Wednesday, May 14, 2014

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!

13 comments:

  1. Can't wait to read this! SUCH a great cover and now, according to Kirkus, a great story too. Congrats!

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    1. Hi Vicky--you're a winner! Please send me your address.

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  2. Congrats on a Kirkus review! I am looking forward to reading this!

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    1. Hi--you're a winner! Please send your mailing address to me at:
      tracy t barrett (at) yahoo (dot) com.

      Delete
  3. A star in the Kirkus - congratulations!

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    1. Hi Penelope--you're a winner! Please send your mailing address to me at:
      tracy t barrett (at) yahoo (dot) com.

      Delete
  4. I'm so looking forward to this one!! :) e

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    1. Hi E--you're a winner! Please send me your mailing address.

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  5. Great review! I have always loved books that put a spin on traditional fairytales. This is on my must-read list!

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    1. Hi Cheryl--you're a winner! Please send your mailing address to me at:
      tracy t barrett (at) yahoo (dot) com.

      Delete
  6. So looking forward to reading this! And a Kirkus star--WOW.

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  7. Awesome! Just read the star review! Congrats.
    Also, we're agent sisters!
    I love Lara; she's so dedicated to bringing the world awesome books.
    I hope the starred review is one of many more to come!

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  8. Hi, Tracy,
    Congrats on your stellar review! What a great inversion of a fairy tale--sounds like lots of fun to read.
    Regards,
    Laurel

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