Tag Archives: holly black

Oblong Books and Music: Book signing

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Two hours north of NYC is a quaint little town called Rhinebeck and last month I took a road trip to Rhinebeck to attend a book event. Sarah Rees Brennan was going to be there, and as Sarah isn’t a native of these shores, I didn’t want to miss the chance to see her! So, myself, my sister, a cousin and a friend took the long journey from Manhattan to Rhinebeck to see Sarah and fellow authors Cassandra Clare and Holly Black.

It was quite a show! They had some giveaways and my sister won an ARC of Sarah’s newest gothic novel, Unspoken – yay! Sarah also read from Unspoken and performed a small scene from the book, one that involved her unbuttoning her cardigan – which I’m sorry to say, I was too busy laughing to actually take a photograph.

The ladies were all very cool, giving away little presents to audience members who asked questions. Cassandra gave away some jewelry inspired by her books, Holly – the lady with the coolest hair – gave away some white gloves and Sarah gave away some more ARCs of her book. There were also buttons for the taking!

Oblong is a cute little store, there are tons of books there and a good space for events. I wish it was closer to home, but I won’t mind the two hour drive if other out of towners stopped there!

Meeting Holly, Cassandra and Lauren

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I went to Books of Wonder last week — a great place for all ages! They were hosting a book signing event with Holly Black (LOVE her Faerie stories), Cassandra Clare (fan of her Infernal Devices series) and Lauren DeStefano (debut author of Wither) and a lot of people showed up!

The ladies read from their upcoming books and then did a bit of Q&A. I found the story of who Magnus is based on to be quite fun. I also loved Lauren’s eyeshadow (though you can’t really see it in the photo below).

There were a lot of people so it took me an hour to get my books signed! It would have taken longer, but someone was kind and gave me an earlier number.

I really wanted to chat with Holly and tell her that I was the nerd who graphed her word count for Black Heart. But I realised until later that the best time to speak to an author is while they are signing, even though I feel as though I’m interrupting them if I do. It’s quite hard to just stand there and wait until they are done because once the book is returned to you it’s as though your turn is over and well, it’s just awkward. Take my word for it .

It also doesn’t help that I’m super shy when it comes to strangers. So much so that when Cassie asked me what character I liked best instead of saying Clary I said Cassie. Le Sigh. I THINK I played it off well enough, but I won’t be surprised if she thought I was strange.

I loved that they gave us postcards from the characters in the book. Tres magnifique!

They also gave us a sampling of the books to come. I can’t wait to read Wither, however, it’s on a to-read list for now. Maybe in a few weeks I’ll be able to start. I love dystopian stories, especially because of the sci-fi side that they can take on. It’s fun to see the future others are dreaming and their thoughts on governments having full control.

The next big book event for me is BEA. I really hope I find my voice and am not shy there. I want it to rock!

I’m a fangirl

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Fangirl; n.: a female who supports an idea, trend, company etc, with an intensity bordering crazy.

Here’s the deal, I’m not crazy (sorta, kinda). I just love books, and because I love books, I love the people who write those books. With the entry of Twitter to the world of Social Media, it’s become easy to have a conversation with authors who were otherwise unreachable – except when they tour. So when one of my favourite authors respond to my tweets well, I usually have a moment of excitement, then I carry on with whatever I’m doing.

So when Scott Westerfeld retweeted my Behemoth tweets? *yay*

BTW, the last book in that trilogy comes out this Fall! I hope Mr. Westerfeld goes on tour with his wife!

Then Justine Larbalestier responded to me when I made a comment about her name. I like Justine for a lot of reasons, she’s the reason I got into YA lit as  much as I currently am. I was looking for a Harry Potter fix between books and one of my friends mentioned a controversial book geared towards young people and of course, I had to check it out. After reading Magic or Madness, I decided to read the rest.  It’s also where I picked up the word widdershins. That’s a cool word.

Once I was finished with the Magic or Madness trilogy I found her blog and realised that she was the wife of Scott Westerfeld, whose Uglies books I remembered seeing on the shelves in the bookstores, but always passing them by because the name sounded superficial (yes, I was judging the book by its name). However, realising that Justine was made of awesome, I decided that her husband was probably made of awesome as well and bought the first Uglies book. I’ve been devouring his stuff ever since. Scott is most definitely made of awesome.

Then I started reading Scott’s blogs, and reading the blogs of the authors Justine and Scott recommended and the rest is history.

I’m not sure who did it, but somewhere along the line Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty was recommended. I bought it. I read it. I loved it! Then I became a Libba Bray fan. I don’t know what goes on in the mind of Libba Bray, but I can hypothesis and it’s scary but wonderful. After reading her Going Bovine novel, I wondered if that wasn’t more an autobiography than a work of fiction. She’s insane. She’s funny. She’s ingenius.

Enter Holly Black. I saw her books in the bookstore a number of times, then one day started thumbing through Tithe. I got as far as the title page, I’ve been reading Holly’s books ever since. She’s a master of world crafting, faery lore and now, mobster fantasy. Wow. Impressed. *hat off* *confetti*

This can go on, but I’ll conclude now with …

Two fangirl moments etched into my brain.

2nd moment: I cannot tell you how happy I was that Maureen saw my Ginny European Tour map and loved it! I spent a lot of time on that map and I seriously want to visit all the places she described in her book 13 Little Blue Envelopes. So, to see your work appreciated by an author who worked hard to present a good book? Priceless.

1st moment: Not only did Holly Black say that she loved my steampunkesque necklace during the ZvU debate signing, but Justine Larbalestier, yes, THE Justine, recognised my twitter handle (first name) and even remembered my profile picture. I might have been smiling like a loon, I don’t know, but it was the best. fangirl. moment. ever.