor makes the final decision, I'll let you know what it is!

Books I'm Reading This Summer

Hi Everyone :)  Tracy again!   Friday is going to be my regularly scheduled blog day from now on, which means you might actually get a regular blog from me, LOL-- or at least, that's my hope.

I loved Emily's blog yesterday, especially the book part, so I thought I'd take a couple of minutes and let you know what YA books I have been devouring this summer.

Early in the summer, I fell in love with Veronica Roth's Divergent.  She gives us a really interesting heroine and a futuristic, dystopin world that absolutely fascinated me.

Sophie Jordan's Firelight.  I did the whole Chills and Thrills Teen Book Tour with Sophie Jordan this summer and had so much fun with her-- she's such a great person.  In preparationg for book two in the series, I reread Firelight, which was just as good the second time around!

Fins are Forever by Tera Lynn Childs, because, as you know, I love me a mermaid book ;)  This one is just as fun and lighthearted as Forgive My Fins and just as wild a ride!

Jenny Han's series, Summer series.  I devoured these three books, starting with The Summer I Turned Pretty, in about two days-- while on deadline.  Which says a whole lot about how much I liked them!

Kody Keplinger's The Duff, which ended up being a really great love story, despite the title and marketing.  The narrator had a great voice and it was a really enjoyable read.

Oh, and since I'm in the middle of writing Tempest Unleashed, I did just go back and read Tempest Rising for the first time since I wrote it, to make sure I've got Tempest's voice down (she's a lot different than Pandor, obviously ;)

So that's some of what I've been reading this summer.  How about you?  What are you reading?

Hi! Nice to meet you! I'm Emily McKay!

Introductions are always a little awkward, aren't they?

Even more so when you're just sitting there minding your own business, checking out the blog of one of your favorite YA authors, and then, out of no where, this new person dashes up, sticks her hand out and introduces herself. "Hi! Nice to meet you! I'm Emily McKay!"

Oh. Right. You're probably thinking. Tracy mentioned some friend of hers might be dropping by.

Yes, I'm that friend. And from now on, I'll be hanging out here a bit. So here's a quick introduction so you can get to know me.

(Btw, I think it's always awkward when people interview themselves, so think of this as more of a survey.)

What I write: I write romance novels for Harlequin Desire, YA rom-com (along with Tracy and Shellee) as Ivy Adams, and I just recently sold a paranormal YA to Berkley ... but more on that soon.

What I'm reading now: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I wanted to reread Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before the last movie came out, but that just made me want to reread the other books. So I am.

Books I've read this summer (besides the Harry Potter books): Tracy's fabulous Tempest Rising, Amanda Hocking's Trylle trilogy, Susie Day's My Invisible Boyfriend (totally charming), Rebecca Stead's outstanding When You Reach Me, Grace Burrow's The Heir. Man, I've been reading a lot. I should really work more!

Movie I'm most looking forward to: Crazy, Stupid Love. Is it wrong that I'd go see that movie just for Ryan Gosling's pecs?

Favorite food: Lately, hamburgers. Bad for the environment, I know. But, hey, it's summer.

Favorite dessert: Anything lemony. Preferably in the form of cheesecake.

Favorite TV show: Big Bang Theory and Modern Family

What I'm listening to: INXS's "Beautiful Girl"

Now, since introductions shouldn't be one-sided, if you're a regular reader, tell me something about yourself. I'll pick one person to win a five dollar gift card from Amazon.

First Wednesday Contest

Hi everyone :)  My new blog partners and I decided to have a contest every Wednesday, to help get everyone through Hump Day (in the summer it's not so important, but once schoool starts again, I'm always struggling to get to the weekend right around this time). 

I am very excited to be the one with the first contest, because I really need your help!  As you know, because I've been talking about it incessantly, I have a Pandora book coming out next year.  Anyway, I just heard from my editor that  Zero Day is not an optimum title, so I have to change it.  And since that was my second title,and  my first title, Unplugged, also got nixed, I'm in desperate need of help.  So, you guessed it, I need help finding a title for the book and am throwing myself on your mercy.

Here's the blurb: 

Pandora opens an email from her long-lost father on her seventeenth birthday and gets a lot more than she bargained for-- namely an attachment that uploads a worm to her computer and starts the countdown on technological armaggedon.  As she and two friends, the gorgeous Eli and Theo, follow a scavenger hunt of clues of her father's making in an effort to find him and save the world, they face-off against everything from the FBI to a motorcycle gang bent on murder and mayhem to a massive tornado and the twisted mind of a madman,  not to mention the very real threat of nuclear annihilation.

It's just a little different than Tempest, lol, but just as fun to write (and read, I hope).  Anyway, the rules of the contest are: for every title suggestion you make for the book formerly known as Zero Day, I will enter you in a contest for a twenty-five dollar gift card to either Barnes and Noble or iTunes-- whichever you'd prefer.

Thanks in advance for your help!!!!  The contest runs through Friday :)

New Excerpt from Tempest Unleashed

Hi Guys :)  My new blog partners and I have decided to make Tuesdays Tempest Tuesdays for a while, so I thought I'd post another little snippet of Tempest Unleashed for you.  Hope you enjoy ;)

Wrapped up in berating myself, I was focused so completely inward that I forgot the first rule of the ocean.  The first rule that Kona had taught me when he brought me down here—never, never lose your concentration. 

The ocean was filled with dangerous predators, and though I was slowly learning not to be afraid of sharks or squicked out by octopi, there were other, more dangerous creatures down here and I knew better than to leave myself open to them.

And yet that was exactly what I did.  I was so busy thinking of all the reasons I couldn’t turn around and go back to Mark and my friends and my family, that I didn’t notice the shadows creeping up behind me until it was too late.

One minute I was swimming as fast as I could towards my mother’s clan—my clan—and the next I was surrounded by five of the ugliest looking creatures I had ever seen.  I jerked to a stop though every instinct I had screamed at me to flee.  But these were Tiamat’s henchman, predators of the first order.  Half-human, half-shark, they did whatever the evil sea witch told them to.  And, as usual, her instructions seemed to have something to do with tormenting me.  I could only hope they didn’t also include ripping me limb from limb.

But as the five of them got closer, their beady eyes terrifyingly flat and their mouths stretched in crooked, macabre grins, I knew that that was way too much to ask.  They hadn’t hunted me down out here just to hassle me.  They were making their move—Tiamat was making her move—to force me to join her while I was confused and vulnerable and isolated.

Have a great Tuesday-- and be sure to check back tomorrow for a fun, new contest!

Cherry Colas and High School Fantasies

Teen movies are my not-so-guilty pleasure. I kneel at the alter of John Hughes. John Cusack has a permanent place on my freebie five list. Of the 83 DVDs in our family’s permanent collection that I can claim as just for me, fifty-seven (I counted) are YA. Big-budget or indie, doesn’t matter. Comedies, romances, dramas, I love them all.

Give me a geeky teen protagonist, a locker-lined setting and a kick-ass soundtrack, preferably with a Peter Gabriel penned anthem and I’ll happily hand over my $10 for a ticket. Throw in a cute guy with a mushy love story full of adolescent longing and I’ll call in sick to work for the first showing.

Favorite classic? Gorgeous Natalie Wood going crazy, literally, over hunky Warren Beatty, in Splendor in the Grass.

Favorite drama? The young buddy weeper Stand By Me (River! Gone too soon.)

My first love? Jake Ryan, Sixteen Candles. I was twelve, he was hot. I’d never wanted to be a freckled, flat-chested redhead more than when he leaned over that birthday cake and kissed Molly Ringwald. Bitch.

The scene that most made me wish I could go back in time and be in high school again (though this time with clear skin and better fashion sense)? Heath Ledger stalking Julia Stiles through the bookstore accompanied by Joan Armatrading’s gloriously moody The Weakness in Me: I'm not the sort of person who falls in and quickly out of love; But to you, I give my affection, right from the start. Oh. God.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Pretty in Pink. Some Kind of Wonderful. One Crazy Summer. Heathers. Romeo & Juliet. Cruel Intentions. American Pie. God forgive me: Twilight, New Moon & Eclipse—all regularly in the rotation.

There is, however, one glaring exception from my vast film library of high school angst. Anyone guess?

That’s right. I’ve never seen The Breakfast Club. Arguably the best teen movie ever made.

A brain, a beauty, a jock, a rebel and a recluse. They only met once, but it changed their lives forever. I’ve seen bit and pieces of it. Them running down the hall. Ally Sheedy as the proto-goth. But, for whatever reason, I just…I’ve never sat down and watched it all the way through.

It’s wrong, I know. How can I have sat through RPatz sparkling in the sun and never seen Judd Nelson in the greatest role of his life (he’s 51 now, by the way! How did this happen?).

I’ve promised myself that this is the year I will rectify the situation. I swear. I mean, I paid to see Red Riding Hood for God’s sake. Surely, watching The Breakfast Club will purge that cinematic sin from my soul.

How ‘bout you? What’s your favorite teen film? Any biggies you’ve missed over the years?

Zero Day

I know, I know.  I have two other books out (IKC and Tempest Unleashed) before Zero Day hits the shelves in Fall 2012, but I've worked so hard on it for the past two months that I thought it'd be fun to share some stuff about it, along with an excerpt.  And believe me, as soon as we have a cover, I'll be sharing that too!!!!!

Premise: A modern day Pandora story, except in this case Pandora opens an attachment instead of a box and hearkens technological armageddon.  There's an MMO, a real-life scavenger hunt, a love triangle, and a countdown to Armageddon .... just to name a few of the things going on in the book. 

Main Characters: Pandora, Theo (Prometheus) and Eli (Epimetheus)

Setting: Begins in Austin, Texas and ends in South Dakota-- in the meantime, a whole lot of states are covered.  The whole world is falling apart as the attachment, a computer worm, shuts down control systems around the world, and in doing so annihilates all technology.

Excerpt:

Eli doesn’t answer and when I turn to him, he has a weird look on his face, like I’ve just caught him doing something he shouldn’t.  “Are you sniffing me, dude?”

            “I’m sorry.  Your hair smells weird.”

            I stiffen at the insult.  “That’s because I just dyed it, which—if you remember correctly—I did because you and Theo made me.  So get over it.”

            I keep my spine ramrod straight when I turn back to the book, fuming and embarrassed.   I take a deep breath and try to concentrate, but now all I can smell are the chemicals from my hair.  Eli’s right—I do smell weird.

            I glance at him out of the corner of my eye and he’s watching me, waiting for me to do just that.  He crosses his eyes, makes a face that looks absolutely ridiculous.  I laugh- I can’t help it— and somebody at the next table shushes me. 

            It’s such a normal thing to do when the last day has been anything but, that it makes me feel better in a way nothing else possibly could.  The world might be going to hell, but there are still some rules. Still some semblances of normalcy.

            And then Eli’s laughing too, earning more dirty looks.  He grabs the atlas off the table, then leads me through the maze of stacks until we’re almost at the back of the library.  There’s no one around and we sink to the ground, lean against one of  the bookshelves and spread the atlas out on our laps.

            Now that I’ve remembered how to use an Atlas—using the gazetteer at the back to point me in the right direction—it doesn’t take us long to figure out what city the coordinates are pointing us to.  Albuquerque, New Mexico.

            I turn to Eli, confused.  “What’s in Albuquerque?”

            “You mean besides desert?”

            I roll my eyes.  “Yeah, besides that.”

            “Golf courses?”

            “We’re supposed to save the world from a golf course?”

            “Hey, don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.  Stranger things have happened.”

            “So, you’re a golfer huh?”

            “My dad was.  He had me on his course almost before I could stand. By the time I was four, I had my own little set of clubs.”  His voice is soft, his eyes a little dreamy and faraway.  It’s an unexpected glimpse into this boy I barely know, yet am traveling with.  This boy I picked—or who picked me—to help save the world.

            The softness doesn’t fit his shaggy haired, dressed-in-black, tattooed looks at all, any more than it fits the homicidal maniac I thought I was getting in English class yesterday.  But something, I don’t know what, tells me it’s more real than any other part of him that I’ve seen.

            “You must be really good if you’ve been golfing all those years,” I say, working hard to bring my thoughts back to the subject we’d been discussing.

            “I don’t do it anymore.”        

            “Why not?”  It’s obvious from the way he talks about it that he loves it.  I can’t imagine giving something up that I feel that strongly about.

 “My dad died when I was fourteen and it just wasn’t the same after that.”  He blinks, and the softness is gone, replaced by the cocky grin and I-don’t-care attitude that I’ve grown accustomed to.  It’s an interesting transformation, one that warns me that he’s a chameleon even as it makes me wonder who the real Eli is.

“Eli.”  I put my hand over his, squeeze.  “I’m sorry about your dad.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.  He was a good guy.”

“Yeah, but still.  It has to be hard to—“

I break off as his lips suddenly find mine.  Right there in the middle of the mythology stacks, he plants one on me and I’m so shocked I don’t know if I should hit him or respond.  In the end, it’s not much of a choice because he’s a good kisser, so good that he pulls me into the kiss even as I’m reeling from the unexpectedness of it.

            His lips are firm and warm against mine as his tongue runs along the seam of my lips.  I gasp in surprise, and he takes advantage, sliding inside of me in one smooth stroke. 

He tastes like oranges and sunlight.

Birthday cake and unexpected surprises.

Candy apples and warm, summer nights on the lake. 

It’s just another clue that he isn’t quite what I expected, that he can’t fit into the neat slot I first wanted to shove him into.

            I’m not sure how I feel about his masquerade, but when his hands slide slowly up my arms to my shoulders, I stop caring.  Shivers work their way down my spine and I tangle my fingers in his hair, tilt my head, draw him in closer, deeper.  He feels so good, so normal in a world that has spun completely out of my control that I want to hang on to him, to this moment, as long as possible.

            Seconds pass, minutes, and still we kiss, until the world around us fades away. Eli gasps,   pulls his mouth from mine.  I try to follow, afraid he’ll leave and take this feeling inside of me with him. But he just shifts, pulling me into his lap while his lips skim over my cheek, down my jaw, to the curved shell of my ear.  I let my head fall back , and he kisses his way down my neck to my collar bone and the hollow of my throat.

            My heart is beating crazy fast there, and pressed as I am against him, I can feel his doing the same.  It feels good, strong and alive and powerful, so I tug his mouth back to mine and nip at his lower lip.

            “Well, it looks like you two found the atlas, hmmm?”

            Theo’s voice is dry and distant and galvanizes me to action like nothing else could.  I all but leap off Eli into a standing position, head ducked and fingers pressed against my mouth.  My cheeks are burning and I know I’m the same color as the candy apple I likened Eli’s taste to in my head.

            Eli pushes to his feet more slowly, and the look he gives his step-brother is a million times more nonchalant than anything I could muster.  He can’t quite pull it off, though, not with his lips puffy from kissing me and his eyes just a little glazed like that.

            I steal a glance at Theo from under my lashes.  His back is completely straight, his jaw tight and his eyes are blacker than I’ve ever seen them.  And when he looks my way, they are completely shuttered.  No life, no expression, no emotion in them at all.  He doesn’t even look like the same guy who bandaged my feet or whispered with me as we drove together through the endless miles of road.

So, what do you think????

Tempest Unleashed

So, the good news came through a couple of weeks ago-- I'm definitely going to be writing the sequel to Tempest Rising-- squee!!!  It will be called Tempest Unleashed and it's due to hit shelves next May!!!! 

Since I'm in the middle of writing it now, I thought I'd throw an excerpt up for you guys, since I've been getting a lot of emails about the second book.  And check back regularly-- I'll be popping excerps up regularly in the next few weeks as I write :)

Have a great weekend!

Excerpt:

I swam even closer.  I didn’t know what I was doing now, what I was thinking.  All I knew was that I couldn’t resist the sweet, dangerous siren’s song of the shore.  Not this time.  Not right now.

I was almost there now, was so close that my toes brushed against the ocean’s floor even with my head above water.  The cold squickiness of the sand squished beneath my toes as the waves crashed against my shoulders.  It was all I could do to keep my balance against the raging  of the early morning ocean.  I stumbled under the onslaught, nearly fell, and that’s when I figured out what I had done.

For the first time ever, I had changed without conscious thought.  For the first time ever, my tail had effortlessly become legs again.  Despite all of the powers my mother had handed down to me, shifting had never come easy to me.  Moving between human and mermaid form usually took long, agonizing minutes.

Kona told me it was normal, as did my queen and many, many others.  They assured me that, with time and practice, it would get easier—and faster.  What would they say now, I wondered as I stumbled towards shore.  Would they be proud of my instantaneous change, or alarmed by it?

I didn’t know, and as voices rang through the air for the first time, I didn’t care.  They had come.

At first I couldn’t see anyone, could only hear them.  A laugh, a shout, the excited murmur of people about to do what they loved.  But I knew those voices, those laughs.  They belonged to—

Scooter strolled across the sand, his beloved surfboard under his arm and his crazy hair blowing in the soft wind.

Tony came next, his dark skin shimmering in the early morning sunlight.

Then Bach and Logan, my best buds from my former life.

But even as my lips curved in response to the huge grin on Logan’s face, I was searching for him.  My eyes combed the sand while every cell in my body strained that last little distance towards the shore.

There!  There he was!   A little late, a little rumpled, he was bringing up the rear and closing fast the gap between him and the others.

Mark.

A shudder worked its way through me when I allowed myself to finally think his name.  I’d put him out of my mind for all these long months, refusing to dwell on what we’d had—what we’d lost.  Or, more precisely, what I’d thrown away.  But now he was here, right in front of me, and I could barely catch my breath.

The board in his hands was new—and sweet—but everything else about him was exactly as I remembered. 

Same wild, blond hair.

Same warm brown eyes.

Same strong jaw and broad, well-muscled chest beneath his favorite electric green wetsuit.

Same wicked grin.

I felt myself melt at the sight of it, was surprised I didn’t turn into a puddle and mix right into this ocean that had taken so much from me.  And given me so much, I reminded myself.  The ocean had given me everything these last months—as had Kona.  But never had it been so hard to remember that, when my sight and my heart and my very soul were filled with Mark and the others.

I took a deep breath and could almost smell the sweet, musky scent of him.  I longed for it, as I longed—in those moments—for the feel of his arms around me.

Would it ever go away? I asked myself bitterly.  Would these feelings I had for him ever disappear completely?  Or was I stuck with them forever?  Mark had been such a big part of my life for so long that there was a part of me—even after all these months—that felt empty without him.  Incomplete.  Like a surfer without a board, an ocean without a shore.

Without making a conscious decision to do it, I moved even closer.  Not so close that I could hear what they were saying but close enough that I could get a good look at Mark’s gorgeous face. 

Like the rest of him, it was exactly as I recalled.

As the days and weeks and months had passed, I’d expected him to fade from my memory, until he became nothing more than a boy I used to know. 

Until I couldn’t remember how he looked.

 Or how he tasted. 

Or how his hands—rough and calloused-- used to feel on my back when he pulled me close and murmured that he loved me.

That hadn’t happened.  Instead, everything about him had grown clearer in my memory, like it had been minutes and not months since I’d last set eyes on him.

God, I’d missed him.  The thought I had held at bay for far too long came crashing down on me like a tsunami.  Missed him so much that I ached with it. 

It was stupid, ridiculous, wrong. 

I closed my eyes as I berated myself, unable to look at Mark any longer.  I’d made my choice, after all.  Long before we had officially broken up, long before I had returned to the ocean to carry on my mother’s duty, I had chosen Kona.  Beautiful, wonderful Kona, whose eyes were so deep and dark that I could drown in them.  Whose smile wasn’t wicked but sweet, whose scent wasn’t dark and musky but clean and fresh like a summer sea. 

And Mark had made his choice as well—a cheerleader, for God’s sake—as different from me as he could have possibly gotten.  No matter what I had told him, no matter what I had told myself, it had been a slap in the face. 

I held on to that thought, and the emotions it brought back, in an attempt to ground myself.  To focus.  I didn’t belong here, didn’t belong with Mark anymore than he belonged out at sea with me.  I needed to remember that. 

I would remember that.

Filled with determination and a renewed sense of purpose for the life I had chosen, I opened my eyes.  Searched the sand for one last glimpse of my friends as I prepared myself to go back where I belonged.  But as I scanned the beach, memorizing the tableau they all made standing there, Mark turned … and looked straight at me.

Our eyes locked—across the wide swath of sand, across the endless yards of ocean—and I saw his beloved chocolate brown ones widen in shock.  For long seconds, he didn’t move and neither did I.  And then he was tossing his surfboard on the ground and running straight into the water. 

Straight to me.

So, what do you think? 

International Kissing Club

Hi Everyone!  Happy Thursday :)  Continuing in the vein of introducing IKC to everyone, here are a couple fun excerpts from the book:

“So, I’ve been thinking about the whole Facebook page.  Do we have all the rules for the International Kissing Club laid out?”

“I’m pretty sure,” Cassidy said.  “I mean, how hard is it?  Kiss a boy, get a point.”

“Don’t forget the three points for a really good kiss,” Izzy added.

“Can I just say how much I absolutely love that?” Piper commented.  “Three points for a transcendent kiss.”

Cassidy coughed.  “Transcendent?  I’m not expecting an out-of-body experience, Pipes.  It’s just a kiss.”

“Just wait,” Izzy said.  “When you get a really great kiss, you’ll thank us.”

“Absolutely!” Piper said.  “I can’t wait!”

Mei scrolled through their page, until she found the rules, then asked, “Are there bonus points?”

“Bonus points?” Cassidy asked incredulously.  “For what?”

“I don’t know.  I just thought I’d ask.”

“Of course there are bonus points!”  Piper nearly bounced out of her seat as an idea occurred to her.  “You get five extra points if you kiss two different guys in the same week.  Ten if you kiss three.”

“Three guys in a week?” Cassidy shook her head.  “I thought you were trying to escape Germaine, not become her.”

“Oh, Please,” she said. “I think I have a little more class than that.”

“I don’t know,” Mei said.  “You kiss that many guys, things are bound to get messy pretty fast.”

“Right,” agreed Izzy.  “I think we should get bonus points for kissing the same guy twice, too.  Or five times.  Whatever.”

“Why would you want to waste your ten weeks abroad kissing the same guy when the world is filled with super-hotties?”

“Amazingly, Piper, there are many other things to do in Europe besides kiss hot guys,” Mei said with a shake of her head.

“I know that.  It’s not like I’m planning on kissing 24/7.  But what’s the point of getting stuck with the same guy for ten weeks?  This is probably our only trip out of Paris before graduation and I don’t plan on wasting a second of it.”

“I think Piper’s right,” Cassidy said out of the blue.

“You do?” Izzy asked, incredulously.

“Absolutely.  I definitely have no plans to get serious with a guy.  Do you two?”

“What would be the point?  We’re going to be there less than a semester,” said the eminently practical Mei.

Piper leaped on her friend’s words.  “Exactly!  That’s what I’m saying.  We only get points for kisses from new guys.”  She giggled.  “I can’t wait.”

“I think I’ve figured out your going away present,” Cassidy smirked.  “I’m getting you a giant box full of Chapsticks.”

 # # #

The International Kissing Club

The Official Rules and Guidelines for the International Kissing Club

Info

·        Kiss and be kissed

·        Often

·        One point per kiss. Three points if it really makes you shiver …

o   Bonus points: Five points for two guys in one week and ten points for three

o   Kiss and tell

I'm Finally Back-- Just in Time for International Kissing Day!!!

OMG, sorry for the month long break, but Zero Day, my Armageddon/Dystopian YA seriously kicked my butt this last month.  Usually I can write a book comfortably in three weeks, but this one nearly killed me (and took twice as long).  But it's done now and I promise to stop neglecting this blog ... at least until the next crazy deadline comes along.

Actually, there are going to be some changes happening here.  I'm adding on my two writing partners for The International Kissing Club-- Shellee Roberts and Emily McKay (Together we are Ivy Adams)-- who will start blogging here next week!!!

In the meantime, here's the rundown on IKC:

Four Best Friends …Piper, Cassidy, Mei and Izzy are the misfits of Paris, Texas. Too artsy, too determined, too smart and too hip to fit in with the rest of their classmates, they’ve spent most of their sixteen years determined to escape the stifling fishbowl of life in their small Texas town.

One Mean Girl…
Enter Germaine Stewart, mean girl extraordinaire and undisputed queen of Paris High School. Head cheerleader and girlfriend of the coolest guy in school, she’s made it her life’s mission to torture Piper and her friends … a mission that leads, among other things, to Piper kissing a pig in front of the entire school—in her underwear.

Ten Million YouTube Hits…
When the Kiss the Pig video hits YouTube and Facebook there’s nowhere in the entire state of Texas—or America—that Piper can hide. Desperate to escape the pig noises that follow her every waking moment, she becomes an exchange student to the real Paris. Only her friends can’t let her go alone and soon Piper, Mei and Cassidy are heading to different countries for the adventures of their lives, while Izzy is stuck at home.

The International Kissing Club Facebook Page …
To make their time abroad more interesting—the girls form the International Kissing Club, a Facebook fan page where they record each boy they kiss while abroad—or at home, in Izzy’s case (one point for a regular kiss, three for a “transcendent” one).

Too Many Kisses to Count …
But while each girl meets a guy who curls her toes, their twelve weeks on their own teach them a lot more about themselves and their friendship than they ever expected.


And Ivy Adams:

Ivy Adams is the pseudonym for three friends and writing partners: Emily McKay, Shellee Roberts and Tracy Deebs.  Though the International Kissing Club is their first novel together, they have written over thirty novels between them.  They shop, gossip and watch movies in Austin, Texas.

You can find out more at our Facebook Fan Page (website to launch soon): http://tinyurl.com/4yofvmg

Don't forget to check back tomorrow for an excerpt of IKC!!!  Happy International Kissing Day-- and happy kissing ;)