Hey Everyone!

It has been a really long time since I had been able to go to a signing. Unfortunately Nursing school got in the way! But now that it is over I was able to attend not 1 but 2 signing panels this weekend. 

Saturday, February 8, 2014

This signing was at the beautiful Central Library in Downtown Los Angeles. I was really excited for this signing since my friend Courtney who lives down in San Diego was able to drive up to attend it with. Also joining me was my friend Amber and her adorable son Dean. These were the authors who were present.

Unfortunately Robin LaFevers was unable to make it, but I was lucky enough to have met her at a signing last year with Leigh Bardugo.  I had also met Anna Carey at previous event last year, but this was going to be the first time I was going to meet Victoria Schwab, Gretchen McNeal, Melissa De La Cruz, and Margaret Stohl. 

Even though I was excited to meet every single of these amazing authors, I have to admit that I was most excited to meet Melissa De La Cruz. I have been a fan of hers for years, have read almost everything she's ever written, but unfortunately have never been able to make it to one of her signings. 

All the authors were introduced by the amazing head librarian of the Teenscape section of the library. There were some great Q&As and the authors were absolutely hilarious. What I was most interested in was the authors talking about some of their new projects. 

Anna Carey (who btw remembered me from a previous signing- AHHHH :D) has a new book called BlackBird coming out. She couldn't go too much in detail, but she did tell us that it was written in second person. Gretchen McNeal told us about Get Real whose cover was revealed yesterday. Margaret Stohl, who btw is by far one of the funniest authors I have ever met told us about Idols, the sequel of Icons, which she had brought an arc for and was given away in a raffel. She also told us about the new spin-off for the Caster Chronicles. Victoria Schwab spoke a little about her new Middle Grade books, and lastly Melissa De La Cruz talked about and gave away the first book in her new series, The Ring and Crown. 

After about an hour of Q&A we got down to signing! These were the books I got signed for myself! I did also get some books signing for my  partner is crime Patricia and my dear friend Christina from Ensconced in Books. 

 

  

    

     

Sunday, February 9, 2014

This signing was at the Mysterious Galaxy at Redondo Beach. If you live in Southern California and have not been to either of the Mysterious Galaxy locations you MUST GO! I love these Bookstores! At this signing we had 4 amazing authors. Marie Lu, Margaret Stohl,  Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner.

Seeing Margaret Stohl 2 days in a row was an absolute treat! I liked her so much that I finally decided to pick up a copy of Beautiful Creatures just so she can sign it. This was my second time seeing Marie Lu. I attended her signing when Prodigy came out, but had only purchased a copy for a giveaway. This time I bought the box from Amazon and was able to get all them signed. I have YET to read Champion and am dying to know what happens.

And Amie and Meagan were an absolute treat. I had some books for Christina again and Mary (7 in total!) and I waited towards the end of the line since I had so many books to get signed. We had mentioned to them on Twitter that we had a lot of books for them, and Amie had asked me to write out Twitter handles on our name tags. So once I got up there and they saw the twitter handles they were absolutely excited.  And bless them, not only did they sign books for everyone they even signed those beautiful cover posters that I'm sure you have seen on the web.

So here are the goodies I picked up for myself :)

  

   

So whenever my friend Amber has to bring her son to signings with us, she brings a little journal with her that Dean absolutely loves to go to up to the authors and ask them to sign his book for him. And the author's usually have a blast doing it. These were his signatures from this weekend! 

  

  

Okay now on to the GOOD STUFF! You know that I wouldn't go to a signing without thinking about my lovely followers! And since I haven't had any self-hosted giveaways in a while. I decided to make  it a good one. So there are 4 different Prizes to win ! 

**GIVEAWAYS**
Open INT!

1 Signed HB of These Broken Stars

1 Signed HB of Possess

1 Signed PB of Witches of East End

 1 Swag Pack which includes: 

A signed Poster of These Broken Stars,

a signed bookmark of The Unbound, a signed bookmark of Idols

and a singed bookmark of Skylark and a pack of Vicious 

Trading Cards!

   

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE :) 

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Hey Guys,

I just came back from an attending an amazing giveaway in the Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego with my friends Amber and Vivian. I had been literally counting down for this event for weeks now and was so excited to finally attend. I love book signings and I absolutely love author panels. The authors always feed off of eachother's energy which makes the signing even more entertaining. This panel was incredible because it featured such great authors.

Cynthia Hand - Unearthly Series
Anna Carey - Eve Series
Tahereh Mafi - Shatter Me Series
Veronica Rossi - Under the Never Sky Series
Ransom Riggs - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

The book signing was in San Deigo and my friends and I live in Los Angeles, so it was a nice two hour drive to head down there. Luckily we hit no traffic so we made it there in really good time. The signing probably had a nice crowd and the authors were all super entertaining and funny!
Now Time for the GoodStuff!!!!

Giveaway Info!
I love book signigns because it gives an oppurtunity to buy some new books, get the signed and meet the author behind the books. Since I was excited about many of these authors I thought I'd share the joy, by giving one lucky blog follower a change to win, not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4 but 5 (yes 5)  autogrpahed hard back copies! Following via BlogLovin is mandatory!

Here is what I am offering!
- Autographed copy of Through the ever Night by Veronica Rossi with some swag
- Autographed copy of Boundless by Cynthia Hand with some swag
- Autograhed copy of Unravel me by Tahereh Mafi
- Autogrpahed coyy of Rise by Anna Carey with Swag
- An extra autogrpahed copy of Prodigy from a signing I went to last month!!!!
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Hey Guys!

So last Thursday I went to a book signing with my friend Viv and my friend Ginger who I hadn't seen in a VERY long time! It was so nice to finally be able to catch up with her. The signing was at our local Barnes and Noble at the Americana in Glendale. I was really excited to go for two reasons. First I had LOVED Stacey's first book Juliet Immortal and had been desperately waiting for my local library to get a copy of the sequel in. And Second, I had yet to go to a book signing at my local Barnes which I have practically lived at since they opened 5 years ago.

So Viv and I got there about and hour or so early to purchase our books and get good seats. I was very sad to see that there were only a handful of people who showed up for the signing. I am starting to notice this being a trend with Thursday signings. But regardless of this we still had a really good time and were able to have an intimate conversation with the author.

Stacey was so hilarious and go gracious and absolutely ADORABLE! She did not let the fact that very few people showed up discourage her and made the most of the signing for the people that had showed up. She began to tell us about how she came up with the idea of Juliet Immortal and Romeo redeemed. For those of you who have not read Juliet Immortal is an interesting twist on the classic Romeo and Juliet. I will add links to Goodreads for you guys to check them out.

Stacey also had another book coming out this summer, called Of Beast and Beauty, which will be another interesting twist on the original story, with the beast, actually being the girl! Stacey gave an interesting quote that I want to share with all of you. She said that she liked to take classic stories that we all knew and grew up with and add a "humanist and feminist" twist to them. Since those words stuck with me since the signing I decided to incorporate them into this months giveaway:

GIVEAWAY RULES:
1) Follow this blog via either NetworkBlogs or Google Friend Connect
2) Tell me if you could rewrite a classic story, how would you change it and why? This is a trend that we are starting to see that I am LOVING! I loved Cinder and Juliet Immortal and am anxious to read more!
3) Extra Credit will be those who bring followers to my blog. Make sure to have your friends tell me in there comment who sent them to my blog!
4) Lastly make sure to include your email address so I can contact you in your win!

CONTEST WILL BE OVER: Thursday, April 11th at 11:59pm

Title: Golden Lily
Series: Bloodlines #2
Author: Richelle Mead
Published: June 12, 2012
Pages: 418
Acquired: Autographed copy from Author event in Santa Monica Barnes and Noble.
Goodreads Rating: 4.43
My Rating: 4.5

Goodreads Synopsis:

Sydney Sage is an Alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of humans and vampires. They protect vampire secrets—and human lives.

Sydney would love to go to college, but instead, she’s been sent into hiding at a posh boarding school in Palm Springs, California–tasked with protecting Moroi princess Jill Dragomir from assassins who want to throw the Moroi court into civil war. Formerly in disgrace, Sydney is now praised for her loyalty and obedience, and held up as the model of an exemplary Alchemist.

But the closer she grows to Jill, Eddie, and especially Adrian, the more she finds herself questioning her age–old Alchemist beliefs, her idea of family, and the sense of what it means to truly belong. Her world becomes even more complicated when magical experiments show Sydney may hold the key to prevent becoming Strigoi—the fiercest vampires, the ones who don’t die. But it’s her fear of being just that—special, magical, powerful—that scares her more than anything. Equally daunting is her new romance with Brayden, a cute, brainy guy who seems to be her match in every way. Yet, as perfect as he seems, Sydney finds herself being drawn to someone else—someone forbidden to her.

When a shocking secret threatens to tear the vampire world apart, Sydney’s loyalties are suddenly tested more than ever before. She wonders how she's supposed to strike a balance between the principles and dogmas she's been taught, and what her instincts are now telling her.

Should she trust the Alchemists—or her heart?

My Thoughts:  I had this book in my possession since it first came out. I was lucky enough to have attended Richelle Mead's event in Santa Monica last year to get my copy autographed. I kept putting off reading it, wanting to get a refresher on Bloodlines first. And now that I was able to get a copy of Indigo Spell from my library, I knew it was time to finally give this bad boy a read. 

Favorite Quote: 

I knew Dimitri would've taken my suticase anyway. That's how he was, a lot remnant of chivalry in the modern world, every-ready to help others." Page 22

What can I say, other than it was nice seeing Dimitri again.. Boy is he still hot! And Chivalry for me is by far the sexiest attribute a man can possess. 

What I liked: 

I still really enjoyed seeing Sydney's struggle with her beliefs as an Alchemist and realizing that there is more to the Vampires than what she was always been thought. One of my least favorite things about YA books (and my friend Viv can attest to this) is strong men losing their manliness and whining so damn much. It has happened to Jace in the Mortal Instruments series, (but I have high hopes for the last book) and it was not happening to Adrian in this series. But my man (and Richelle Mead) didn't disappoint me too much and we saw Adrian finally stepping up the plate in more than just one way toward to the end of the book. I desperately waited and waited and bugged my friend Viv several times about the moment all Bloodlines fans have been waiting for and was pleasantly surprised when it finally did happen! I am hoping to discover more about this new turn in the story with Indigo Spell.

What I Didn't Like: The story still was pretty slow for me until the last 100 pages or so. We're still seeing a lot of character development and story line plots being sewn in, but I am waiting for some of that action packed pages that we saw in Vampire Academy. I also want to hear more about whats happening at Court, and a possible Lissa appearance would be nice too. But Richelle Mead has so far never led me down and I know each book will continue to get better and better.

For a little treat. I am including a video that I took from last years author signing of Richelle Mead reading pages 204 - 208. She specifically read those pages, since they included no spoilers. So for those of you, you have not read this book yet. No fears! Well thats it for now. On to Indigo Spell!

Hey Everyone! Thank you for stopping by! I just came back from attending an amazing book signing at Vroman's bookstore in Pasadena. I had the great privilege of meeting Marie Lu, the author of The Legend series, which I have to say has been one of my favorites of the last couple of years! So when I found out that Marie was going to be coming to a bookstore near me I just had to go out and see her. And I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to celebrate my new blog, by giving away a signed copy of Prodigy! If you haven't read this series already you must!!!

So here are the Rules: 1) Subscribe to my page! 2) And since I want to get to now some of my fellow book lovers, I want you to leave a comment on my this post and let me know what your favorite book is and why. I will pick my favorite response and they will be the winner of the book! Sorry to any international followers, but this will be US only this time! Deadline for the giveaway will be Friday, March 29th at 11:59 pm
Update: This giveaway is now closed! Winner will be announced by Monday, April 1st. (And no it will not be an April fools joke!)



My Thoughts on the Signing: This is the first signing I had been able to attend in a while due to my school schedule so I was very excited it was on a Thursday and I was able to attend. Unfortunately for some reason there was not as big of a turn out as I was expecting. I think it may have to do with the fact that Cassie Claire and Lily Collins, the actress who will be portraying Clary were at the Grove in LA doing a signing for Clockwork Princess. But regardless, Marie was very grateful for everyone who showed up. She explained a little bit about herself and told us how she became a writer. I was really interested to know that she had written 4 completed manuscripts before she able to get one sold. As a budding writer I was impressed how she was able to keep writing and not get discouraged. She also spoke a little about the last book in the trilogy. It will be titled The Champion, and is currently in it's first set of revisions. If it is completed in time we might see a Fall 2013 release. So let's all keep our fingers crossed! I personally cannot wait to get my hands on it!

Okay guys, that's it for now! I have another book signing that I will be attending next week. It's for Romeo Redeemed, the sequel to Juliet Immortal. And depending on how well this giveaway turns out I may consider getting a copy of that for a second giveaway! Thank you all for reading and look forward to chatting with all of you very soon!