Announcing The Rules Series Box Set!

Binge the complete Rules Series plus 6 bonus scenes and The Friend Rules short story — and get ready to fall in love! The Rules Series follows three teen girls learning to stand up on their own while skiing, biking, and snowboarding in the Colorado mountains—and falling in love! Perfect for fans of outdoor adventure, swoony kisses, and figuring out who you really are.

The Melanie Hooyenga Starter Kit

***UPDATE: The contest has ended.*** Over the years I’ve done a variety of sales and giveaways to celebrate my birthday, but this year I’ve come up with my favorite giveaway yet: The Melanie Hooyenga Starter Kit! The idea started out simple enough—give away the first book in each of my series to try to reach …

The Fear of Stopping

Any writer will tell you that writing isn’t the hard part*—it’s starting. There’s always one more load of laundry to change, one more meal to prep, one more notification to respond to. Getting your butt in the proverbial chair can sometimes take longer than the actual writing session. Which is why I was nervous when I finished one first draft and shifted gears to publish my upcoming book.

Cool Reads, Hot Nights Giveaway

What do you do when your newest release is a snow-filled winter book but it’s 80+ degrees outside with humidity so high your hair has taken on a new dimension? You host a giveaway of YA winter sports books! I’ve teamed up with Katie Van Ark and Jennifer Comeaux for a giveaway that’s sure to cool you off on even the hottest summer nights.

On Writing Strong Female Protagonists

Strong female protagonists are nothing new in literature. From Nancy Drew to Katniss Everdeen, teen girls have always had strong role models—if they knew where to look. But something has shifted in the last decade.

My Fan Mail to You

The past month has been a whirlwind. We renovated our kitchen, I’ve had four book events (including speaking at a writers’ conference tomorrow), and everyone seems to love The Slope Rules! This is the fourth time I’ve been published and at this point I thought I knew what to expect, but the response has been amazing. AND I’ve been hanging out at the top spot in my category on Amazon. O.o

My birthday gift to you: The Slope Rules for 99¢!

I’ve never been one to shy away from my birthday, even when I’ll officially be as old as TWO people who can legally drink (but hey, at least now I know the answer to the universe right?) so in honor of my birthday today (yes, I’m a St. Patrick’s Day baby) I’ve dropped the price of THE SLOPE RULES to 99¢!

…Or You’ll End Up in My Novel

If you hang around authors enough, you’ll hear the phrase “be careful or you’ll end up in my novel.” Many threaten to murder, ridicule, or torture real-life people through characters who may only subtly resemble the characters in the book, but the author knows it’s them. I’ve never killed a character based on a real person—if anything I tend to base characters on people I LIKE—but I have made a few the antagonist. In Fracture, the female bully was based on a particularly lovely woman I worked with, and about two weeks ago I realized who inspired the Snow Bunnies, aka the Snow Bitches, in The Slope Rules.

Today’s the Day! The Slope Rules is Now Available!

I can’t believe it’s finally here! When I first came up with the idea for this book during the Freakish Snow of 2014 (which also coincided with the 2014 Winter Olympics), I knew it was totally different from anything I’d written before and I didn’t know if I could pull it off. Two years later when I finally started writing (I forced myself to write FADED first so I could finish the trilogy) I realized how fun it could be. And the fun continued until I finished it (for the most part…) and I STILL love this book — which all writers know isn’t always the case.