Welcome to the World FINDING PARIS!!

It’s release day for FINDING PARIS!!

And so, some author facts for you, gentle readers!

FINDING PARIS is:

• Book number 6 for me!
• My first contemporary YA.
•  My first book with Harper Collins/Balzer and Bray
• An emotional family drama wrapped in a mystery, with a road trip center and a bit of romance.
• The book I first outlined at what a group of us Texas authors lovingly refer to as The Lodge of Death. I stopped writing to please someone else and out came the book I was supposed to be writing.
• A book with sparer prose than some of my others. So it felt a little like poetry to me, although it’s not verse. Every word had to count. Lots of showing. Much less telling.
• About the things we do for the people we love and the blind spots we have for those people
•  About how difficult it is to voice and own our truths.
• About the secrets that families have and about the strange, wonderful and sometimes painful sibling relationship.
• About broken families and girls whose voices need to be heard.
•  And about hope.

Among other things!

I’ll be talking about all this and more in various places including guest posts at Janet Fox’s blog; Cynthia Leitich Smith’s Cynsations; C.C. Hunter’s blog; various stops on a blog tour arranged by the awesome Jean Book Nerd, and a bunch of places in between.

Here’s the link to the blog tour: http://www.jeanbooknerd.com/2015/04/finding-paris-by-joy-preble.html

I hope you read and love FINDING PARIS. I’m very proud of all my books, but particularly proud of getting to this one at this time and this place in my career. It takes place in Vegas and points beyond and includes more than one Paris, but all of them devoid of anything authentically French. (Which is exactly the point. You’ll see.)

 If you’re in Houston, come join me at my launch party at Blue Willow Bookshop, Saturday, 4/25, at 2 PM.

http://www.bluewillowbookshop.com/node/77664

And let’s all find our Paris. Whatever or wherever it might be!

One More Day!

 It's one day until FINDING PARIS pub day!!
Even though the book is not 'officially' out yet, I have:

• Signed at Houston Teen Book Con
• Signed at Texas Library Association
• Book-talked PARIS with awesome Texas librarians
• Book-talked PARIS with awesome Texas teen readers
• Signed a few at Houston SCBWI conference

And been crazy excited for 4/21/15!!

FINDING PARIS Blog Tour coming soon through Jean Book Nerd!

http://www.jeanbooknerd.com/2015/04/finding-paris-by-joy-preble.html

FINDING PARIS Houston Launch Party at Blue Willow Bookshop 4/25/15 at 2 PM!

http://www.bluewillowbookshop.com/node/77664

Here are a few pics from TLA!

FINDING PARIS on the Harper Collins shelf!

signing! Aisle 7!

The YAHOUS go to TLA! (with Dotti Enderle, Jennifer Mathieu, Kim O'Brien )

with the every awesome Christina Diaz Gonzalez

And the ever clever Kari Holt

with the brilliant Julie Murphy, who shares our brilliant B&B editor with me

And authors Christina Mandelski and Amy Fellner Dominy (aka my partners in crime)

And lots more coming after that!

I'll have other things to say tomorrow, so stay tuned.

FINDING PARIS, coming 4/21/15 from Balzer and Bray/Harper Collins!!

And it's the first FINDING PARIS 'official' review!

The whole review will go live next month, but for now, I can share that School Library Journal's review of FINDING PARIS calls it: “An intricate guessing game of sisterly devotion, romance, and quiet desperation.”

Needless to say, I am thrilled!

Happy Thursday!

FINDING PARIS COVER REVEAL!!

At last! At last! Sound the trumpets! Rev the road trip engines!
I can finally let you see the gorgeous, wonderful, supremely awesome cover for FINDING PARIS, which is coming 4/21/15 from Balzer and Bray/Harper Collins!

Barnes and Noble did an exclusive review last week, which you can read HERE !
I spill the beans about the process and a bit about the book itself!

But first, take a peek!

A page-turning, evocative novel for fans of THIRTEEN REASONS WHY and SPEAK, about a girl who must follow a trail of mysterious clues to discover what happened to her sister.

Sisters Leo and Paris Hollings have only ever had each other to rely on. They can’t trust their mother, who hops from city to city and from guy to guy, or their gambler stepfather, who’s moved them all to Las Vegas. It’s just the two of them: Paris, who’s always been the dreamer, and Leo, who has a real future in mind—going to Stanford, becoming a doctor, falling in love.

But Leo isn’t going anywhere yet… until Paris ditches her at the Heartbreak Hotel Diner, where moments before they had been talking with physics student Max Sullivan. Outside, Leo finds a cryptic note from Paris—a clue. Is it some kind of game? Where is Paris, and why has she disappeared?

When Leo reluctantly accepts Max’s offer of help, the two find themselves following a string of clues through Vegas and beyond. But the search for the truth is a not a straight line. And neither is the path to secrets Leo and Max hold tightly.

“An inspiring story of lost souls, and the hope and compassion that must piece together a family long exiled and devastated by secrets.” – Adele Griffin, author of THE UNFINISHED LIFE OF ADDISON STONE

“FINDING PARIS is a compelling page- turner. It's a road trip story, a mystery, and a romance all in one.  Add to that Preble's pitch perfect descriptions of place and you've got a real winner.  I couldn't put it down.” –Jennifer Mathieu, author of THE TRUTH ABOUT ALICE

And if you want to do a girl a favor, you can even pre-order! (Pre-orders really, really count!!)

Pre-order: http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Paris-Joy-Preble/dp/0062321307/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412189067&sr=8-1&keywords=finding+paris

I'LL BE GIVING AWAY TWO SIGNED GALLEYS VERY SOON, SO STAY TUNED!!

A NEW BOOK DEAL!!!

Have been sitting on this news since the end of June, but can finally announce that my new YA, FINDING PARIS, has sold to Alessandra Balzer of Balzer and Bray, an imprint of Harper Collins!

Here is the official deal announcement in today's PW:

Alessandra Balzer at Balzer + Bray took world English rights to Joy Preble’s Finding Paris, in a deal brokered by Jennifer Rofé at Andrea Brown Literary. Preble (The Sweet Dead Life) offers a book that, Rofé said, feels like “Speak meets 13 Little Blue Envelopes,” about a teenage girl whose older sister sends her on a scavenger hunt from Las Vegas to L.A., to protect her from a dark secret.

And here is the link: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/book-deals/article/59198-book-deals-week-of-september-20-2013.html

I'll tell the longer story tomorrow when I have time to collect my thoughts.

But until then, I can say that this book was written last year once my dear and tough agent, Jen Rofe, finally convinced me to write the book I wanted to write rather than the one I thought I should write, which is not the same thing at all. The full tale to come.

FINDING PARIS is slated to hit shelves in Spring 2015, which sounds like a long time away, but in publishing terms is not long at all. And I am so thrilled that I am dancing!!

More tomorrow!