Huge Announcement!

Hello everyone!

I have an announcement I am so excited to share with you.  I will be self-publishing my first novel STRANGER through Amazon September 22, 2012.  The summary is below.

Seventeen year old Sophie Harper is different.  Not just different, peculiar.  Though her petite frame reveals nothing, she has superhuman strength that allows her to lift up cars like they were pillows, throw people twice her size across a room, and even kill a man with her bare hands.  She’s accepted to the Academy for Peculiars, an isolated school on Catalina Island for other teenagers like her.  As she settles into her new home, she makes friends with her dorm mates, stresses out about catching up with schoolwork, and starts dating one of the most popular guys at the academy.  But as normal as Sophie wants to be, she can’t change the fact that she her strength is rare, even among peculiars.  She starts falling for her trainer, a rugged shifter named Will, who frustrates her to no end, and finds out there is someone else who shares her ability, a man everyone refuses to talk about.  The more she learns about him, the more she realizes that just because her mysterious counterpart is probably the only person in the world who understands her isolation, doesn’t mean he isn’t a threat.

Jane Cabot’s life turns upside down when she moves a book with her mind.  Her ability is reading thoughts, not telekinesis.  In fact, she didn’t know a peculiar with two simultaneous abilities existed.  Now, instead of focusing on maintaining her 4.0 GPA and getting into shape in preparation for soccer, she is forced to take private lessons with her least favorite professor, Nikolai Depogare, who also happens to possess the same talent as she does.  He emphasizes the importance of keeping her new self a secret, even from her friends, leaving her isolated from all that she knows.  If other peculiars found out about her, they wouldn’t hesitate to run experiments on her and force her to do their bidding.  The only person who seems to understand her predicament is Depogare.  Trying to ignore her conflicting feelings for the man, Jane puts herself and her friends unknowingly in danger, and in order to save them, she must reveal what she really is.

As I have stated, it will be self-published.  I have been querying agents on and off for the past four years.  After getting a pile of rejection letters for STRANGER, I decided that instead of setting the manuscript aside and starting a new one like I normally would, I wanted to find a different way to publish it.

I love this story.  I love the characters and the plot and just because agents weren't interested in it didn't mean I was going to give up on it.  I want to share it with you all.  Whether it makes a lot of money or not doesn't matter.  I want to write.  I hope more than anything you enjoy this story.  That is my main concern.

I am new to the whole self-publishing industry but I'm learning.  I plan to document my experience here at this blog.  I was inspired by S. R. Johannes and her story, which you can read here.  Please be sure to check it out because it's incredibly informative.

But I do need your help.  S. R. Johannes did this for her ebook UNTRACEABLE and I liked the idea so I'm doing it here: If you are interested in reading an advanced copy of STRANGER, I would be happy to send you one.  All I ask in return is that you write your review somewhere - your blog, Amazon, wherever.  I'm not going to check so we'll be going on the honor's system.  Please write whatever you think.  You don't have to say you like it if you didn't.  If you're interested, please email me at heather.myers@ymail.com and put STRANGER Advanced Copy in the subject line.

Check back here for updates and news.  I'll be posting the cover and the first chapter in the upcoming months, blogging about my experience with the self-publishing industry and, of course, my upcoming time in England, Scotland, and possibly France.  Again, I can't wait to share this story with you.  I hope you enjoy it!