CONJURED comes out today!

Ladies and gentlemen!!!  Children of all... okay, no.  Not all ages.  12 and up, please.  I don't want to be responsible for little kids having nightmares about creepy carnivals...

I am thrilled to announce the release of my new book, CONJURED!!!

This is, by far, the creepiest and wildest book I've ever written.  It was so much fun to write!  And as of today, it is out in the world!!!

CONJURED is a fantasy novel for young adults, published by Bloomsbury / Walker Books for Young Readers.  It's about a girl in the paranormal witness protection program, who, haunted by visions of carnival tents and tarot cards, must remember her past and why she has strange abilities before a magic-wielding serial killer hunts her down.

Laini Taylor, New York Times bestselling author of the DAUGHTER OF SMOKE & BONE series, called it: "A twisted circus of a book, completely freaky and delicious at the same time.  It's a thriller, a fairy tale nightmare, and a romance all in one, unlike anything else and impossible to predict.  I could not stop reading!"

CONJURED crept up on me.  I'd planned to write a police procedural about a federal marshal who works for the paranormal branch of the witness protection program... but when I began to develop the case that the marshall was working, the witness herself, Eve, a girl with zero memories and lots of bizarre powers, drew more and more of my attention.  The instant she made the birds in her wallpaper fly around her room, I knew the story had to be hers.

Writing this book felt a lot like leaping out of an airplane.  (Minus the risk of broken bones.)  I broke a lot of writing rules in order to tell Eve's story through her eyes, the way it needed to be told.  Eve is a blank slate character.  She begins with essentially no identity.  So instead of a reader discovering who she is, the reader comes along with her as she creates who she is.

I dedicated this book to Andrea Somberg, my agent.  Without her, this book wouldn't exist.  Without her, none of my books would exist.  She is, quite simply, a dream-maker (as well as an incredibly awesome person).

I've wanted to be a writer since I was ten years old.  It's the only thing that I've ever wanted to do with my life.  I wrote my very first story in fifth grade, and I kept writing and writing and writing...  After college, I started seriously pursuing publication.  I finished my first novel-length manuscript and sent it out.  And then I wrote another and sent it out.  And then wrote another...  I refer to this period as the "rinse, lather, repeat" stage of my life.  In 2006, the stars aligned, and I signed with Andrea Somberg of the Harvey Klinger Agency.  Six weeks after that, she had multiple offers for my debut novel, INTO THE WILD.

She's believed in me from the start.  And in the years since then, she's made my dream come true many, many times over.  To date, she's sold 11 novels for me.  (CONJURED is #7.)  And I've come to know her as an incredibly kind, smart, and all-around amazing person.

So I'd like to say thank you to Andrea and thank you to my wonderful editor Emily Easton and all the amazing people at Bloomsbury/Walker for bringing this book to life!

Everyone, meet Eve!

Eve, meet everyone!

More about CONJURED, including the first chapter, can be found here.

Bloomsbury YA 2013 Thriller eSampler

Check out what the lovely folks at Bloomsbury put together -- an eSampler of their upcoming YA thrillers, including the first two chapters of Conjured!

It features sample chapters from new novels by Susan Vaught, Sarah Beth Durst (me!), Jennifer Shaw Wolf, and 2013 Printz Award winner Nick Lake, and it's available for FREE on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and other devices.

Enjoy!!!

6 more days until Conjured comes out!!!!!

Two Back-to-the-Future Boxes

Remember George McFly's box of books in Back to the Future?

After Marty returns to 1985 and before anyone notices how severely his memories are messed up (which, incidentally, sounds like the start of a horror movie -- his family and friends all possess a different set of memories), he watches his dad receive a box in the mail, brought inside by Biff (who is inexplicably allowed to be anywhere near Lorraine).  George opens it, and it's the author copies for his first published novel.

I love that scene.

Apparently it's too minor a moment to even rate a YouTube video, but it was formative for me.  As soon as I saw that movie, I started wanting that box.

So now, every time I receive author copies of a new book, my husband and I call it the Back-to-the-Future box.

Or sometimes the Breakfast-Club box when we mix up our 80s movies.

And then "Don't You Forget About Me" gets stuck in our heads for hours.

You're welcome.

Anyway, over the past week, I've received not one but TWO Back-to-the-Future boxes!  Here's the box full of copies of the paperback edition of VESSEL (which comes out on Aug 27th):

And here's the box full of my new YA book CONJURED (which comes on Sept 3rd):

Opening boxes like this does not get old.  In fact, it feels like bells should be ringing, angels should be singing, and elephants should be trumpeting.  The Back-to-the-Future box is final, incontrovertible proof that the book is real -- and that soon, very soon, it will be out in the world!

Horn Book Review of CONJURED!

Very excited to share with you this lovely review of Conjured from Horn Book!!!

Conjured
by Sarah Beth Durst
High School    Walker    303 pp.
9/3    978-0-8027-3458-7    $17.99

Eve has peculiar memory problems. Not only is she unable to remember her former life, but every time she uses magic -- purposely or inadvertently -- she blacks out and awakens with even her short-term memories erased. The U.S. Marshals of the witness protection program, WitSec, are determined to make Eve remember in any way they can: they're sure she has vital information on a teen-murdering, interworld criminal -- information that is embedded in Eve's nightmarish visions of a sinister carnival and its magic show. In her new, puzzling, and forgetful life, Eve doesn't know whom to trust: Malcolm, the marshal who watches over her; the three magic-wielding teenagers WitSec lets loose on her; or Zach, the garrulous, sweet-souled fellow volunteer at her library job. Durst combines the particular terrors of memory loss and icy bureaucracy with the colorful horrors of carnivalesque murder, killer sleight-of-hand, and a creepy, terrible truth about Eve's very being. Disorientation, curiosity, and fear course through the story, offering tight suspense and satisfying mystification even up to the last pages. An unusual blend of magical worlds, psychological thriller, and teen romance. -- Deirdre F. Baker

This review completely made my day.

Another thing that made my day: the realization that in less than a month, Eve will be out in the world!!!  Granted, I do wish the summer weren't flying by quite so fast.  I feel like it's vanishing faster than an ice cream cone.  But I can't be sad since it means I'll be able to share Eve and her creepy, topsy-turvy, wild life with you soon... in 23 days, to be exact!  Yay!!!

Excerpt from CONJURED

57 days until Conjured comes out!!!

In honor of that completely random number of days -- and also because I am ridiculously excited about this book -- I've posted the first chapter on my website.  Hope you enjoy this sneak peek at Conjured!

Here's how it begins:

"Your name is Eve. Remember that."

She was supposed to call him Malcolm. Pressing her forehead against the cool glass of the car window, she stared at the house. Yellow and narrow, it loomed over the lawn. She traced the outline of the house on the window: a peaked roof, two windows with shades drawn, a front door dead center. "It's a face," she said.

The man and woman in the front seats checked their phones and then their guns. "You can't give her kiwis," the woman said to the man. Malcolm. And she was Aunt Nicki. "She'll think they're mice."

"Kiwis are nutritious," Malcolm said. Twisting in his seat, he leveled a finger at Eve. "I walk first, you second, Nicki last. Understood?" He didn't wait for her response, and she didn't give him one. He stepped out of the car and stretched.

"Start her on apples," Aunt Nicki said, opening her door and stepping out into the street. "Or bananas. Oranges."

"You could have shopped," Malcolm said. "Besides, it is impossible to eat an orange without it spitting at you. It's a hostile fruit."

"Oranges are classic. For centuries, soccer moms have been carting orange wedges to refuel their charming tykes on the field of battle."

Outside, they shut their doors. Eve let the blissful silence wrap around her for three seconds until Malcolm yanked open her car door. "You push the red button to release the strap." His voice was kind and soft, as if he expected her to cower or bolt. He pointed next to her, and she located the red button. It clicked, and the seat belt snapped out of her hands and flattened onto the seat behind her. "It's going to be okay," he said, and she was certain he wasn't talking about the seat belt. Not wanting to see pity in his eyes, she stared at the seat belt contraption for a second before she climbed out of the car and followed Malcolm toward the house.
 
Click here to read the rest of the first chapter.

Countdown Widgets for CONJURED and THE LOST

The other day, it suddenly dawned on me that...  Whoa!  It's now less than three months until Conjured comes out!  And for that matter, less than five months until The Lost comes out!

Yes, I've known the pub dates forever.  But somehow, the reality of how those dates are actually approaching, and how these novels are going to become real books when those dates arrive, just reached my brain last week.

After a brief flash of terror -- SO MUCH WORK TO DO BEFORE PUB DATE!!!! -- my brain accepted reality and got quite giddy!  And since I know I'll now be counting the days until each of these pub dates, I figured I'd formalize the process and post some countdown widgets here.  So, without further ado, here they are.....

For Conjured, my next YA, which comes out September 3rd:

And for The Lost, my first book for adults, which comes out October 29th:

If you'd like to join in my countdown, please feel free to grab either or both of these for your site/blog/etc by clicking the "Get Widget" buttons.

Tick.  Tick.  Tick.  AAAAAAAH!  SO MUCH WORK TO DO!