Tag: Sight Unseen

Sight Unseen Reveal

Back in May, a group of five authors released a collection of semi-anonymous romances called Sight Unseen. Our names were on the cover, but they weren’t on the individual pieces. This week, we’ve been revealing who wrote what: Erin Satie authored Lost that Feeling; Meredith Duran’s was A Clear View of You; and my entry was Free. That’s right, I wrote the motorcycle romance. (ETA: JA Rock wrote Chariot of Desire and Sherry Thomas’s was The Heart is a Universe.)

You can read interviews with Erin here, Meredith here, me here, and JA and Sherry here. The only thing I’ll add is I utterly adored this project. I can see how readers might feel frustrated that we wandered out of our niches, but Free is so far beyond my wheelhouse, I don’t think I would have finished writing it let alone marketed it without Sight Unseen. From an author point of view, the freedom and anonymity were wonderful.

If you want to a peep into my head, here’s my Pinterest board for the book (I had to finally answer that important question, “what is a Metallica?”), and the passage I’ve screenshotted above is one of my favorites I’ve ever written.

Odds and Ends

These are all related to the Sight Unseen release, but I’ve gathered them for your listening/reading pleasure:

  • Heroes and Heartbreakers had a post of Sight Unseen excerpts–and included polls about who wrote what. I’ve so enjoyed hearing all the guesses. Please let me know yours using the #SUWho hashtag.
  • All five us talked the book concept at Happily Ever After.
  • I had an essay at Smexy Books about identity, truth, and disguise.
  • I went on the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books podcast along with Sherry Thomas and Erin Satie to talk Sight Unseen. It was surreal as I listen to the podcast all. the. time.

Sight Unseen Release Day

sight unseen book

It’s release day for Sight Unseen! This beauty is available in print and e-book at fine retailers everywhere, including Amazon, iBooks, B&N, Kobo, and Open Ink Press, and you can add it to your Goodreads shelves.

I feel like I haven’t talked about Sight Unseen enough because I can’t tell you about my novella. What I can say is writing it was amazing because I was able to just write. I didn’t have to worry about where it “fit” in my brand or how I would make it into a series. The characters, the words, the story: that was what mattered.

When I received the ARC, I devoured it. Then I went back and read it again more slowly. The pieces are radically different from each other and from everything the five of us write. Leave your expectations at the door on this one. In fact it might be better to approach them as five separate pieces with a hard reset between each, because they aren’t a cohesive collection. It’s five different experiments running simultaneously.

I’m biased, but I think the novellas each work on their own terms, with their own rewards of narrative and writing, but they also work within the game. Who wrote what? Can you guess? Does it matter?

I can promise it’s a unique reading experience–and I can’t wait to talk to you about my novella after the reveal in September. In the meantime, if you read Sight Unseen, let me know if you have any guesses either here or via the hashtag #SUWho on Twitter.

And if you’re here going, “who the heck is this Emma Barry person?”, it’s nice to meet you. I write contemporary romances about political staffers on my own and historical romances about the Space Race with my friend Genevieve Turner. I wrote a sort author mission statement a while ago, my bio is here, and you can find out more about my books here. Star Dust is currently free, and may I also recommend Earth Bound and Party Lines? They’re my favorites.

Sight Unseen Cover Reveal/ARCs

The cover is here for Sight Unseen, and it’s so pretty!

cover with sight unseen at the woman. outline of a woman with a road on her against a blurry blue background

This will be out on June 6, and it’s available for preorder at Amazon and Open Ink Press (more links coming soon!). Also, if you’re a reviewer-y type, you can request ARCs here. I’m not handling them directly, but let me know if you have problems.

Obviously I can’t tell you anything about my story, but I really love it and it’s incredibly unlike me and I can’t wait to see what everyone thinks about it.

Book Announcement: Sight Unseen

If you read Smart Bitches, Trashy Books (and if you don’t, do you hate good things?), you might have seen today’s announcement about Sight Unseen, an anthology project from Sherry Thomas, Meredith Duran, Erin Satie, and J.A. Rock. Oh, and me. Which is clearly some sort of mistake.

The concept is that we all wrote novellas outside of our normal mode. Experimental, risky, different, strange, sexy, smart, challenging novellas. (I know of what I speak; I’ve read them all.) But here’s the catch: we aren’t telling you who wrote what. While Sight Unseen will be out June 6, the authorship of the individual stories will remain a mystery until September.

Intrigued? You should be!

Sight Unseen is available for pre-order at Open Ink Press. The cover reveal and more preorder links will be out in two weeks.

So pop over there, read the blurbs, and come back here and tell me which one you think is mine. I won’t answer you, of course, but I’m dying to know what you think.