A lovely holiday weekend

So lovely, that I'm not even updating about it until Wednesday!

First, let me say Happy September! While I love summer, fall is my favorite season of the year. I love the first day of school, school supplies, sweaters, pumpkin-flavored things ... and the start of September means I'm only one month away from October, which is my favorite 31 days of the entire year. And THIS year, on October 9th, I'll be celebrating one year until Meant to Be releases!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. It's only the first week in September! The Labor Day weekend included a fabulous dinner at Craigie on Main (sit at the bar. The bartenders are amazing and watching them mix fancy cocktails is really fun), a delicious brunch at Deluxe Town Diner, and kayaking on the Charles River. Sunday was also the LAST SCRIMMAGE OF THE SEASON! Our championship bout is on Saturday, and then season is over!

If you're in the Boston area, get your tickets online!

 Sadly, on the way home from THE LAST SCRIMMAGE OF THE SEASON, another driver attempted to change lanes while I was in her blind spot and SMASH:

Poor lil Prius is wounded!

Luckily, I have very good insurance, and the girl I hit happened to have the very same good insurance, so all this is getting taken care of easy peasy (and I get a free rental while my lil Prius is in the shop!).

In book news, I got some fabulous surprises in my mailbox this week.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
by Michelle Hodkin

This one came to me courtesy of the Apocalypsies ARC exchange. Someone (forgive me, I can't remember who!) picked this up at BEA, and it's been making the rounds through the Apocalypsies. I can't even wait to read it. I've read such crazy amazing reviews, so I'm psyched to get to read an early copy!

Slide
by Jill Hathaway

This one arrived courtesy of ANOTHER Apocalypsies ARC exchange, this one where we all share our own ARCs. I'm reading it now (we've got two weeks before we have to send it on to the next person). I stayed up late last night reading the first half (with the cool, rainy weather we're having here in Boston, it was the perfect book to cozy up with), and I'll probably finish it tonight. I'm seriously loving it. It reads like a contemporary, it's got some mild paranormal elements, but mostly it's just an awesome mystery/thriller. I'm so sucked in that it was really hard not to skip my stop on the train this morning and just keep reading!

My TBR list is growing by the minute. While home in Tennessee visiting my mom, I picked up If I Stay by Gayle Forman and Paranormalcy by Kiersten White (yeah, I really have to stop saying I'm not a paranormal fan ... I'm pretty sure the jig is up). I wish I could just making reading my full-time job...

In MY book news, Meant to Be is officially in copyedits now, and pretty soon I should be starting work in earnest on book 2! Oh how time flies, right? This time last year I'd probably only written about 8 chapters of Meant to Be. And now it's well on its way to becoming a real live book, with a cover and typesetting and everything ... my lil baby is almost all grown up. 

Hope everyone else had a lovely holiday weekend, and to my East Coast buddies, stay dry out there!