Posts Tagged ‘A Spy in the House’

Blog tour: Sexy Victorians

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Enter to win copies of Spy in the “If I were a spy…” contest!

Are you in Eastern Ontario? Come to my book launch party next week!

Welcome to the second stop on my blog tour. I’m absolutely thrilled to be GreenBeanTeenQueen’s guest today. Her Beanship gives Spy 5 stars and says, “If Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy were spies, I think they would be very much like Mary and James”! I’m actually blushing. You can read the rest of the intervew here.

I’ve also written a series of guest posts for this blog tour, under the theme “Things You (Probably) Didn’t Know About the Victorians”, and we’re skipping straight to the good stuff. Today’s post, also at GBTQ, is about Victorian Sex Myths. Go on, click. You know you want to!

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More loot! aka the “If I were a spy…” contest

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Come to my book launch party on March 9! Details here.

To celebrate my North American debut, I’m giving away 3 fabulous prize packages. These will include a shiny new hardcover copy of The Agency: A Spy in the House and an Agency t-shirt. These will be randomly drawn.

There will be a fourth mystery prize, not randomly drawn, and this will go to the entry that makes me laugh really, really, hard. Ideally, it will make me spurt coffee out my nose. Yes, I’m that classy, and also willing to suffer for a joke.
Mystery prize rule 1: I reserve the right not to give this out at all.
Mystery prize rule 2: A randomly drawn winner may also win this extra prize.

So, what do you have to do? Simply leave a comment below that completes this sentence: “If I were a spy…” You can enter more than once by spreading the word on Twitter, Facebook or at your blog (1 extra entry for each means of dissemination). Tell me what you did in your comment. This contest closes on March 31.

Good luck, everyone!

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The blog tour begins

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Welcome to the first day of The Agency: A Spy in the House blog tour! My first stop, organized by  Traveling to Teens (T2T), is at Bookworming in the 21st Century, where Kristen reviews Spy and interviews me. Kristen says she was “entranced” by Spy, and says it “draws you in so well you wish it would go on forever”. I’m delighted to hear it. Thank you, Kristen!

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Pre-launch lunacy

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

Well, hello. Are you coming to my launch party on March 9? I hope so. Details are here.

In the lead-up to the Big Day, I am doing my best to be omnipresent. (There is no hope of omniscience or omnipotence, but I do what I can.) What this means is, starting on February 28, I will be blogging. Every. Day. Specifically, I will be guest-posting or giving interviews here (don’t worry, I’ll come back each day and link to the correct post):

Sunday, Feb 28 – interview at Bookworming in the 21st Century
Monday, March 1 – guest post at GreenBeanTeenQueen
Tuesday, March 2 – interview at Steph Su Reads
Wednesday, March 3 – interview at Books are Life
Thursday, March 4 – guest post at Books by their Cover
Friday, March 5 – interview at That Chick That Reads & a guest post at Teenreads.com
Saturday, March 6 – guest post at Reading in Color
Monday, March 8 – guest post at the Epic Rat
Tuesday, March 9 – guest post at Chick Lit Teens & at Book Chick City, & an interview at In To Views
Wednesday, March 10 – interview with the Catastrophizer
Thursday, March 11 – guest post at the Story Siren & an interview at Shades of Romance
Friday, March 12 – guest post at Rebecca’s Book Blog
Saturday, March 13 – guest post at Ticket to Anywhere

That’s a lot of me. But wait – you’re not off the hook yet. New reviews of Spy are cropping up everywhere!

BookPage says it’s “entirely true to the genre, full of thrills and danger and wonderfully sharp writing”.

Publisher’s Weekly calls it “richly described… Mary’s lively escapades… will hold readers’ attention and whet their interest for the next installment”.

Bookphilia got the metanarrative jokes (YAY!) and confesses, “I did absolutely no work on Friday because I was reading it and couldn’t put it down”.

Its sensibilities are a bit too modern for the BookWitch at first, but eventually she reckons, “if you want a female Alex Rider in Victorian London, then this is for you.”

Persephone Reads calls it “transporting”.

BookLoons loves the “rich setting in Victorian London”.

Heck, even Kirkus Reviews liked it, but I can’t link to the review without a subscription. Take my word for it?

Phew. I’ll see you on Sunday.

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The first shiny hardcover! plus contest winners

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

(Looking for launch party details? Click here.)

This week, the wonderful Deborah Wayshak of Candlewick Press sent me an advance copy of the Real Deal. Yes, a crisply dust-jacketed, super-extra-luminous copy of A Spy in the House. It’s a hardcover. It makes me a little bit dizzy. And if you’re in my house, seriously – don’t even breathe on it.

A Spy in the House dustjacket

I haven’t been able to take a photograph that truly conveys the depth and lustre of the dust jacket. But! It looks pretty cool on the shelf, non? (The whole photo is extra-warmly lit. This is not a pretentious artistic device on my part, but an attempt to avoid using the flash.)

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And now, the lucky devils who won the First Lines Contest:

The second and third place winners of the Walker Books edition of The Agency: A Spy in the House are Becky Earl and Catherine N!

And the winner of the Grand Prize – an ARC of the Candlewick Press edition of Spy and an exclusive Agency t-shirt is Lexie C!

I like giving things away, you enjoy receiving swag (I assume), so congratulations all around.

And for those of you who entered and are now feeling victimized by the evil machinations of random.org, never fear – there will be a New and Even More Amusing Contest happening… ooh, right around March 9, I’d say.

No idea why.

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La-la-la Launch Party!

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

I’m absolutely delighted to invite you to the official launch party for The Agency: A Spy in the House!

Spy bookmark Tuesday, March 9, 2010

7.30 pm

61 Yonge St

Portsmouth Village

Kingston, Ontario

.

hosted by

Candlewick Press

Novel Idea Bookstore

Body Now 4 Mums & Kids

and me!

Please RSVP if you can. For a map to the venue, click here.

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They’re hee-ere!

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

The ARCs for Spy, I mean. Look!

ARCs of A Spy in the House

If I had a few more, I’d cancel the contest and use them to wallpaper my study. As it is, I guess I’ll have to think up a new giveaway!

I’m planning the launch party right now and will have more details for you next week. And I’m writing book 3, The Traitor and the Tunnel – to which I must now return.

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La Detective

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

My Italian publisher, Mondadori, just sent me the cover for their edition of Spy, which will be published in March. Its title is La Detective. Note how artificially calm I sound, in these few sentences.

La Detective, published by Mondadori

La Detective, published by Mondadori

Here’s the full dust jacket:

La Detective, full dust jacket

And now, the truth: I screamed like a girly-girl when I saw this. I can’t get over it. I love the use of period photographs, the wrought-iron ornamentation around the title, the flash of pink. If I were in the mood to cavil, I’d point out that Mary never, ever uses a gun – but what the hell. It’s not as though a handkerchief or a pen would be a good substitute.

God, it’s exquisite.

Sigh.

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The First Lines Contest

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

It’s 6 weeks before the official North American release of A Spy in the House and I feel giddy, celebratory, and rather nervous. What to do then, but give away swag? Please join me in celebrating my North American debut – enter the contest, and encourage your friends to do the same!

The first-prize winner will receive a Candlewick Press ARC of A Spy in the House (featuring the cover at left) and one of these custom-made, not-for-sale-anywhere Agency t-shirts.

Don't worry; it doesn't say "Trainee Spy" on the back.

Don't worry; it doesn't say "Trainee Spy" on the back.

Second- and third-prize winners will each get a copy of the UK edition of Spy

That's the Walker Books ed, which looks like this.

It looks like this.

To enter, email me the answer to this question: What’s your favourite first line? Give me the sentence, author’s name, and the book title.

But that’s not all. You may enter a second time by announcing this contest on your blog, Twitter, or Facebook account and emailing me a link to your announcement. Please use some form of the following wording: Win an ARC of Y S Lee’s A SPY IN THE HOUSE, the first novel in the Agency series! Enter at http://yslee.com/2010/01/the-first-lines-contest/.

I’ll announce the randomly selected winners on Thursday 18 February. Good luck, everyone. I can’t wait to read your entries.

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Spy: the American cover

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Occasionally, I worry that all I do in this blog is squee about the Agency’s cover art. If you share that concern, you will be sadly disappointed because this week, I’m at it again.

Candlewick Press has just sent me the cover for A Spy in the House, which will be published on March 9, 2010 as a hardcover. Remember the images from that photo shoot I posted a few weeks ago? Well, here’s the final product from the hands of the amazing Caroline Lawrence. And I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

I hope you do, too.

A Spy in the House - US cover

A Spy in the House - US cover

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