Here Come the Marys!

We're just going to leave this here for now, from Publishers Weekly:

Which one are you most excited for?

News and Tour Wrap up

So MY PLAIN JANE has been out for two weeks, and we Janies have been getting all the love!

In the first week we went on an amazing tour in which we:

Met a real live HEDGEHOG named Pixi Sticks in Salt Lake City!

Answered a lot of fun questions and performed a bit of MY PLAIN JANE (with costumes!)

(Thanks to the Fabulous Book Fiend for the fun video from our Denver event)

Almost melted in Phoenix, but we kept right on laughing

and then we returned to Salt Lake City, where the three of us sat down to start writing our next book, MY CALAMITY JANE. It was business as usual for the Janies:

And then something AMAZING happened:

MY PLAIN JANE hit the New York Times bestseller list!!!!!!!!

Needless to say, it was an amazing two weeks, and thanks so much to everyone who came out and supported us. We have the best, most enthusiastic, hilarious readers, and we love you all so much!

If you're feeling a bit cheated because we stuck to the western United States this time, and you live on the eastern side, we have good news. The Janies will be meeting up in August in Virginia to finish writing MY CALAMITY JANE, and while we're there, we'll be doing two book events. The first is at Barnes & Noble Charlottesville on Saturday, August 4th, at 12pm.

And the second will be at One More Page in Arlington on August 7 at 7pm:

So come and see us there! We promise that we will perform for you, too!

In less exciting news, we just sent copyright infringement takedowns to a huge amount of piracy sites. This depresses us so much. Please don't steal our books. At this stage, every single sale of MY PLAIN JANE counts so much, we can't emphasize enough how much it matters. We would really like to keep writing books together, but we can't do this if our sales aren't good enough. So please don't pirate!

On that note, we have some awesome news. MY PLAIN JANE is, as of this week, available at Target! But this is no ordinary version of our book. This version has a whole EXTRA CHAPTER at the end, like an epilogue to our epilogue. The Target version of the book is the only place you can get this extra content (which we had so much fun writing!), and they have only printed a limited amount of these, so once they are all sold, they're gone.

So run to Target, people! (Or you can get it online here.) And have a good laugh with us about the invention of the double date.

Thanks again for all the love for MY PLAIN JANE. We'll see you in the funny papers!

XOXO
The Janies

Big News

We're one month away from MY LADY JANE hitting the shelves! This is always the part of the publishing process that's the toughest (UGH the waiting), but it's also the part where a bunch of super exciting stuff happens. We have some big news! Warning: this post is going to have a lot of exclamation points!!!!

News Item #1

MY LADY JANE is going to be printed in England! We consider this to be something of a miracle, since we're talking about messing with English history here, but it's happening! It will be released on September 1, 2016, with this cover:

We are totally and completely charmed by this cover! We giggled for hours after we saw it-- Gifford with a horse head! The eye-rolling Jane! The way "not entirely" is scribbled into the title! We are so happy that our readers in the U. K. will get to read this book!

News Item #2

MY LADY JANE is going to be an audio book! It will be released on June 7--the same day as the hardcover. It's narrated by Katherine Kellgren, who we picked specifically because we loved the way she narrated Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It will be the coolest thing ever to hear this proper British voice telling our little Jane story. We can't wait to hear it!

News Item #3 (You might want to sit down for this one. . .)

MY LADY JANE is on its way to being made into a movie!

Now everybody take a deep breath, because we have to clarify that the book is in the very beginning stages of this process, and having your book being made into a film is a long and difficult road. It could be a really long time. Or it could be never.

But still. . .

Ridley Scott's company, Scott Free, is currently working on the development of MY LADY JANE for the big screen.

This is crazy exciting news to us. We love Ridley Scott's films so much, and we're completely thrilled and honored to have his name attached to our book!

News Item #4

We're going on tour! We can't announce the wheres and whens just yet, but the Lady Janies will be traveling all over the country in June, signing and meeting our readers and having a veritable blast. Check back soon on our Events page for the details.


And. . . that's all our news!

Happy Book Birthday to The Mirror King

Hello, Lady Janie Cynthia Hand here. It's a special day today! Our fellow Janie, Jodi Meadows, has a new book that is hitting the shelves today! It's the second (and final) book in the Orphan Queen series, and it is (this kind of goes without saying) FANTASTIC, so we thought we'd take the time to tell you about it (in case you didn't already know. . .)

Here's some info on the first book of the series, THE ORPHAN QUEEN.

Wilhelmina has a hundred identities.

She is a princess. When the Indigo Kingdom conquered her homeland, Wilhelmina and other orphaned children of nobility were taken to Skyvale, the Indigo Kingdom’s capital. Ten years later, they are the Ospreys, experts at stealth and theft. With them, Wilhelmina means to take back her throne.

She is a spy. Wil and her best friend, Melanie, infiltrate Skyvale Palace to study their foes. They assume the identities of nobles from a wraith-fallen kingdom, but enemies fill the palace, and Melanie’s behavior grows suspicious. With Osprey missions becoming increasingly dangerous and their leader more unstable, Wil can’t trust anyone.

She is a threat. Wraith is the toxic by-product of magic, and for a century using magic has been forbidden. Still the wraith pours across the continent, reshaping the land and animals into fresh horrors. Soon it will reach the Indigo Kingdom. Wilhelmina’s magic might be the key to stopping the wraith, but if the vigilante Black Knife discovers Wil’s magic, she will vanish like all the others.

Jodi Meadows introduces a vivid new fantasy full of intrigue, romance, dangerous magic, and one girl’s battle to reclaim her place in the world.

I feel extra fond of OQ because I have a wonderful memory of driving around Virginia with Jodi Meadows, back when we were first conceiving of MY LADY JANE, and the three of us each reading from our works-in-progress. I read a little from the draft of my book, THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE, Brodi read from a hilarious book about a teen who runs a poker ring that she was working on (that I'm going to be poking at her to finish until my dying day), and Jodi read from THE ORPHAN QUEEN. And it was just. so. freaking. good.

And now you all can read it too, and it ends on a doozy of a cliffhanger, so you'll want to move right on to THE MIRROR KING to see how it ends.

Wilhelmina has a hundred enemies.

Her friends have turned. After her identity is revealed during the Inundation, Princess Wilhelmina is kept prisoner by the Indigo Kingdom, with the Ospreys lost somewhere in the devastated city. When the Ospreys’ leader emerges at the worst possible moment, leaving Wil’s biggest ally on his deathbed, she must become Black Knife to set things right.

Her magic is uncontrollable. Wil’s power is to animate, not to give true life, but in the wraithland she commanded a cloud of wraith mist to save herself, and later ordered it solid. Now there is a living boy made of wraith—destructive and deadly, and willing to do anything for her.

Her heart is torn. Though she’s ready for her crown, declaring herself queen means war. Caught between what she wants and what is right, Wilhelmina realizes the throne might not even matter. Everyone thought the wraith was years off, but already it’s destroying Indigo Kingdom villages. If she can’t protect both kingdoms, soon there won’t be a land to rule.

In this stunning conclusion to THE ORPHAN QUEEN, Jodi Meadows follows Wilhelmina’s breathtaking and brave journey from orphaned criminal on the streets to magic-wielding queen.

I can't wait to read it. . .

via GIPHY

Join Jane's Ladies!

Today we've got an exciting announcement: the formation of Jane's Ladies, the fan club for MY LADY JANE. We created this club so that we'd be able to connect more closely with our fans, offer exclusive content and swag, keep you up to date on all the latest news, and sometimes, just sometimes, meet you all IN PERSON. So if MY LADY JANE seems like a book you'd love and you want to hear more about it, win cool prizes, and meet the authors, fill out the form below and we'll be in contact with you soon! (And tell your friends! In this club, the more, the merrier!)

We're Coming to England!

Hi! We've been spending the past few months with our noses to the grindstone, finishing MY LADY JANE. We are happy to report that we have a first draft, and as of about a week ago we have notes from our lovely editor at HarperTeen, and we are working on the first round of serious revisions. In that spirit, we are coming to England to research the locations from the novel, to talk to some really smart Englishmen/women about the Lady Jane Grey, to have all-the-fun seeing the sights, and to finish Draft #2.

We're also doing a meet-and-greet with our British readers and fans! So yes, if you live in England, we'd love to meet you!

Here's the information:

Sunday, April 12th, we will be hanging out at a cafe called Le Pain Quotidien, starting at 2:30 p.m. and going until whenever they run out of cookies . . . er, biscuits.

The address is
15 Winchester Walk
London
SE1 9AG

and we're told it is right next to the Borough Market.

We are unbelievably excited about the whole thing. We love English history (duh), and we love traveling together, and we love getting to meet our readers. Win win win!

And yes, if you bring copies of our books, we would LOVE to sign them. We'll even break out the special pens.