Oh my freaking god. The PW review came in. And it’s INSANE!!! Sweet, sweet, sweetness.

Witches of East End
Melissa de la Cruz. Hyperion, $23.99 (288p) ISBN 978-1-4013-2390-5
De la Cruz leaves Manhattan and her popular YA Blue Bloods series to start fresh on Long Island. Freya Beauchamp, a 19-year-old bartender engaged to a Hamptons society beau but in love with his brother; her sister, Ingrid, a single librarian; and their mother, Joanna Beauchamp, are all witches living together in relative harmony, as they have for several centuries. They have significant powers—raising the dead, flying—all of which they have been forbidden to use by the White Council after a debacle in 17th-century Massachusetts. As compensation they have gained immortality, but as the story opens, the restrictions placed on them have begun to fray, and they are all “leaking” magic, prompting them to rebel and live true to their natures. The citizens of East End find themselves cured of writer’s block, infertility, and skin infections, and generally profiting from the benevolent attentions of the Beauchamps. Then small disturbances become large ones, otherworldly creatures show up, and humans disappear. De la Cruz is a formidable storyteller with a narrative voice strong enough to handle the fruits of her imagination. Even readers who generally avoid witches and whatnot stand to be won over by the time the cliffhanger-with-a-twist-ending hits. (June)

AAAH!!! This is too much—Kirkus AND PW both loved Witches??!! My brain is going to explode from happiness!

Thank you thank you thank you to the two very kind critics who loved the book. I did not expect these reviews, especially when I was figuring out the plot, scribbling on napkins in bars near my house with my husband, tearing my hair out because I could not make it work, until the final “EUREKA!” moment that fixed the book. I re-wrote that book about a thousand times. I thought the book was good, but I think that of all my books. 🙂 So nice to be appreciated.

I am thinking of having t-shirts made: on one side “Fantasy for well-read adults” on the other “Formidable Storyteller.” Can I get “Formidable Storyteller” on my business card? You think?

Ah! Slap me back down to earth. A few bad Amazon reviews should do the trick. LOL!

xoxo
Mel