Several Fun Things and One Tiny Rant

My launch signing for RAMPANT is at 2 PM Today! Everyone come see me in Maryland! It’s metro-accessible! It’s close to DC! I’ll have treats! It’s gonna be fun!

I’ve chosen the winners for the HarperTeen release giveaways. The winner of AS YOU WISH by Jackson Pearce is Kate from the Neverending Shelf. The winner of THE BLONDE OF THE JOKE by Bennett Madison is Sarah Beth Durst. Please contact me with your addresses to receive your prizes.

Another fantastic review of RAMPANT, this one from Cassandra Yorgey at the Examiner.com, who, apparently, has been following the blog for quite some time. 🙂 (Hi, Cassandra!)A few notable quotes:

“The world-building is brilliant and is born out of mythology and actual history but is woven together with lots of imagination. The scope of the novel is large with much of it set as history, but those bits are equally as compelling as the modern story line. The gaps and misinterpretations in current unicorn representation are explained creatively and with a real anchor in historical facts that makes suspension of disbelief fairly easy.

“Despite all it’s fantastical elements, Rampant also addresses serious issues like power struggles, independence, virginity, environmentalism, brutality, choice, and throughout it all there is a beautiful exploration of gender – both past and present views on what it means to be a woman. It’s also got romance and blood, lots of blood. Dear Diana is there blood. But just when it was about to be too much blood or too much romance the tone would be lightened with humor. Peterfreund is good at the one-liners and uses them well.”

Nice, huh? I know I’m preaching to the choir here, that after a week of non-stop hawking of RAMPANT you’d like me to just shut up about the book already, because you probably already own it, or have absolutely no intent to buy it whatsoever despite my cheerleading, or are still mad at me for writing a book that isn’t about Amy — and hey, I can’t say I don’t see your point (except for that last bit — guys, Amy’s done. She’s got her happy ending and I have no intention of screwing that up for her).

But on my side of the computer, I have a book that I have loved and cultivated and researched and fought for — yes, fought for, like no other book I have ever written — for four years, finallyfinallyfinally on the shelves. I first starting writing RAMPANT at the same time as SECRET SOCIETY GIRL, a book that has been out for over three years already. Elephants have nothing on the gestation time of this book. So indulge me my excitement. And…go buy it!

And please, do not pirate it. I cannot believe that I had to spend time this morning communicating with one of those pirating book sites because they are already posting a download of Rampant by Diana Peterfreund. A book that has been out less than a week, and they are already putting up an illegal free download of Rampant by Diana Peterfreund. I know I have talked at length about how damaging it is to read a pirated copy of my book, and how the end result of downloading free online copy of Rampant by Diana Peterfreund is that there will be no more copies of my books, and no more books. But I feel it should be said again, because I know that a whole host of you just landed on this blog post by searching those terms. Cut it out, guys. Not cool. If you can’t afford my book, request it from your local library. The NYPL, for instance, currently has 44 copies of Rampant in their system. If your library will not order the book due to budget or other constraints, contact me.

Now, so as not to end on a sour note, I thought I’d show off some pictures of my awesome new bookmarks! I luuuuuuuurve them. They are so silky and sparkly and gorgeous and represent a ton of self-teaching in the world of graphic design and vectors. And, it wouldn’t have been possible without a ton of help from Courtney Milan and Saundra Mitchell, who helped me with the vectors and CMYK conversion and all kinds of stuff. Thank you so much, gals!

And this is the result:

Why, yes, that is foil on the title and spot gloss on the sword, and it’s all very gorgeous! The pictures don’t do them justice, honestly.

Are you a bookseller or librarian who would like a few of these? Contact me. I’d love to give them to you!

And, I will have them at the signing today in Maryland, so if you want them then….all you have to do is show up at the Borders at 2!