ApollyCon 2022 Recap: Day Four

I am finally done writing ApollyCon recap posts! Huzzah! And this one is the biggest one! Not in terms of how much happened. That was Day Two. No, this was just the biggest because it was, in my opinion, the best of all of the events.

So we actually got to sleep in a bit on Sunday too. Yippee! Though there was still more walking. But most of that came later. Our first stop, though, was the last and best event of the convention: The JLA panel. We didn't get the brunch tickets to get the swag bag with the exclusive book and the early breakfast brunch, but it was all okay. (I'll explain later.) So we basically just chilled outside the panel room until it was time to line up for the event. My friend and I took some photos together to commemorate the trip, and after an hour-plus of waiting, we finally were in.

I ended up taking quite a lot of photos and videos, and for some reason, the photos all look terrible. But, anyway, Jennifer was on a panel with the two 1,001 Dark Nights publishers she works with, Jillian and Liz (I think that may be her name...?). Most of the information JLA shared in this panel was stuff I'd heard before, like writing advice (my least favorite question ever for authors), how she came up with FBAA (the summer olympics), and the inspiration for characters' names (Poppy = Poppy from L.J. Smith's Night World and Cas = Castiel, just the name inspiration, not the actual personalities/looks). The big reveals she shared included the new Adult fantasy book that she'd talked about in her Facebook group a little bit but not a lot. It's going to be published with Tor and she's had to rewrite it multiple times. Also, a compendium book/bible for the FBAA world will tentatively release in May 2023. It will be told in Miss Willa's narrative voice, and it will have a sneak peek of book five. Also, a Kieran POV might be included. And JLA also talked about adaptation rights and how there will be some news soon.

After the panel, the staff/volunteers announced there would be limited brunch bags on sale So my friend and I booked it to wait in the last line of the convention. Thankfully, we were successful, all because we had cash! If you had cash, you got to go in a much shorter line. So I got my FBAA ApollyCon exclusive edition and the swag items for $50. I was so happy. And now I'm so sad that I didn't manage to get tickets to the 2023 ApollyCon. Getting the matching sequels off of resellers is going to be a bummer. I hope I can snag an extra on sale in the JLA Shop instead.

And after the bag purchase, ApollyCon was officially over. Which was both sad because the fun was gone and happy because my feet couldn't take another day. My friend and I went back to our AirBnB to drop off our stuff, change our clothes, and rest up a bit before we did the major D.C. touristy stuff. Then, we took the metro back to the National Mall and saw as many sights as our feet would allow. First up was the Washington Monument. It's very tall. Oh, and it was raining. I don't want to forget that detail, as it becomes very important later on.
 

  The Lincoln Memorial was next, though of course we did walk by the World War II Memorial, I just didn't take pictures of it. It seemed disrespectful. I did take pics in front of Lincoln, though. Because it's a giant Lincoln. The rain wasn't terrible at this point, but my umbrella had just gotten a workout trying to swat mosquitos and gnats away from me as we walked by the water.

And this is me posing in front of the White House. We didn't get any closer than that, as 1) our feet were killing us, and 2) it started pouring. We were so soaked on the walk back that the insoles we'd padded our shoes with had started getting weird white soapy looking stuff all over the outside of our shoes. Well, it was either the insoles or poorly rinsed socks from the washing machine. Either way it was icky and wet.

On the metro ride back, I ordered us a margherita pizza that we ended up not being able to finish, sadly. Though I do believe I had a piece for breakfast the next morning. But to end the day, we just packed up our stuff and set our alarms for the next morning. When we did get up, it was to carry our box of books to the post office to ship home, and then we arranged a Lyft to the airport. Unfortunately, I had to stay at the airport for quite a long time, as my first of two flights wasn't until later in the day. I even tried to get on two earlier flights, but I just didn't make it. I did manage to get on a 3 p.m. instead of a 5 p.m., so that was nice. My connecting flight was still around 8 p.m., though.

Well, that's all. It was six days of utter chaos. Four at ApollyCon and two for travel. I can't believe I made it out of all that tourist-y walking stuff alive though. My feet hurt just thinking about how much walking we did. But it's all good now. I came back and all of my shipped books arrived (as you can see by my lovely FairyLoot packaging). None of the books I packed in my bags were damaged, and nothing got lost either. Overall ApollyCon 2022 was a success! Even though I do wish I'd gotten a better pic with JLA. Boo. I'm planning on it for 2024, though. If nothing else, getting a good photo with her will be the #1 priority.

ApollyCon 2022 Recap: Day Three

Wow. I'm really milking these ApollyCon recap posts. It's been two months since the event ended, and I'm still trying to explain what I did. Yeesh. Well, I'm almost done. Just one more day to go after this one. Then, I have to recap my Disneyland experience... maybe. I haven't decided on that one yet. But anywho, day three of ApollyCon actually allowed us to sleep in for a bit. Hurrah! But sadly, we had more walking ahead of us. Boo.

The first half of day three was really just my friend and I being tourists. We went to a doughnut shop called District Doughnut, and we ate half of each doughnut we got. So three full doughnuts overall. We had a lovely sugar rush. I believe we got a blueberry, key lime pie, Nutella, strawberry, creme brulee, and an orange one. I liked the Nutella doughnut best. But really, all of them were good except the filling in the orange and creme brulee was too much.

After breakfast, we went to the National Mall area for the first time to visit the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. We stayed there for quite a while to look at some taxidermied animals, some replica or real dinosaur fossils (some were real and some were copied), and other cool things. But honestly, I'm not a huge museum person, especially when the museum was getting more and more crowded the longer we stayed. So, we headed out a couple of hours later to visit my friend's favorite restaurant, Halal Guys. And it was fine. It reminded me of a Chipotle or a Subway. Nothing too fancy, which is always nice.

And now, we finally get to more actual ApollyCon stuff. The last major event of the convention was the After Party. This was the event everyone was supposed to wear their pajamas to, but a lot of people didn't, simply because it's difficult to wear pajamas for those who don't stay at the hotel and need to use public transit later. The After Party wasn't a big deal. I think the line for it was the worse part. It got pretty chaotic and at one point, a group of us at the front were worried they'd make us move after we'd already been sitting on the couches hanging out for a very long time. (Not technically in line, but still in line, if you know what I mean.) Jennifer stopped by for a bit to say thank you and such. She looked pretty tired, like the rest of us. Haha. But people still danced to the dj's music and tried to make the most of a weird event. There wasn't a bar or anything due to reasons Jennifer explained later. (It was the hotel's fault.) I don't drink, but it just seemed like a dud of an event.

I'm going to back up a bit and talk about what happened when we first came into the After Party, though. There were just a few tables set up in a giant empty room. The volunteers handed the first 100ish people swag bags. (We each got one. Though I can't even remember what was in them now. Mostly just extra ApollyCon swag and random author items. I think a lot of the stuff pictured above is what came in the bag, though I could be wrong.) And then we nabbed some stickers off the tables. (Not all the stickers, just a couple, because we weren't monsters.)
 

 

  Then, all the sudden, there was a mad rush around us to get to one of the tables that was pushed against the wall. Apparently, somebody had found a box of Bookish Box special editions under the table and like twenty people were crawling all over each other to nab one. Or, in some cases, more than one. Yep, there was a girl who walked away with a whole stack of special editions. And the kicker was, apparently the books weren't even for the attendees. They were left under the table to either give to volunteers later or for Bookish Box to do something with later. I can't remember the whole story. Oops. Maybe they shouldn't have left a box of books unsupervised with a crowd of bored book fans. But anyway, we didn't know any of this info at the time, so one of the people who I was standing with managed to grab a few and all of us passed them out to each other. I originally had Gild by Raven Kennedy, but since it's book three in a series, I gave it to someone else and kept A Deal with an Elf King instead. I feel bad about having it now, but, like I said, at the time, we had no idea they weren't freebies. Nobody was there to say no, and a lot of us didn't even see who grabbed them out from under the table.

After that mad book scramble, my friend and I got in a raffle sign-up line. Thankfully, my friend asked the volunteer if we had to stay in order to receive our prize so we knew we couldn't leave until after the drawing. So, we just hung out and shuffle danced until most people had left and only a small crowd was on the dance floor, with a few others sporadically standing around the room. Then, names were drawn for prizes. However, since a ton of people had left by then, it took a while for winners to actually be called. Eventually, though, my friend ended up winning a set of all four FBAA Bookish Box special editions. (She'd already bought them, so it wasn't something new, but she does plan to sell the set later and make back some of the money she spent at ApollyCon. Haha.)

Then, the last major event of ApollyCon was over and we took the bus back to our AirBnB. But, while the last major event was done for most attendees, we were lucky enough to get tickets to the JLA panel the next day. Amazingly, unlike a lot of attendees, we got one more day of ApollyCon. And hopefully, I can get that recap up in a timely manner... So stay tuned for the ApollyCon Day Five Recap!

Recapping Day 2 of 2018's BookCon

Are you ready to hear all about Day 2 of my BookCon 2018 experience? Because I’m totally not ready to write about it. But I will anyway. ;)

Before I get to the recap, make sure to check out my recap of Day 1, if you missed yesterday’s post.

Me, frizzy-haired and exhausted just thinking about walking the convention floor all day.

For the second day of BookCon, me and my roommate didn’t have to get up as early since we’d already nabbed copies of the Empire of Sands. There was a third ARC drop scheduled for 10 a.m. Thank goodness we didn’t have to do that.

Instead, we got to the Javits Center around 10:05ish, which meant no line-waiting to get into the convention floor. Whew!

The first event I had on my to-do list for Sunday was a Royals tea party and Rachel Hawkins signing event in Penguin Teen’s booth. I bought a finished copy of Royals, which was the only book I bought at BookCon. Speaking of, I’d actually set a goal for myself of spending less than $100 at BookCon. Counting food and the Royals, I spent less than $50. Woot! Woot! Go me!

Back to the tea party event. Penguin had pastries and tea before Rachel’s signing. I had a pastry, but I don’t like tea, so I skipped that. They also had a cardboard cutout of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to take photos with. Oh, and while I was waiting for the signing to start, one of the Penguin booth workers told me book two was going to be about Flora. I don’t know if that information had been released to the public yet, but I know now. Mwahaha.

Once Rachel’s signing started at 11:30, I got my book signed. I asked her about how the release date coincided with the royal wedding, and she said it was total coincidence since she’d had the book written and planned years prior.

Rachel Hawkins, Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and the back  of my head.

After that signing, there was another Book It with Penguin Teen event, so the roommate and I just stayed hanging out around the Penguin booth, but we didn’t form a line because you aren’t supposed to form lines more than 15 minutes before the event. The workers will yell at you if you try. This time for the Book It giveaway, I chose the tropical option and got an ARC of Seafire.

Unfortunately, or fortunately for our feet, there was nothing else scheduled for us to do until 3 p.m. Thus, we grabbed food and relaxed in the cafeteria for a long couple of hours. We ended up discussing which books we were most excited about over the next year or so. What’s strange, is I don’t think I have one I’m super excited about in 2019. At least, I don’t yet.

When our break was over around 2 p.m., we headed up to the convention floor to wait until Penguin Teen had their mystery ARC drop giveaway. People started an unofficial line because it was too early to form an actual line, and, apparently, it formed in the wrong spot because they ended up moving the line 15 minutes before they started giving out ARCs. It was utter chaos. There were hundreds and hundreds of people trying to get these mystery ARCs. Penguin just should have told everyone what it was, and there would have been less people trying to get the book.

But anyway, my roommate ended up being able to get a copy of the secret ARC, which was Four Dead Queens. I did not. I’ll just borrow it from her though. The security team yelling at people had me quickly running away from all that chaos.

Instead, I waited over in the less chaotic Novl line for an ARC game giveaway starting at 3:30 p.m. Both me and my roommate were hoping to get a copy of Rule. The game was pulling a lollipop out of a stand and seeing what color was scratched on the bottom of the stick. That decided what ARC you got. Thankfully, the Hachette Novl worker allowed you to pick if you wanted a specific one because I ended up getting green when Rule was red. My roommate ended up getting a lollipop without any color on it, so they said it was a wild card and she could pick whatever she wanted. She got Rule as well. So that was a successful event.

Oh, and right before the Rule event, I was given a free copy of a Hachette mystery/thriller book, so that was a nice surprise after the hell that was the Penguin secret ARC drop.

The Red Queen map I managed to grab.

And, that was really our last major event of the day. We decided to stick around until 5 p.m. for various reasons, though. One, because the booths gave away stuff randomly towards the end of the day, and two, because my roommate wanted to stop by Stephanie Garber’s autograph line to see if she could get in last-minute.

While I waited for her to get her ARC copy of Legendary signed, I walked around the convention floor and got two Harlequin romance books, a Red Queen map from Epic Reads, and a Fire & Blood dragon print-out from Penguin.

The Escape Artist by Bard Meltzer

Royals by Rachel Hawkins

Seafire by Natalie Parker (ARC)

Rule by Ellen Goodlett (ARC)

Lady Be Bad by Megan Frampton

Da Rocha’s Convenient Heir by Lynne Graham

So all in all, another mostly successful day. I wish I’d been able to get my own copy of Four Dead Queens, but it wasn’t a big deal. I still managed to get quite a bit on Day 2.

Are you excited about any of these books? If so, which ones?

Recapping Day 1 of 2018's BookCon

Alright, ya’ll. It’s time for me to finally write this BookCon recap that I’ve been mentioning for the past week. Here’s Day 1 of BookCon in all it’s glory!

First, I guess I should make the disclaimer that this was my first BookCon experience, and I only was able to go because I live in NYC. If I didn’t live in NYC, I don’t think I would go. It’s just too expensive. But, I only had to pay the ticket prices, no travel expenses, so that was good for me.

Also, I was unable to sign up for any autographing tickets, simply because I accidentally overslept when the tickets went live. Ugh. I’m just glad I got to meet Renee Ahdie and co. the day before BookCon started, so I didn’t miss out on author-meeting opportunities.

Now, onto the actual things that happened during BookCon, starting with the line. My roommate and I got up around 7 a.m. to get to the Javits Center (BookCon’s location) and get in line around 9 a.m. (It’s a one-hour train ride to Javits from our apartment.) But apparently, some people got there ridiculously early, because we were in one of the last sections set up for when security released the lines one-by-one to enter the convention center. This meant my roommate and I missed our first planned ARC drop of Empire of Sands from Hachette. They’d all been nabbed.

Fortunately, though, we did get in a random line for Harper Voyager for two finished fantasy books: The City of Brass and The Poppy War. That was super exciting. The City of Brass had been catching my eye.

That all happened in the first 15 minutes. After those 15 minutes, our plan was to go to Penguin Teen’s Underlined birthday giveaway at 11:30, so we had some time to kill between 10 a.m. and 11:15 (because all lines can only form 15 minutes before the planned event. Note that this tidbit becomes important for Day 2’s chaos.). We just walked around for a while and ate some food, but once the Underlined line formed, we actually left once we learned what was being given away—just portable chargers and random stuff. I did get a free tote from another Penguin giveaway though. It was for Melissa de la Cruz’s Hamilton books.

Our next plan was to go to Epic Reads’ ARC drop, but apparently, that one had a ticketing system. You had to stand in line an hour early just to get a sticky note ticket. Then, you had to stand in line an hour later to play a plinko game for one possible ARC out of a few options. Needless to say, my roommate and I did not get a chance to participate in any of these plinko events. The lines were crazy. But, the only ARC I wanted from Epic Reads was What If It’s Us, so I wasn’t too bummed. We did end up nabbing a Harry Potter poster from the Scholastic booth, though. And it is awesome!

As much of the Harry Potter poster as I could take a picture of. It's huge!

Our first successful event was for Penguin Teen’s Book It giveaway. Penguin had postcards with three different travel options, and, when you checked one, you got an ARC for that destination. There was a European option, which was for an ARC of The Brilliant Death, a Middle East option for Darius the Great is Not Okay, and a tropical option for Seafire. The first day, I got Darius the Great is Not Okay, which I had never heard of before, so that was a surprise. Oh, they also had luggage tags for everyone.

Me and Aelin, because I can totally blend in. Right?

After the travel event, we chilled around the Hachette booth until more ARCs of Empire of Sands dropped. Thankfully for my roommate who was dying to get her hands on a copy, we were able to grab one. I also got back in line for an ARC copy of Annex as well.

Once the ARC drop was over, I had some time to kill because my roommate had to go to a Naomi Novak signing. I rested my feet for a bit and ate the brownie I got from Starbucks earlier in the day. When her event was over, we thought about trying for the Epic Reads ARC plinko game again, but the line was stupid long and icky, so we called it a day.

City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri (ARC)
Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram (ARC)
Annex by Rich Larsen (ARC) 
Slayer by Kiersten White (sampler)

All in all, day one was fairly successful. There were a few snags, mostly with the Epic Reads booth, but I ended up with two finished books and three ARCs, so all was well in the world. Oh, and I forgot to mention, my roommate and I were being super picky about what books we were getting in line for. We didn’t even worry about Macmillan or Simon & Schuster’s booths (or any of the smaller booths), simply because we both work at those two companies.

Did you go to BookCon this year? Or any year? If so, what did you manage to get? And if not, what would you have liked to get?

The Pre-BookCon B&N Penguin Teen Event Recap

Last Friday, five Penguin Teen authors held a panel and signing at Barnes & Noble Union Square. It was right after BEA and the night before BookCon, which meant I was a very busy beaver trying to get ready for both this signing and BookCon. The authors in attendance were Sabaa Tahir, Marie Lu, Ransom Riggs, Melissa de la Cruz, and Renee Ahdieh.

I’ve been dying to see Renee Ahdieh since I read The Wrath and the Dawn. It’s one of my favorite books, and I’m due for a re-read. So, when I heard she was going to be signing at B&N, I was super excited: one, because she’s Renee freakin’ Ahdieh, and two, because it meant I didn’t have to sign up for her BookCon autograph panel since I was seeing her the night before. That just relieved a lot of pressure, in case I couldn’t get a signing ticket. (I’ll talk all about that fiasco in my BookCon recap, though.)

The event started with the panel. Someone from BuzzFeed interviewed the five authors. I don’t remember word-for-word what was said, but I’m going to recap and summarize what I do remember to the best of my ability. Unfortunately, I don’t remember a lot.

When the interviewer asked about what aspects of their characters didn’t appear in the final book due to edits and cutting, Renee said that one of her characters (it sounded like she said Tachalla), can sing. Sabaa said her editor cut out an unnecessary dragon from the Ember world. Marie Lu said that the main character of Warcross used to be three separate characters, who were much more interesting once she combined them into one person. Warcross also used to be set in space. Sabaa said Helene likes to bake.

From Left: Sabaa, Ransom, Melissa, Renee, and Marie

For writing advice, Sabaa said to let yourself dream. She gave a really cute story about how her father thought she wasn’t working when she was daydreaming about her story, and her mother said that Sabaa was working, she was dreaming. Renee said to not listen to advice and to never go on Goodreads.

The authors also talked about what books got them into reading/they enjoyed as kids, and Ransom Riggs and Melissa de la Cruz both went with Stephen King. I wasn’t surprised to hear that about Ransom, but Melissa just seemed so nice and innocent, and Stephen King is definitely not that. Just goes to show that people can read anything and everything. Renee said she read her father’s copy of The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice when she wasn’t supposed to. She took it off a shelf her father expressly forbade her to take books from.

When the authors discussed their books’ covers, Sabaa said she’s super into Assassin’s Creed, the game, so she wanted that aspect to her covers as well as a brown girl on the cover for representation.

Once the interview and audience Q&A was over, the signing started. It went by pretty fast, despite me being in one of the middle rows. Because I’d already seen Sabaa before, I didn’t have anything for her to sign (plus I’m going to buy her books with the new covers once they’ve all been released next year). I also haven’t read Ransom or Melissa’s books, so I didn’t have anything for them either. I only had books for Marie Lu and Renee Ahdieh. I’ll tell you all a funny story about purchasing books for the signing in this week’s Stacking the Shelves. I’d do it here, but this post is getting pretty long.

First up in the signing line was Marie Lu. She didn’t realize I had the UK version of Batman, so she was very confused when she went to sign the title page. I also had her sign the copy of Warcross I’d bought to get access to the signing.

Next up was Renee. (It was very convenient that both of the authors I needed books signed from were sitting next to each other.) I had Renee sign both The Wrath and the Dawn books that I’d brought from home during my May vacation, as well as The Smoke in the Sun, which has the funny story attached to it.

"Rise from the ashes."

Renee was super nice, and she talked to me about publishing and my job and move to NYC. She also asked me, once I told her I was going to get food after the signing, where I was going to eat and if I had any food recs. Because I’m not a foodie, I told her I was probably just going to get McDonalds. #lame

All in all, the event was a success. There were a lot of people there because of BookCon and BEA, but I enjoyed it. It made me want to get caught up on Marie’s and Sabaa’s books. I even wanted to read Melissa’s Alexander Hamilton series, and I don’t even like Hamilton.

Laura Sebastian's Ash Princess NYC Launch Event Recap

Last Tuesday, I attended Laura Sebastian’s NYC launch event for her debut novel, Ash Princess. I’ve already read and reviewed the book, so if you’re interested in my thoughts, head on over to that post.

This event wasn’t at the usual bookstore my roommate and I go to for author signings. This one was at McNally Jackson. And, even though it was a bit farther from us than Books of Wonder, we ended up getting there roughly 30-40 minutes early.

I’m thinking that our early arrival was why what happened next actually happened. When I went to purchase my copy of Ash Princess, the manager of the store (I’m assuming, as he worked there), gave my roommate and I each a rose…? We totally weren’t sure why, because we seemed to be the only people at the event that had them. Maybe because we were the first to purchase a copy of the book for the signing? But whatevs. A free rose is a free rose? I guess…

There was macarons and wine at the event. Laura and some of her friends set it up very quickly a few minutes before starting the actual panel. Even though we had to wait to eat the macarons, it was a pretty setup.

Once everyone had gotten their wine (I forewent the alcohols), Laura answered some questions from her friend, who helped emcee the event. One major question Laura answered was how she pitched her book. She posed it as a “Slytherin Sansa Stark Story.” Sansa Stark is not my favorite GoT character, but I can see the comparison, as Theo—Ash Princess’s main character—isn’t my favorite, either.

Laura also discussed how she let the girl she babysat read drafts of her work. Oh, and Laura apparently wrote ten other stories before finally getting a response from an editor/agent. Another question the emcee had revolved around Cress, Theo’s friend in the story. To Laura, complex female friendships are important, so she wanted to make sure to include one.

Also, there was a lightning round of questions. Laura quickly answered what her favorite childhood book was: Ella Enchanted. The book she’d wish she’d written: The Winner’s Curse. And who she wanted to blurb her book: Gail Carson Levine.

Once the emcee finished asking questions, the audience Q&A opened up. Laura discussed love triangles, how she added violence to her story because her editor said she should go there, and how her book boyfriend would be Carden from The Cruel Prince.

The actual signing portion of the event went by pretty quickly. Laura signed my book, I signed her copy that she was letting all the attendees sign, and I grabbed a macaron.

All in all, it was a fun event, simply because of how charismatic and genuine I felt Laura was. While Ash Princess wasn’t my favorite YA fantasy, I am excited to see what happens next in the world, so I’m glad Laura was a nice and pleasant author to interact with.

Rebecca Ross + Alexandra Monir NYC Signing Recap

I went to another signing event. This time it was for Rebecca Ross’s The Queen’s Rising.

This event, like most of the others I’ve been to, was at NYC’s Books of Wonder. It was a science fiction/fantasy YA signing. There were supposed to be three authors there: Rebecca Ross, Dhonielle Clayton, and Alexandra Monir. Unfortunately, Dhonielle couldn’t make it. It kind of sucked because my roommate bought The Belles book to get it signed. Oh well…

I was actually only interested in Ross’s book. I’d been meaning to check it out since its release. This signing event popped up on my radar, though, so I was glad I waited to purchase a copy.

At the event, Rebecca and Alexandra talked about a bunch of stuff during their panel. Alexandra mentioned how she used to be a pop star who opened up for bands like O-Town. I had no idea that she used to do that. And for her newest release, The Final Six, Alexandra actually went to space camp (for adults) to learn all the space-y stuff. She also has an Iranian astronaut friend to double-check the book’s science.

Rebecca mentioned that she wrote The Queen’s Rising because she wanted more female characters in fantasy for teens. She loves The Lord of the Rings and used to role-play as Aragorn, but then she realized there are no prominent female characters in those books. She also said that the main character of the book spoke directly to Rebecca with the line “I have yet to master my passion.” I’m not sure if this line is in the book or not, because I haven’t read it yet, but it’s a cool line.

Originally, Rebecca wasn’t planning on her book being a series, but she ended up writing sequel in 24 days! She also wrote the first book in a little over 40! Man, I wish I could do that.

Once the panel was over, Rebecca and Alexandra signed books. I only needed to have Rebecca sign mine, so I chatted with her about her book cover. Apparently, the cover actually has a lot of significance to the story. There’s a constellation, the passion symbols, and even the main character’s blue cloak.

All in all, this event wasn’t my favorite, but it was okay. There were cookies, so that made it better. Have any of you read The Queen’s Rising or The Final Six? If so, what did you think of them?

Ashley Poston's Heart of Iron NYC Launch Event Recap

I went to my first and only author signing of February. Thank goodness! I think I went to five author events in January, and that was just madness! I’m very glad that February was a nice quiet month with only the one signing.

The event I went to was Ashley Poston’s Heart of Iron launch event at Books of Wonder in NYC. Melissa Gray, author of The Girl at Midnight series, was also there to help ask Ashley questions. Together, these two were super fun.

Ashley (left) and Melissa (right)

While Ashley got a little emotional at first, she got managed to “tough it out” (I’m putting the phrase in quotes because it was perfectly understandable why she was emotional. It was her book baby’s birthday!) for the panel. Melissa asked Ashley all kinds of questions, like if the robot in Heart of Iron was similar to BB8 or R2D2, as all three characters beep a lot and act like loyal companions. And yes, Ashley did discuss how similar they were.

Ashley also talked about her character names, and how she came up with them. While I don’t remember much of her discussion for this, I do know she stole the name Robb from Game of Thrones’s Robb Stark. Melissa, like any good host does, had Ashley sort her characters into Hogwarts houses. Ana would be a Gryffindor, and D09 the android would be a Hufflepuff—she specifically said he was the huffliest Hufflepuff to ever Hufflepuff.

More tidbits of info: Ashley actually wrote Heart of Iron before she wrote her other book, Geekerella, even though Geekerella was released first. Melissa’s cover designer is the same cover designer who did the Grisha trilogy covers and Heart of Iron’s designer is the same one who designed Red Queen’s cover. How cool is that?

Oh, Ashley also has written/is writing (she never said she stopped) Jack + Elsa and Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfiction. Ashley also had a lot of opinions on Anastasia/Fox being acquired by Disney. She wasn’t thrilled about it because she doesn’t really want Anastasia to belong to Disney when the creator of the movie was fired from the company. She also doesn’t really love the Broadway play of Anastasia because they took out Rasputin and replaced him, the villain of the story, with communism. Weird.

Well, those are a just the things I remembered from the event. Although, I did forget to mention how there were cupcakes. I nabbed one right before the event started, after my roommate and I had stuffed McDonald’s down our mouths on the walk to the bookstore. (We were hungry, but we had a limited amount of time to walk to the store before the panel started.)

Once the signing started, I signed Ashley’s personal copy of Heart of Iron—she had every attendee sign it. I wrote “Yay for space books!” and signed my name. I also grabbed some character cards. They’re so cool!

After my roommate got her book signed, we left Books of Wonder. Thankfully, I left before purchasing any more books. Yay for restraint!