Take a Look Inside My Travel Journal
Take a Spin Through My Travel Sketchbook
Every winter, I stay home to write the first draft of my next book. If I'm lucky, I figure out a way to reward myself with a trip to a sunny locale when the first draft is over. This year, I timed it just right and flew down to Mexico a few days after I finished the first draft of the fifth Kopp Sisters book.
We spent a few days in San Miguel de Allende, and a few in Guanajuato. I'd tell you how lovely these places are, but then everybody would go there and I wouldn't have them to myself anymore. (Kidding! I didn't have them to myself anyway. They're both extraordinary cities, and you should all go there.)
Anyway--I took my sketchbook along, and I made a video tour of the book just for you. I don't care what your drawing skills are like--a travel journal is always a wonderful thing to bring home from a trip. If you'd like to see the paintings I'm working on now from photos I took in Mexico, visit my Instagram page. And you can find out more about my favorite art supplies and online sketching classes here.
How About an Italian Vacation with Auntie Poldi?
I love this new novel so much that I want you to have a copy. I read Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions before it was released last fall, and I thought it was the perfect dose of escapist fiction. Just imagine a sexy, boozy, older woman lounging about in Sicily, having flings with handsome Italian police officers, and solving the occasional murder. It sounds perfect, doesn't it?
I bet you're already dying to read it. I'm giving away a brand new hardcover, along with some of my own books. Go here to enter. If you'd like a second chance (and can't we all use a second chance?), I'm running another contest on my Facebook page.
Am I Coming to Your Hometown This Spring?
If so, I would love to meet you in person--and I will have a present for you. It's just a small token of my affection, but it's something I'll only be giving to people on this list. So come up and introduce yourself, and tell me that you subscribe to this newsletter!
Charlottesville, VA: March 23-24, Virginia Festival of the Book
Greensboro, NC: April 4, Greensboro Science Center (Wicked Plants)
Omaha, NE:Â April 5, Lauritzen Gardens (Drunken Botanist)
Florham Park, NJ: April 19 Roots & Wings Luncheon
Portland, OR: May 10 Broadway Books
Cannon Beach, OR: May 18-20Â Get Lit at the Beach
New Orleans, LA: June 23 American Library AssociationÂ
Updated tour dates can always be found on my website. Please confirm details with the venue before you head out.
ICYMI: A Pre-Order Gift for You.
Some of you have already taken me up on this deal, and I thank you. You're fine people. Check your mailboxes--your bookplate is on the way.
There's still time to get in on this offer! If you'd like to pre-order a copy of the fourth Kopp Sisters novel, Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit, I will send you a present. It works like this:
Pre-order from your favorite bookseller. Go here for some bookseller links. Some booksellers can't take pre-orders quite yet. Don't worry--you have time!
Forward your email receipt, or snap a picture, to promo@amystewart.com
Include your shipping address! This one's important!
I will mail you a bookplate with Sheriff Heath's real signature (in the form of a rubber stamp) and mine.
I'll also enter you in a drawing to win a FABULOUS prize, to be announced as soon as I have a picture of it! (We're still working on it. It's almost done. I promise, it's cool.)
US only.Â
Enter by August 31, 2018. Winner announced by Sept. 10.
What Are You Reading?
Meg Wolitzer recommended Evan Connell's novels Mrs. Bridge and Mr. Bridge in the New York Times recently. I read them both on vacation, and found them to be engrossing, absorbing, and often disturbing portraits of a certain kind of cloistered middle class life in the 1940s. I highly recommend them--but persuade a friend to read them with you, because you'll want to talk about them. Join me on Facebook or Goodreads and tell me what you're into these days!