Feb

Breathless Reads Recap

I’m home from Breathless Reads, and it was AMAZING.

Yes, it was exhausting, with several pre-dawn wake-up calls, 8 cities, 10 bookstore signings, 9 school visits, 1 conference, 1 booksellers’ dinner packed into 12 days. But it was also SO MCUH FUN. To be honest, if you’d told me on the first night (full of stage-fright and jangling nerves), that I would be sad when it ended two weeks later, I wouldn’t have believed you. But, oh, I am. As much as I love being home with The Playwright and Monkey and my own schedule, I miss the other Breathless ladies! Andrea Cremer, Marie Lu, and Beth Revis are wonderful and generous and hilarious women, not to mention smart and talented writers, and I adore them and am so glad to count them as new friends.

I loved each and every one of the bookstore events. It was lovely to discover so many awesome independent bookstores: Anderson’s (such a gorgeous store), Politics and Prose (with so many friends and former colleagues in attendance!), Books of Wonder (where I got to see my agent and editor, and meet fellow Apocalypsies Lizzie Foley and Sarvenaz Tash), Towne Center Books & Cafe in Collegeville (my dad and sister and future BIL came!), Doylestown Books (my mom and stepdad came, and my aunt and uncle, and I got to have dinner with fabulous Apocs Tiffany Schmidt and Elisa Ludwig!), Little Shop of Stories (with a super-fun blogger dinner after), Blue Willow Books (we got to sign the wall! And meet lovely Penguin author Mary Lindsey), Once Upon a Time (my best friends Jill and Liz came, and there were cupcakes!). And we had one event at an awesome B&N in Frisco, TX, where they made us special themed drinks (mine was a magical cookies & creme frap — om nom!). There was the awesome inaugural Passion & Prose conference, where I got to hear Gail Carriger give a fascinating keynote (and OMFG, her outfit was amazing) and promptly bought all of her books. And then on the last night there was the SCIBA dinner at our hotel, where I got to meet more Apocs (Leigh Bardugo, Jenn Reese, and Jennifer Bosworth) and get early copies of their awesome books and drink lots of wine and try not to fangirl over the super-nice Amber Benson (Tara from Buffy!). I also met so many amazing bloggers and people who are crazy-passionate about books, which was a delight. People asked if we got tired of signing things, and truthfully? No. Still no. I LOVE signing my name in my books.

It was wonderful to meet readers. Thank you, thank you, thank you to every one of you who came out to see us! I am still just thrilled to pieces when I discover someone is reading BORN WICKED, that the characters who lived in my head for the last two years are out in the world now and that some of you are falling in love with them too. It’s such a gift. I am honored that out of all the stories in the world, you are spending your time and money on mine. Thank you.