news

Let me explain, no, let me sum up:

My next YA novel is coming out in the Fall of  this year. It’s called Love Is the Drug, it will be published once again by the fabulous team at Scholastic and Arthur A. Levine, and I can’t wait. It’s very different from The Summer Prince, but I think if you liked that one, you’ll enjoy this. I will wait to give details and a cover, but as a teeny preview: It’s a novel set in a Washington, DC private school in the midst of a global flu pandemic.

In other news, The Summer Prince made the longlist for the National Book Awards, Young People’s Literature category. It’s also made the Top Ten Rainbow List for 2014, which honors GLBTQ books for children and teens. Also, the YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults list. All very exciting, and I’m honored that this book has connected with so many people.

I have added an “appearances” section in my header, so if you’d like to meet me in person and maybe get a book signed be sure to check that regularly to find out when and where I will be.

My next novel will be something completely different. A YA science fiction novel set on the coast of Brazil (the modern state of Bahia), 400 years in the future. Pretty much everything here is something I haven’t done before: A standalone, science fiction, YA, Brazil. Even so, I hope those of you who have enjoyed my other novels will give it a shot (and hopefully, some new people will find their way to my work).

I wrote a post back when it was first announced about how I came to write The Summer Prince. You can read a basic description on Goodreads. Or you can just sit back and enjoy the cover:

Wicked City, the sequel to Moonshine, is finally out (Amazon/B&N/Powells)! It seems to be trickling into Barnes and Nobles over the country right now, or you can get it online. If you like it, please pass on the word–leaving reviews is especially helpful, if you’re so inclined.

And if you’d like a more extensive taste of Zephyr and her world, I’m pleased to say that the awesome Tor.com has published my very first Zephyr Hollis short story, “The Inconstant Moon.” This is a prequel story, taking place four years before the events of Moonshine, and explains how Zephyr first came to the city and started to change her mind about the vampires she’d always killed with her daddy.

And remember, if you’d like to hear news about Zephyr (or my other books), please email me to sign up for my very low-volume mailing list.

Alaya

Hello there! As promised, I have now posted an excerpt of Wicked City for your enjoyment. This covers the first two chapters. Feel free to send to anyone you like and spread the love. The book comes out in April, so you won’t have to wait too long to see how it turns out. Also, it got its first review in Publishers Weekly:

Johnson follows 2010’s Moonshine with another light urban fantasy set in an alternate 1920s New York City. Mayor Jimmy Walker is looking to legalize an alcohol–blood mixture known as Faust, but his agenda is imperiled when the tabloids link the drink to the deaths of 10 vampires, all in one night, on the eve of a crucial Board of Aldermen vote. Walker asks Zephyr Hollis, daughter of “Montana’s most famous demon hunter” and known as the “vampire suffragette” for her advocacy on behalf of the undead, to find out whodunit. Her sleuthing is engaging enough, but the real fun lies in the little details of Johnson’s imagined world: as night falls, Manhattan’s hot dog and pretzel vendors are replaced by carts dispensing Faust, and status is now determined in affluent society by having human rather than vampire servants, despite stricter applicable labor laws.

Exciting, yes? And remember that if you’d like further updates closer to the publication date (as well as other goodies, like a Zephyr Hollis short story I’m writing right now), send me an email so I can put you on the mailing list.

Alaya

This website has been woefully out-of-date. I hope to do more soon, but for now my bibliography page is up-to-date with my latest short stories and novels–INCLUDING the forthcoming sequel to Moonshine: Wicked City! See the cover below!

From new book covers

I’m also planning to actually use my mailing list for very infrequent updates as I get closer to publication. If you subscribe (email me asking to be on it), you’ll hear first about an ebook exclusive short story I will be writing about how Zephyr came to New York City.

My domestic high fantasy story all about bread baking, “The Yeast of Eire” is now up at the online magazine Strange Horizons. Here’s the first paragraph:

“A few years ago we hosted a Teuton man-at-arms who, among his expected effects, also bore with him a giant silver goose. He had named this beast Tridanesus, which he alternately defined as either “bird of heaven’s feather” or “great man’s penis-pearl.”

Plus, I have the brand new cover of Moonshine: