GUEST BLOG POST - STACEY KADE (The Ghost & The Goth Series)

On the blog today we have a special guest blog post from author STACEY KADE.  I have recently read both books in the series - The Ghost and The Goth & Queen of The Dead - and thoroughly enjoyed each one.

I hope you enjoy her post - very entertaining!

GUEST POST by Stacey Kade
You'll forgive me if the tone of this post is a little misty and nostalgic. I've just discovered something I never quite anticipated: I miss Alona Dare and Will Killian.

I've spent the last four years with them (in my head) pretty much on a daily basis. I wrote the very first draft of The Ghost and the Goth waaaaay back in 2007. It was an incomplete draft. As in, it didn't have an ending. I got stuck about 3/4 of the way through and stopped. (By the way, writers out there who might be reading this? Don't do that. Don't stop. BAD IDEA.)

It might never have gone farther than that, but I loved the story (even as frustrated as I was with the non-ending). And that spring, I attended the Romantic Times Booklover's Convention. In casual conversation with an agent, who'd asked what I was working on, I described the basic outline of the story. Alona Dare: Mean girl. Cheerleader. Homecoming Queen. Ghost. Will Killian: Social outcast. Weird guy. Potentially crazy. Ghost-talker.

And she said, "Sounds interesting. Send it to me."

Whoa. Then I knew I had to finish. Confirmation that the story was intriguing to someone else beyond myself was the only motivation I needed. Well, that and a LOT of chocolate.

In rapid succession after that, I finished my draft and signed with an agent (not the one who asked, but another one who LOVED the story). She then sold the book to Disney-Hyperion. Amazing.

And now, more than three years later, I've finished the trilogy. There were many struggles, drafts, revisions, and moments where I was convinced I'd written myself into a corner I couldn't get out of, that I'd never reach the ending I'd been picturing since book one.

But now, suddenly, somehow I wrote THE END. I turned the final book, Body & Soul, in several months ago, and it's currently going through the process of becoming a book (editing, copyediting, design, and more). It'll be out in the US on May 29, 2012.

And though I'm incredibly excited about my new series (the first book is THE RULES in 2013--yea!!!), I'm still just a little bit sad at the prospect of never hearing Alona bitch about someone's outfit again or watching Will attempt to contain his frustration at her strange and sort of selfish ways.

So, to stave off that melancholy, I thought I'd share a few hints about what's to come in Body & Soul (forgive the vagueness, trying not to make it too spoiler-y):
--Alona is still...stuck in the situation she found herself in at the end of Queen of the Dead, but there's a good chance you'll see her in her gym uniform once more.

--Once again, the actions of Will's father before his death play a significant role in what is to happen.

--There is a potentially a new spirit guide on the scene.

--We catch up with Misty, Alona's former BFF, and learn that things have not been going so well in her life lately...and she blames Alona. Alona's ghost, that is.

There! I feel better. How about you? :)

Thank you so much Stacey for taking the time to write a blog post for us. I know you have been super busy lately so I greatly appreciate it!

Enjoy!

Marissa