On finishing a series

Okay, so I missed Teaser Tuesday - oops!  Before I get to the meat of the blog, announcements first!

1. Don't forget to enter for a chance to win one of 10 signed ARCs of The Dark and Hollow Places! The giveaway ends this Sunday, March 13th!
2. I'm headed out on tour!  Over the course of many weeks I'll be in Miami, Chicago, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Spartanburg SC and Austin!  I'm so excited for all of these visits and would love to meet y'all in person!  Here's the whole schedule!
3. Teaser Time!!  The first TWO CHAPTERS of The Dark and Hollow Places are up online!  Click here for the Chapter Sample from Random House Children's Books (link opens a .pdf file).
4. And not to forget about the recent release of The Dead-Tossed Waves paperback, I shared five bits of trivia about that book on Suvudu here.
5. The fantastically wonderful and NYT/USA Today/International bestselling author, Rachel Caine, blurbed The Dark and Hollow Places which thrills me to no end!!  She wrote:

"Carrie Ryan has penned a story of the undead that magically, unexpectedly transforms into a painful, beautiful, aching story about life. I can't say it more plainly than this: I loved it. I wish I'd written it." - Rachel Caine, bestselling author of The Morganville Vampires

I can't believe that The Dark and Hollow Places comes out in 12 days.  TWELVE DAYS!!  It's funny because I've been asked a lot lately how it feels to have this series draw to a close which is a tough question to answer.  First of all, I still have some short stories set in that world coming out this year but also... I feel like since I finished writing the book in 2010 that it ended a long time ago.  I'm already excited about what comes next!

But honestly what it feels like is this... have you ever just focused on one day and then the next and suddenly you look up and a week or a month has gone by?  That's what the release of The Dark and Hollow Places feels like.  I've been putting one foot in front of the other and suddenly... the series is done.  It kind of snuck up on me!

The past couple of days I keep looking up and realizing... soon I'll have three books on the shelf.  THREE BOOKS!  And there will be more coming (not in this series, but more!).  This is a dream come true!  Sure, I wanted this to happen, I've worked for this to happen, but when I sat down to write The Forest of Hands and Teeth over four years ago (actually, 1589 days to be exact since I have the email I sent to myself when I thought of the first line) I never every thought I'd be here.  I dreamed I would one day make it here... but I probably wouldn't have taken the odds it would have happened like this :)

So how does it feel?  Overwhelming.  I think that's one reason that I can only lift my head up from the day to day and look around every now and again because otherwise I'll be stunned into inaction.  I feel too lucky, almost as if it isn't fair.  There's still so much more ahead of me that I'm crazy excited about, but sometimes it's nice to sit here and realize... wow.  Three books.

And I wouldn't be here without y'all, so thank you!

Now to put my head back down and motor through the rest of my looming to-do list :)