Validation

Early in the days of this blog, I wrote a post about the four areas of concern I had about leaving my day job. No. 3 was the "Psychological" area, where I said in part that

"at all but the most abysmal jobs (and my job is far from abysmal), you get strokes. You do in writing too, but writing is also a lot about rejection—rejections from agents and editors, bad reviews, critical emails from readers. Will they hurt more when I don’t have the comfort of students saying nice things to/about me, and colleagues telling me I do a good job?"

Of course I've been nervous about the first review of The Stepsister's Tale and my nerves weren't helped when I learned that the first one came from Kirkus, since they're notoriously difficult to please.

When I read it (and you can too, here) I got momentarily lightheaded with relief. They not only said very nice things but also gave it a star! For those of you outside of this business, a star is great, since some libraries and schools automatically buy a copy of every book with a starred review.

To celebrate, I'm giving away five signed copies of the ARC along with some modest but fun Cinderella-themed swag on May 21, one week from today. All you have to do to enter for a chance to win one of them is comment on this post. I also ask that you write an Amazon and/or Goodreads review after you read it. U.S. and Canada only, please!

Thanks for sharing my excitement, friends!