So... what did I write again?

As some of you may know, I released my first novel The Smartest Girl in the Room this week.  Yesterday was my official launch and I used that day to offer my book for free.  I would say it was a big success- 331 copies downloaded in one day, and while it was free the ranking was awesome.  Huge thank you to family and friends who downloaded and passed it along.

Now that it's out there and people are hopefully reading it, I just wanted to say a few (more) words about what it is.

It's Romance.  Girl (in this case Emily) meets boy (in this case Mitch), girl and boy separately get themselves into and out of trouble before they can get together, then girl and boy get together.  Plus a couple of other things...

It's Chick-Lit.  Emily would just as soon walk away from a difficult, untrustworthy guy (Mitch and Drew can both attest to that), but she'll do anything to protect her friends Zainab, Jessie and Miranda.  When she has to choose between a love interest and a friend, the friend will always win.

It's New Adult.  With one exception, my main characters are all between the ages of nineteen and twenty-six (the outlier is a fifteen year old).  The bedroom door is fully closed- and that may not be what fans of this genre have come to expect- but it has the same core elements of leaving childhood fully behind while learning how to make space for yourself in the adult world.  The setting is a university in Boston- the perfect place for people to struggle with other people's ideas of what they're expected to do and their own realizations about what they need.

It's not Speculative.  At all.  Emily (and Mitch and Richard, and maybe Zainab when she isn't being cool) loves Star Trek.  She's also a big fan of Battlestar Galactica (the new one!) and Greek mythology.  (And Mitch develops what some might think is an unhealthy obsession with The Prisoner as he tries to get back together with Emily.)  But that's as far as it goes.  The words "vampire", "zombie" and "werewolf" aren't mentioned once.  But don't worry- there's a Big Bad lurking, and you'll meet him in the sequel, The Family You Choose.  (At least vampires can be stopped.)

I hope people who know me won't be too disappointed to find out there is almost no politics (but there's a little!).  I hope I make up for that, just a bit, with old Sixties television and- of course- vegetarian cooking.

Want to find out more?  Check out the related Pinterest board, where I tease some of the plot points and themes.  But if you're convinced, go download your copy right now.

And now if you'll excuse me, I must proof the paperback version :-)