ApollyCon 2025 Recap: Day One

Yes, I am finally getting to my 2025 ApollyCon recap posts. I apologize for the wait. Life isn't necessarily crazy, but it just goes by too fast sometimes and I forget to write up posts that aren't reviews, hauls, or monthly wrap-ups. But I need to get this ApollyCon recap up before I forget everything because there was a lot.

 

First, I'm gonna share the 24 books I brought with me to get signed. They included Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland, Fear the Flames by Olivia Rose Darling, The Games Gods Play by Abigail Owens, Furyborn by Claire Legrand, Servant of Earth by Sarah Hawley, two Nalini Singh Guild Hunter books, Quicksilver by Callie Hart, Conquer the Kingdom by Jennifer Estep, Heart on Fire by Amanda Bouchet, Desire in His Blood by Zoey Draven, Trial of Sorcerers by Elise Kova, three J.R. Ward BDB books, Bright Heart by Emma Hamm, and A Touch of Poison by Clare Sager. I also brought House of Pounding Hearts by Olivia Wildenstein, A Song of Wraiths and Ruin, Bite of Loyalty by R.L. Caulder, The Traitor Queen by Danielle L. Jensen, The Ever King by LJ Andrews, and Tempted by Kristin Cast. However, I didn't get those last six signed either because I didn't have time and/or the author didn't show up. I actually also didn't take The Blood Trials by N.E. Davenport with me, since she canceled right before I left. Overall, though, this meant taking a much heavier suitcase, especially considering I also had to pack my book cart to drag around all of my books. It went in my checked bag, along with some flattened boxes for shipping books back.

While last year, my friend and I did some sightseeing around the convention hotel, we didn't really have the time or energy for that this year. Also, we stayed at an off-site hotel for the first night. To get to D.C., I had to get up at like 3 a.m. to arrive at the airport at 5 a.m. for a 6 a.m. flight, so I wasn't in the mood to be too adventurous. My dad drove me to the airport once again. Thanks, Dad. Ha ha. But, needless to say, I was very tired once I finally got to the hotel. I DoorDashed some Quiznos, as I hadn't had that in a looong time, and waited for my friend to arrive so we could go wait in line for registration at the convention center. Thankfully, our first-night hotel had a shuttle to take us there for free.

 

 

As you can see in the pics, the registration line was crazy long. We had actually arrived early, but they made us move, so we ended up being near the end of the line instead of the beginning, where we would have been if they hadn't made us move. It was frustrating, especially since they were late to start registering people. Like an hour or more late. I don't understand why, since the year before they had been on time and everything ran smoothly. It was kind of weird. I think it had to do with another event being in that space right before theirs, but if that was the case, why didn't they push back registration time in their schedule in advance? The registration line and the wait for JLA's signature line on Friday were probably the worst parts of the entire weekend, and they're both kind of related to each other. Since we were so far back in the registration line, we didn't get good numbers for JLA tickets, which meant we had to wait to get her signature until 8 p.m. on Friday. It wasn't fun. Oh, and you can kind of see JLA handing out water in the registration line in the pic right above this paragraph. She's standing in the doorway area on the left.

 

At registration, we got our Primal ticket-holder bags. They each came with a 10-year anniversary yearbook, the Born of Blood and Ash event edition, a Callie Hart Quicksilver cup, an Arcane edition of Torn, a paperback edition of The Return, and a few other books. My other books were The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch, Revolt by K.A. Knight, A Curse of Scales and Flames by Max Walker, and Heart of Defiance by Eva Chase. I originally received a cowboy romance in my bag, but while I was waiting in line for the next event, I was able to trade with the person sitting next to me for the Max Walker book. I was sad when it didn't come in my bag originally after the author said it'd be in the bags, so yay for being able to get it!

 

Now, I do have some nitpicks with this year's Primal bags. The big one is that, while I understand having an anniversary edition of The Return in the bag since that series is the one ApollyCon is named after, I had already purchased the hardcover version of these that were for sale on the website. Why did they make an edition of something that they already sold? It baffles me. I'm actually selling mine. There's no reason I need two copies when the paperback doesn't have a slipcase or sprayed edges like the hardcover. The other big thing was that the BOBAA copy is not foiled, so it doesn't match the other three books in the series. GRRRRRRRR. I will never get over this. It's also like a quarter of an inch taller than the other three too. More GRRRRRRRR. But! The Arcane edition of Torn really helped make up for the issues the other items presented. It was just confusing to get the second book in the bag instead of book one, though I was able to get the sequels eventually.

The next event we waited in line for was the anniversary panel with JLA, J.R. Ward, and Nalini Singh, hosted by Jillian and Liz from Blue Box Press/1,001 Dark Nights. And, honestly, this event truly saved the night for us. After the disappointment that was registration, seeing these authors make hilarious jokes and answer fan questions was a boon to my reader soul. They joked about what an honor it was to have readers who stuck with them over the years, and J.R. Ward got up and walked around with the mic because she can't sit still when she answers questions. A lot of people had never seen J.R. Ward's animated answering before, so that was fun to watch people realize how funny she is. I've posted a video clip of it below, but I don't know how well it will show up, so if it doesn't, I'm sure you can find some clips on TikTok or YouTube somewhere.

 

Well, that was all for the first day. It mostly consisted of travel, registration, and one fun panel, so Thursday is the day when things really got going. Plus, we get to move into the convention hotel, so that makes life easier. Stay tuned for the Day Two post coming soon!