Thank you!

What I’m thankful for.

It’s that time of year when you give thanks and I wanted to take this chance to give my thanks. The last year for me has literally been life changing. There is no better word for me to use. In October 2011, my first book, HALF-BLOOD was published four years after I’d started writing the book. I like to think I have realistic expectations when it comes to the world of publication. And that expectation is to really have none, because in publishing you really don’t know what is going to happen the moment your book is released. All you can really do is hope for the best and I think starting off I hoped that a hundred people would buy and read the book. Like I said, I try not to have high expectations about anything. Two months after the release of HALF-BLOOD, I saw the release of OBSIDIAN, another book I honestly didn’t think would go anywhere, because seriously, it’s about aliens in high school. Within a next year, SHADOWS, TEMPTING THE BESTMAN (under my pen name J. Lynn), PURE, ONYX, CURSED, TEMPTING THE PLAYER (under my pen name J. Lynn), DEITY, and ELIXIR released. And in less than a moth, OPAL will release in December, marking my 11^th book release.

11 books in roughly a year, all of them published one after another.

A year ago, I had no idea this was going to happen. Not until the contracts started coming in and I saw release dates and pretty much did this: 0_0 followed by 0_o and another 0_0.

So it’s been a crazy year for me. Sometimes I really can’t believe it. I honestly can’t even wrap my head around it. This year could’ve really sucked, but it didn’t. This year has probably been the most amazing year in my entire life. Why? Where here is where I want to give thanks.

Of course, if it wasn’t for my editors, my publishers, or my agent, none of this would’ve been possible. If Kate Kaynak at Spencer Hill hadn’t read Half-Blood and made an offer, who knows where I’d be right now? Honestly? Probably nowhere. If Liz Pelletier at Entangled Teen hadn’t asked if I’d be interested in writing about aliens in high school, I would’ve never created Daemon Black. And if Kevan Lyon didn’t think I had more books in me, I never would’ve never tackled contemporary YA and sold DON’T LOOK BACK to Emily Meehan at Disney/Hyperion. So of course, I owe a lot to them, but there is one more person(s) I owe a huge thanks to.

And that’s the readers.

Any amount of success I’ve achieved in this first year can be placed at the feet of those who’ve read my books, tweeted about them, blogged about them, started groups on Goodreads, harassed their friends and families into reading them, talked about them, and pretty much tackled people, held them down, and forced them to read them. This year wouldn’t have been amazing without all of you. Some of you live in the US, other in the UK, some in France, others in Turkey or Italy, Australia and some in countries I’m embarrassed to admit I have no idea where they’re at. Some have blogs. Some have Twitter. Others don’t. Each one of you contributed. I owe everything to you guys, the readers. Seriously. I wish there was my more ways I could thank you, but please know that the reason why I love writing is because of you guys.