NEW YORK – Like Taylor Swift with her secret “Eras Tour” cleaning cart entrance, Alex Aster arrived at the HarperCollins offices from the freight elevator.
Clad in a bedazzled silver dress and thigh-high mesh boots, hiding in a maze of cubicles, the “Lightlark” author had successfully duped her most loyal fans into thinking they’d come for her 30th birthday party.
Over 100 readers flocked to New York City, some flying in from as far as Alaska and London. They didn’t know they were about to be the first to hear Aster announce her debut adult fantasy novel, a new series called “Starside.” They also didn’t know they’d be going home with 100 pages of the yet-to-be-published manuscript.
Alex Aster surprises fans with new fantasy series reveal
As USA TODAY sat down with Aster to talk about how she pulled off the ruse, the author shook off nervous energy and hid upstairs from fans. When she finally descended down the stairs, she posed against a backdrop of question marks to face the eager readers.
“You didn’t think that I invited you here for a birthday party, did you?” she asked them.
The cheers were ear-splitting and abundant, as were the phones poised to record the moment Aster ripped the question marks to reveal the silvery cover of “Starside.” Book influencers and everyday readers lined up hurriedly to take photos with Aster and get their manuscripts signed.
The surprise took more than a year to execute. Aster’s team didn’t sell the foreign rights to the book or submit it for film and TV rights to keep from spilling the beans.
“Over a year ago, I sold (“Starside”) to Harper and I asked them to keep it a secret,” Aster tells USA TODAY. “I really just wanted to keep it mine for as long as possible, and go back to that place of me being 12 years old in my bedroom, just me and the page and just no one looking over my shoulder and writing exactly what I wanted to read. The story meant so much to me that I wanted to go back to that simplicity.”
Fans travel to New York for a major book surprise
Aster sent the “birthday party” call-out to her fans via Substack to gauge interest. She was shocked at how many sign-ups it got.
“I sat and I cried,” Aster says. “Writing is so solitary, it’s just me and the page … but sometimes you remember that you’re writing for an audience, and to hear them talk about my books and what my books have meant to them, it made me so emotional.”
Taylor Hinshaw, 26, saw that invite from her home in Alaska. She thought it would be a long shot that she’d get picked to attend the party, but she put a new dress in her Amazon cart just in case. She had just bought plane tickets to visit her husband, who was in military officer training. Then she got the confirmation from Aster’s team. Would he be OK with her dropping another $1,000 on flights and a hotel for this? He gave her a resounding, supportive “yes.”
I talked to Hinshaw before and after the reveal. Before, she said she was most excited about meeting Aster at the party. “This is so intimate, this is so different. I’ve never done anything like this before,” Hinshaw told me.
When I caught up with her later, Hinshaw was beaming. She didn’t even want to wait until her plane ride home to dive into the manuscript; she read it that night.
Kaitlin Santiago, 24, flew in from Chicago – her first time traveling by herself. She said Aster’s books have helped her get into reading and inspired her to write on her own. She was also excited to meet Aster and other like-minded readers.
Chatting with her after, Santiago let out a shriek: “I loved ‘Summer in the City,’ now I get to have new adult (novels) in fantasy? Are you kidding me? I’m so excited.”
‘Starside’ by Alex Aster is coming early next year
“Starside” comes out March 24. It’s set in a land split in two – Starside is where the magical, powerful immortals live, and Stormside is where mortals scramble for even just a taste of that magic. Every 50 years, the gates between the two open, allowing 50 challengers to embark on a deadly quest to traverse between them. Our vengeful protagonist, Aris, wants to journey through the gates to kill the gods. To survive the dangerous challenge, she might need the help of Harlan Raker, a merciless king’s guard who once betrayed her.
This is the author’s adult romantasy debut and her longest book yet. She wrote it at the same time she wrote “Lightlark,” which catapulted Aster into BookTok and literary fame.
“It’s my favorite book I’ve ever written,” Aster says. “I cried when I wrote a lot of parts. It really means a lot – I truly feel like this is the story that just comes from my soul.”
It’s been a busy year for Aster, who has four books coming out (two, “Grim and Oro,” are sold as a companion duology set in the “Lightlark” universe). Her secret? Late nights, early mornings and little sleep. She uses the downtime between marketing newly published books to work on new ones.
“Truly, I get up every single morning so excited to write and this is what I love to do,” Aster says. “I definitely can’t sustain this schedule long. But for these last few years and for the next few years, I’m so happy to be writing this much.”
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY’s Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you’re reading at cmulroy@usatoday.com.