As the release date for DIE FOR ME approaches, more and more exciting things are happening. Fun things like:

• getting to listen to—and vote on—which actress will read DIE FOR ME on the audiobook. (All five women were fluent in French. And I ended up voting for the one that Harper’s audio group liked the most.)

• getting to look through photos of male models to vote on who will be Vincent in my book’s video trailer. (All because Vania is so nice that she let me participate.)

• planning my book’s playlist with the help of my British friend Jim and my New York friend Dee Jay. (Jim is a music lover and Dee Jay is a music maker and, duh, a DJ, and knows everyone in the NY music scene.)

• something huge happening to the U.S. cover that I can’t tell you about yet.

But for me, the most exciting and flattering thing that has happened in the last few weeks is DIE FOR ME’s very first blurb.

I know that a blurb is a really big deal for the blurber because their opinion is being plastered onto the cover of a ton of books with their name attached. Permanently. It’s not like they can change their mind afterward. It goes “down on your permanent record”, as the Violent Femmes so memorably said.

Maybe not everyone would think about it that way, but I do…because I can imagine that sticking your neck out for someone who hasn’t yet been proven is a very brave thing.

So when I heard that someone really special had written a truly fantastic blurb for DIE FOR ME, I immediately wrote her a note thanking her for it. And she wrote back with an even bigger compliment, saying that she’s so picky nowadays that she often doesn’t even finish books. And then she thanked me for writing a book that she enjoyed finishing. Which immediately sent me into a catatonic shock, because…her??? me??? Once I recovered and could once again move my facial muscles I—needless to say—went around smiling like an idiot for the rest of the day.

And so here it is—DIE FOR ME’s very first blurb. I can’t imagine anything more wonderful…other than Madeleine L’Engle popping back from the afterlife and writing “Her book rocks” in permanent Magic Marker across my forehead. And since that is very unlikely (Madeleine L’Engle would never use the word “rocks”), I’ll just go ahead and say this is the most wonderful blurb I can imagine.

“I devoured this lush, mysterious romance, which delivers a refreshingly human heroine alongside a hero truly deserving of the title.”––Aprilynne Pike, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Wings series.

Thank you, Aprilynne. From the bottom of my heart.