WHERE IN HADES IS MY BOOK?

There are two awesome book signings in Utah this month: Cinder by Marissa Meyer and Everneath by Brodi Ashton. My favorite thing about book signings is reading their books and then getting to ask them questions about it. Plus meeting them. Yeah, yeah and the signature, too.

Luckily, Cinder is already released and Marissa Meyer won’t be in Utah until the 11th so I have plenty of time to read her book before she gets here. YAY! And ask her questions!

I had my heart set on reading an ARC of Everneath by Brodi Ashton before her launch party on January 24, 2012. I decided this way back in November so I figured I’d have plenty of time to get an ARC by then.

Oh how wrong I was.

First, I found the email to Brodi’s agent on her website and emailed her agent since I’ve learned vicariously from twitter that asking an author for an ARC is a big no-no because it’s rude and they don’t have them. Her agent kindly emailed me back and said she didn’t have any but that I should try NetGalley.

Google: What is NetGalley

Oh. It’s an ARC request site where they send you ebooks of ARCs if you are approved by the publisher. I bow to the genius that thought of that. I request Everneath 3 times and get denied each time.

How about four times?

No.

Five times?

NO.

Six?

STILL NO.

I think the seventh time will be something like, “OH MY GOSH JESSICA THE ANSWER IS NO DON’T EVER ASK AGAIN.” So I’m afraid to request it seven times. I don’t want to be a pest.

I’m not giving up (though the logical part of me thinks that I should). Do you see an ARC of Everneath in my hands? I don’t either.

That’s when I get on twitter.

I find four contests on twitter that are giving away Everneath ARCs none of which I win. I put a plug on my Waiting on Wednesday blog post that you can be my new best friend if you have an ARC of Everneath that I can have which no one responds to. Ouch.

And then.

I find dear, sweet Melina from Reading Vacation who wants to trade Everneath. What do you want for it, Melina? YOU CAN HAVE ANYTHING YOUR HEART DESIRES. I send her Clockwork Prince and she mails me Everneath and another book, whose title I can’t remember, to my PO Box that I bought just for my blog. I’m giddy. I check that PO Box with bated breath every day. Nothing.

Hermes himself changed the correct address that Melina put on the package to the wrong one. Then it gets sent to the Underworld where the Dark Lord sits on it and then they send it back to Melina. What the crap. And I mixed up two mythologies. Whatever. I complain to the post office that my package got sent back and they reassure me by saying, “That’s not supposed to happen.” No duh. They give me my money back for my PO Box and I still don’t have my book.

Melina, angel that she is and in no way is to blame for any of this, resends my book to my home address before Christmas and IT’S STILL NOT HERE despite me stalking my mail delivery person. I think Hermes took it back to the Underworld where he’s dancing around with it and the Dark Lord is farting on it….I don’t know. Seriously. Where in Hades is my book?!

So.

I’m going to read Cinder and then I’m going to read The Hunchback of Notre Dame because THAT’S THE KIND OF MOOD I’M IN. I’m starting to get YA overload. I need a break with something nice and long and tedious.

I feel liberated after my rant and ready to pass out at the same time. Thanks for listening.

By the way, I laughed my head off while typing this whole thing and I turned something that was giving me real anxiety into something funny.  I feel ten times better about it now and I can laugh it off.  That’s the magic of writing.