As part of my look at YA fantasy this week, I’d like to share my collection of books penned by one of my favorite authors of all time: Tamora Pierce! This woman has written some of the best female characters ever, and I can’t believe that I’ve been able to meet and speak with her on several occasions.
To start my birthday month of fantasy and fun, I want to share a very special series. I fell hard into the Monster High phenom and was overjoyed when they announced the spin-off, Ever After High. I didn’t care for any of the Monster High novels or series, but I was very attracted to the Ever After High series. Those covers. The interior colors. The fact that the cover image is printed on the hardcover.
Today, I want to share one of my favorite authors. The only author that I will be able to wait the 4-5 years it takes her to write a single, complex narrative that intrigues and builds even as it frustrates and excites. What I’m saying is, “Go check out the Green Rider series if you haven’t already!!”
I’m back with another Fangirl Friday to share my collection of ARCs and author signatures. This week I’m spotlighting Sarah Beth Durst, who is quite lovely. I haven’t finished reading the last two books in this series, but the first one impressed me. It really felt like a story written for adults who loved reading Tamora Pierce’s work as a young person.
Today I have a fantastic middle grade treat! A lovely trilogy by Joshua Khan that subverts many horror tropes and utilizes giant bats in the best way. I love this series so much and cannot tout its amazing-ness enough, so please check it out and share it with your kiddos!
The author is also super nice! He sent me a bunch of signed bookplates and cover prints, which I’ve happily sent out to other people in the hopes of getting them hooked on this fabulous world. Plus, did you see that cover quote from Rick Riordan daring you to NOT love this story?
I’m back with another edition of Fangirl Friday with a spotlight on my Holly Black collection. I fell in love with Tithe in my teens and loved the darker edge she gave her fae. And although the follow ups didn’t quite live up to it (for me), I’m excited to read her new series, starting with The Cruel Prince.
This week I want to spotlight a gem in my collection as the first in a series of Fangirl Friday posts where I showcase some of my most treasured possessions: signed books and ARCs. Haven’t decided if I will stick to alphabetical by author or just whatever catches my fancy for sharing.
First up: we have the Lost Continent series by Catherine Asaro.
Fell in love with the cover of The Charmed Sphere shortly after its release and saved up my money to buy this $14 book (it was a lot to a young person back then). I was really sad when they didn’t get the same artist, Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, to do the cover of book five, but I was happy the series got a book five when others by LUNA had been cancelled.
A couple of years ago, I messaged the author over Facebook and requested the author sign some bookplates that I would send with an included SASE, and I was happy when she agreed. Now I have a wonderful series to reread with even more meaning than when my teenage self first found it!
This past weekend, I was able to experience a new convention, Penned Con!, thanks to the lovely author, Elise Kova, who shared some free tickets to the event, which is how I found out about it! Great big thanks to Elise! I’m so glad I could attend and hope to go back next year 🙂
As this was my first time going, I wrangled a friend into going with me and we drove a little over two hours to arrive for Friday’s afternoon session of signing. We were able to find parking pretty easy and check-in was super quick. We even had a few minutes to scour the swag tables before they reopened the doors to where the author tables were all set up.
Earlier this week, I tried to do as much recon and research as possible to find out how this works and who was planning to attend. The above picture shows all the books that were already on my shelves that I took with me to get signed by attending authors. Obviously, that included all my (not yet signed) Elise Kova books as well as a couple for Kel Carpenter, and I saw that Shannon Mayer was able to attend!
There were so many people in such an enclosed space that it was really hard for me to hear anything for most of my time exploring, so I didn’t do much talking. However, I did pick up my preorders and a few impulse buys (only a few due to budget reasons!) as well as lots of information to look up later.
My preorders are along the bottom, the two newest from Elise Kova and the first two from Audrey Grey’s new series. Across the top, you’ll see two of my impulse purchases, The Fire Prophecy by Megan Linski and Alicia Rades and Or Dreams and Dragons by Karpov Kinrade (which has been on my Amazon wishlist for awhile and I hadn’t realized this author would be here). Shannon Mayer was giving away copies of the second book in her Rylee Adamson series for free and is definitely a good reason to locate a copy of book one.
And the last one I picked up will actually be mailed to me because the author was hit by the Amazon Disaster (Amazon had a printing/printer issue and wasn’t able to deliver product to many of the authors in time for the convention). But I am excited to receive it in the mail soon!
After we were done flitting between the two stuffed ballrooms of people, my friend and I decided that we were all peopled out and would not come back for the free evening dance. However, we did have a couple other things we wanted to do while in St. Louis, so off we went!
After spending a bunch of money on books, we sold your old books to Half Price Books, where I found the third I’ve Been Killing Slimes light novel and four books in the Otherworld series (on clearance), which I decided meant that I should reread the books I have and continue the series. Because my TBR isn’t long enough 🙂
Then on Saturday, I was shopping with my mom at our local used bookstore, where I found a bunch of the InCryptid series by Seanan McGuire, which I haven’t started yet but I love her Toby series, and a book I had just added to my wishlist, Black Blade Blues.
What a wonderful book-filled weekend!
As promised, here are all the wonderful goodies I received in the mail during the first part of July! It’s a great mix of publisher sent arcs to review, arcs I traded for, preorders, and purchases. Expect to see reviews of many of these in the near future.
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