Katharine McGee's Blog

I can’t believe that Rivals is coming out next month! I have some fun tour stops coming up, which I can’t wait to share with you all soon. In the meantime, I’m thrilled to be participating in some incredible virtual events next week for YallWest!

On Monday 4/25 at 8 PM EST I’ll be on an Audiobook panel with Brittany Pressley, the incredible audiobook narrator of American Royals, as well as Jennifer Yen, the author of Love Decoded, and her audiobook narrator Annie Q! Come join us as we chat about audiobook romances, how hard it is to narrate multi-POV novels, and why we fall in love with fictional boyfriends so easily. <3 I’ll also be answering questions about Inheritance, the American Royals prequel, so make sure to listen before you tune in!

Then on Wednesday 4/27 at 8 PM EST I’ll be part of the Underlined Pajama Party! Join me and fellow authors Gina Chen, Kelis Rowe, and Kate Williams as we cozy up in our PJ’s and play slumber party games! Underlined will be giving away some digital copies of our upcoming books so this is a great way to sneak an early read of Rivals

Can’t wait to hopefully see you there. Please RSVP below on Eventbrite and you’ll receive a zoom link on the day of the event!

Audiobook panel:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/audiobook-crush-tickets-317714882767

Underlined Pajama party:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/underlined-pajama-party-at-yallwest-tickets-300832075837

The preorder campaign for Majesty is live! From now until September 1, if you purchase the book from any retailer and submit your receipt here, you’ll receive a bonus chapter from American Royals book 1! I love this scene—it was actually written as chapter one of American Royals, so it was originally meant to be the opening of the entire series. Ultimately, I realized that we needed to jump right into the action of Beatrice learning that her parents expect her to get married. I couldn’t find another spot for this opening chapter, so it was exiled to the “graveyard” section of my computer… until now! I’m so excited that I finally get the chance to share it with all of you.

If you’d like your copy of Majesty signed and personalized, you can preorder from my local Houston bookstore Blue Willow Bookshop. They even ship internationally! PLUS all orders placed through Blue Willow will be eligible to win exclusive American Royals swag… including a coffee mug, sunglasses, nail polish, and more! If you order through Blue Willow, just make sure to add your name in the “comments” section at the checkout page so I know to personalize your copy. And don’t forget to submit your receipt, otherwise you won’t receive the American Royals deleted chapter!

Here’s a little of what to expect in Majesty…

As America adjusts to the idea of a queen on the throne, Beatrice grapples with everything she lost when she gained the ultimate crown. Samantha is busy living up to her “party princess” persona—and maybe adding a party prince by her side. Nina just wants to avoid the palace, and Prince Jefferson, at all costs. Meanwhile, someone from Daphne’s past threatens to undo all of her carefully laid “marry Prince Jefferson” plans.

Their secrets could destroy them. The country will judge them. And love might cost them everything.

A new reign has begun…

The American Royals
preorder campaign is live!!

From now until September 2, if you preorder the book from any retailer and submit your receipt here, you’ll receive an amazing American Royals prize pack! This includes a tote bag, coffee sleeve, bookmark, and the Washington family tree (which I had way too much fun inventing!)

I’m thrilled to announce the preorder campaign for The Towering Sky, the final book in the Thousandth Floor trilogy!

If you order the book by August 27, 2018, through any US/Canadian retailer, you will gain access to exclusive, never-before-seen bonus content: the Mariel chapters that were cut from The Dazzling Heights! You can read more about the chapters and the story behind them below. To enter, submit your receipt online at katharinemcgee.com/TTSpreorder. The bonus chapters will be sent to your inbox on August 28, the release day for The Towering Sky!

BUT THERE’S MORE! If you preorder through my local bookstore, Blue Willow Bookstore in Houston, your book will be signed and personalized—plus you’ll receive a custom Thousandth Floor makeup bag + lip balm! Blue Willow does ship anywhere in the world. If you order through Blue Willow, no need to submit the receipt through the preorder page; you’ll automatically get the Mariel chapters in your inbox on August 28. Just remember to enter your name in the comments section of the order if you would like your book personalized!

What are these Mariel chapters, you ask? Warning: spoilers for The Thousandth Floor & The Dazzling Heights ahead.

In the past year, a lot of you have wondered why Mariel didn’t have a bigger role in the second book of the trilogy. After all, The Thousandth Floor ends on a Mariel chapter, The Dazzling Heights opens with a Mariel chapter—and then she seems to vanish until the final pages of the novel! If you are a close reader, though, you probably noticed that she isn’t really gone: she appears in the stories of several other characters. They just haven’t met her, so they don’t realize who she is, or how involved she is in all their fates…

I didn’t originally mean for Mariel to be so mysteriously off-screen. In the first draft of The Dazzling Heights, Mariel was actually another narrator, with just as many chapters as the other five characters! But when I re-read that first draft, I realized that Mariel’s chapters weren’t quite working. Aside from the page count issues (I tend to write long books!), Mariel’s perspective took a lot of the suspense and excitement from the rest of the novel. This was a hard choice, because Mariel had become very dear to me as a character (side note, why do I keep killing off my favorites?!) but ultimately, I realized that the story would be stronger and more impactful without her narration.

Now that the final book is about to release, I’m so excited that I can finally share these deleted Mariel chapters with you guys. They won’t ever be published in print, so make sure to preorder The Towering Sky before its release date if you want to read them!

 

The Dazzling Heights, the second book in The Thousandth Floor trilogy, comes out on August 29! I am counting down the days!

To celebrate, my friends at Epic Reads are giving away makeup bags to EVERYONE who preorders the book, from ANY retailer! That’s right—all you have to do is submit your receipt in this form to receive a gorgeous Dazzling Heights makeup pouch! I mean, just look how shimmery and gold these are ! And who says they have to be used as makeup bags—they could be a pencil case, a sunglass pouch, or just a gorgeous shiny decoration for your bookshelf. The possibilities are endless!

If you want your copy of The Dazzling Heights signed and personalized, and you can’t make it to my launch event in San Francisco, never fear! I’ll be signing all copies purchased through Books Inc San Francisco (in my signature gold sharpie, of course!) You can order those copies here. Make sure to add your name in the comments of the order if you would like it personalized

BOOK CLUBS ARE THE BEST KIND OF CLUBS. (This is obvious, I know, but it had to be said.) Truly, the only thing better than reading a new book is sharing it with your friends. I have been so honored and delighted by all the book clubs that have reached out to me about The Thousandth Floor! Please keep sending your pictures (and your glittery decorations, and your themed cocktail recipes!)

Several of you asked for a Reader’s Group Guide to help prompt your book club conversations, so I teamed up with my fabulous team at HarperCollins to make the series of questions below. (If your book club is anything like mine, the main point of the questions is to keep you from wandering too far off topic ;)) I hope you guys enjoy! Happy book-clubbing!

Discussion Questions for The Thousandth Floor

Why do you think Katharine McGee chose these five characters to narrate, rather than other characters such as Atlas, Cord, or Mariel? How do you think the perspectives of our five narrators change the way we readers perceive the other characters?
In the prologue, the girl who falls thinks “only of the past few hours, the path she’d taken that ended here. If only she hadn’t talked to him. If only she hadn’t been so foolish. If only she hadn’t gone up there in the first place” (2). How did your interpretation of those sentences change over the course of the book? Were you surprised by the ending? Why, or why not?
Standing alone on the roof, Avery thinks about the Tower: “beneath her bare feet was the biggest structure on earth, a whole world unto itself. How strange that there were millions of people below her at this very moment, eating, sleeping, dreaming, touching” (7). Later, at church with Mariel, Eris feels connected to the strangers around her in a way that surprises her. Considering these two moments, do you think that living in a thousand-story supertower would be exciting, or anonymous and lonely?
Avery tells us that “her mother was achingly self-conscious about the way she looked. It was the whole reason she’d insisted they pay so much, to ensure that Avery would never have to worry about it” (252). Yet Avery hates when people compliment her beauty. Do you think she would be happier if she looked “normal”? How has Avery’s custom-ordered beauty affected her relationship with her parents? With her friends?
Thinking about her history with Atlas, Leda says that “the longer she kept it to herself, the more of a secret it became” (20). Do you think this is a universal truth of secrets, that they become more powerful the longer you keep them? Is it true of the other secrets in the novel?
When we first meet Eris, she’s stealing her mom’s earrings and running late to a party where she kisses Cord in a closet. Three months later, she’s “not in the mood” for a party, and running after Rylin on Cord’s behalf (417). How does Eris change over the course of the novel? What do you think sparks those changes?
Rylin and Cord come from very different backgrounds, but they both lost their parents. What do you think caused them to fall for each other in spite of their differences? What would it take for them to work things out?
How different is the futuristic technology in the book—Hyperloop trains, hoverboards, computerized contact lenses—from technology today? What do you think the author is trying to say about society’s reliance on technology?
Watt guesses a girl’s drink at the bar and is accused of “cheating somehow” (43). Later, Nadia helps him fill in the answers to a history test at school. Do you think that the way Watt uses Nadia qualifies as “cheating”? If you could install a quantum computer in your head, would you?
Consider the proverb “Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.” The novel features various types of families, from Rylin’s deceased and absent parents to Leda’s overbearing ones, to the revelation that Leda’s and Eris’s families are actually linked. Do you think that the friendships in the novel are more stable and reliable than the families? What about Avery’s friendship with Leda?
Dreams recur throughout the novel: Avery dreams of Atlas, Rylin and Cord both dream that their parents are still alive, and Leda is haunted by nightmares. Eris uses a machine called the Dreamweaver to choose precisely what she will dream about, the way that you might order an on-demand movie. What do you think all of this says about the line between dreams and reality? If you could select your dreams, what would you choose to dream about?
Do you think Leda is to blame for the events at the end of the novel, or is she the victim of terrible circumstances?
What do you predict will happen to all of the characters in the next book?

 

A lot of you have asked about the backstory of the Tower: how long it took to build, and what prompted its construction in the first place. Since the world of The Thousandth Floor isn’t a dystopian world—plenty of people live outside the Tower, in rural or suburban areas, or normal non-vertical cities (just wait till book 2!!)—the reason wasn’t that New Yorkers had to build a Tower, it’s that they chose to, as an investment in their future.

The concept is called vertical urbanization: the idea that cities of the future will grow upward rather than outward. As a self-contained city, complete with apartments and schools and hospitals and shopping and even parks, the Tower is an extreme version of vertical urbanization. But it’s not that far off! Already some of the supertowers in Asia and in the Middle East are starting to include features like this—interior parks, retail areas, even helipads so that you can land there straight from the airport. Maybe a thousand-story Tower won’t seem so crazy in a hundred years…

The Thousandth Floor takes place in 2118, twenty years after the completion of the New York Tower (which residents call simply “the Tower”). Avery’s dad Pierson Fuller had proposed the project years ago, but it took a while for him to convince people–and then finally, in 2095, New Yorkers finally voted in favor of construction in a citywide referendum. If you live in New York, you can imagine how many people still protested the decision

I am incredibly, ridiculously, unreasonably excited to be heading to YallFest this weekend! I’ve only been to Charleston once, for my good friend’s bachelorette party (think matching black dresses and a pink limo) so the bar is high, but I have a feeling this weekend will be even more epic. Because, BOOKS. And readers. And getting to hang out with all my favorite authors!! Enough said.

If you’re coming to YallFest this weekend, I would love to see you! Here’s my Saturday schedule:

10 AM—signing at Blue Bicycle Books

12 PM—Criminals & Detectives Panel, American Theater

Finally, a panel about rule-breakers versus rule-moderators! I’ll be there with Kami Garcia, Caleb Roehrig, and my friend Sara Shepard, so it should be tons of fun. I’m sure I’ll touch on all kinds of topics… like Leda, forbidden love, Spokes, Mariel…

3 PM—Epic Reads Author Meet-Up, the American Theater

Come get your books signed by me, Becky Albertalli, Zac Brewer, Dhonielle Clayton, Angie Thomas, and Lauren Oliver!

5 PM—Panel, Past and Future, American Theater

This is definitely going to be a highlight. Cinda Williams Chima, Ryan Graudin, S.J. Kincaid, Grady Hendrix, Kiera Cass, and I will chat about writing stories set in future, past, twisted, or overall just crazy worlds!

6 PM—YA Smackdown, Charleston Music Hall

I’m part of the Smackdown this year! I don’t know anything about it except that I’m going to be onstage (eek!) and it’s a surprise. Cue nervousness…

The Thousandth Floor releases less than a month from now—I can’t believe it! To celebrate, I’m teaming up with my favorite NYC bookstore, Books of Wonder, and my local Houston bookstore Blue Willow Bookshop to bring you guys some preorder options!

If you preorder from either of these bookstores between now and August 30, I will *sign and personalize* your copy—PLUS you’ll get a set of gorgeous flash tattoos that my friends at Tribe Tats custom designed for The Thousandth Floor! These are incredible, sparkly gold-and-silver temporary tattoos and I can’t wait for you guys to get to wear them ☺

In addition, twenty-four lucky readers will also receive a special Thousandth Floor limited-edition I

PREORDER HERE!

Books of Wonder: http://www.booksofwondershop.com/thethousandthfloor.aspx

Blue Willow Bookshop: http://www.bluewillowbookshop.com/product/pre-order-thousandth-floor-katharine-mcgee

Self-driving cars: I cannot wait for this to happen!! Mainly because I just hate being in traffic (and despite what Cord says, I don’t actually think driving is that much fun). Right now I use my driving time to listen to country music radio/podcasts (Serial!)/audiobooks, but once cars actually drive themselves, we’ll be able to actually read in the car. Or sleep. It sounds so wonderful.
Clothes that change color: I want clothes and shoes that change color. Especially shoes. The worst feeling in the world is when you find new shoes you love and have to decide whether to get them in black, gold, or nude (or hot pink… ;)) How cool would it be if you had just one pair of heels that could change to match whatever outfit you were wearing with the press of a button?!
Hyperloop train: I love traveling, but right now international travel costs a lot and takes a long time. I can’t wait for the day that we’ll be able to travel from New York to Europe in just a couple of hours by train, under the Atlantic! Who knows, then maybe we will actually get to go to Paris for a casual dinner, the way my characters do in The Thousandth Floor.
Eris’s beauty tools: I hate blow-drying my hair. Magic hairstyler please! Why hasn’t this been invented yet? ☺
Travel to the moon: I would totally vacation on the moon. Mainly so I could float around and do yoga in zero gravity. Also, the views of earth would be INCREDIBLE!

But the number one thing I can’t wait for from the future is the release of The Thousandth Floor in less than a month… on August 30, 2016!!

 

The original super-closet, obviously.

 

 

A sketch of the possible Hyperloop to London!!