Diana Urban Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Diana Urban
When author Diana Urban is not torturing one of her characters, she is a marketing manager at Bookbub. She enjoys video games, reading, looking at the beach from a safe distance, and fawning over cute animals.

Diana is originally from New York, where she cultured some deep-rooted obsessions with Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, as well as all kinds of other nerdy fandoms.

In a desperate attempt to avoid spending her life in a cubicle, she went to Boston University in order to major in film. While she did switch her major to advertising, she never had to spend time in cubicles.

The craft of writing is something that always fascinated her, however she would actually be lying if she said she wanted to be an author. Diana didn’t think she was remotely capable of writing one as she was growing up. In the back of her mind, she always wanted to be the next R. L. Stine or J. K. Rowling. Launching her career, life, and loads of other silly excuses got in the way of that.

She didn’t even bother trying. Instead, she just allowed her story ideas fly around her brain without release, since she was too afraid to fail.

At the end of 2012, she went on a business trip to Paris, where she witnessed something both fascinating and terrifying. It wound up inspiring her to pen her first young adult thriller. Her desire to tell this story overpowered her fear of failing, and once she began writing, she just could not stop. The book never did get published. That is not something she wants to talk about, however.

Part of her believes that that if she hadn’t been on that train car at that exact time, she would still have become a writer. At least she likes to thinks so.

Her novel, “All Your Twisted Secrets”, came about after talking with her husband. They were speculating on the shortest amount of time somebody could set a movie or a book to, throwing ideas at each other. They figured an hour would be a great amount of time.

Especially if you had people locked in a room for that amount of time. They also thought about what would happen if somebody died at the end of the hour, and it was the result of the trapped people killing them. It would have to be the result of being required to pick somebody to kill, or else everyone would die. Once they had all of this, they knew that they had something good. So Diana raced to her desk and began jotting down ideas for different characters she could put into this strange situation.

Upon finishing the novel, she had to submit her novel four times before she got a book deal. She learned a lot about submitting, the more she submitted it. She hadn’t even researched how to get published until she was ready to send in her first manuscript. Diana even Googled how to get a literary agent.

She took part in #PitMad, a Twitter pitch contest where agents will “like” pitches as an invite to query. She tweeted her pitch knowing nothing about the submission process or the publishing business. After a few days, she had some offers, some of whom threw around phrases like “probably a two-hundred thousand dollar advance” and “the next Hunger Games”.

She went into her first submission with some high expectations. The book she had was not the next Hunger Games and it didn’t get her a big advance. After being on submission for a year and a half, it didn’t sell at all. It was a crushing blow to her. She would have had more realistic expectations, had she known more about the publishing business from the start.

Diana believes that once your novel is in the hands of your agent, your actions are not going to sell your book any quicker. Something like writing another novel does accomplish something, as you can control your creative output.

She also found that playing video games helped her out immensely. During rounds two and three of submission, she was able to beat two role playing video games, Fallout 4 and Skyrim. She believes it is vital to find something that is entirely enjoyable outside of publishing that you can immerse yourself in.

Diana’s debut novel, called “All Your Twisted Secrets”, was released in the year 2020. She writes young adult, thriller, and mystery.

“All Your Twisted Secrets” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 2020. Welcome to dinner, and once more, congratulations on being picked. Now you will have to do the selecting.

What do the star athlete, stoner, music geek, queen bee, valedictorian, and loner all have in common? They all got invited to a scholarship dinner, just to find out it is actually a trap. Somebody has locked them up in a room with a syringe loaded with poison, a bomb, and a message that says they have an hour to select somebody to kill. Or else they will all die.

Amber Prescott is determined to get herself and her classmates out of the room alive, however, that could be easier said than done. Nobody knows just how they are connected or who would actually want them dead.

While they retrace the events over the past year that could have triggered their captor’s ultimatum, that becomes clear that everybody is hiding something.

As the clock ticks down, confusion becomes fear, fear turns into panic while they race to answer the biggest question before them. Who are they going to pick to die?

Diana Urban delivers a fast paced and tense read that will keep you guessing the entire way through, and is one hell of a page turner with some characters that you will hate and love. They are all characters that leave a strong mark on you, with each chapter revealing something about their lives that takes you one step closer to the truth. Fans of the novel enjoyed the writing style, and the shocking ending.