Ten Things About My 2027 YA (Finally!)
mostly, i am just extremely pleased they let me keep the title
I have a 2027 YA! Being on submission for the first time in 10 years was an experience, but it ended well and I am excited to keep working in this book.
The main character’s name is Agatha Grey. It was Agatha Harkness (Agatha Christie, Jack Harkness) for about two weeks, and then WandaVision aired.
The hotel in question is called The Nexus, and it’s built into the back of the Royal York in Toronto.
the royal york, taken from union station while trying to avoid construction work and street hawkers There are half a million bees on the 14th floor, where the roof garden is. The bees are only there in the summer (I don’t know where they go), but I made the garden a greenhouse for, uh, plot reasons, so my bees stay there year round.
The Murder At The End Of This Book is a reference to the classic 1971 Sesame Street Golden Book The Monster At The End Of This Book.
This book went to auction, and the auction happened while I was at Disney World. I took the first phone call while trying not to eat a churro, next to Cosmic Rewind.
churro not pictured because i ate it as soon as i got off the phone, obviously The rest of the auction happened while I was driving home. I stopped at every rest stop in Virginia, I think. I accepted the deal with S&S in the parking lot of the crappy public toilets right across the Bridge in Sarnia.
The Murder At The End Of This Book drew inspiration from “Loki”, “John Wick”, “Only Murders In The Building”, “Agatha All Along”, and “Good Boy”, by Paris Paloma.
a sign for the continental hotel This is my fifth book to have a scene take place in an alternate universe version of my friend Colleen’s house (which...I guess means this book is also part of the EK Johnston Multi-Verse, even though we’ve moved to a new publisher).
There is a niche archaeology joke in this book that approximately 10 people will get, and I think it’s extremely funny anyway.
And that’s pretty much all I can tell you right now! We’re putting together the cover comps right now, and I’m revising my little heart out (you know what’s more fun than writing time travel? editing time travel). Soon we’ll have a cover and a summary and a release date, but in the meantime, we’ll all just have to wait.
Also in the works from me right now! There are pre-order options for both The Third Period Comeback and Demon In The Sand (ie. the TITAN sequel), but I can’t share the covers yet, so we’ll need some patience there, too. I am also starting to poke at the second Middle Grade book, which I’ll have to write entirely in the winter because if I write it during swimming weather, I might never go in the lake again.
My books make great holiday gifts. If you’re local to Fanfare Books in Stratford, you can order from them and make a note asking them to get me to come in and sign them for you.
I hope your year is winding down well! Beginnings and endings are all a bit arbitrary when it comes to timekeeping, but it’s important to have boundaries and it’s nice to lean on structure when, say, you find a dead boy in your bath tub and have to give a witness statement, even though time is actually a flat circle. In any case, we’ve all got things to do, and I’ll see you again in January.
