Undercover, through the eyes of My Friend Amy

Confession: I have a really hard time reading reviews of my own books. Indeed, I have a hard time reading the books themselves once they're locked for good between hard covers. Like Michael Ondaatje and Tennessee Williams, I have the urge to nip and tuck right up to the very end. At readings I'll often find myself stopping mid-sentence, and reconsidering: What if I moved this semi-colon here? And: Do I need that adjective?

So I go along in this world, trying to write the best books that I can and hoping that those books will find their right readers. Good reviews are far from guaranteed. I write a certain kind of book. There are risks, always.

Tonight, I was moving through the blogs I love to read when I saw an image of the UNDERCOVER cover on My Friend Amy's blog. My heart skipped a beat, like my heart does. My Friend Amy, I thought. And then I held my breath, and read.

Amy does so much more—so beautifully—than talk about UNDERCOVER in this post. She talks about YA novels in general, and about her own high school career, and about a teacher she remembers. It's a charming, touching, and, to me, deeply moving, post, and I thank her so much for it.

(I'm breathing again.)

A footnote: UNDERCOVER is due out in May as a paperback "with extras." I describe just what those are in this earlier post.