I’m really enjoying my new work life as a social media manager, but one of the things I miss most about being an agent is working with insanely talented writers as they go through the process of writing a great novel.
Try Not to Breathe, a YA novel by my former client Jennifer R. Hubbard, is one of the last books I worked on before leaving agenting for the fair pastures of the tech world, and I feel utterly privileged to have had a front row seat.
Just as in her debut The Secret Year, which starts just after the protagonist’s secret love dies, Try Not to Breathe picks up in the aftermath of a catastrophic event: the main character attempted suicide before the novel begins. TNTB is about his attempt to navigate a murky new world of watchful stares, fraught relationships, and the first stirrings of not just a new normal but reasons for hope.
One of those relationships involves a girl who is dealing with darkness in her own past, and the way they come together is poignant and incredibly real.
I can’t speak for Jenn, but I feel like as agent/author we were really synced up in a great way as we worked together on some of the early revisions, right down to brainstorming about to the title: I had suggested an REM lyric, “The Night is Yours Alone,” (from “Everybody Hurts“) and she countered with another REM song from the same album: “Try Not to Breathe,” which is the absolute perfect title for this book.
Try Not to Breathe will be published by Viking one month from today – January 12th.
And today I am thrilled to offer a signed ARC to a lucky commenter! If you’d like to enter, leave a comment on this post between now and Tuesday evening at 9pm PT. This giveaway is limited to those in the US and Canada, and you must be over 13. And please only enter once.
Good luck!
Update: Publishers Weekly has given Try Not To Breathe an amazing starred review!! An excerpt: “Hubbard is outstandingly successful at capturing the frustration of not having the words, especially in a culture that does not encourage boys to express what Ryan is feeling.”
I LOVED the Secret Year. I want this ARC! PLease please!
This looks really good!
Sounds great, thanks.
Awesome! Please count me in. Thanks so much!
This book sounds awesome and a bit sad. Will it make me cry?
marthapao(at)live(dot)com
eeeeeeeeeeeeeek! I've been waiting for her next book. I wants to win this thing!
THE SECRET YEAR was fantastic!!! I'd love an ARC of Jennifer's new book. Thanks!
this sounds like such a fantastic read! count me in, please 🙂
I enjoyed the Secret Year! This books sounds just as poignant.
So cool that you can continue to see the evolution of your former clients even as you have shifted paths. I'd love this book!
This sounds like an excellent book!
Would LOVE to win this ARC!!! I adore Jennifer Hubbard! Her writing style/descriptions always blow me away!
Count me in. It sounds terriific!
I'm definitely a fan and look forward to reading this! Great title!
REM seems to be a great source for titles.
I'd love an arc! Thanks. 🙂
Not normally my kind of book but this does sound interesting.
What an amazingly powerful title. The intensity emanates from it and, from your introduction,it sounds like it will do the same from every page. Can't wait to get my hands on it!!
A signed ARC would be fantastic!!
Thank you for the opp.
What an amazingly powerful title. The intensity emanates from it and, from your introduction,it sounds like it will do the same from every page. Can't wait to get my hands on it!!
A signed ARC would be fantastic!!
Thank you for the opp.
Would love to get my hands on this!!
Count me in!
Would love to read… sounds so good!
Please enter me! This book sounds absolutely amazing. i cant wait to read it!
Thank you so much for the chance 🙂
yabliss AT gmail DOT com
I Cool! Sounds awesome! Deleted last comment cause I thought I had to included an email. *smacks forehead*
Please enter me in the giveaway!
Ooo! Pick me!
CV
That sounds like a great book! It must have been amazing working with authors and watching their work get published
The Secret Year has been on my to-read list for awhile, this one sounds like it will be such a great read too!
Count me in for the contest!
WORD VERIFICATION: masham. I don't care what it means. It's almost a palindrome. I'm really tempted to make it one and not tell you that it wasn't my real verification word.
Great to see your passion for books continue. When's the return to agenting coming? 😉
Congratulations to Jennifer!
The book sounds fabulous! Thank you for the contest. 🙂
This sounds like it will probably make me cry.
It sounds great. I would love to read it!
Would love to win the ARC.
This book has been on my have-to-have list since the summer!
Congrats!
Thanks for the giveaway
ccfioriole at gmail dot com
How very cool! Thanks for sharing, I haven't read the first book yet, but getting it now. Best of luck at your new job! Alley
This sounds like an amazing book. I'll definitely be picking it up once it comes out, if I don't win. Thanks for the chance to win it!
Hello. I would like to have this book because I… read… and stuff.
Love the title! Congrats to Jennifer Hubbard on the release!
Yay! Thanks.
Congrats to Jennifer on the new release!
Come on Random Number Generator, my old friend. Do you remember how we went out to lunch together that time? How we bonded over bagels and Chianti (my treat, if you'll recall)? What good times, what good times, RNG. We were quite a pair. Sympatico. Remember how good that was? And we can have it again, I know we can. Just give me a call. You bring the book, I'll bring the mocha cappuccino. Just you and me.
TRY NOT TO BREATHE sounds great! How fun to hear the story behind the title! Congrats to both of you.
I'm glad you're enjoying your new social media job, but I totally see how you'd miss your old role in the process. I can imagine how cool that must have been. Of course, being an author is pretty darn cool, too. 🙂
I love her blog. I live in the UK but have a friend in the US I will bequeath it to if I win. 🙂
Sounds like a great book!
Would love to win. Email is jan30@hotmail.ca
Neat!
Congratulations to Jennifer on her upcoming launch – very exciting! I love the cover – goes perfectly with the Title.
Someday, Nathan, I hope you'll be back in the editor/guidance seat, in some way or another. You're just too gifted at it to leave it behind forever!
This sounds like a great book. I might pick it up if I do not win.
Count me in! Can't wait to read.
I adored The Secret Year, and I've been waiting for this one! Jenn is so talented it's not even funny.
I loved The Secret Year. I recommended it to all of my freshmen. I had three copies on my bookshelves and still couldn't keep it in my classroom. Can't wait to read this one.
Try Not to Breathe is my MOST favorite R.E.M. song, I loved THE SECRET YEAR, and this one sounds fantastic!
I hardly ever win anything, but I'd love to win Try Not To Breathe. Loved The SEcret Year.
Sounds good. Adding it to my TBR pile if I don't win it here!
Becca @ the Bookshelf Muse
I'd love to win. I loved The Secret Year.
I'd love to win. I loved The Secret Year.
Sounds like a great read. I love to find new favorite authors that come highly recommended. Thanks for sharing. If I don't will, think I will buy. Lori
Keep coming back to your blog for much needing writing advice. Please consider me for this very awesome giveaway!
Sounds wonderful. Sign me up as well please.
Sounds absolutely amazing and intense. Wishing Jennifer all the success in the world!
Congrats, Jennifer, on your upcoming publishing with Viking. I live in Australia so, unfortunately, I won't be elligible for a copy, but I'll keep an eye out for it over here.
congratulations to Jennifer on her new book and her great reviews. Nathan, I'm sure you were a great advocate for her in her publishing journey. I would love to receive the ARD
yes please – count me in 🙂
Congrats Jennifer! I loved The Secret Year. Count me in, please! 🙂
Sounds cool . . . sign me up!
Oooh, I'd love to win it! I loved The Secret Year.
OMG! I'd love to win this book. I signed up for an ARC Tour, but they needed to cut the tour short, so I got left out. 🙁 Can't wait to read it.
Sounds like a great novel! Sounds like fun to see it before it is out 🙂
This looks really good. I was very interested in how she came up with the title. That is the one area I have difficulty with. Thank you for the idea.
Sounds amazing!
Sounds amazing!
This sounds so brill! I've been looking for something to fill the gaping hole left by THE SECRET YEAR. Rock on!
Oh I so want this book! This looks awesome!
Thanks for the giveaway! I'd love to win this ARC!
This book sounds amazing! I would love a copy!
Sounds like a great book and one that could help teens in similar situations. I spent a year with those kinds of looks and suspicions and I can really relate.
Enter me as well, and a huge congrats to Jenn on the book (and her star!)
Sounds amazing. I'd love to win a copy. Thanks for running the giveaway!
I would love to win this ARC to share with my class. I can picture several students right now who would grab this right up! Thanks…
Can't wait to read this! Thanks for the giveaway!
daniellesaunders1984(at)hotmail(dot)com
Nathan, Try not to Breathe sounds like a great book. Thanks for the opportunity to win a copy.
I can't pass this up. Please count me in!
Thanks for the chance to win this ARC, Nathan!
I would love to win an ARC THE SECRET YEAR is an amazing book, read it an entire Friday night.=o)
I love the premise of this. Can't wait to get my hands on it.
Sounds like an amazing read. Please consider me entered!
Entering, as usual, for my daughter. Not that I won't read it, too. 🙂
Congratulations to both of you! Sounds like a winner! @veertothewrite
I hope I win the ARC. That way I wouldn't have to Drive to the store to myself to get the book. Please don't pick someone else and send me to Ignoreland. Maybe once I Find the River to go Night Swimming, I should make a wish to The Man on The Moon? If I win, I'm sure I'll find once I read the book that Sweetness Follows, based on your recommendation. Talk About The Passion… (read that last as a Murmur.)
Sign me up.
This book sounds fascinating!
And a Pub. Weekly starred review!
"…capturing the frustration of not having the words" in a novel with lots of words in it!–plus a teen boy protag.!
Sounds like a home run, Jennifer!
Only downer: The cover. I haven't read the book, so I shouldn't comment. But, based on the description, it looks like it has nothing to do with the main point of the book. Designed to push sales, maybe. But in any case, I think it's pretty unattractive.
Word verification: scids–as in: The cover designer was fired & hit the scids.
Please enter me as well! Thanks!
Sounds like an amazing novel! Would love to win a copy.
Sounds fantastic!!
It's a marvelous thing when a scant paragraph or two can leave a reader so instantly intrigued, and that's precisely what happened to me reading this post for Try Not to Breathe. Really, truly, I need to read this book!
I absolutely adored The Secret Year and I've been counting the days until TNTB releases. So excited!
dragonfly848 [AT] hotmail [DOT] com
Sounds good actually. I'll bite.
Sounds awesome–would love to read!
Sounds seriously good. Now I'll have to go back and read The Secret Year for sure. Thanks for the contest!
It would be dope if I won this.
I want it!
I'd love to read this!
jpetroroy at gmail dot com
My Secret Year kept me reading from cover to cover! What good news that her next book is almost here.
I must read this book. My license plate is "Breathe."
Would love to receive a signed ARC of this book! Thank you so much.
Sounds like a great book to read this winter!
Oh! Oh! Pick me! Pick me! I'm the one with her hand up really, really high… see me? Look harder. Here, I'll wave. 😀
The Secret Year was wonderful! I can't wait to read this (:
So, so excited to read this!
ARC on offer, boy
sighs loudly, tries not to breathe.
Lands on doorstep. Wow!
This sounds like a truly amazing book, especially for those who've been touched by suicide within the family like I have (ironically, a male cousin). I never understood why he did it and it still haunts me after all these years. Maybe a book like this could help me to put it into perspective,
I just want to thank everyone for the kind comments and wish you all good luck!
And yes, Nathan's work on this book demonstrated how a good editorial agent operates: suggesting and guiding without ever stepping on the writer's voice.
Sounds amazing! I've got to get the first one from the library.
Wow! Not only would I love to read Try Not to Breathe, but now I am going to go out and get The Secret Year. Sounds like an author that I definitely want to follow!
Yes please!
Congrats, Jenn!
Nathan, are there any copyright considerations involved with using a song lyric as book title?
Fantastic! I know January 12th is right around the corner, but I can't wait for this book. Pick me! Pick me!
Please enter me! Sounds like such a great book. Also, Thank you for the giveaway! And as always Happy Holidays.
cavraara(at)aol.com