Yearly Archives: 2011

Hey everyone!

Figment.com & MTV have teamed up to host a writing contest on Figment’s site and Melissa is one of the authors judging the entries!

Head on over to the official page for all of the rules and dates for the contest!

Take Action: Tell Us A Story

Good luck to everyone who enters!

-Kady (Mel’s assistant)

Even though I now live in LA and Palm Springs and thus it is SUMMER ALL THE TIME, I cannot get out of the habit of FALL SHOPPING. Fall is the fashionista’s favorite season, and it’s just so fun to have new clothes for the “school year” even though one been out of school for a long time.

Lately I’ve been loving many things from THE ROW. Either I’m truly in my 40s (my birthday is in two weeks, but I’ve “felt” 40 since I turned 38) (apparently many of the Row’s clients are 40+) or MaryKate and Ashley rule the world (most likely the latter). MaryKate was my inspiration for Schuyler’s style in Blue Bloods (remember how she used to wear bandannas and long maxi ragamuffin skirts?).

Here’s what I love from their line:
Brown silk “Judd” dress.

I wore this dress in Paris, for a date with my husband at Le Grand Vefour, the oldest restaurant in Paris, which was a favorite of Napoleon and Victor Hugo. It was fantastique and we had a fabulous booth in the main room. I wore Christian Louboutin nude heels and my “J. Lo” huge diamond hoops. I felt very sexy and fabulous. The food was a bit old-school and rich, but the experience was amazing.

The Fox-Fur vest.

I was at Barneys with two of my super-stylish girlfriends and we were all drooling over this fox-fur vest from The Row. So freaking fabulous! None of us bought it though, it’s the type of purchase you have to THINK about. I already have a bunch of fur vests from prior seasons (a white Mongolian Moschino and a leopard Adrienne Landau) so I feel like three fur vests is a bit MUCH.

Many of my t-shirts are from the Row, and I bought a couple of their hooded ribbed long cashmere cardis, just nice basics that you want to look really chic and refined and like you’re not trying too hard (but of course YOU ARE! looking good means EFFORT).

For fall, I bought a classic Rick Owens biker jacket.

I already have a gray one and a black poufy leather one from “Rick” (which my husband said makes me look like a character from a Tim Burton movie—is that a good thing or a bad thing?) and I just wanted the classic one because my theme for this season is EDGY CLASSICS. Which is a departure from seasons past with have been RICH FLOOZY (30s), VACATIONING HOBO (mid-30s), or STRUMPET (early-20s).

I wore my Stella McCartney patent-leather nude slingbacks to DEATH last season and I just bought the green ones. We’ll see how that goes. I haven’t bought too many shoes. I did buy another pair of Roger Vivier flats because I agree with W magazine, the ballerina flat is just so OVER. I can’t stand seeing yet another ballerina flat. (Which is sad because I own too many of them, but I’m retiring them for now. I feel like it’s been DONE. Right?) W Magazine suggested “slippers” and J. Crew has these “Italian loafers” or there’s always those Tom’s espadrilles. But for now I think I’ll try to make do with the Vivier.
The Vivier flats:

I like those Celine box bags, but they seem a tad overpriced to me. At that price point, why not just buy Hermes? But they are really cute, so we’ll see. I haven’t bought anything new bag-wise for fall yet. I think I’ll keep rocking the Proenza messenger bag from two seasons ago. Although lately I’ve been schlepping around my black Longchamp nylon bag from Paris,  which all the chic Parisiennes were carrying, and so when I drag it around the valley, I feel like I’m back in the City of Lights.
The Black Longchamp. Part of the Paris uniform! And only, like $60 or something.

Happy Fall Shopping to All!

xoxo
Mel

Hey all!

Kady here, Mel’s assistant. I wanted to share with everyone that Melissa’s Book Club has started!

If you head on over to the Blue Bloods Facebook Fanpage and check out the guidelines you can find out all the info!

Everyone is welcome to participate. The first topic? BLUE BLOODS of course! You can find that discussion thread here.

Come on over and get chatting!

-Kady

Hey everyone!

Back in May when Mel was in New York for Book Expo, she had the chance to visit the Apple Store in SoHo to partake in their “Meet the Author” showcase. Check out the link below to hear Melissa talk about Blue Bloods, her writing process, and more with fellow author Ally Carter!

Melissa & Ally Podcast

The newsletter is coming, too! Just working out a few technical difficulties but Mel will make sure to get it out to everyone ASAP!

Lost in Time is almost here! Is it September 27th yet?

-Kady, Mel’s assistant

WITCHES OF EAST END all over the Hamptons Jitney!!! xxxMel

Just heard that Witches of East End hit the New! York! Times! Hardcover! Fiction! List!

WOOHOOO!!!!

Thank you all for your support of the book… I feel very lucky and happy today… my family is taking me out for champagne and yummy Italian food so that is very happy-making as well!

xoxo
Mel

This was the view from our hotel room. That’s the Paris Opera—the fab building with the dome you can see from afar. I love the gray slate rooftops! It rained a few times while we were in Paris, which just made it MORE ROMANTIC. Heh! We stayed at the Ritz, which was like staying in a palace, it wasn’t so much a hotel as a castle.

And here is the team from Anna Jarota, who handles my French rights. (I have French rights!)  That’s me holding Bloody Valentine in French, with Anna, Raphael and Sandrine. Anna told me how with the Internet, the teens want everything NOW and they don’t want to wait. They hear about a book published in the US and they want it in France too. Whereas, even ten years ago, that wasn’t the case. In fact, for foreign sales, usually if something “sold” in France, no other countries would want it because the French were very specific about what they liked and didn’t like, and they weren’t the same as the rest of the world. She said when she sold a book to France it was called “the French kiss” ie, the kiss of death, because it meant no other countries would buy it. Isn’t that interesting? But now all the teens are global and things have changed. It’s a borderless culture these days…

Here I am with my lovely editor Shaine Cassim (who is hugging me—love Shaine!) and my French translator, Valerie Le Plouhinec from Albin Michel! My publishers wanted to know how I found Paris, and I told them it was even better than the movies. But also that it reminded me a lot of New York, in that it was a modern, dynamic city, and so I felt very comfortable in the city. I felt very ‘at home’. My books do well in France, they said, because French people like the whole cosmopolitan, fabulous angle of my books. A match made in heaven! Shaine also publishes Neil Gaiman in France, so I was very flattered. And Valerie spent her senior year in Los Angeles! So she understood all the American slang. My French publishers are awesome! We had drinks at the Hotel Bristol, which is the hotel from the movie Midnight in Paris. It was tres fabuleux!

Albin Michel, my publisher, ran a contest and that’s our winner on the end, and here are some nice French bloggers! (Froggers?) 🙂 Thanks so much for the pretty picture and the bottle of champagne guys!

And when I got back, I had to do events for Witches of East End… and here’s the display from Borders in Canoga Park!

One of the great things about being “in public” is that sometimes old friends turn up! Here I am with my dear friend Molly, whom I last saw when we were fourteen years old! (She moved to LA and this was before e-mail.) Twenty-six years have passed!! Where did they go? When Molly and I were hanging out she was the coolest rocker chick I knew (and now she is the coolest rocker mom I know—I love when things never change!), before she left SF, she made me a Smiths mix tape (I still have it!). We were both Convent girls in San Francisco, but we spent a summer taking a nude figure drawing class in an art college in the city, which we skipped a lot to go shopping on Polk Street. Her daughter is a Blue Bloods reader. So cool! Molly, I promised I’d put it on the blog—here it is!

xoxo
Mel

Mike and I went to Paris for vacation! It was awesome.

Here we are at the Eiffel Tower. When we got to the Eiffel Tower I was exhausted from waking around all day. I was like “do we have to go up?” I was okay with just seeing it. But we went up.

Here I am in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. I’m not on the phone, I’m listening to the audio guide. The whole time I was in Paris I was thinking of my Art History teacher, who inspired so much of what ended up in Blue Bloods…Miss Murphy was one of those wonderful people who inspired her students…she had this enthusiastic, old-fashioned, girlish joie de vivre… she loved Paris and Florence and Versailles and Venice… and as a freshman in high school, I drank it all in… and put it in my books! Thanks Miss Murphy, RIP.

The incredible gardens of Versailles. No words.

Here we are in front of the palace. I am trying to look Parisian, with my scarf and my trench, but my husband insisted on dressing American, ie, in shorts.

We went to Centre Pompidou, and ate at the fancy schmancy Georges restaurant on the top floor, where they had these crazy architectural structures around the bar. It sort of reminded me of the old Conde Nast cafeteria designed by Frank Gehry. Now that Conde is moving down to One World Trade—are they taking the cafeteria with them?

A trip to Paris isn’t complete without the Da Vinci Code tour of course. Here I am at the Louvre where Mary Magdalene is buried. (Heh!)

xoxo
Mel

Hey!

Witches of East End is out TOMORROW, June 21st! The day has finally arrived! Check with your local bookstores and internet retail providers to obtain your copy! And don’t forget, if you pre-order before it’s released, it’s available for the amazing price of $12.99!

Pre-order from Amazon
Pre-order from B&N
Pre-order from Books-a-Million
Pre-order from Indiebound

And if you haven’t already, make sure to grab your Free copy of Witches 101: A Witches of East End Primer. It has the FIRST THREE CHAPTERS of the novel, and you’ll meet the three Beauchamp women — Joanna, Ingrid, and Freya — learn a little bit about their special powers, and even get some tips so you can cast a few spells of your own!

Order from Amazon
Order from B&N

Melissa has also been doing some great interviews about the book, as well as getting some stellar reviews!

Interview with Fresh Fiction
Interview with Jennifer Vido

Romance Reviews WoEE!
Philly Blurbs WoEE!
Two Ends of the Pen reviews WoEE!

Don’t forget to check out Melissa on tour this week signing copies of Witches! She will be in Santa Monica tomorrow night, and Canoga Park Wednesday night! Come say hi and get your copy signed by Mel!

Happy reading!

-Kady, Mel’s assistant