Heartbeat Weekly (75): Awesome Book Signings!

 

Two week book haul

From the Kagawa/Schwab signing:

All books are signed :)

• Grim anthology
• A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
• A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab (ARC)
• The Unbound by Victoria Schwab
• Vicious by V.E. Schwab (UK edition)
• Shades of Magic character cards
• “What would Lois Lane do?” bracelet
• Lois Lane: Double Down sticker

From the Bishop/Briggs signing:

All books are signed :)

• Written in Red by Anne Bishop
• Murder of Crows by Anne Bishop
• Vision in Silver by Anne Bishop
• Marked in Flesh by Anne Bishop
• Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop
• The Pillars of the World by Anne Bishop
• Moon Called by Patricia Briggs
• Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs
• Hunting Ground by Patricia Briggs
• Marked in Flesh bookmark

Bought:

• Illusive by Emily Lloyd-Jones
• Lark Rising by Sandra Waugh
• Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
• The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender (for kindle, Amazon)

For review:

• Exile for Dreamers by Kathleen Baldwin

Thank you Tor Teen!

From HalfBloodPrints:

• Finnick, Cinna, Loki, Snape, and Luna minimalist prints
• Sirius print
• Minimalist Harry Potter stickers
• Marauder’s Map bookmark

I’m really sad that I didn’t get my Sirius minimalist print I ordered. I’m hoping that issue will be resolved. I’m excited about all the awesome bonus stuff that was in there, though! I love the Hogwarts house stickers and the bookmark! I cannot WAIT to frame these prints :)

MyBookBag subscription:

• The Reluctant Sacrifice by Kerr-Ann Dempster
• I Don’t Want to Be Your Bridesmaid by Adina Ferguson
• myBOOKbag bookmark
• myBOOKbag tote

This is such a great subscription box because it features only indie authors! It promotes the up and coming new authors that some people may not have heard of and gets them more exposure. If you want to try a month of it you can use my code NOVELHEARTBEAT to get 10% off your first month!

From the library (not pictured):

• Red Rising by Pierce Brown
• The Mark of the Dragonfly by Jaleigh Johnson
• Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins
• Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare

Weekly Recap

Posts on the blog:

• [7 Mar] Marked in Flesh by Anne Bishop ★★★★
• [11 Mar] Fractured by Sarah Fine ★★★★
• [13 Mar] Heartbeat Weekly (75): Awesome Book Signings!

Julie Kagawa, Victoria Schwab, & Gwenda Bond Signing

I had SO much fun at this one! It’s no secret that Julie is like, my favorite author evarr, so it was awesome to see her again! (For about the sixth time. *coughs*) I drove down early in the day with my wonderful boyfriend. We got there pretty early, so we decided to go to Five Guys for dinner! It was my first experience there, and it was pretty good. They messed up my burger and I had to wait a long time to finally eat, but it was pretty darn tasty. Not sure if I’d go back, since I’m not really a HUGE burger fan, but it was good as far as burgers go!

The bookstore was crazy impressive!! It was HUGE. It puts our JB in Cinci to shame!

The signing itself was totally fun. All three ladies are hilarious! The audience laughed out loud quite a few times. Some fun things I learned:

• Julie wrote a book in high school that eventually evolved into Talon. It was originally a medieval fantasy!
• A Darker Shade of Magic started as a vision Victoria got randomly of a guy, covered in blood (“all of my characters end up covered in blood at some point” lmao), walking through a wall and crashing into a girl dressed like a boy. The idea didn’t come to fruition until many months later.
• Julie’s #1 hobby is video games. (See I told you she’s awesome!)
• Gwenda was a reporter.
• Victoria sees Kell as somewhat of a mix between Eddie Redmayne and Lee Pace, but in way older pictures; she confessed that the ONE actor she would absolutely have to have, no matter how old he is, would be Mads Mikkelsen for Holland.

We talked about books, ice cream, and they did a giveaway for some cool stuff (none of which I won, of course), and then we did the actual signing. I fangirled for a few minutes with Julie, got a picture, and we were off! I was super tired at work the next day because we didn’t get home until 11 pm and I had to get up at 6 am. DEDICATION, MAN. Dedication.

I also got to meet Ashley @ Fictional Living, who I met through Instagram, in person. (Her bookstagram is awesome, you should check it out!!) It was pretty hilarious because we wore the exact same shirt – and totally didn’t even plan it. Great minds think alike! It was cool to meet you, Ashley!

Oh, and there was a drink menu custom made for the event. One of the drinks was named “Dragon Slayer” – how awesome is that?! Sadly I failed, and didn’t get one. Sigh.

Anne Bishop & Patricia Briggs Signing

This one was a bit more rough than the Tuesday event! Tuesday’s trip was a breeze – the traffic was pretty normal, the weather was great, and we were able to get into line and get out asap and be home around 11.

Thursday, not so much. It was freaking POURING – seriously, it was like a monsoon. Driving was awful and traffic was awful, we got stuck in multiple stop and go traffic jams, and it was super slow because of the rain since we could barely see. We left at the same time – 2:45 – and didn’t arrive at the bookstore until 5 minutes beforehand (it started at 7). Tuesday we arrived in Lexington at 5 and had an hour to have a nice meal and an hour to sit around and chill (and explore the bookstore) before the signing started. Thursday, we didn’t arrive in Lexington until almost 6.

We stopped for dinner at Golden Corral (which wasn’t too smart because it made us late), where I’d never been. We had to eat pretty fast because the restaurant was still 20 minutes from the bookstore (according to Siri). When we left the restaurant, I decided to go 27 because Siri was taking me WAY all the way around, which was like 8 miles longer. Um, shortcut? HORRIBLE IDEA. The “shortcut” was through downtown Lexington, which I didn’t realize. After sitting completely still for 20 straight minutes, I pulled a U-turn and went the way Siri originally told me to go. (I know, lesson learned!)

By the time we finally got there I was pretty frustrated. They were handing out line tickets, which I didn’t know about, and I was basically the very last ticket because we arrived so late. It ended up not mattering anyway, because there was a 2 book limit on the first pass through the line and I had 6 books for Anne. We just waited to get into line until the very end. We didn’t leave the bookstore until 10:30! By the time I got home and took care of the animals, I didn’t go to bed until 2 am. And had to get up at 6:30 for work. Needless to say I felt like ass all day Friday (12 hours of it)!

The signing was cool, though! It was very interesting to hear both ladies talk, as they both are seasoned writers and have a lot of experience. Most of Patricia’s talk had to do with her stories and characters, which I know nothing of because I have yet to read any of her books. (I hope to soon, though!) I asked Anne which Gard was her favorite, and she said Wolfgard or maybe the Ponies, but she loves Tess a lot too! She gave some teasers for book 5:

• There’s a scene where Henry Beargard tells Meg a learning story (i.e. how the chipmunk got his stripes)
• There’s an adorable scene with Twylla and Skippy
• There are more Meg/Simon feels – he offers to go get her meat from a nearby city since she doesn’t like bison, which is kind of like the Wolfgard equivalent of buying flowers and chocolate. DAWWWWW.

Anne was super nice! I’m so excited to have all the beautiful hardbacks of the Others series signed. They will look lovely on my shelf!

What’s in your mailbox, loverlies? Link me up!

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