Hey everyone,

So, erm, some of you may know that I have trouble keeping my own secrets. Especially if it involves something simultaneously embarrassing and hilarious. For example, the way I single handedly broke the showers in the girls locker room at college. The water temperature knob popped off into my hand. Twice.

Did I mention that the second time I turned the place into a freaking sauna?

Accidentally.

And both times I had to drip over to the front desk, teeth still chattering after scuba diving in the pool for three hours, to request some help from the maintenance department. Fast.

That particular story made it around the family gossip lines in roughly eight hours.

So it was really hard for me to keep my big mouth shut when I received an email from KTeen that included my cover for AWKWARD.


But now that it’s been cleared . . .

I love it. The first time I saw it I was camping at Lamington Plateau (in Australia) but I had escaped to the nearby resort to reconnect with civilization. My homesickness was catching up with me and getting hit with a few days of sleepless nights didn’t help. So I was ready to hand over my bank account for some Internet time and when I saw my book cover sitting in my inbox . . . well, I freaked. I think I showed it to everyone who worked the reception desk. Of course when a girl suddenly gasps, starts muttering “oh wow! It’s here! Oh my god!”, laughs at herself and then does a bizarre happy dance with a MacBook perched on her lap . . . you generally want to know what happened. The Aussies were very excited for me.

My first instinct was to forward it to every single member of my family. But if I had done that I would have been receiving emails from the couple who used to hire me to dogsit (yep, dogsit, best job ever) about how much they loved my cover. Within 24 hours. And even though I wanted to share my secret with the world, I was under strict instructions to keep it underwraps.

I don’t know how spies don’t crack under the pressure of keeping so many secrets. I’d make a truly awful one. I’d probably return from a top secret assignment, call up my mom and say “Guess what? I stopped a nuke from entering Pakistan today. From now on you can call me Marni “Non-proliferation” Bates. Or maybe: Bates. Marni Bates. Okay, gotta run. The Department of Homeland Security is calling me. So needy.”

Yeah, it’s a good thing I never pursued a life of secrecy. Or crime. Or accounting.

I managed to keep it a secret but that didn’t stop me from doing a lot of really embarrassing happy dances (in private). This book cover made my three book deal feel real to me.

My first YA novel is going to be released in the spring of 2012 and this is the fantastic cover that the outstanding marketing department from Kensington created. This is the image I can think of when I describe AWKWARD to other people.

The part that may never cease to amaze me is the name written on the bottom left side . . . yeah, that’s me!


Craziness!


But I have to say . . . it feels absolutely fantastic!

More later,

Marni