Something Wild #1: A Chance to Read My Book Early
Giveaway to win a signed advance reading copy of my new novel WAKE THE WILD CREATURES…
The moon is full and it's supposed to be chaotic tonight so I’m giving away a signed advance reading copy of my new book Wake the Wild Creatures, as promised.
If you're impatient for the giveaway, scroll down to the image that says GIVEAWAY! If you want to hear some of what's roiling around in my head and read the full book description, stay with me.
First, I need to acknowledge this unfortunate moment…
I know there are many people who are scared, upset, angry, anxious, or crashing through some other far uglier emotion after the destructive results of the U.S. election. I'm one of those people. If you're spiraling like I am, you're not alone. I shared some thoughts about this on Instagram—and lost followers in the process—but this is who I am and I cannot sit in silence.
In that post—after the spill of emotion, after the anger and disgust—I spoke to something that changed in me last time. I mentioned my constant struggle with pessimism and how writing Wake the Wild Creatures became a direct challenge to that bottomless, hopeless part of me. I started writing the first bits of the book in 2017, when he was president the first time, and it really found its voice and its soul during the pandemic, when I became isolated and adrift. Turns out the book is finally coming out in 2025, when he will be president again.
An important content warning: Please be aware that Wake the Wild Creatures touches on sexual violence and its aftermath. It also explores the idea of a small intentional community full of women who choose to live their lives outside mainstream society, who create a safe place of their own making. I channeled my rage into this story. I channeled my alienation and my ideas about what might be better if I changed the way I live.
Days have passed since the election, and now the full moon has come, which is the day I've chosen each month to send out a newsletter post to all subscribers. For weeks, I'd been planning a giveaway for today. Now here we are and, in all honesty, I thought about skipping it. I thought, too, about stopping this newsletter altogether and folding inward and saving all my words and discomforting thoughts for the new novels I'm writing. But then I think about Wake the Wild Creatures itself, this strange little creature I created out of nothing, and I'm not going away just yet.
An editor who worked on my book emailed me this week to say how timely the novel feels right now, and I wish I could express my crushing feelings at how much I did not want the book to feel timely. How upset I am that it does.
All I can say is that writing this book was a way for me to imagine something other, and if that sounds interesting to you, it may meet you in this current moment. I'll share the full description of the story below.
About the Book
Wake the Wild Creatures doesn't yet have a cover we can share, but advance reading copies (ARCs) have been printed with a holding cover that features some of the blurbs.
I'll highlight all nine of the generous blurbs from authors I deeply admire in a future newsletter post. But you can see a peek at four of them in the photo of the ARC here:
This extraordinary, timely, and must-read novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Nova Ren Suma explores young women’s freedom and rage as Talia plots her way back to her hidden mountaintop home after her mother’s arrest for murder.
I reached the clearing with the seven white pines and stopped to get my breath back. The mist filled my lungs, peppery and also sweet, and momentum pushed me forward. Giddy, I dropped into a bed of moss, soft and slick in spots, and rolled in it, howled for no reason, felt close to an understanding of some kind, as if an eye inside me was peeling open. It was the first full moon after I turned thirteen, and I knew that whatever happened in this next stretch of hours would change me forever after.
I wasn’t wrong.
Three years ago, Talia lived happily in the ruins of the Neves, a once-grand hotel in the wilds of the Catskill Mountains, with her mother Pola and their community of like-minded women. Some came to the Neves to escape cruel men, others to hide from the law, but all found safety and connection in their haven high above civilization, cloaked by a mysterious mist that kept intruders away. But as their numbers grew, complications followed, and everything came crashing down the night electric lights pierced the forest. Uniformed men arrested Pola, calling her a murderer and a fugitive, and Talia was taken away.
Now sixteen, Talia has been forced to live with family she barely knows and fit into a world scarred by misogyny, capitalism, disconnection from nature . . . everything the women of the Neves stood against. She has one goal: to return to the Neves. But as Talia awaits a signal from her mother, questions arise. Who betrayed her community, and what is she avoiding about her own role in its collapse? Is it truly magic that keeps the hotel so hidden? And what does it mean to embrace being her mother’s daughter? With the help of an unexpected ally, Talia must find her way to answers, face a mother who’s often kept her at arm’s length, and try to reach the refuge she lost—if the mist hasn’t swallowed her path home.
Fierce and lyrical, unsettling and tender, Wake the Wild Creatures marks the long-awaited return of one of the most distinctive voices in young adult literature.
Coming May 6, 2025, from Little, Brown in hardcover, ebook, and audio
Preorder Here!
Enter the Giveaway
Here is where you enter to win a signed advance reading copy of my new novel Wake the Wild Creatures!
You need to be subscribed to this newsletter in order to enter, and you can subscribe for free here.
Enter now! The last day to enter is November 30, 2024.
The next prompt hour led by me will be held online in Zoom on Sunday, January 26, at 8:30pm Eastern.
Want to be there? Just be an active subscriber to a Writer Membership here at this site for the month of January, and you're invited.
And by the way, if you don't have a credit card or prefer to pay another way, I'll make it possible to join the workshop by subscribing for one month (just $5) via Venmo. Email me at nova@novaren.com if you'd like to set that up before January.
Stay tuned for more details.