From Kirkus Reviews:

Freesia lives on a seemingly magical island where every whim is answered in this nifty sci-fi comedy.

On her island world, Freesia needs only to place an order in her portable bubble device to get her perpetually smiling mother to serve her breakfast, to choose from the hundreds of outfits she owns, or to communicate with friends and watch her enemies. She orders her teachers around, never bothering to study any subject. Foreign-language classes focus on food instead of the language, which is never taught. Everyone on the island, including Freesia, looks beautiful and goes to parties every night. Yet glitches occur as the program generating this virtual world begins to crash, sending Freesia back to reality, where her parents and sister appear to see her only as annoying. Thrown into her local high school, Freesia does no work and can’t connect with her former best friend. Finally, she tries to return to the virtual world, but this time, she knows it’s only a computer program. With constantly clever comic writing, Snow disguises her serious examination of the dangers involved in immersion in fantasy and living by whim. Freesia uses an aggressively vapid, too-hip vocabulary, in which something really good is “de-vicious” and a kiss is a “face link,” to heighten the fun.

Freesia’s plenty spunky, and so is this hilarious book.

See how upset he gets when I leave?

Hey! Did I mention that I have a new book coming out? Because I do. And you know what that means? I am going to have to put in my contact lenses, comb my hair, and leave my house. I’m fine with that, though my cat is getting anxious.

Here’s what’s on the calendar so far.

UPCOMING EVENTS (2013)

Sunday, May 19, 2-5 p.m., Local Authors Day, Fullerton Public Library

Tuesday, July 2, 6:30-8:30 p.m., Teen Workshop, Yorba Linda Public Library

Sunday, August 18, 2:00 p.m., Bubble World Book Launch party, Fullerton Public Library

Hope to see some of you there! Because I’m all about my readers! And also because there is nothing — okay, maybe a few things — sadder than an author event where no one shows up.

Ha! Kidding. Obviously, it is.

Until this week, I’d only been to New Orleans once, for a family wedding. Our hotel was on Bourbon Street, which was kind of like a never-ending frat party, only with way more neon. Also more transvestites. My daughter was six. We went to the aquarium. On the way to the rehearsal dinner, an extremely tall transvestite-mime presented my little girl with Mardi Gras beads. The next day we went to the wedding, and then we went home. I sensed I had not properly experienced the city.

Last week I had the opportunity to spend forty-two hours in the French Quarter, and oh, man, did I go cuh-ray-ZEE!

Kidding again. But I DID spend hours taking pictures of the spectacular architecture, which I then dutifully edited and posted on Instagram (not to brag, but I’m up to 18 followers). And I got a pina colada out of one of those frozen drink machines and walked around with it — on the street! (It’s legal, assuming you are over 21. You can assume I am over 21.) Okay, I split the drink (size small) with my husband. But the night was young. (And we are not.)

The French Quarter is a place of joyous sensory overload. Music is everywhere. There’s jazz in plenty of clubs, of course, but I most enjoyed the street musicians. Two young ukelele-strumming women sang “Hit Me Baby One More Time” on an otherwise quiet street, while on another corner, a young man played an electric African bass harp. (I know because he had a sign that said, “What is it? It’s an African bass harp.” I’m clever that way.)

There’s so much to see. Like: leftover Mardi Gras decorations (we showed up on the second day of Lent), Eighteenth century buildings painted in bright hues, art galleries, tarot card readers, creepy Easter bunnies, coats of armor, vampire stores . . .

I’d been to the waterfront before (see aquarium reference, above), but not in the evening, when the tourist riverboats pipe haunting music into the air. If the French Quarter attracts creatives — artists, musicians, and oddballs of every stripe (though maybe not writers since sensory overload tends to mess with our productivity) — the waterfront attracts teens and young adults even closer to the edge. Which is another way of saying that it looks like a casting call for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” But not in a bad way.

Food. Wow. We wandered into a restaurant called Sylvain because it looked suitably interesting and sophisticated but not stuffy. My husband’s fried pork shoulder was one of the best things either of us has ever tasted. If Sylvain were in L.A. they would call the fried pork shoulder something like, like — oh, I don’t know even. Something so pretentious that you’d have to ask the waiter, “Um, what is this exactly?” And the waiter — who was this close to getting a part on a new series on the WB — would go out of his way to describe the dish without ever using the words “fried” or “shoulder.” Or “pork,” for that matter.

We also ate beignets, a.k.a. “French donuts.” I am not a big donut eater, but if you go to New Orleans, you need to eat these things. They’re that good. And besides, if you’re in New Orleans, you can’t think too much about calories.

Last time I came to the French Quarter was pre-Katrina. Coming back, it was impossible not to think of all that was lost. But there is such a spirit to the place and the people. It’s not like they don’t know think bad things can happen — they do. So you might as well grab a pina colada, listen to music, and enjoy the beauty of the moment.

It’s almost Valentine’s Day! Don’t you love Valentine’s Day? That’s okay — no one else does, either. But it’s wrong to let a holiday pass without notice, so here’s a way to celebrate without being too, you know, celebratory. This recipe originally came from Cooking Light. However, the heart-shaped bit is my own special twist. (My friends tell me I’m very creative.)

Heart-Shaped Meatloaf

• 3/4 cup ketchup, divided
• 1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
• 1/4 cup minced fresh onion
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 2 large egg whites, lightly beaten
• 1 1/2 pounds ground round
• Cooking spray

Combine 1/2 cup ketchup, oats, onion, parsley, brown sugar, salt, pepper and egg whites in a large bowl. Add meat; stir just until blended. Shape meat mixture into a heart on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray. Brush 1/4 cup ketchup over meat loaf. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before slicing.

TO BID ON AN AUTOGRAPHED HARDCOVER COPY OF SWITCH, GO HERE.

Here in Southern California, it was seventy degrees yesterday, and my daughter was complaining about being cold. So, I know how easy it is for those of us outside the New York area to forget about the devastation that Sandy left behind. (I also know how wimpy California kids can be about weather.) But I’ve also heard so many stories of heartbreak from families and friends in my native New Jersey that I’m honored to be a part of Kieran Scott‘s fundraising effort, YA for NJ.

On November 30, personally signed books from over 200 young adult and middle grade authors will be up for auction on eBay. All proceeds will go to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey. The auction will run till December 6.

So, if you’re a fan of young adult or middle grade fiction … or if you know a fan of young adult or middle grade fiction … or if you’re looking for a holiday gift for ANYONE between the ages of, say, eight and sixteen (no, thirty) — please consider bidding!

So maybe I’m a little slow on my book news. But I really am excited about Bubble World, which will be in stores in July 2013. Don’t tell my other titles, but I think it’s my favorite book, and not just because it has the cutest cover in the world.

(Those models are not just any old dolls, by the way. Laurie Everton of The Barbie Canvas hand-painted them to look like my characters.)

Here’s what the book is about:

Freesia Summers lives on the island of Agalinas, a hidden Pacific paradise somewhere off the coast of California. Northern California or Southern? Freesia doesn’t know. Or care. She’d much rather spend her time thinking about things that matter, like glittery eye makeup and lovely boys. Freesia has everything a girl could want: an enormous closet, her own ocean-view balcony, a pink itty car, singing peacocks, and a magical bubble that lets her talk to her besties and keep track of her de-vicious clothes.

If Freesia’s life seems too good to be true, well, there’s a reason for that. She does her best to ignore the signs that something in her world has gone terribly wrong: the electrical outages, the time slips, the sudden departures that border on disappearances. But when a blackout lands her in an unbeautiful place — and in an equally unbeautiful but oddly familiar body — reality hits her head-on.

As far as Freesia is concerned, reality is overrated.

To read the first chapter, go here. And if you’d like to pre-order (hey, I’m only thinking about you and your busy schedule), check out Amazon, Books-a-Million and Barnes & Noble (which doesn’t have the pre-order link up at the time of this posting, but should soon).

My mother always told me to sit next to a fat lady on the beach. Why limit myself to the beach?

October is around the corner, which means that when I tire of checking Facebook and scouring Pinterest for crockpot recipes (it’s all part of the creative process, people), I can turn my attention to things that matter: like seeing how many people have come to my blog in search of Halloween costume ideas. Last year my ground-breaking blog posts included such topics as The Best Halloween Costumes You Never Thought of and Lame Costume Ideas for the Truly Desperate. An astonishing number of people land on my site after Googling “lame costume ideas,” which I never imagined would be anyone’s actual goal.

On the bright side, far more people get here after typing “original costume ideas”or “current events costumes.” (Two words: Summer Olympics. Three words: Avoid presidential politics. Unless you want to dress as Big Bird. Or a binder.) My favorite searches, though, are the questions. I will answer some of them here:

Is it bad taste to dress like Casey Anthony for Halloween? Yes.

Is it ok to dress up like Amy Winehouse for Halloween? No. Still too soon. Give it another year.

Is Richard Simmons a stupid Halloween costume? Are you kidding me? Richard Simmons is a fabulous costume! But you have to be prepared to guide an exercise routine on the dance floor.

What should me and my husband be for Halloween?  I’m sorry, but I can’t answer that question until you rephrase using proper grammar. 

Hot tramp stamp see thru shirt with black bra. Okay, that’s not a question, but I still feel the need to respond. No. Just no.

Sadly, I have no advice for the person who wanted to Find costumes for a Hemingway party — though I wish I were invited. Likewise, I’m out of ideas for the individual looking to find a Kevin Federline costume for a dog. (Do they make doggie wifebeaters?) As for the people searching for sick and wrong Halloween costumes and costume ideas for people going to hell, see my Casey Anthony response, above.

It’s kind of funny that a lot of people come to my costume posts after Googling Never thought of before Halloween costumes. If something has never been thought of before, it’s not going to be on a blog. Because a person has to think of something before she blogs about it. So, um. . . yeah. But here are some standouts from my last Halloween party:

And, finally, to all those people looking for Costumes where you don’t have to dress up: Come on! You get to be you 364 days a year. It’s Halloween. Be a superhero. Or a rock star. Or maybe even . . . a book.

More Halloween Posts:

Halloween Costumes: Rockers and Pop Stars

Halloween Costumes: Television Shows

Halloween Costumes: Movies

Halloween Costumes: In the News

Bubble World

Coming in July 2013 from Henry Holt

Find out more.

Read first chapter.

And now, the saddest line I might ever type: I’m really excited about my zucchini board on Pinterest!

Just kidding. I’m not that excited about the board. Right now, it’s only got seven recipes. (I’m way more proud of my crockpot recipe board: 64 pins and counting!) This, then, is for real the saddest line I might ever type: I spent yesterday evening taking cellphone pictures of my zucchini.

The zucchini thing started innocently enough, with a harmless-looking little plant from Home Depot. Next thing you know, the zucchinis have taken over my garden, my breakfast, my dinner, my mind! In college, I appeared in “Little Shop of Horrors,” a musical about a man-eating plant intent on world domination. My zucchini plant is kind of like that, except for the man-eating part.

I’ve made zucchini fritters. Zucchini casserole. Zucchini tater tots. Zucchini fries. I’ve added shredded zucchini to spaghetti sauce and pancakes. And still: the squash grows faster than I can cook it. We both know who’s in charge. Today, for the first time, I threw a week-old zucchini into the trash. It will come for me when I’m sleeping. Until then, here’s an old family recipe.

ZUCCHINI BREAD (makes 2 loaves)

Beat:

• 3 eggs

 Add:

• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• ½ cup applesauce
• 2 cups zucchini, peeled and grated
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla

 Sift together & add to wet mixture:

• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 Tbsp. cinnamon
• 3 cups flour

If desired, add:

• 2 cups chopped walnuts

Pour into two greased pans and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

In case you don’t know, SEO is how good a website is at getting traffic from searches on Google, Yahoo, Bing and the like. Good SEO is achieved when the fairies that fly around  the World Wide Web sprinkle pixie dust. Poor SEO can generally be attributed to fungus-munching gnomes that live in underground tunnels. Of course, the full process is more complicated and technical, but that gives you the basic idea.

I don’t know what kind of blood pact the good people at FSB Associates made when they designed carolsnow.com (if you think fairies are all giggles and glitter, think again), but my SEO is so good it borders on creepy. See, I use a couple of programs that tell me what visitors to my site typed into search engines. The programs also tell me how long people stayed on the site, how many pages they viewed, and other stuff that I don’t pay much attention to. It’s all intended to help me be a better marketer. Because pretty much everyone who goes into fiction writing secretly wishes they were doing PR.

Most people come here after typing in “carol snow” or “carol snow author” or one of my book titles. That’s nice and good and what I hired FSB to do. Less expected: for almost a year, I have been a foremost web expert on clams. No, I’m serious. See what happens when I type “how to cook steamers” into Google? The internet fairies offer almost four million results, but my steamers blog post comes in at number four, and a whole bunch of those people click through to my site. Sunday I saw a spike in traffic, presumably as dads across America requested steamers for Father’s Day. And do you know how many of those people went on to read my books? Probably none. But I kind of don’t care because I think it’s so funny.

Other posts that have generated a surprising amount of traffic include my ground-breaking report on Skotidakis yogurt dip (in which I revealed that it tastes good), my Halloween costume suggestions, and my holiday series, “Gifts for People You Don’t Like.” (Related Google searches: Gifts for people you don’t really like; Gifts for family you don’t like; Best wine for people you don’t like; and — shoot me now — Gift books for people you don’t like.)

As pleased as I am with all those web hits, I understand how they happened. Less expected search terms that led people to my site include: What (13 hits); What? (1); Babies (26); Baby (13); and Yeah You Heard Me (1).

Let us all pause to consider the aimless souls who have nothing better to do than Google “What.” Did they follow up with Where, When, Who, or Why? What in the world did those people hope to learn? Then again, vagueness may not be all bad. At least “what” and “yeah you heard me” aren’t disturbing. Like, say, these other search terms that landed people on my site:

First date white shirt see thru black bra

Adult baby torture devices

Bad lip injections

Sequin Klingon dress

Sick and wrong costumes

Toga lawyer

Unintended nudist

I gotta say: The Unintended Nudist would make a heckuva book title, though I don’t think I’m the person to write it.

Only in So Cal: kindergarteners enjoying man-made snow

As I dropped my sixth grade son at school this morning, it hit me. This is my last week as an elementary school mom. Admittedly, I’ve had some time to get used to this idea — eleven years, to be exact. That’s a lot of cookie dough and wrapping paper sales. A lot of field trip permission slips, holiday performances and bring-something-that-represents-your-heritage classroom potlucks. (My macaroni and cheese has always been popular. It was that or beer.)

My son is ready to transition to the big world of junior high. I thought I was too, until I found my eyes welling up as I pulled away from the curb.

Every once in awhile, the world — or at least Sirius radio — provides the perfect soundtrack to our lives. As I drove toward home, R.E.M.’s “The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” began to play. I’ve always liked that song, especially the super-speedy Great Big Sea cover. I’ve never understood the song’s meaning, so when I got home I looked it up on songfacts.com. And guess what? It doesn’t really mean anything. Michael Stipes, who wrote it, calls it “a collection of streams of consciousness.” Hey, I can relate to that.

This one’s for all the moms and dads who are attending promotions, commencements, graduations or any other ceremony that marks the end of an era, for both your child and yourself. We’re all going to feel fine. Just give us a little time (and a whole bunch of tissues).

“The End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine,” Great Big Sea (Cover)