For the Record....

This sounds sort of strange, because I consider her to be a friend, and I hope she'll forgive me for being presumptuous (and oh-so-wierd)... but I want to BE Brodi Ashton. The girl isn't even officially published yet, but already I know great things are in store for her, and I want to go on the record by saying that I knew it first. Well, close to first. I think her husband and her writer's group must have suspected it before I even had a chance.

I'm dating my own fan-dom from April 16, 2010. I had been following her blog for months (I was among her first 100 followers, so nyah-nyah), and so was already in the habit of avidly stopping by three times a week. She'd given a few teaser lines of the book now called EVERNEATH back in November of 2009, but on April 16, 2010, she posted a longer teaser. I'm not at all ashamed to say that I was completely hooked. Not just hooked, but addicted. I literally read the teaser at least ten times and, every few months since, I stop back to get my fix. Go read it--but be warned: you'll want more, and you'll want it now, but you won't get it for another 18 months. CORRECTION: it turns out that "Winter of 2012" also encompasses January 2012. January 3rd, be exact. Which shall be known as The Frabjous Day.

Winter of 2012 can't come fast enough--I'm so SO eager to read the rest! It's not just the interesting premise or the skillful writing: in just that short clip, I could feel what it was like to go away for 100 years, come back 6 months later, be completely changed, and want nothing more than to not hurt (again) the guy I love... even knowing that hurting him was probably inevitable. Not a good feeling, friends--and that feeling has been festering, unresolved in my gut, for almost a year now. If I can achieve half that amount of emotion in twice the word count Brodi does it in, I'll know I'm doing well.

Brodi knows of my obsession and is handling it admirably. She and most of her awesome writer's group, The Six, allowed me and my college roomie, Susan Jensen, to go to dinner with them and hang out at the LDSSM conference last year, where Brodi very deservedly trounced me (and everyone else) in the First Chapter contest. (Had I known she had entered, I would have known I had no chance, rather than just suspecting it). She let me interview her writer's group for Authors' Advisory. She puts up with my not-at-all-infrequent attempts to trick her into sending me the unpublished-and-still-in-revisions manuscript, finally promising me an ARC, just to shut me up. (I'd say I won't hold her to that, but I haven't the strength.)

If you don't want to take my word for it, read what her agent wrote. Who wouldn't want an agent saying that about them?

Someday, when Brodi is widely known as the next Stephenie Meyer and is beating off legions of fans with a stick, I will be able to point out that I said it first. That should earn me a trip to the front of the signing line, methinks. Really, though, a little resolution would be awesome. Nikki and Jack need to figure out how to free her from the Everneath. They need to be free to love each other. Most importantly, I need to know how it all works out.

Hurry, 2012. Hurry, hurry.