Go to her blog to take the quiz!

This tour is fresh and new with cool character interviews that offer more insight into the people that populate Shadow Hills (because I've got to think everyone's pretty tired of reading interviews with me). We'll also be visiting The Ghosts of Christmas Past with several characters and there's even an outtake scene from the book. There will be giveaways too, so be sure and check out the opportunities to win Shadow Hill's posters.

If you'd like to support the tour feel free to grab the banner below made by the lovely Jessica from A Fanatics Blog.

Tada! Here is the gorgeous new cover in all its glory! (Click on the thumbnail to enlarge.)

Thanks to everyone who participated in the cover reveal.  I hope you enjoyed it.  I've included all the trivia questions and answers below.  Winners of the trivia contests will be notified by the individual blogs.

1. Phe and her family lived in what area of Los Angeles?      

 Answer:  Los Feliz

2. What is the name of Zach's father's bookstore?

Answer: Book Stop

3. What band does Phe choose to play on Adriana's i-Pod when Phe, Graham, and Adriana first hang out in Adriana's room?

Answer: Arcade Fire

4. Who guesses the correct answer to George's Pictionary drawing?

Answer: Bouncy Blonde (also named Kerry)

5. What state does Adriana come from?

Answer: Virginia

6. Who is Phe's faculty advisor?

Answer:  Mr. Sherwood

7. What is the Devenish Prep's headmaster named?

Answer:  Mr. Grimsby

8. What color dress does Adriana wear to the party in the woods?

Answer: blue

9. What cartoon character does Phe think Brody looks like?

Answer: Shaggy from Scooby-Doo

10. What's the name of Phe's best friend in L.A.?

Answer: Ariel

11. What is the first name of Kresky Hall's house mistress?

Answer: Angela

12.What kind of car does Graham drive?

Answer:  Buick

13. What time of day does Phe have her dreams?

Answer: 3:33 (either am or pm)

14.What symbol is engraved on Phe's ID bracelet?

Answer: infinity symbol

15. What is the name of Phe's ex-boyfriend in L.A.?

Answer: Paul

16. What pro football team did Adriana's father play quarterback for?

Answer: Washington Redskins

17. What is the name of the store where Phe buys her dress for the dance?

Answer: flirt

18. What year was the epidemic in Shadow Hills?

Answer: 1736

19. What is Phe's aunt's name?

Answer: Lisa

20. What does Mrs. Carr teach?

Answer: Latin and Greek (ancient languages or dead languages also acceptable)

21. How are Trent and Zach related?

Answer: cousins (their fathers are brothers also acceptable)

22. What movies are shown at the pizza party at the SAC?

Answer:  Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands

23. What kind of movies does Toy love?

Answer:  horror movies

24. What color shoes does Phe wear to the school dance?

Answer: red



1.  Hi, Nina!  Thanks for joining me on my blog.  To put everybody in the mood --- if you were entering this contest, what would be your story of a memorable summer vacation (either best or worst)?

The summer I was 12 had a lot of firsts, all pretty were stellar: first real roller coaster, first rock concert, first joint passed to me by hot older dude (at aforementioned concert). And oh, yeah, first kiss. His name was Andy; he had dark hair and pale skin. We were at the beach. We were standing up, but we’d been at the beach all day, so the kiss was sandy. Uh-huh, Sandy Andy.

2. You had written other YA novels before you wrote a paranormal YA with SWOON.  Why did you decide to write a paranormal book?  What are the differences in writing the two forms, the advantages and disadvantages?

Ooh, that assumes I “decide” to write something. I don’t. The story chooses me. As to part two of your question, my first two books, 6X: THE UNCENSORED CONFESSIONS and 6X: LOUD, FAST AND OUTTA CONTROL were about this rock band. Since I spent a lot of time around the music business, I came from a place of experience—I knew what I was talking about. With paranormal, I come from a place of extreme ignorance. And as you know, even though a lot of wild stuff happens, the magic has to have logic—so you’re constantly smacking yourself: Does that make sense?

3. Are you a night owl or an early bird?  How does that affect your writing?

Early bird. A lot of work is done by my subconscious, so soon as I wake up, my conscious starts transcribing what my subconscious has accomplished. Plus, my boy’s a night owl, so I can generally get in a few solid hours at the computer and then share his morning with him.

4. It's rumored you're doing a sequel to SWOON.   I'm excited for it, as I'm sure all your fans are.   Can you give us any scoop on it?

Thanks so much for the good vibes, Stacy! It’s called SWEAR and it’s due out in August 2011. Dice, Pen, Marsh—Sin, too, of course—have been through a lot. So when we catch up with them six months after Sin carved his seductive swath through SWOON, they’re changed people with different issues. On one hand SWEAR is a very traditional ghost story. Uh… then the voodoo kicks in. As to the title, it poses a question: Can you really swear to love?

5. What are your pet peeves?

It’s me, not y’all, but like when people are out to dinner or a party and they’re constantly on their devices instead of relating with the people they’re dining or partying with—I don’t get that. My husband and I call them gadget addicts, but we know that’s the direction civilization has turned toward. We’re totally left behind—talking, kissing, bantering…in the same room, with each other.

6. Is there any person who has had a particularly big influence on your writing?  And how did they influence you?

Dashiell Hammett, brilliant dead detective writer. Taught me how to write action scenes, fight scenes. I think I read somewhere that he acted them out. I guess lots of writers do that too; it makes so much sense. If you’re going to get someone to act it out with you, you ought to have him sign a waiver.

7. When you were a teen, what were your ambitions?  Did you want to be a writer or would you have been astonished if someone told you that you would wind up writing YA novels?

I always wrote; I was first published—well, mimeographed—in third grade. But I didn’t know you could do it for a living. I thought I might become a haircutter. Then I studied journalism and started working in magazines—remember those? I was lucky enough to start having some of my novels published, but that took a while. 

8. When you're not writing, what do you like to do?  What are some of your interests or hobbies?

If you write, you’re always writing—you’re just not always typing. Sometimes you’re writing when you’re scrubbing the bathtub. Only scrubbing the bathtub is not a hobby. I volunteer for animals whenever I can, cleaning cages, working adopt-a-thons. Thrift shopping is my therapy. Yoga I do to avoid the dreaded writer’s butt. I go through crafty spells—needlework and that crap. My husband gave me a ukulele a few months ago, so I’ve been dicking around with that lately. Robert Johnson’s “They’re Red Hot” is my greatest achievement—it’s hard!

Go to this form and fill it out to enter to win one of two signed copies of Swoon.

It's super easy: all you have to do is fill out the Shadow Hills Street Team form (if you haven't already), and we will email you the mission!

For completing this mission, you will get 250 points, which will put you at Adriana (newbie) status. Once you're an 'Adriana' I'll mail you an official Shadow Hills Street Team member button (as seen in the pic below) and identification badge. The ID badges will be tailor-made (by moi) for each specific member of the SHST, so I have no example pictures to post.

Once you've done another mission and racked up 500 points, you will advance from Adriana status to Toy status. At Toy status, you will get a little gift bag of Shadow Hills goodies and you can participate in missions that you can't during the newbie stage. (All of this will be explained further on the Street Team website once it is up and running.)

The more active a SHST member you are, the more rewards you get, so go ahead and sign up to receive your first mission!

Update 7/11/10: The first 50 people who post reviews of Shadow Hills on Amazon will automatically get a signed poster! (The review can be new or cut and pasted from your blog/Goodread.) You are still eligible for this part of the contest even though the other part is closed. There are about ten spots left!

This contest will be different from the others I have done. There will be three winners, but they will NOT be chosen totally at random. I will take the ten people with the most total points, and I will then draw three winners from that pool. As long as you keep the things you did for extra entries in the last contest (i.e., leave up your Shadow Hills User pics and Goodreads list votes), then they will be counted as points in this contest! For example, if you had 25 on your last form, I will add 25 points to your total for this contest. You also get points for the new stuff on the form below. Please provide links when asked for on the form, but you don't need to leave them in your comments. I will also look at the top ten contestants' blogs/Twitter pages/Goodreads to check info before I pick the winners.  Since this is a contest that you win based on your enthusiasm, I want you to have fun with it!

Here are the details:

If you are the number one winner you will receive:

-A personalized signed hardcover of Shadow Hills (If you have already won a signed copy of SH in the last two contests, you will not be eligible to receive this part of the prize, and it will go to the next runner up. Sorry, but I want to make sure people who haven't won already get a chance at getting Shadow Hills.)

- You get first pick from ONE of these awesome signed hardcover books: Going Bovine by Libba Bray, Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr, The Dark Divine by Bree Despain, or Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready

- 1 signed SH bookmark, 9 unsigned SH bookmarks and 8 SH buttons & 2 SH magnets (with this many, you can host your own contest after you win)

-1 signed Shadow Hills 11"x17" locker poster (pictured below). Except prize posters will have a silver autograph scrawled across them.

-1 Shadow Hills t-shirt handmade by me! (This is just the stencil I made. The actual shirts will be black and the writing will be yellow.)

-A 200 point head start on the Shadow Hills Streat Team. (The street team will be up soon and will run on a points system, so you rise in the ranks and get 'bonuses' such as cool, new SH swag.)

Both of the two runners up get:

- 1 signed SH bookmarks, 9 unsigned SH bookmarks and 8 SH buttons & 2 SH magnet

-1 signed Shadow Hills poster 

-1 Shadow Hills t-shirt made by hand by me!

-A 200 point head start on the Shadow Hills Streat Team.

The first runner up also gets to pick one of the three awesome signed hardcover books left after first pick

The second runner up gets one of the two awesome signed hardcover books left---or, if neither one is a book you want, you can choose to get a second signed SH poster instead.

The items listed below will get you extra entries into the contest. Do as many of them as you like, just let me know which ones you’ve done. The number next to them is how many extra entries they'll earn.

+ 1 for tweeting/retweeting this contest (add @anastasiahopcus so I'll catch it)

+ 1 for voting for Shadow Hills on any of the Goodreads lists that it is on. You get an extra entry for each.

+ 2 for 'liking' the Shadow Hills book trailer on YouTube AND/OR on Goodreads

+ 2 for changing your Twitter or Facebook or Goodreads user pic to the Shadow Hills cover image. (For a total of six extra entries change all three!)

+ 3 for posting a Shadow Hills countdown widget on your blog/website or Facebook page

+ 3 for blogging a link to this contest

+ 9 for blogging a link to this contest, the Shadow Hills trailer, and the first chapter of Shadow Hills

I never even knew book blogs existed before, but I instantly loved them. I cannot stress enough how impressed I am by bloggers' love of reading. People say things to me like, "What are you going to do after this? Books are a dying art form." But when this happens, I think of all of you who spend your time, your money, your brainpower (after an already taxing day at school or work) on celebrating stories and the people who write them, and I know that they're wrong. Reading is even more fun now. Blogs and Twitter are great because you can talk about a book and share your feelings, opinions, and (if you're anything like me) theories on what might happen next in a series.

I just wish I'd known about blogs sooner, because reading all these reviews has actually strengthened my writing. I think it's amazing that I get to see firsthand what readers like and hate. For instance, I love cliff-hanger endings; I may curse the author at the time ;) but I love that anticipation for the next book. But after reading so many reviews on blogs, I saw how painful cliff-hangers are for the majority of readers. Your reviews really drove home the message that agents and editors are often telling the authors, that we really need to offer the readers a sense of closure even in a series. There were some points in the editing process when I changed a scene because as much as I liked it---knowing how the story is going to turn out---it just wasn't wrapped up enough for readers.

Since I'm only human, I have to admit that the reviews I enjoy reading the most are the positive ones, but when I'm feeling brave enough, I check out the critical reviews as well. I'm just starting out, and I'm still growing as a writer so I don't expect people to think my book is perfect (though I'm beyond delighted when a reader does). I try to remember that we all have different tastes and the critical reviews are valid and can even be helpful if I don't take it personally. Because if enough people mention the same problem, then that is probably a weakness in my story telling, and I need to work on it.

But, back to the happy good reviews, it's especially wonderful when I see that a reader gets something that was really important to me when I was plotting and writing my story. To use an example from Jennifer at Reading with Tequila (who wrote the post that inspired my rambling) "I'll probably also want to tell you that you are the ONLY person in this world who 'gets' me and that we are destined to be best friends forever." That is exactly the experience I have when I feel a reviewer really gets my characters. Each of those characters contains a little piece of me, which automatically makes me think, "Man, I'd really get along with this blogger." And after meeting so many of you at BEA I now know that feeling is right on the mark---we had a ton of fun together!

Another reason I love book blogs is because with as little free time as I have now, it's more important than ever that I spend it with a book I'm going to love. I actually picked up Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready because I'd noticed that people who liked it also liked Shadow Hills. My reasoning was that since they obviously had impeccable taste *kidding* (sort of), I would probably like Shade too. And I did! I bought it without even reading the first page (which I almost never do), and I fell in love with it. So blogs also help me make educated book buying decisions.

Anyway, I know I'm rambling, but I just wanted to let all of the bloggers know that it really means so much that you help us authors out without asking for anything in return. Well, I've gotten some requests for more Phe and Zach, but that's an appeal that I'm happy to address. :)