Above All Else, my next book, my first novel for teens, comes out three weeks from today, on October 13th! And because I can’t get out and go to all the wonderful bookstores I usually go to, I am running a preorder campaign!

Order the book at my fabulous local bookstore Jabberwocky Books and get:

• A personalized signed copy
• Free shipping
• The chance to support an incredible bookstore…
• AND…Either exclusive swag (and believe me it is GORGEOUS) OR the option of having me donate to The Juniper Fund, a nonprofit that supports the families of Sherpas affected by accidents on Mount Everest.

To preorder just go here, and in the Order Comments box at the bottom of the checkout form write “swag” or “donation.”

And of course you can order it from your local bookstore or any online retailer (find all the links here), and I will be happy to send a signed bookplate!

So What’s This Book All About, Levy?

Above All Else takes place in Nepal, starting in Kathmandu, a place I’ve been, and ending 29,000 feet up at the summit of Mount Everest (a place I have never been and will never go).

It’s about the kind of drive and commitment it takes to climb a mountain, but it’s also about best friends, and heading off to college, and fathers and sons, and mothers and daughters, and the privilege of tourism and global inequality and extreme sports and climate change and kissing.

It’s about all of these things. It’s about how we set fierce goals and dream big dreams, and sometimes have to choose what we value above all else.

(I should add that this is indeed a novel for teens, a different age category than my other books like The Family Fletcher and It Wasn’t Me. The characters are eighteen, there is sex and swearing and death and all kinds of teen angst. So read at your own risk.)

I’ve spent time in Nepal and gazed at Everest in the blaze of the setting sun, and will never forget it. But I am not a climber, and getting into the head of someone who is compelled to risk all for a mountain was both challenging and exhilarating.

A review in Publisher’s Weekly said, “In her YA debut, children’s author Levy offers a nail-biting adventure set in Nepal, where two recent high school graduates prepare for “the ultimate goal”: climbing Mount Everest. Californians Rose and Tate, best friends and long-time climbing partners, have been dreaming about this trip for years, but conditions have changed now that their goal is within reach… Written from the protagonists’ alternating viewpoints, the book’s main focus is not on the climb itself, but the teens’ changing emotions, vulnerabilities, and profound realizations as they face the dangers ahead during training.”

And I think that’s right: it’s never just about the climb, as nail-biting and exciting as it is. It’s always about the questions that lie beneath.

The World Right Now

I’ll be honest: having a book come out in late 2020 feels frivolous at best, and pointless at worst. We’re in the middle of a global pandemic. Our economy is in crisis. The racial injustice in this country, which has seesawed between a raging boil and a barely-contained simmer for centuries, has erupted again. It’s a hard time to be excited about anything, let alone a book about teenagers climbing Mount Everest.

It’s a hard time for me to ask people to buy my book, when I really want to tell them to make sure they’re registered to vote (YOU ARE REGISTERED, RIGHT?) and maybe donate to a couple of Senate races and if you have any time maybe volunteer to text or make calls.

But then I remember how gratefully I curled up with a new book Saturday night, after the passing of Justice Ginsburg, and how I read it cover to cover, so glad to have an escape hatch for a few hours.

I remember that we all need stories, and stories that take us across oceans and up mountains maybe do matter right now, when we are stuck at home.

Maybe Above All Else will transport you across borders and into new places, and though I admit it gets pretty harrowing up on that mountain, it will offer you a respite from reality, at least for a while.

I hope so. I hope you love Rose and Tate like I do, and that you stay with them as they move slowly up the mountain, trying, like all of us, to figure out how to balance dreams and loyalty and danger and love. Except unlike us, they’re balancing at 29,000 feet.