BEGIN AGAIN

I'm writing this on Monday evening, approximately fifteen hours before bookstores will unlock their doors and my second novel, Reunion, will go on sale for the second time.

Its first appearance came a little over two years ago. It was a hardcover book with a different jacket; now it's a Random House Readers Circle trade paperback with this lush new look, along with an author Q&A, a discussion guide, and an excerpt from the other book pictured here, Exposure. Soon you'll see it in your neighborhood bookstore, and at Costco, and as a Target Emerging Authors pick.

One very cool thing I didn't know before I got published is that books can have multiple lives. A new beginning means a chance to reach readers who missed the previous go-'round. For example, my friend Meg Waite Clayton's debut novel The Language of Light came out in '03 and will be reborn this June. Other examples include The Lovely Bones and Water for Elephants, for their film adaptation tie-ins. They got new cover art featuring the film stars; they got new lives. WFE, which was published in hardcover in 2006, has sold and sold and sold and sold, until you'd think every possible reader who might want to read it has already done so--but you'd be wrong: there it was last Sunday at #1 on the New York Times trade paperback list, making its 116th appearance. There are lots of readers out there--who apparently are all reading WFE, too bad for the rest of us.

I'm kidding.

Mostly.

So, in fifteen hours, Reunion gets a new beginning, and then a week from Tuesday Exposure debuts, and with this I get a new beginning of sorts. I'm someone I've never been before: Therese Fowler, author of three novels. That feels new and strange, something I'll have to get used to quickly.

I have to tell you, it's a nerve-wracking time. But it's an exciting one, too. Early indications are encouraging, not the least of which was a chat I had this morning with a journalist from USA Today, who called Exposure a great read and said it's an exceptionally "talkable" book. I would tell you that even my dog loves it, except that I don't have a dog--and even if I did, that dog might not share the favorable views, in which case I would have to get a new dog.

The fact is, I'm as excited and anxious and exhausted as a pregnant woman who's been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for months and whose baby is due now. But I'm as grateful, too.

Thank you for being here, for being a part of my new beginning. To show my gratitude, I'm offering up two copies of Reunion and two copies of Exposure. Just leave a comment here, and the four winners will be chosen randomly tomorrow evening at 8pm (eastern). If your profile doesn't link to someplace with an email address, make sure to check back here tomorrow night, or you can include your email address in your comment. BONUS: anyone who tweets the link or shares this post on Facebook gets an extra entry in the drawing--because as the teens in my house like to say, "sharing is caring." Just tag me, @ThereseFowler on Twitter, or Therese Fowler Author on FB. Good luck!