Monday, May 11, 2015

Updates, Info, and Annotated ARCs of LAST YEAR'S MISTAKE!


Good Morning, Peeps!

Hope everyone had a great weekend and a great Mother's Day. It just so happens that my birthday fell on Mother's Day some *mumble mumble* years ago, and today, my birthday falls on... well, today!



And to celebrate, I'm offering not one, but TWO chances to win annotated ARCs of LAST YEAR'S MISTAKE! (And if you'd like to know how much longer we have to wait for release day, I've added a handy-dandy little widget in the sidebar.)

The first giveaway is over at A Perfection Called Books. Rachel and Dana were kind enough to include me in their Meet the Newbies Feature (#MeetTheNewbs), and have a post up offering sneak peeks at some of the inside information you'll find in my ARC, like this:



 As well as some random facts about me. Like this one:

Embarrassing High School Moment Alert: I had zero fashion sense when I got to high school, thanks to spending 8 years wearing a uniform in Catholic grade school. One day I decided to make an attempt at dressing up, and wore a skirt. I borrowed a pair of heels from my mother, which I stupidly put on before walking to the bus stop. I fell, ripped my tights, and scraped my knee in front of all my neighbors. And worse, instead of turning around and going home, I got on the bus and went to school with a bloody leg and a gaping tear in my pantyhose.



Pretty awful, right? 

So I thought it might be fun to turn *your* #AwfulHSMoment into a chance at winning the second ARC - just leave a comment telling me all about one of your most embarrassing moments in high school, and/or tweet it to me using the hashtag above. 

It's that easy - and yes, it's international! I'll pick the winner on Friday, 5/15. 


***Be sure I have either your email address or your Twitter handle to notify you if you win!***


Some Other Fun Stuff

Did you know the first (non-annotated) chapter of LAST YEAR'S MISTAKE went live on YABooksCentral a couple weeks ago? Here's the link: http://www.yabookscentral.com/blog/chapter-reveal-last-year-s-mistake-by-gina-ciocca

I was also featured in a local Georgia magazine called Our Milton Neighbor, courtesy of Marchet Butler, who did my head shots. Here's the article:

To clarify the typo - my launch party at Little Shop of Stories (with Rachael Allen, Lauren Morrill, and Julie Reece) is June 20th, and the FoxTale event (with Becky Albertalli, Katie M. Stout, and Melissa Hurst) is June 30th. More info about events and appearances available in the handy dandy tab at the top of my home page!

And last but not least, LYM was included in this amazing roundup of summer YA romances on the Barnes and Noble Teen Blog: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/teen/2015-contemporary-ya-summer-romance-preview/

That's all for now. Is everyone ready for summer? I know I am!

11 comments:

  1. most embarrassing moment in high school? I was at an assembly for homecoming court I think and as I made my way down the stairs to find a seat at the bleachers in the gym, I tripped and fell down almost the entire flight of stairs to the bottom. in front of the entire school. :/ lets just say I'm glad high school is over!

    thabk you for the giveaway! I'm so excited and I hope I win. I love that the arc is annotated.
    also happy birthday and happy Mother's Day!

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  2. In second grade I got dared to pull the fire alarm at recess... and I did. (In my defense, I didn't think it'd actually work!) But it did. To my everlasting mortification, the entire school evacuated and the police, fire trucks and ambulances were all called. I stayed home hiding for two days before the principle finally came to my house and said I should come back. And thus began my embarrassing moment track record...

    In high school, somehow my sworn enemy got a hold of a love note I'd written to my boyfriend. The look of confusion on his face--followed by pure delight when he realized what he'd found--was the worst. Thing. EVER! I was half afraid he'd publish it in the school newspaper or something... GAH!!! We carried on hating each other for another year or so, before becoming best friends. So I guess it all worked out in the end ( :

    I love embarrassing moment sharing time. It's seriously the best! HA!

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  3. Does it count if I admit that approximately all my years of high school were embarrassing? LOL. But seriously, they were. I had a massive identity crisis. I went from small-town surfer girl to grunge, hipster, Greenpeace supporter in about 12 seconds. Then I bounced over to the rocker/band thing when I had the hots for a guitarist.

    Best of luck on the final countdown to your book's bday! And happy bday to you!!!

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  4. Oh gosh. High school was one big embarrassing moment for me haha. Let's go with accidental nudity.
    So this one day, I actually got up early to do my hair, put on my makeup, etc. (This was rare for me.) I looked HOT and I knew I looked hot. So I strutted in all Mick Jagger swagger, flipped my hair, smiled flirtatiously to the "She's a BRICK...houuuuuuse" soundtrack in my head. And when a group of hot seniors dropped their hacky sack, I knew that now was the moment to deploy the slowwwww bend and snap. So, I did, handed it to them, and swaggered away.

    It was not until the next period that, as I stood there talking to my best friend (a dude I was MASSIVELY in love with and did end up dating later, despite this terrible incident), that a girl in orchestra said, "Hey. There's a hole in your pants and we can see your butt." Not my underwear. My butt. I had chosen this day to wear a thong. I did not, despite his many pleadings, let my dude friend see it. BUT I SURE LET THOSE SENIOR BOYS GET A LONG GLIMPSE. Why, oh why, did I bend and snap?

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  5. Not mine--MY SISTER"S! I'll give the book to her if I win:)
    My family was visiting me in Pensacola over my sister Aubrey's 16th birthday-- a big deal because that is dating age in my family!
    I pressure her into going to Publix to pick up food because there were two cute boys there that I thought might think she was cute;)
    We get there and, sure enough, she blushed when a hunky guy named Duke started to flirt with her a little. It didn't help that all her sisters and her mom were grinning at her behind his back:)
    My mom forgot milk.
    Duke: "I can go get that for you."
    Mom: "That would be great! Can you go with him Aubrey? Show him the brand we like."
    Aubrey: "Okay!"
    Aubrey was SO flustered that she RAN away, leaving Duke in the dust so he just stood there by the register very confused. Then she came back with a gallon of water XD
    Mom: "You didn't get milk."
    Aubrey: "Oh! I thought you said water."
    Mom: "Go with Duke, he'll help you find it."
    Aubrey doesn't wait for Duke. She RUNS away... and returns again with water...
    So we give up on getting milk and leave. Since it's Publix, Duke kindly offers to take our groceries to the car (I miss Publix...)
    We get to the car and Duke unloads the groceries with AUbrey's help. Everything was going very well. They were chatting and flirting.
    Duke: "Well, that's the last one! See Ya'll later."
    Aubrey: "Goodb--"
    She turned and smacked her head into the car door:D

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  6. Our Junior year my best friend and I would always park in the vicinity of this particular group of cute, popular boys from our class. After school they would usually hang out by their cars talking or playing hacky sack and my friend and I would hang out and observe.

    So this one day after a long hacky sack session, we all drive out of the parking lot at about the same time. A couple block later we hear honking and I look in the rearview to see two of the hotties coming up, waving to get our attention. My friend and I smile at each other... what could they want? To ask us to hang out?

    As they pull up on the passenger side, my friend rolls down her window, "Hey - you guys left some stuff on top of your car. It fell off when you pulled out of the parking lot."

    My friend had left her purse and books on the roof... They were strewn all over the street in front of the school. :-/

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  7. Freshman year of HS I joined our schools marching band. It was a big thing, 300+ people, and crazy competitions. Unfortunately for me, my instrument was not "marching band eligible" I got to be a filler. So, each week I'd have to learn a new spot in the routine since we always had at least one person missing. With an almost fifteen minute routine this was not the easiest thing, add in an incredibly heavy instrument and pathetically weak arms and it wasn't the best scenario.

    Let me set the stage: We're having our home showcase. The stands are filled to bursting with people. Schools from several different states are there.

    Needless to say, I did the absolutely horrific thing of tripping and falling. My only saving grace was that I didn't take anyone else with me. With my face on fire, I did finish, but was eagerly looking for a hole to open up in the ground and swallow me.

    If that wasn't quite bad enough, it was also caught on tape. A tape that we reviewed several times in the following week 😵

    -@JRHoward9

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  8. My awful HS moment would be when my friends and I were in the central room (basically a room where we give an announcement to everyone in school through a speaker, there's a mic in there) to give some announcement. After we give the announcement, we talked about ditching class. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that the mic is very sensitive, so if we speak without turning off the mic, it will be heard by everyone (the room is very small, and there's speakers in each classroom and hallway). So when we finally come back to class (we decide not to ditch), the teacher was like "I'm so happy you decide not to ditch" and we were like "How did you know?" and one of my classmate said that we practically planned it in front of everyone in school :/

    Fortunately, we didn't got any punishment for that, although many people laugh at us :D

    @bookish_thought

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  10. Congrats on your release! Exciting times. Thanks for your comment on my Blitz!

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