Fire & Flood Launch

 

Last Saturday was the official launch party for my good friend Victoria Scott's third novel Fire & Flood, the first novel of the Fire & Flood series from Scholastic (the party was hosted by the Half Price Books flagship here in Dallas, and I swear, that store is like my second home). If you've been living under a rock and don't know what Fire & Flood is, you can check out my Waiting on Wednesday post for it here or read either of these two excerpts or even my 4-star review for it. It was a great party full of some of my favorite bookish people like Tori (because duh), authors Julie Murphy, Jeramey Kraatz, Heather L. Reid, and Lindsay Cummings and bloggers Karen of Teen Librarian Toolbox, Marissa & Jasmine of Beneath the Moon & Stars, Bex of Bex Book Reviews and Two & a Half Fangirls (she's one of my Pandoras!), and Kari of A Good Addiction. There were also cupcakes and plenty of swag!

 me with Tori! <3

 me with Bex!

Tori with the AH-MAZING F&F display.

The feather was made out of book pages and 

looked ridiculously cool!

 

 Julie selfie-ing with the display.

WERK IT, LADY!

 Anyway, Fire & Flood is available via all major book retailers so you can certainly buy your own copy (it's only $2.99 via Kindle, Nook, and Kobo) or you can enter my giveaway for a signed copy. After the release of Fire & Flood, Tori shared news of book two of the series, which is entitled Salt & Stone and will continue Tella's, Guy's, and their friends' stories. You can add it to your Goodreads shelf here. From the description she shared with the V Mafia, her street team, I can tell Tori has upped the stakes, and I'm super excited for this next installment, which is due in 2015 from Scholastic. I'm not sure if we're allowed to share what exactly was in her note so I'll just say it sounds amazing until I'm given the okay, but you can be sure I'll have plenty of exclusive news to share as we approach Salt & Stone's release!

Giveaway:

 Because I'm me, I bought a copy of Fire & Flood and had Tori sign it for one of you, plus I picked up some awesome swag. I will be picking three winners. First place will receive the signed hardcover and some swag; second & third place will both receive signed Fire & Flood posters, postcards, bookmarks, and any other miscellaneous F&F swag I discover in my swag drawer. First place is open to the US & Canada; second and third place will be US only because shipping on tubes is so much more expensive on books, which makes ZERO SENSE to me, but whatever. Giveaway ends 12 AM CST March 18. All giveaway policies (can be found in the Site Policies tab!) will be enforced, and any entries not in accordance with the stated policies will be disqualified; ignorance is not an excuse. I will notify the winners via email so make sure you know which email you're using with Rafflecopter. Best of luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Beneath the Surface Panel + Giveaway

 THIS GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED

cLICK HERE FOR OPEN GIVEAWAYS

I realized a few months ago that, while I really love borrowing books, movies, tv shows, and music from the Dallas Public Library because of their humongous collection, the Irving Public Library is The Place to Be when it comes to author events in the area. Kristin from Cool Librarian Glasses and her compatriots have this thing locked down. You'll see what I mean.

A little background: there was the Beneath the Surface panel Thursday with Rae Carson, Aimée Carter, Tessa Gratton, Tahereh Mafi, Ransom Riggs, and Nova Ren Suma . Friday night was the Yeah YA panel featuring a whole host of Harlequin Teen authors such as Aimée, Julie Kagawa, Katie McGarry, Gena Showalter, and Rachel Vincent. So I get to the BTS event and was chatting up my fellow blogger friends Alex from Peace, Love and Fangirl, Marissa & Jasmine of Beneath the Moon and Stars, and Kari from A Good Addiction. We're talking about books that destroyed us, and I say, "Oh, what was the one I just read? *flip through Goodreads Read shelf* Oh, yeah, it was The Eternity Cure by Julie Kagawa! Man, that really gutted me!" About two minutes later, Kari says, "Oh, my gosh, that's Julie Kagawa." My head jerks up and my eyes widen. Yeah. Julie Kagawa and Katie McGarry were attempting to crash the Beneath the Surface panel under the radar. *snort* Like under the radar was even remotely an option for them.

Lucky me, I end up sitting next to Julie! Before and after, I had the supreme pleasure of talking to her about her books, publishing, and just whatever. Katie McGarry likewise was super nice and easy to talk to. Our little blogger group kind of circled up with them and talked while most attendees were queued up to talk to the authors who were actually doing the panel. I even told Julie about our conversation before she came in. She replied with this amazing, horrifying sentence: "Well, I hope you cry more reading The Forever Song than you did reading The Eternity Cure." WHAT?! Julie Kagawa, WHY WOULD YOU EVEN SAY THAT!!! *iz ded*

So that was the wonderful surprise of the evening. The actual panel was pretty fantastic, but that's not surprising because of Kristin and the rest of the IPL staff. Pictures & transcript under the cut!