Vacation Reading Round-Up

Thanks again to all of my fabulous guest bloggers for covering for me last week: Kater Cheek, Carrie Harris, Suzanne Casamento, and Amy Spalding. And thanks to YOU, my readers, for jumping in with your comments on the two About My Query posts that went up while I was off on holiday. I’m looking forward to adding my comments to yours on both queries.

Until then, however, I thought I’d pop in with a round-up of my vacation reading, since you were so great in helping me decide what to bring. I’ll admit right now, however — I didn’t get to Leviathan. On the flight home, I succumbed to the lure of a glossy magazine in the airport newsstand, and read that during the “no electronics” phase of the flight.

So what DID I read? Of bound-paper books, only Will Grayson, Will Grayson. On my Kindle, though, I also read InterWorld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. I also read three client manuscripts — new books by Kater Cheek, Carrie Harris, and Kiki Hamilton.

I’d have liked to have read EVEN more, but most of that reading took place on the first half of the week, which was overcast and/or rainy. Once we got to spend more time at the beach, between the boogie-boarding, sandcastle-building, and wave-jumping, there wasn’t much time to sit and read with a five-year-old.

I’m of course not going to pick favorites, though it was neat to be a part of the kidlit community while we all tore through Mockingjay together. And Will Grayson had me in happy tears on a crowded airplane. And I think InterWorld was maybe the most surprising to me — if only because I think if it had come out AFTER The Graveyard Book, it would have been more justly lauded as a great YA novel. In some ways, it reminds me of kt literary client Matthew Cody‘s upcoming novel The Dead Gentleman, which I can’t wait to share with you. And if you know me, you’ll know what high praise that is, indeed!

As for the client manuscripts I read — well, let’s just say I can’t wait to share those with you either! They included a couple of sequels and an exciting new direction — more soon, I hope!

As for the above totally-not-posed picture, it’s of one of my sisters’ friends’ daughters reading Maureen Johnson‘s 13 Little Blue Envelopes across the circle of beach chairs from me last Saturday.