LET IT SNOW!

I’m sitting here listening my holiday iMix. At the moment, that means I am listening to Bing Crosby’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.” You may be wondering why, since it is October 1st. Even by the most extreme standards, this is a little too early for holiday music.

I would argue that, actually. If you have been reading this for a while, you will know that I love HOLIDAY CHEER in the same way that I love ABBA. I am a holiday freak! I come from a family of holiday freaks! (OK. My mom.) Also, Bing Crosby! It’s always time for Bing.

But there is a specific reason. I am listening to holiday music because LET IT SNOW COMES OUT TOMORROW.

Some of you might not know what that is, so let me explain.

About a year ago, John Green, Lauren Myracle and I thought it would be a very good idea to work together on a three-author book—three separate stories that took place in the same town during the same storm, over Christmas. So we did.



John, Lauren, and I. Not in that order. I’ll let you figure out who’s who.

So here’s a little about Let It Snow . . .

Story one: THE JUBILEE EXPRESS, by me

I feel that the important thing to tell you about this story is that it is kind of based on something very real in my life, namely, MY MOTHER’S ALL CONSUMING OBSESSION WITH HER DICKENS CHRISTMAS VILLAGE.

I’ve talked about this a lot before . . . the village, and my mother’s crafting superpowers. How she can embroider, paint, wreath-make, bake, tie fancy bows like they sell in swanky stores, arrange. It was my mother’s crafting that resulting in our being chased by a deranged squirrel in a park and then accidentally pepper-spraying ourselves in a Burger King ten minutes later.

For years, I have been looking at this village. Things happen in my brain, especially late at night when I am full of nog and cheer. And at some point I started speculating on what kind of trouble an addiction to tiny holiday houses might land you in. What if it got you arrested? On Christmas Eve?

Which is where my story starts. Jubilee Dougal’s parents are arrested in a riot while attempting to get the newest piece in the Flobie Santa Village. Now the daughter of convicts, Jubilee is forced on to a train against her will to spend the holidays with her grandparents, thus missing her one-year anniversary with her boyfriend . . . Perfect Noah, President of Everything, and his family’s annual Smörgåsbord. (With pickled fish. Which turns out to be better than it sounds and more important that you’d ever think pickled fish could be. Also, this is a Swedish Christmas tradition, one that I am sure the members of Abba enjoy.)

Unfortunately for Jubilee, the train is heading right into a monster storm, one that will bring the entire East Coast to a standstill. It’s this storm that lands her hundreds of miles away from home and her destination at a roadside Waffle House, with fourteen cheerleaders and a beautiful but sad guy named Jeb. It is there that she also meets Stuart, a recent dumpee and Target employee with a paralyzing fear of Starbucks. He will take her on a follow-the-yellow-hazard-light-lit-road journey through ice and sexual politics, smack into fake cheer, bizarre family relations, and madness.

This is not going to end well.

It’s here that we run into . . .


Story two: A CHEERTASTIC CHRISTMAS MIRACLE, by John Green

Tobin, JP, and the Duke are sitting around watching Bond movies. Tobin’s parents have been trapped in the snowstorm at Boston airport, and Tobin and his friends have free reign to celebrate the holiday eve in any way they see fit. Hence, Bond.

But everything changes when they get a call from Keun, their friend who works the counter at the Waffle House. Santa has arrived early, having delivered fourteen cheerleaders to his humble place of work—a Waffle House on the side of the road, on Christmas Eve.

There are two other employees at the Waffle House, and they will be calling THEIR friends, and there is only room for ONE CARLOAD OF GUYS in this high, holy temple, where cheerleaders do splits on the counters. So Tobin, JP, and the Duke must brave the biggest storm of the century in a death race to the Waffle House to be THE FIRST GUYS THERE.

Oh, except the Duke is a girl. This is just the first of the night’s complexities, which grow more serious and surreal as they venture further into the storm. (Something to watch for: one of the best chase sequences I have ever read. Seriously. I read this first on a train, in a snowstorm, in January (fitting) . . . and I did something you should not do on a train . . . BURST INTO UNCONTROLABLE HIGH-PITCHED LAUGHTER THAT MADE EVERYONE MOVE AWAY FROM ME.)

As we go into the weary dawn of the 26th of December, our tale is FAR from over. Because the storm has wrecked some damage and people are missing. So we enter . . .


Story three: THE PATRON SAINT OF PIGS, by Lauren Myracle

Addie has screwed up. Seriously. She had it all . . . an incredible boyfriend in the person of Jeb, normal hair, good friends . . . and then she went and messed it all up.

First, a major misunderstanding resulted in her kind of cheating on Jeb, and losing him. He’s out there somewhere in the storm, not calling her. Which explains why she has dyed her hair pink. Kind of.

Addie is NOT WELL.

When her friends Tegan and Dorrie come to pick up the pieces, Addie tries to salvage her wreck of a life by picking up Tegan’s new pet teacup pig from the pet store the next morning. The pet store is across from Starbucks, where she works. (This Starbucks has seen heartache before.)

What’s a teacup pig?

It’s one of THESE!



PIG!

Yes, that’s a pig. And you can raise it as a pet. Tegan has been waiting for her teacup pig for a VERY LONG TIME. And how hard can it be? Just going across the street to get a small pig?

Very hard, if you’re completely heartsick, and your head is pink, and your nemesis works in the store, and you’re behaving kind of strangely in general. It could all be fixed by ONE PHONE CALL from Jeb, letting Addie know that everything is okay and she is forgiven . . . but the storm has turned the world upside down. The town is full of cheerleaders and other strangers . . .

Want it? Get it NOW and it ships TOMORROW. It will be available EVERYWHERE YOU BUY BOOKS. I’d recommend an independent bookstore, but you can also get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders (which apparently thinks that John wrote it by himself), Target, or THE LIBRARY!

I’d give away copies today, except they are all at home in New York. But if you are in England, I will READ IT TO YOU from the copy I have on my computer if you can FIND ME!

CHALLENGE! FIND MJ!

Or just GET LET IT SNOW!