Maureen Johnson and Stephanie Perkins event

I was excited to find out that Maureen Johnson and Stephanie Perkins were doing a tour event in my town. Maureen was promoting her new book, The Madness Underneath, which is the 2nd book in her 'Shades of London' series. I loved the first one, and I've been following Maureen Johnson on twitter for a while - she's a very funny person to read on twitter, and was very much like that in 'real life' too.

I went along, met up with some friends from my writing group, and settled in for what turned out to be more of a stand up comedy show. It was absolutely hilarious.
They started by bouncing out after their introduction clutching Sloth and Fox, who I think came from a display in the store:

They talked about funny travelling stories, including strange hotels they had stayed in. 

It won't let me rotate this, but here, Maureen demonstrates the 'glowing orb' version of a ghost, with the aid of Fox.

After much hilarity, they took a couple of questions. I asked about their journeys to publication and how long it took, and Maureen said she liked my accent! That was kind of cool, but I think I was turning bright read. 

Yay! The store also gave out some fun Maureen-related stickers - I'll have to find good places to put them.

  

Pretty signed books!

It was a really fun evening, and if you get the chance to meet either of these authors, I'd definitely suggest it! I can't wait to read these books, and find out what happens next in the Shades of London series.

~Ailsa

Stacking the Shelves/Letterbox Love

To try and reach more people and find new blogs, I'm now doing Stacking the Shelves (hosted by Tynga) as well as continuing Letterbox Love (hosted by Kirsty).

I only got two books this week, but they are both awesome. I was lucky enough to get to go to the tour stop for Maureen Johnson & Stephanie Perkins last night, and it was absolutely hilarious! I'll put up a post about it tomorrow, with pictures, which trust me you're going to want to see. It was just so funny!

So I picked up a copy of Steph's "Anna and the French Kiss", as well as Maureen's new book, the one she's touring for, "The Madness Underneath". I loved the first book in the series, and I had a sneaky read of the first couple of chapters while we were waiting for them to arrive.

Pretty books!

I have no idea what this says after my name.

Aww, this is cute :)

It's been a quiet week on the blog because I've had college midterms and papers to deal with, but things will be better next week! 

Remember to check out my 200 followers giveaway, too, which is open internationally! Click here to enter

Leave your links in the comments, and I'll check out your StS/Letterbox Love posts :)

~Ailsa

Breathless Reads book tour

I recently discovered another independent (and large) bookstore right here in my college town, who regularly host events. I randomly checked their website on Friday and discovered that they were hosting a tour stop for the Breathless Reads tour. So I went along on Monday and got to hear from 5 great YA authros: Beth Revis, Fiona Paul, Morgan Rhodes, Elizabeth Richards and Jess Spotswood.

I had seen some of their book covers before, but didn't connect them to the names. It was a great panel with some fun Q & A, which gave a flavour for each book. All the authors were lovely, too, and it was fun to see their personalities coming through as they talked about their books and answered the questions. I didn't know much about some of the books, so it was great to hear about them - I have some exciting new things on my 'to be read' list now!

Fiona Paul (Venom) and Jess Spotswood (Born Wicked)

 Beth Revis (Across the Universe; etc)

Elizabeth Richards (Black City) and Morgan Rhodes (Falling Kingdoms)

I had heard of Black City, but I don't think I've read any reviews for it. Having heard Elizabeth talk about it some more, I definitely want to check it out. The other one that I really loved the sound of was 'Falling Kingdoms' by Morgan Rhodes, which sounds great!

It was a fun evening, and nice to hear about some great books from the authors themselves, as well as being able to ask them some other questions. If anyone has read these books, I'd love to hear from you!

~Ailsa

Kim Harrison 'Ever After' signing & Q&A

For those who don't know, I'm originally in Scotland, but I'm studying abroad in North Carolina this year. I got to experience an unexpected bonus of that this weekend - one of my favourite authors, Kim Harrison, is doing a tour for the release of her latest book 'Ever After' and one of the tour stops was in Raleigh. Most of my favourite authors are from the US, Australia or New Zealand, so on rare European  tours they tend to only come to London - still too far for me to get to! This is a long way of saying, I was very excited to hear she was going to be less than an hour away from me.

The signing was in Quail Ridge Books, an independent bookstore that has been there for almost 30 years! I'd never been before, so it was good to find, and they were super helpful when I was ordering my copy of the book through them. I got there to find a large seating area around a podium, and I was glad I'd got there early because it was already pretty busy!

Kim came up and read a couple of page from the book, a nice little teaser from those who hadn't read it yet, and then started taking questions. I tried to take notes, but there were a couple I skipped over because the answers are on her website and things like that. This is SPOILER FREE for 'Ever After' but may have one or two spoilers for books earlier in the series, so if you aren't up to date, be warned!


Q. When a character dies, do you suffer as much as we [readers] do?

A: Yes! She said if someone like Nick died, she wouldn't mind, but Kisten was very upsetting. She also said that she still can't read the scenes where Matalina dies, because it feels to personal as a mother.

Q: Why did certain deaths in Ever After [you'll know which ones if you've read the book] occur 'off screen'?

A: She said this was too hard to answer without spoilers, but she would answer if you asked in person, so maybe this will be answered on the website at some point.

Q: How does she keep things straight in her head, and not get details and character personalities mixed up?

A: Partly from the number of edit rounds that each book goes through means she knows the story pretty well by the time it's done. When she was putting together the 'Hollows Insider' she had to reread the whole series, which also helped. She also works a long way ahead of her publication schedule, about 2 books ahead, so she can go back and change things, or add foreshadowing. She said she's never had a long range plot for the series on paper, just in her head.

Q: Did she always know details of what happened between Trent & Rachel at camp?

A: No, not at all. There was some shared past between them, and Trent remembers a lot more from camp than Rachel does, but no, she hadn't always known.

Q: Is every child with Rosewood syndrome actually a demon?

A: Yes, a Rosewood kid is born a demon.

Q: There seems to be a lot of science in the books....

A: Kim did a bio degree at college, and finds genetics really interesting, hence their inclusion in the books - she likes to bring the logic from science into magic systems and thinks it gives them some more grounding in reality.

Q: Will there be a happy ending? 

A: Rachel wants a happy ending, and Kim is working to give her one. She also said that she is "working for happy endings for all the characters who survive!"

***

I was lucky enough to be in te front of the line for signing because I bought my book early on, which was lucky since there must have been almost 100 people there!

It was very exciting to be there, and meet her, and get my book signed! :D

~Ailsa