Alternate Prologues, Preorder Campaigns, and Accolades, Oh My!

Apr 14, 2023

Hello and welcome to the second issue of Drizzle & Deadlines, newsletter for author Maya Prasad. I’m so excited to share some fun stuff with you, including a first look at my preorder campaign for Wild Wishes and Windswept Kisses and an exclusive alternate prologue for Drizzle, Dreams, and Lovestruck Things!

Children’s Book Council Favorites Honoree

Firstly, I was so honored to learn that Drizzle, Dreams, and Lovestruck Things was selected as a Children's Book Council Young Adult Favorite of 2023! It's especially touching because teens across the country voted for this list: in fact, 500K students participated across all categories! How cool is that? It means the world to me that my book full of brown & queer joy is resonating with actual teens. Yay!

Sejal Sinha Battles Superstorms out May 2nd

It’s hard to believe that Sejal Sinha Battles Superstorms comes out in just a few weeks, on May 2nd! I can’t wait for readers to find it! I’m happy we have some lovely early reviews on Goodreads, if you want to check them out. Also, we received our first trade review:

"Sejal’s narratorial voice crackles with intelligence and perseverance . . . a well-plotted, entertaining story about science, tradition, creative thinking, and growing up."
—Kirkus

If you have kids ages 5-9 in your life, preorder now: Queen Anne Books | Wise Owl Books | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop | Amazon

Wild Wishes and Windswept Kisses Preorder Campaign Preview

You guys are the first to see the gorgeous custom artwork for the Wild Wishes and Windswept Kisses preorder campaign. Drumroll, please…

Gorgeous, isn’t it? It depicts one of my favorite swoony scenes from Wild Wishes and Windswept Kisses—and I think the illustrator, Darshini Chetty of Darsh Illustrations, really knocked it out of the park! (FYI, “Preorder Campaign” won’t appear on your custom art print if you enter the campaign!)

Full details on my website for how to nab a print! However, if you want the quick links, preorder from Queen Anne Book Company and you’ll receive a signed & personalized copy + exclusive extras! Or preorder from the retailer of your choice (including but not limited to Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, and Amazon) and fill out my form.

Plus, if you help spread the word, I’ll keep adding extras when we reach certain preorder numbers! So please, tell your friends and enemies, anyone who wants to read a warm hug of a book filled with brown & queer joy! I appreciate your support!

Alternate Prologue for Drizzle, Dreams, and Lovestruck Things

Do you love deleted scenes? I’m sharing with you an exclusive alternate prologue that I wrote while drafting Drizzle, Dreams, and Lovestruck Things. It didn’t make it to the final version, and it hasn’t been edited or anything so it might be a bit rough. But it was a different direction, much more voicey (possibly too voicey?). I hope you enjoy it all the same! Note: at the end, there’s a reference to the original title I had come up with (Fall Winter Spring Summer).

Alternate Prologue

Rani

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that four sisters on the cusp of adulthood will find love over the course of just four seasons. Jane Austen said something like that, I think. I mean didn’t all those Bennet sisters find their soulmates? Or was it just Jane and Elizabeth? Well, even though it wasn’t exactly love, Lydia did end up marrying a hot guy! So yeah, my sisters and I are basically spunky Regency heroines:

Nidhi is our dear eldest, kind of neurotic with that planner app of hers but I gotta admit: girl can bake!
Avani, my twin sis and bestie. Some (neurotic older sisters) might say she’s scatterbrained, but I say she’s a multi-talented juggler with lots of balls in the air. That sometimes drop.
Sirisha, our artistic baby sis. She tends to look at the world through the zoom lens of her trusty camera, but she does have a soft spot for Princess Charmings.
And finally moi, Rani. The true heroine of this story, obviously. Destined for epic romance, but also magnanimously on the lookout for my sisters and Dad. Trust me, it’s a good thing I’m around or we’d all be super lonely.

Totally Austenesque sisters—except we’re South Asian American, wear jeans and waterproof parkas, and don’t live in England. We do live on an island though! We were born in Portland, but when we were really little, our mom died. Afterward, Dad got this funny idea to buy a falling apart old inn on a storm-swept bluff deep in the San Juans. Very Heathcliff-like, now that I think about it. I guess he’s more of a Brontë dude.

We packed up everything we owned and set sail for Orcas Island. (Okay, actually we took I-5 and then the ferry from Anacortes.) The point is, we were now the proud owners of the Songbird Inn, which was a hundred years old and looked it. I’m talking broken windows and creaky floors and a leaking roof. Very gothic. But then Dad found an investment partner to help him spruce the place up, a cheerful dude named Jonathan. Together, they transformed the inn into a perfect cozy getaway perched on the edge of the Salish Sea.

Somewhere in there, Dad fell in love again, and Jonathan was no longer Jonathan but Pop to us. We loved him dearly…right up until he had a stroke and we lost another parent. Seriously! Hadn’t we been through enough, Universe? I mean, ugh yeah we get it—the ephemeral nature of life or whatever.

By the time last summer rolled around, I figured the universe owed me. And in strolled Raj, one of the most handsome and funny guys I’d ever met. But no, Universe, you couldn’t just let me have love so soon. I get it now—you were drawing out the suspense; it’s not an epic romance unless it spans time and distance. You teased me with an unkissed summer and that award that came in the mail—the one that declared the Songbird as The Most Romantic Inn in America. Of course, I told my sisters that the shiny plaque was a Sign, but they just laughed and thought it all was in my head.

AND THEN:

Fall. Winter. Spring. Summer. BOOM. We’re all super happy. Looking back, I can’t believe it happened so fast, and yet took so freaking long…

What do you think?

I hope to come up with new exclusives for future issues! In the meantime, happy spring!

Warmly,

Maya