Tag: new book (Page 1 of 2)

The 10-Year, 230-Rejection Journey of the YA Thriller BLACK BUTTERFLY

April 24, 2024 / Katie L. Carroll / 0 Comments

Surprise! My YA thriller BLACK BUTTERFLY, book one in the Spy Agents series, comes out May 21 and is available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.org.

Check out this gorgeous cover by BetiBup33 Design Studio. This was my first time using a premade cover for a book, and I’m really pleased with the result. The designer was open to the small customization of adding in the butterfly mask over the face. It’s the same butterfly image that is part of the chapter headers inside the book.

Sometimes, you see an image and know it’s got the right vibe for the book, and that’s what happened here.

It may seem sudden that BLACK BUTTERFLY releases in less than a month because I haven’t really talked about it much, but this book was a long time coming. I started writing it back in 2014 (nope, not a typo…it’s really been 10 years!). Originally, I sought to have it traditionally published. There was quite a bit of interest from agents and a few editors, and it won a couple of contests. In the end though, it earned over 230 rejections (again, not a typo!) and never landed an agent or a publishing contract.

I shelved it for awhile, but I never gave up on it. Even though it’s quite dark with a terrorist attacks, violence, and torture, it was oddly fun to write. The main character, who has many aliases (we’ll stick with calling her Black Butterfly to avoid any spoilers), is an amnesiac and finds out she’s a government spy. She also discovers that she might not the hero of the story but the villain!

The story is told in 1st-person present tense, which is a very close point-of-view to work in. It was a really interesting writing challenge to make her an unreliable narrator, but (hopefully) the reader doesn’t end up feeling cheated by her keeping secrets. Anyway, the story and the character kept sticking around in my head, refusing to be ignored.

@katielcarrollauthor
Black Butterfly is the first book in the Spy Agents series! It’s a YA thriller with an unreliable narrator, hero or villain trope, conspiracy theories, and dystopian vibes. #dystopian #yabooktok #blackbutterfly #booksyoushouldread #thrillerbooks #spythriller #unreliablenarrator #yabooks #fastpacedbooks #dystopianbooks #spyagents
♬ dont look so concerned – bonnie ⛧

Fast forward to last year, and I started getting serious about writing a sequel with the thought that maybe I’d self-publish the series. Despite the many, many rejections of the first book, I have always believed in it. Coming across the cover image that fit the story so perfectly, I knew that I had to make BLACK BUTTERFLY a real book…not just a manuscript wallowing away on my computer.

I got the proof copy of the book the other day, and it’s so exciting that BLACK BUTTERFLY is going to finally be available to readers! Here’s a little about the book:

Is she the hero or the villain?

Black Butterfly wakes to a country devastated by terrorist attacks, supposedly at the hands of the Chinese government. She remembers nothing of her personal life—not even her name. All she knows is that she was in New York City on the day of the attacks. Though, she soon discovers she has an unsettling repertoire of violent talents.

Elijah and his found family of off-gridders from upstate New York take in Black Butterfly and mend her wounds. With nowhere else to go, she joins them as they head to a rally in Washington D.C. The eclectic group begins to feel like the family she can’t remember—or never had.

An encounter with Luca, a spy for a shadowy government agency, confirms Black Butterfly’s worst suspicions about who she was in the life she can’t remember. As more memories surface, Black Butterfly heads to the agency’s headquarters to find out who’s behind the terrorist attacks. It’s unclear whether she intends to reveal the truth or go back to her villainous way. And it’s more than her life she’s putting at risk.

Pre-order the paperback Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.org. The ebook is up for pre-order on Amazon and will be available on Kindle Unlimited.

Sneak Peek at Daddy’s 12 Days of Christmas by Katie L. Carroll, illustrated by Phoebe Cho

October 10, 2023 / Katie L. Carroll

Publishing is always looking ahead, so even though the leaves have barely begun to show their fall resplendence here, my bookish brain is focused on Christmas. In two weeks, my next Family Holiday Tales books DADDY’S 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS releases!

I’ve once again teamed up with Phoebe Cho, illustrator of MOMMY’S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, for another heartfelt and realistic take on a Christmas classic. As you can see from the cover, Phoebe does amazing character work, bringing such vibrancy to my words with her illustrations.

DADDY’S 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS is a play on the classic Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Only this is a 12 days like you’ve never seen before!

You can pre-order it from from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, or Kobo, and it officially releases on October 24. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the “gifts” Daddy receives from his children during the holiday season.

When Write What You Know Isn’t Autobiographical

September 8, 2023 / Katie L. Carroll

Most writers, and probably many readers, have heard the phrase “write what you know.” There are a lot of different ways to interpret that, but a common one is to write emotional truths into your stories. So pulling from emotions you’ve experienced and infusing that into the work. Using your own life as inspiration.

But unless you’re writing an autobiography or a memoir, you’re generally not writing about your actual life. This can be a tricky line to navigate when using your own life as inspiration, especially if you’re pulling from emotional truths that are painful.

I used this quote from Hamlet to make the book trailer for ONLY DARK EDGES because it so perfectly encapsulates the main character’s state of mind in the beginning of the book.

This was true for me when I was writing my YA novel ONLY DARK EDGES. I was writing about a teen who was dealing with the death of her sister, and though I was pulling from my own experience of losing my sister, I wasn’t writing about my own grief. The emotional core of the character was similar to my own, but they were not the same, and our experiences were definitely not the same. I will admit that it was a hard book to write, and it was hard to separate my grief from the main character’s.

This was one of the reasons why I chose to make it a very loose retelling of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Having the framework and themes of the play in mind helped give me some emotional distance from the writing. It kept me from getting too bogged down in my own emotions, so I could actually get the book written. In particular, I found it interesting exploring the themes of madness and indecision from Hamlet and incorporating that into my book.

Check out the playlist I created for ONLY DARK EDGES and my TikTok videos about the book.

Hamlet meets Six Feet Under in this YA psychological thriller that is both heart-pounding and heart-wrenching.

Delta’s spent the summer navigating the treacherous waters of losing her older sister, Gemma. Determined to brave junior year of high school without her sister, Delta finds solace in the arms of a new girlfriend. But grief takes a twisted turn when Gemma’s tortured ghost appears with a dire warning.

Beware the storm.

Plagued by the haunting suspicion that Gemma’s death involved foul play, Delta is plunged into a downward spiral of grief and paranoia. No one can be trusted—not her girlfriend, their friends, or her sister’s once-loyal boyfriend. Not even Delta’s own mind.

With a hurricane bearing down, two tempests collide at the abandoned Sea Glass Lodge. Accusations fly. Secrets unravel. And everyone is a target of the storm.

Buy signed copies on the Purchase Books page or find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, and Smashwords.

Happy Book Birthday to WITCH TEST by Katie L. Carroll and Bonus Playlist

September 13, 2022 / Katie L. Carroll

Jump for joy! Throw confetti! It’s release day for WITCH TEST!!! I’ll be live on TikTok (@katielcarrollauthor) today at 11:00 a.m. (ET) to celebrate.

@katielcarrollauthor
Witch Test! #witchtest #booksforkids #mgbooks #witchbook #bookquotes #halloweenvibes #fallbooks
♬ Halloween, horror, spooky cinematic background music(852258) – domino

It feels really good to be releasing a book after what feels like forever since the last one…and to have another coming next month with MOMMY’S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

I recently said that writing WITCH TEST was like giving a hug to my 11-year-old self, and I can’t think of a better way to describe how I feel about this book. It’s about finding yourself in the saddest place you’ve ever been in your life and feeling like the only way to get through the day is to put yourself in a bubble of protection. And how do you find your way out of that mindset?

As I mentioned in my post “The Historical and Personal Inspiration Behind WITCH TEST,” it’s also about long grief and about mourning someone you never really knew. Chapter 40, titled “Ritual,” makes me cry every time I read it, and I’m not a crier!

Some of my favorite things about the book are the crows, the Halloween night corn maze, the trio of witches, and tea time at Mother Goose Apothecary.

Anyway, thank you for all the support of this book and my author career in general. If you do end up reading the book (or a young person in your life reads it), please leave a review on Amazon. You don’t have to have bought the book there to leave a review. It helps boost the visibility of the book to help it find more readers.

Here’s a little playlist I put together of songs that I think Liza, the main character, can relate to. It includes a couple from my two favorite bands: “Are You Sad” by Our Lady Peace and “Good Grief” by Bastille. My new favorite song “W.I.T.C.H” by Devon Cole is the first on the list because this should totally be Liza’s theme song!

About WITCH TEST:

Liza is sinking in a bubbling cauldron of middle school rumors.

When the entire eighth grade begins studying the Salem witch trials, it seems everyone is on a witch hunt…with Liza as target number one. Worst of all, her ex-best friend is the one who started a rumor that Liza bewitched a boy with a love potion.

As the bullying intensifies, Liza’s loneliness grows. More than ever, she wishes her mother were still alive. A glimmer of hope arrives when Liza finds her mother’s diary…until she actually reads it. Turns out Liza’s family connection to witches goes back for centuries. So much for the witch stuff being rumors!

If Liza can channel her inner witch at the Halloween night corn maze, she might find the strength to stand up for herself. If not, she risks losing a piece of herself to a growing depression and any hope of happiness.

WITCH TEST is an upper middle grade Mean Girls meets The Craft novel for pre-teens and young teens.

Get it now from my Purchase Books page for signed copies, or find it on Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, IndieBound, Apple Books, Book Depository (for international folks), and many of your favorite book retailers!

The Historical and Personal Inspiration Behind WITCH TEST

August 23, 2022 / Katie L. Carroll

My upper middle grade WITCH TEST comes out on September 13! Notice the “upper” as there are some heavy topics of bullying, depression, and dealing with the loss of a parent (though the actual passing of the parent occurs many years before the book takes place).

Liza, the main character, is 13 and in eighth grade. I’ve been recommending WITCH TEST as best for the 10-14 age range, rather than the more typical MG one of 8-12. This has made the marketing of the book less straightforward than my other middle grade PIRATE ISLAND. Billy, the main character of PIRATE ISLAND, is also 13, but the topics of the book stay more firmly in the core middle grade range.

Despite the marketing challenges, I think being in that upper age range was the best thing for the story. The upper MG/lower YA category tends to be underrepresented in books, and those readers deserve stories. Plus, the bullying and what I refer to as “long grief” draw on my own teen/preteen experiences and beyond.

My bullying experience took place at the start of middle school in sixth grade and the rumors my ex-friends spread weren’t calling me a witch, rather a lesbian (keep in mind I was in middle school in the early 90s). It was intense to go through that as an 11-year-old, and I decided to age Liza up to 13 to show readers a character who was slightly more mature and introspective than I was when I went through it.

As for the topic of the bullying in Liza’s world, I didn’t want to completely mirror my own. I really loved how PIRATE ISLAND blended local history (in this case Captain Kidd’s pirate history) into a contemporary story, so I wanted an historical tie-in for WITCH TEST as well. When I was brainstorming topics of local history, one of those I came across was the witch trials that occurred in Connecticut, which predate the Salem witch trials. It felt like the perfect metaphor for bullying in modern times.

As my long-time readers might have guessed, the long grief inspiration stems from the death of my sister, Kylene, when she was 16 and I was 19. I’ve often written about how her death has made me the writer I am today and how it has continued to influence my work (see “Why Is It Taking Me So Long To Write the Second Elixir Book?”).

The process of mourning someone is not linear. It never stops. While it does get “better” as time goes on and you find what I call a “new normal,” your feelings can also loop back and it’s awful all over again. I wanted to explore this long mourning in WITCH TEST, so that meant giving Liza even more tough topics to deal with. Her feelings of grief over her mom’s death are largely brought up in response to the bullying, and she wonders how she might be better coping with life if her mother were still alive. As she was only three when her mother died, Liza also ponders how you can miss someone you can’t even remember.

Add in Halloween and a haunted corn maze, and it all makes for a heavy, spooky story. It’s one that I love, and though I’m not typically a crier, I tear up every single time I read the climax scene in the corn maze. And I’ve read it many, many times!

I don’t think there’s anything in the story that younger middle grade readers CAN’T read, but they’re not going to get as much out of it as a slightly older reader. My 10 (almost 11) year old has read it and enjoyed it. He said, “WITCH TEST is intriguing, interesting, and heart-touching.”