6.125 × 9.25 SPINE: 1.875 FLAPS: 3.5 $19.99 US $23.99 CAN Ages 14 up SCOTT Believing is dangerous. Darcy Patel is afraid to believe all the hype. But WESTERFELD it’s really happening—her teen novel is getting Scott Westerfeld published. Instead of heading to college, she’s living ’s More than all I’d seen and heard, in New York City, where she’s welcomed into the first book in the Leviathan trilogy was the WESTERFELD dazzling world of YA publishing. That means book winner of the 2010 Locus Award for Best tours, parties with her favorite authors, and finding Young Adult Fiction. His other novels include it was coming back to life that made The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Uglies the New York Times bestselling Uglies series, a place to live that won’t leave her penniless. It The Last Days, Peeps, So Yesterday, and the AFTER means sleepless nights rewriting her first draft and Midnighters trilogy. Scott alternates summers me believe in the afterworld. struggling to find the perfect ending . all while between New York City and Sydney, Australia. dealing with the intoxicating, terrifying experience ALSO BY SCOTT WESTERFELD of falling in love—with another writer. Told in alternating chapters is Darcy’s novel, the thrilling story of Lizzie, who wills her way into WORLDS the afterworld to survive a deadly terrorist attack. With survival comes the responsibility to guide the restless spirits that walk our world, including one ghost with whom she shares a surprising personal connection. But Lizzie’s not alone in her new CHAPTER calling—she has counsel from a fellow spirit guide, a very desirable one, who is torn between wanting SAMPLER Lizzie and warning her that . Believing is dangerous. JACKET DESIGN AND PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION BY REGINA FLATH JACKET PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHT © 2014 BY THINKSTOCK AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY NIKI BERN AFTERWORLDSBOOK.com In a brilliant high-wire act of weaving two EBOOK EDITION ALSO AVAILABLE epic narratives—and two unforgettable heroines— Simon Pulse into one novel, Scott Westerfeld’s latest work is a Simon & Schuster, New York ISBN 978-1-4814-2234-5 $19.99 U.S./$23.99 Can. Darcy writes the words. ISBN 978-1-4814-2234-5 5199951999 triumph of storytelling. Watch videos, get extras, and read Lizzie lives them. exclusives at 9 781481 422345 TEEN.SimonandSchuster.com 0914 Also by Scott Westerfeld THE UGLIES SERIES AFTERWORLDS THE LEVIATHAN SERIES SCOTT WESTERFELD Simon Pulse New York London Toronto Sydney New Delhi Praise for Afterworlds “I’ve never read anything quite like this, it’s new and it’s novel…and isn’t that the whole point and purpose of a novel? I have what can only be the infinitely sprawling imagination of This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, Scott Westerfeld to thank for that experience.” or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are —Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Books, Inc. products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. “Afterworlds…is a gift, a book certain of its place on my favorites shelf in SIMON PULSE the library of YA heaven...I will admit that every book I now read, every author An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 I host takes me back to Afterworlds. Color me obsessed.” First Simon Pulse hardcover edition September 2014 Text copyright © 2014 by Scott Westerfeld —Angela Mann, “Kepler’s Books” Jacket photographs copyright © 2014 by Thinkstock All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. “Fresh and clever and oh-so-well written…I’m not sure which is For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected]. more bizarre—the world of death gods or publishing.” The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. —Patty Norman, “Copperfield’s Books” For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. Jacket design and photo-illustration by Regina Flath Interior design by Mike Rosamilia “Genius idea. While it’s an amazing book just to read for the sake The text of this book was set in Minion Pro. Manufactured in the United States of America of reading, it’s going to be especially fun to sell it to teens who want 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 to become authors themselves. Afterworlds is the tangible answer to Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Westerfeld, Scott. ‘What advice would you give to a new author?’” Afterworlds / by Scott Westerfeld. — First Simon Pulse hardcover edition. p. cm. —Brandi Stewart, Changing Hands Bookstore Summary: In alternating chapters, eighteen-year-old Darcy Patel navigates the New York City publishing world and Lizzie, the heroine of Darcy’s novel, slips into the “Afterworld” to survive a terrorist attack and becomes a spirit guide, ★ “Westerfeld masterfully creates two divergent reading experiences as both face many challenges and both fall in love. [1. Authorship—Fiction. 2. Future life—Fiction. 3. Dead—Fiction. 4. Ghosts—Fiction. (YA romance and fantasy/horror) with two distinct yet believable voices in Darcy 5. Love—Fiction. 6. East Indian Americans—Fiction. 7. Lesbians—Fiction. 8. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title. and Lizzie—and, somehow, makes them mesh into one cohesive novel.” PZ7.W5197Aft 2014 —Booklist, (starred review) [Fic]—dc23 2014006852 ISBN 978-1-4814-2234-5 (hc) ISBN 978-1-4814-2236-9 (eBook) “Watching Darcy’s story play off Darcy’s novel will fascinate readers as well as writers.” —Kirkus Reviews We tell ourselves stories To all you wordsmiths you scribblers in order to live. , , —Joan Didion you wrimos in your vast numbers, for making writing a part of your reading Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty. —Mark Twain SCOTT WESTERFELD promised skulking ghosts and the traumas that haunt families, and little sisters who are more clever than they appear. Using the pres- ent tense and short sentences, Darcy set the scene, thumbnailed the characters and their motivations, and teased the conclusion. This was the best of the three paragraphs, she was later told. CHAPTER 1 The third paragraph was pure flattery, because Darcy wanted very much for the Underbridge Literary Agency to say yes to her. She praised the breadth of their vision and paid tribute to their cli- ents’ genius, even while daring to compare herself to those illustrious names. She explained how her novel was different from the other paranormals of the last few years (none of which had a smoldering Vedic psychopomp as its love interest). This email was not a perfect query letter. But it did its THE MOST IMPORTANT EMAIL THAT DARCY PATEL EVER WROTE job. Seventeen days after pressing Send, Darcy was signed to was three paragraphs long. Underbridge, a flourishing and respected literary agency, and not The first was about Darcy herself. It skipped the trifling details, long after that she had a two-book deal for an astonishing amount her dyed blue-black hair and the slim gold ring in her left nostril, of money. and began instead with a grim secret that her parents had never told Only a handful of challenges remained—high school gradu- her. When Darcy’s mother was eleven years old, her best friend was ation, a perilous decision, and parental approval—before Darcy murdered by a stranger. This discovery, chanced upon during an Patel would be packing her bags for New York City. idle web search, both shocked Darcy and made certain things about her mother clearer. It also inspired her to write. The second paragraph of the email was about the novel Darcy had just finished. She didn’t mention, of course, that all sixty thou- sand words of Afterworlds had been written in thirty days. The Underbridge Literary Agency hardly needed to know that. Instead, this paragraph described a terrorist attack, a girl who wills her- self to die, and the bewitching boy she meets in the afterworld. It 2 SCOTT WESTERFELD wing of the airport, which was closed off by a metal gate that hung from the ceiling. Through the steel mesh I could see a pair of moving walkways gliding past, empty. I didn’t see the attack begin. My eyes were focused on my phone, watching as autocorrect made war on my spelling. Mom was asking about my dad’s new girlfriend, whom I’d just met dur- CHAPTER 2 ing my winter break visit. Rachel was lovely, always well dressed, and had the same size feet as me, but I couldn’t tell Mom all that. She has awesome shoes and I get to borrow them wasn’t the right place to start. My father’s new apartment was also amazing, twenty stories up, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking down on Astor Place. His walk-in closet was as big as my bedroom back home, and I MET THE MAN OF MY DREAMS IN AN AIRPORT, JUST BEFORE full of drawers that slid open with a sound like spinning skate- midnight a few days into the New Year. I was changing planes in board wheels. I wouldn’t want to live there. All that chrome and Dallas, and I almost died.