Cassandra Clare Event

As many of you know I went for a trip to the US at the beginning of the month. While I was there I got to catch up with a multitude of authors, bloggers, publishers and a podcaster. But on the 4th of August I had the pleasure of attending my very first YA book event and signing at the Union Square Barnes and Noble with Mitali from Alley of Books.

Cassandra Clare was the focus of this mammoth event and she had some news to share that you should be all aware of at this stage. The Mortal Instrument series will be extended to six titles in entirety to be released over the next three years. That's more Clary, Jace and Simon for us all. At this event we also had the honour of hearing Maureen Johnson and Holly Black speak as co-hosts of the event. As expected they were hilarious, quirky and vastly entertaining (see video). Clare also introduced us to the artist behind the graphic novels that will be released, Nicole Virella.



Mitali and I met for the first time that day and she took me on a tour of NYC's fantastic bookstores. We had planned on finding spots for the event at 5pm (two hours before the event began) but noticed a lot of movement considerably earlier and thus found ourselves sitting in the third row at 3pm. Mitali had an ARC of Clockwork Angel in her hot little hand and got some rabid attention from nearby fans. Great conversations were to be had about why on earth Sebastian was on the cover of City of Glass, thoughts about the sneak chapter and other titles that we had been reading.

Then a girl walked in with this t-shirt and I had to ask for a photo - can we say awesome?The next three titles of the Mortal Instruments series were revealed to be - City of Fallen Angels (2011), City of Lost Souls (2012) and City of Heavenly Fire (2013). The first title wasn't a surprise as it had been publicly announced but the second two drew excitement from the crowd.

It was a fantastic experience and I would really like to thank the lovely girls that were sitting around us they made the wait fly by. A big thank you to Mitali for being the effervescent person that she is and making it both a fantastically fun day and and memorable experience. Also a big thank you to Cassandra and all the other authors (Maureen, Holly, Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfeld) who made themselves available to the many fervent readers that attended. It was exciting and overwhelming to be part of such an event.