THE LOST optioned to Selma Blair!

So excited to finally be able to share my big news!!! Amazing actress Selma Blair (best known for her roles in "Cruel Intentions," "Legally Blonde," and "Hellboy") optioned my novel THE LOST for film/TV!!!  

http://variety.com/2017/film/news/selma-blair-the-lost-movie-1202591420/

THE LOST comes out today!

Lost your way?

Your dreams?

Yourself?

Welcome to Lost...

I am so very thrilled to announce the release of my new book, THE LOST!!!  This is my first book for adults, and the first in a new trilogy, published by Harlequin/Mira.

THE LOST is about a woman trapped in a town full of only lost things and lost people.

One morning, Lauren Chase gets into her car to go to her dead-end job, but instead of making a left at the light, she drives straight.  And drives and drives until she runs out of gas in a town called Lost.  Once there, she can't leave.  Lost is surrounded by an impassable wall of dust.  And the only people who aren't trying to kill her are a mysterious wild man called the Finder and a knife-wielding six-year-old girl...

If you're interested, you can read the first two chapters here.

I loved writing this book.  I felt like I was breathing with Lauren, laughing with her, crying with her.  Usually, I swear by outlines, but this one... I followed Lauren to Lost and discovered its quirks, horrors, and beauty with her.  I fell in love with this bizarre town where socks and keys clog the gutters, feral dogs roam the alleys, suitcases litter the parking lots, and a single red balloon always floats overhead.  And I can't wait to share it with you!

So, welcome to Lost!  I hope you find what you're missing.

Playlist for THE LOST

I love listening to music when I write.  It focuses me.  I know that makes zero sense to people who need silence to focus, but for me, music distracts that part of my brain that gets caught up in the minutiae of life.

You know the part of the brain I mean.  The part that likes to babble.  The little voice that prattles on and on: "I should do the laundry.  I wonder if it's bad that I don't separate the light colors from the dark.  I wash it on cold.  It hasn't caused a problem.  Except that time I turned all those socks blue.  Oh, and the pink underwear incident.  But not lately.  Need to remember to check all pockets for tissues.  Really hate when I forget.  Impossible to get that stuff off.  It's like cat hair.  Cat hair clings to everything.  You could weaponize it.  Coat the enemy in fuzz.  And dryer lint.  Isn't there an artist who creates pictures out of dryer lint?  I don't remember her name.  I'm sure Google knows..."  And from there, you're off to Google and somehow you end up on a website about an Icelandic elf school and you're just about to send off your application because it's totally a real thing and you really, really want to go... before you remember you're supposed to be writing.

So to avoid all of that -- and also to avoid doing the laundry -- I listen to music when I write.

For my new book THE LOST, which comes out on May 27th (!!!!!), I created a playlist to keep me in the right frame of mind while I wrote.  THE LOST is about a woman trapped in a town full of only lost things and lost people.  It's a very atmospheric novel, so these are all very atmospheric songs:

"Hotel California" by the Eagles

"Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega

"Eleanor Rigby" by The Beatles

"The Dreaming" by Kate Bush

"Henry Darger" by Natalie Merchant

"Dust in the Wind" by Kansas

"Are You Out There" by Dar Williams

"Building a Mystery" by Sarah McLachlan

"There Is No Arizona" by Jamie O'Neal

"Mad World" by Adam Lambert

"Rolling in the Deep" by Adele

"Fireflies" by Owl City

"Top of the World" by Dixie Chicks

"Prayer for an Innocent Man" by Vertical Horizon

"A Mistake" by Fiona Apple

"Galileo" by Indigo Girls

"What I Am" by Edie Brickell

"Blackbird" by Sarah Mclachlan

"The Beauty of the Rain" by Dar Williams

"Suddenly I See" by KT Tunstall

Happy listening, and happy reading!

Excerpt from THE LOST

Two months until THE LOST comes out!!!

Very tempted to make a joke about how I lost track of time and am shocked that it's only two months until pub day, but I'll resist.  I can't wait for people to meet Lauren and Peter and Claire!

If you're a reviewer, librarian, bookseller, or other publishing industry professional, please note that the eGalley (digital advance reader copy) of THE LOST is now available.  Click here to request it on NetGalley!

And no matter who you are, I'm excited to invite you to read the first two chapters of THE LOST, which I just posted on my website.  I hope you enjoy them!  Here's how it starts:


Things I lost:
a stick of Chapstick
a few quarters
one turquoise earring, a gift
my old college roommate's new phone number
my left sandal
Mr. Rabbit, my favorite stuffie from my preschool years
my way

Chapter One

For the first hundred miles, I see only the road and my knuckles, skin tight across the bones, like my mother's hands, as I clutch the steering wheel. For the second hundred miles, I read the highway signs without allowing the letters to compute in my brain. Exit numbers. Names of towns. Places that people call home, or not. After three hundred miles, I start to wonder what the hell I'm doing.

In front of me, the highway lies straight, a thick rope of asphalt that stretches to a pinprick on the horizon. On either side of the highway are barbed wire fences that hem in the few cows that wander through the scrub-brush desert. Cacti are clustered by the fence posts. Above, the sun has bleached the blue until the sky looks like fabric stretched so thin that it's about to tear. There are zero clouds.

I should turn around.

Instead, I switch on the radio. Static. For a moment, I let the empty crackle of noise spray over me, a match to my mood, but then it begins to feel like prickles inside my ears. Also, I begin to feel self-consciously melodramatic. Maybe as a sixteen-year-old, I'd have left the static on, but I'm twenty-seven. I change the station. Again, static. And again. Again.

First option: an apocalypse has wiped out all the radio transmitters.

Second, much more likely, option: my car radio is broken.

Switching the radio off, I drive to the steady thrum of the car engine and the hiss of wind through the cracked-open window. I wanted the radio so I wouldn't have to think. I listen to the wind instead and try to keep my mind empty.

I won't think.

I won't worry.

I won't scream.

Click here to read more.

CONJURED Audiobook & New Title for My Next YA

A few announcements:

(1)

My latest YA book, CONJURED, is now an audiobook!!!

It's produced by Audible and narrated by Holly Fielding.  I can't express how very, very cool (and admittedly freaky) it is to hear one's words read by someone else.  Kind of feels like drawing a picture of an imaginary girl, and then having the girl say hello and walk off the page.  The narrator does a fabulous job and hits just the right hauntingly creepy tone.  You can listen to a sample here, if you're curious.

(2)

For almost every one of my books, the process of finding just the right title required sifting through many, many not-quite-right titles.  With only one exception, the title I gave the book while writing it was not the one it ended up with.  (The exception was VESSEL, which was always VESSEL.)  The fact is, titles are hard!  You've got all the pressure of naming a new baby -- you know, pick something that can't be mocked on the playground and won't otherwise scar him/her for life -- but you can't go with any traditional names.  It's fine to name your new baby girl Emma, but it's frowned upon to name your new book OF MICE AND MEN or GONE WITH THE WIND.

I am very pleased to announce that my next YA novel (formerly titled MIND OVER MAGIC) now has a new, final title:

CHASING POWER

It will be coming out in October 2014 from Bloomsbury/Walker and is about a girl with telekinesis.  I'll be posting more about it soon!

(3)

Speaking of soon...  my first book for adults, THE LOST, is coming out in less than three months!  Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

In honor of this, I redid my website to showcase the lovely blue cover: www.sarahbethdurst.com.  What do you think???

I've also updated the Appearances page to include my spring events.  (Is it spring yet?  I am so ready for spring.  All our trees and bushes are still bent from the weight of all the snow and ice.  Oh, and the gutter fell off our roof.  Fell.  Off.  The.  Roof.  It filled with ice and crashed down, taking out an outdoor light fixture and bending a hose spigot on its way to the ground.  That was exciting.)

(4)

It's not spring yet.

But it will be soon.  I hope.

Happy almost spring!

3 in 2014!

Still not used to the fact that it's 2014.  Every time I write the date, I have to double-check my calendar to confirm that yes, it really is 2014, even though that sounds so futuristic and where's my hover-bike?

I also keep double-checking my calendar because my husband bought me this adorable cat calendar with fluffy, innocent kittens posed next to poems with titles such as "I Can Pee On That," and it amuses me more than I should admit.  We've had several dramatic readings of that poem already.

Anyway, I'm actually very excited that it's 2014 because I have 3 books coming out this year!!!  *flails arms like a muppet*

First up on May 27, 2014, is THE LOST, which is now available for pre-order and has a shiny new (blue!) cover that I love:

It's the first book in a new trilogy from Harlequin/Mira, and it's about a woman who is trapped in a town full of only lost things and lost people.  It's my first book for adults, and I'm really excited about it. 

The second book in the trilogy, THE MISSING, will be coming out in December 2014, followed by the third book, THE FOUND, in April 2015.  I'm working on the third draft of THE FOUND right now.

My next YA book will be coming out from Bloomsbury/Walker in fall 2014.  It's currently called MIND OVER MAGIC, but it most likely will have a new title soon.  (And a cover!  Yay!  Books feel so much more real once they have a cover.)  I'm really excited about it too.  Just finished reviewing the copyedits so it's nearly done.

So my 2014 looks like it will be filled with lots of words, which makes me very happy.  Hope your 2014 is filled with lots of things that you love!  Happy New Year!

Big Changes Afoot for THE LOST Trilogy

Okay.  I've got some news to share about THE LOST, THE MISSING, and THE FOUND, my forthcoming trilogy aimed at adult readers.  And while I suspect some of you aren't going to be thrilled about what I'm about to say, it really is great news for the books.....

Here's the deal.  THE LOST was scheduled to be released from the Luna imprint (division) of Harlequin on October 29, 2013, which is just a bit more than two months from now.  It's all set to go.  Written.  Edited.  Copyedited.  Proofread.  Cover finalized.  Everything.  However, in the interest of giving the trilogy the best launch we possibly can, it was recently decided that the trilogy should be shifted from Harlequin's Luna imprint to their Mira imprint (same publishing house, same editor, different division).  Mira is a significantly larger imprint than Luna, with more marketing muscle, and a list that spans a wider range of genres.  As a result, under the Mira imprint, these books are more likely to find their way onto both fantasy shelves and mainstream fiction shelves, and therefore into the hands of a wider range of readers -- which is great news.

With this change of imprints comes a change in release schedule as well.  Essentially, it was decided that the books should come out closer together -- 4 to 6 months apart rather than 7 to 9 months apart -- so readers will have access to the full trilogy within a shorter span of time.  This is also great news, both for readers and for me.

However, and this is the part some of you may not be thrilled about, fitting these three books into the Mira release schedule required a bit of juggling, and to make them fit, they had to delay publication of the first book, THE LOST, from November 2013 to June 2014.  Soooooooo, the new publication schedule (tentatively) looks like this:

THE LOST -- Harlequin/Mira -- June 2014
THE MISSING -- Harlequin/Mira -- December 2014
THE FOUND -- Harlequin/Mira -- April 2015

While the release of the first book, THE LOST, has been delayed by about seven months, the shorter time between books means that the third book, THE FOUND, will come out right around the time it was always going to come out.

So that's the big news.  I apologize to those of you who were looking forward to reading THE LOST in November, but this change should be really good for the trilogy overall and the more compressed release schedule will mean shorter waits from book to book.

Plus, the release schedule for my YA books remains unchanged, with CONJURED coming out just 12 DAYS from now and my next YA, MIND OVER MAGIC, coming out around a year after that.

CONJURED -- Bloomsbury/Walker -- September 3, 2013
MIND OVER MAGIC -- Bloomsbury/Walker -- Fall 2014

So it looks like I won't have two books out in 2013 after all.  Just the one, CONJURED.  But if this schedule holds, I'll have three books out in 2014!!! Should be quite a year!

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!

BEA 2013

Just got back from BookExpo America (BEA), an annual publishing industry convention. Five days filled with tons of wonderful people who love books!  It was fantastic!

My BEA started on Tuesday when I arrived at a pre-BEA party at Books of Wonder (one of my favorite bookstores in the world), and it ended on Saturday after I was on a BEA panel about SF/fantasy with Laura Anne Gilman, Leanna Renee Hieber, and Jeri Smith-Ready that was more fun than riding a sparkly unicorn across a meadow of cheering leprechauns.  And you know those leprechauns can cheer.

You can watch the entire panel here.  I start talking at just shy of 4 minutes in.



Other highlights included the Children's Art Auction on Wednesday, my signing on Friday (So much fun! Thank you, everyone!), and the elegant and awesome Harlequin party on a rooftop bar with a gorgeous view of the Chrysler Building.  Wish I'd taken photos.  Just picture Manhattan at its prettiest.

All in all, it was a great week, and I'm already looking forward to next year!

Cover Art Reveal: THE LOST

I am extremely excited to share with you the cover art for my first novel for adults, THE LOST, coming from Harlequin / Luna on October 29, 2013:

I am so in love with this cover.  In fact, I keep opening the jpeg simply to look at it.  I love the overlay of colors.  I love the watercolor paint effect.  I love the silhouettes at the top, especially the single balloon that always floats over Lost...  Thank you so much to the design team at Luna for giving THE LOST such a magnificent cover!!

From the jacket flap:

Lost your way?

Your dreams?

Yourself?

Welcome to Lost.

It was supposed to be a small escape. A few hours driving before turning around and heading home. But once you arrive in Lost... well, it's a place you really can't leave. Not until you're Found. Only the Missing Man can send you home. And he took one look at Lauren Chase and disappeared.

So Lauren is now trapped in the town where all lost things go -- luggage, keys, dreams, lives -- where nothing is permanent, where the locals go feral and where the only people who don't want to kill her are a handsome wild man called the Finder and a knife-wielding six-year-old girl. The only road out of town is engulfed by an impassable dust storm, and escape is impossible....

Until Lauren decides nothing -- and no one -- is going to keep her here anymore.

So, what do you guys think?!?!?!?!?!?!?

THE LOST, THE MISSING, and THE FOUND

I have news!!!

I sold my first novel for adults!  Actually, three novels -- my very first trilogy!

This is how I feel about it:

Or in words:

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's the announcement in Publishers Marketplace:
   
Fiction: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Sarah Beth Durst's THE LOST, THE MISSING, and THE FOUND, about a woman running from her bleak life who finds herself trapped in a small town where all things lost -- luggage, keys, people -- are mysteriously deposited, to Mary-Theresa Hussey for Luna, by Andrea Somberg at Harvey Klinger (world).

I am making my debut into the world of books for adults.  But don't worry!  I'm not leaving the YA world!  I will be writing two books a year -- a book for adults and a book for teens -- and I am tremendously excited about this.  (Pub dates are still up in the air, but my best guess at my upcoming publication schedule is here.)

You might ask, "Why two books a year?"  Quite simply, I'm a faster writer than I used to be.  (Or more accurately, I'm more efficient with my writing time.  I think it's because I understand my own writing process better.  This was a really pleasant discovery.)  Also, I have more stories that I want to tell!

You might ask, "Why books for adults"?  In a recent interview, I was asked about writing for different audiences.  Here's what I said: "I love writing fantasy.  I love creating a story that could never happen and taking readers on a journey into the impossible.  Some of these journeys call for a younger protagonist; some call for an older one.  I actually try hard not to think about the audience as I write.  I think about what works for the story and its characters."  This trilogy calls for an adult protagonist.

You might ask, "What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"  Well, the average cruising airspeed of a European Swallow is roughly eleven meters per second, or twenty-four miles an hour, but I'm not convinced that's a relevant question.

I'm really, really excited to write these books and to share them with you.  And I hope that you'll join me in performing the traditional Snoopy dance of joy!!!