YALC Write-up - Sunday

So this is it. The last post I going to write about YALC which was now almost one whole week ago. It’s very weird to think that tomorrow morning I’m not going to have to wake up at the ungodly hour of 7am (Positively late compared to some of the times people got up at in order to catch their trains last week). I am really looking forward to having a lie-in for the first time in nearly a fortnight. Although I can’t sleep the day away as I am starting my volunteer work at my local Library for the Summer Reading Challenge. May talk about that a bit later in the summer.

Anyways! Sunday at YALC – as you will know from my Fringe& Blogger Brunch post yesterday Jess and I got in the convention centre early to attend the Brunch and as the first thing we planned to do was get our copies of Half Bad signed by Sally Green we had a good chunk of time to kill before we needed to join a queue (god I love queuing – it’s so British :P).

So we ambled around the merch tables while it was quiet to snag some more of the adorable vinyl figures & bobbleheads – I got a Black Widow bobblehead because she is a *BOSS* and I love her to bits, as well as a Hodor figure for le Boyf because… Hodor.

Eventually we felt it was time to head back to the Book Zone to get a good spot in line for Sally Green so that we wouldn’t end up being too late to the I’m too Sexy for this Book Panel not long afterwards. Due to a very lucky coincidence Jess and I had our awesome Queue Buddy Charlotte join us for more chats while we waited, along with a fly-by visit from Lucy in her OITNB cosplay.

Once the signing started the queue moved pretty quickly and before you knew it I was stood in front of Sally, my brain suddenly devoid of all memory of what the hell happened in Half Bad and she asked me what I thought was going to happen in Half Wild. *blushes* This is the curse of my insane reading speed – I remember some books really well and others despite loving them drop out of my head as fast as I finish them. 

Afterwards we dashed over to the panel area to grab seats for possibly the most entertaining panel of the entire weekend. I’m sure most people have already heard about the most infamous comments from the panellists so I won’t reiterate them all here. I particularly liked Cat Clarke telling us how if she could go on a date with any fictional character she’d want to go on a date with Queen Cersei since she had just peed next to Lena Headey in the green room toilets. I think most of the authors at YALC were rather excited at sharing the green room with the various actors and actresses at LFCC.

Following hot on the heels of the panel was the Cat Clarke signing so we motored over to *another* queue to wait for her to arrive. Enter Queue Buddy Charlotte again to keep us company. I had brought my copy of a Kiss in the Dark for Cat to sign, which I finished recently and really enjoyed. Out of Cat’s four books the only one I've still not read is Torn so will have to sort that out soon. I have dug through my old posts to find my review of Entangled which I loved back in 2010, of her third book I told Cat “Undone undid me.” I think I will have to do a review of Kiss the Dark real soon…

We were meant to attend the Sisters Doing it for Themselves panel but as we hadn't actually had a proper meal on Saturday we decided to go and buy some food and sit down for a while instead. There followed nomming of delicious paninis and slouching on sofas up in the seating area upstairs. It was nice to just space out for a little bit after so many hours of intense alertness on bookish things. 

Rested and fed we toddled back downstairs with the intent of joining the queue for Sarra Manning's signing and found it remarkably shorter than expected for an author who has been around for so long. But this was more to our benefit as it meant we didn't have to wait long. During this time I had a bit of surprise when Stevie from SableCaught wandered over for a chat in an awesome wig that looked like it came from unicorns. I had waved a rather manic hello at Stevie the previous morning since I chickened out of actually trying to speak to her when I saw her at the Divergent premiere in March, so it was very lovely to speak to her. 

Sarra Manning was fab and when she snuck two books over to Jess from under the table I think my bestie was speechless for a moment or two. She has loved Sarra's books since she was 13 so I think that was one of the things that made her day. I am comparatively a Manning Newb having only read Adorkable - which I loved - so I really enjoyed seeing Jess have that moment with one of her favourite authors.

Once we had seen Sarra we wandered round to the next row of signing tables to catch Tanya Byrne to sign our copies of Heart-Shaped Bruise (mine being newly purchased that day and Jess's her awesome-looking proof copy). I have since read this book and I gotta say - wow - and hopefully will be compiling some more helpful thoughts into a review soon. 

I am fairly sure that I got my copy of the Killing Woods signed by Lucy Christopher after that but I didn't get anymore photos after this point so I'm not exactly sure. But I am very intrigued by the sound of her third book which promises to be as unexpected and intriguing as her debut novel Stolen which was a compelling and rather unsettling read. 

The day was beginning to wind down and the fatigue was starting to catch up to us but we'd heard from a little birdy in the form of Michelle from Fluttering Butterflies that all the books that had been hanging by ribbons on the book wall were going to be given away around 5 o'clock along with lots of other books, so we decided to loiter around until then. 

In the meantime Jess had the rather nifty idea of getting a copy of Matt Haig's Echo Boy for our friend Ellie of Book Addicted Blonde since we had planned to bring her copy of The Humans and Fangirl to get signed over the weekend but due to poor execution of said plan, hadn't managed it. But as you may have noticed by Ellie's tweets earlier this week after I went and gave her the book she rather liked this present :P

Right at the end of the day there was a lull in the book zone where nothing much was happening, I was sat on the floor trying to coax and curse my phone into actually updating twitter in spite of its inability to do so all weekend while Jess was over by the swag table chatting to some bloggy folk. All of a sudden there was a flurry of movement and a queue started forming! The Great Book Giveaway of YALC had begun! By the time Jess beckoned me over I had missed the jump and got ushered back down the line like a naughty queue-cutting gremlin. 

I was not lacking in people to chat to though and I got to have a fangirly discussion about my most favouritest (bugger you Blogger I'm using that word) author Tamora Pierce with Stevie who is quite possibly the only other person I know of who has read her books in this country. 

When the giveaway got started I was hoping to grab the copy of the Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski that I'd seen hanging from a ribbon - but alas it was long gone when I got there so instead I snagged a copy of the Falconer by Elizabeth May which sounds equally as awesome and since I bought a copy of The Winner's Curse from Waterstones today it all works out perfectly :P

After claiming our books Jess and I decided that we were done and decided to head off to grab some dinner before reclaiming our luggage and going to catch our train home. We had delicious burgers at a place called Byron on Earls Court Road and then got a cab from our hotel to Euston Station. Every time I am in a cab in London I do get awfully worried by the people driving around the city because I am always afeared that none of them actually have a license or know what driving is supposed to look like because dang if none of them have heard of lane discipline *chews hands*.

But we made it to the station alive and in time to buy some drinks before dragging ourselves practically a mile down the platform to get to our carriage (stupid A carriage being right at the front of the train). It was only a short wait until the train left and we were on our way back to Coventry. I tried to cram as much of Heir of Fire into my head while I still could since I had to leave the Kindle with Jess, finished or not. 

The return journey was kind of melancholy in the sense that we didn't want it to be over so fast. It had been such a whirlwind of fantastic conversations and meeting new people and authors and had felt so welcoming and warm that I know I'd give anything to go back there every weekend (although preferably in a better air-conditioned space with less of the non-YALC goers) and spend hours interacting with people who share my passion for books, reading and writing. 

But alas, the real world called... but at least we can escape into all the new worlds brought home from YALC when we need to get away. I know I will be spending many happy hours getting to know new characters and living their lives alongside them during this summer.

So that is it! Everything I have been able to dredge from my exhausted brain about last weekend. Anything I have neglected to mention is me being a derp and I apologise. Hopefully there will be other non-mahoosive posts coming soon as I attempt to write some GOD-DAMN REVIEWS! And when I have finished work for the summer I am also gonna do my damnedest to start writing again because I still owe Jess scenes! (nag me on Twitter people seriously)

Saturday Write-up is Here

Fringe & Blogger Brunch Write-up is Here

Jess's YALC posts for Saturday and Sunday

Now I shall be off to bed to sneak a bit of reading in before some much-needed sleep and tomorrow a lie-in! *huzzah*

Looking forward to YALC 2015 already guys.

Ray x

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YALC Write-up - Fringe Event & Blogger Brunch!

Howdy folks, today I'm gonna be doing a somewhat *cough* shorter write-up of the events I went to in-between the two days at YALC. One was the Fringe Blogger & Author event organised by Sophia Bennett (Author of You Don't Know Me & The Look) which brought together over 50 UK YA authors and book bloggers and the other was the Blogger Brunch held on Sunday morning at Earls Court where a group of bloggers got to listen to four fabulous authors talk a bit about their books before they broke out the caffeine and croissants for general chat and mingling.

After the general mayhem of Day One at YALC Jess and I were damn near exhausted but after a quick freshen up and changeroo of totes we were ready to stagger back out of the hotel and down Earls Court Road to the nearby O'Neills pub. In the upstairs room there were already quite a few authors and several bloggers milling about mostly with cold drinks in hand because holy hell it was like a sauna up there!

I furnished myself with a deliciously cold Kopperberg (that doesn't look right but meh) from the bar and got some chips ordered because dang I was wobbly from lack of actual food all day - turns out cereal bars and cashews can only sustain you for so long before you feel really faint. It also turns out that if you guzzle down said cider then you are going to get tipsy almost instantaneously and have to take extreme care for the rest of the evening when speaking to people so they don't know how awfully wobbly and incoherent you are :S

I got to chat to several fab blogger peeps including Jenny from Wondrous Reads whose blog I've followed for possibly almost as as long as I've had my blog so like 4 odd years! Also chatted to another Jenny who was representing A Life Bound by Books - I had crossed paths with her so many times over the course of Saturday afternoon that it was starting to seem like we were following each other.

I also met Jim from YA Yeah Yeah, Carly from Writing from the Tub, Debbie from Snuggling on the Sofa, Faye from A Daydreamer's Thoughts and most likely a few others that I'm forgetting. *begging a thousand pardons*. I also was able to chat with Lindsay who has been great to talk about writing things on twitter these past few months since I've been having a damn good stab at writing a book -Lindsay is currently drafting on her second book in a YA Speculative series and editing the first and I gotta say that I shall be vair eager to read it when it gets published as it sounds tres intrigue :D

Once everyone had got settled Sophia thanked everyone for coming and encouraged us to buy raffle tickets (all the proceeds were going to the Siobhan Dowd Trust) for a chance to win one of seventeen awesome stacks of books. Then the photographic expertise of Jo Cotterill was called upon to get shots of all the bloggers and authors who came. Here be the Blogger pic - Can you spot me and Jess?

In the time before the raffle was drawn I scarfed down my chips to try and stabilise my super-wobbliness. Jim then got called upon to be the glamorous raffle assistant to help draw the winners; I actually got my ticket drawn so I got to pick from the amazing selection of book prizes.

I plumped for a stack containing books by Sophia Bennett herself, Kendra Leighton and Susie Day which all sound excellent and since all three ladies were at the Fringe event I was able to get them signed! Although pretty sure I looked rather like a plonker shyly sidling up them to ask for a signature. But had wonderful conversations with them all despite my inability by this point to string proper sentences together - I am very much looking forward to reading these three books. Thank you so much!

It was not much later after this Jess and I decided it was finally time for us to crash back to our hotel to sleep because we needed to be up in the morning to go to the Blogger Brunch! That being said I did read more of Heir of Fire (off Jess's Kindle, which she kindly lent to me for the weekend but then CRUELLY TOOK IT BACK ON SUNDAY NIGHT *sobs*) before I finally passed out for the night.

Next morning was just as early a get-up as Saturday and didn't bode too well to begin with because Mother nature is a bitch. But a hot shower and a pilfered cup of tea later and I was feeling a bit more alert and indulged in some more of Heir of Fire before Jess and I had to head out for the Blogger's Brunch. I did have the slight hiccup in that I had rather idiotically left my shoes out on the balcony overnight and of course - it rained. Cue 10 minutes of frantic hairdryering of my shoes to get them to a state of wearableness that wouldn't leave me with trenchfoot.

When we got to Earls Court we found that the queues were much more subdued and with the previous night's rain everywhere was considerably cooler *thank the gods* so Jess and I were able to just saunter round the building to Gate M where a YALC rep was waiting with a clipboard to let us breeze into the Con with no effort at all. Which was rather thrilling since it was only about 9:40 and we only had standard entry tickets :P

The Blogger Brunch had been organised by the lovely folks at Indigo (Uber thanks to Nina for letting me come along!) and we had the extreme pleasure of being able to meet James Dawson - Queen of Teen himself, Non Pratt, Matt Haig and Holly Black and hear them speak about their upcoming books, before we reverted to a more informal structure and everyone grabbed tea, coffee and pastries and mingled.

James Dawson was looking fabulously regal in his crown and was telling us about his new non-fiction book - This Book is Gay - which as you will quickly infer is about LGBT topics and issues. We all got an early copy of the book in our goodie bags and it looks to be a very interesting and informative read. James was passionate in talking about wanting this book to get into the hands of teens who may have questions about their sexuality especially as it's the kind of book he wishes he could have read when he was a teen. It's available from September 4th!

I did take with me my copies of Say Her Name, Trouble and The Coldest Girl in Cold town and the authors were all very lovely in signing them - James even drew little crowns when signing his books!

Overall they were both great events and I felt really lucky that I was able to go as they were quite small gatherings. I always tend to question my worthiness as a book blogger at these type of things since I've not actually done a proper book review for a couple of years. But everyone I spoke to was so nice and welcoming and I am really excited to get through all of their books during this summer.

Anyways it is getting late and I want to start a new book tonight.

My Saturday Write-up is here, Jess's Saturday & Sunday write-ups have now been posted so check them out! Stay tuned for my Sunday post.

Night folks!
Ray x

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YALC Write-up - Saturday

As a few of you might know I went to YALC last weekend with Jess and in short it was awesome. Like, seriously FUCKING AWESOME. Never has a weekend been so utterly devoted to books and the people who both create and read them and this was such an amazing thing to be able to attend. The whole weekend has already taken on a surreal quality in my mind and it's so strange to think that something that was 3 months in the planning (for Jess & me) was done and dusted in 48 hours.

We begin our epic tale on Friday when Jess & I got the train down to London in an attempt to avoid an horrendously early start on Saturday. Lugging our trolley full of books down several flights of stairs at Euston station was an exercise in strength and fortitude we could have done without, however when we finally arrived at our hotel we discovered it was all of a 400 metre walk from the gates of Earls Court, which was pretty handy.

At this point we felt rather tired; or what we previously knew as tired - our definitions got slightly skewed a day later - so we opted to spend our Friday evening chillaxing on my room's balcony with strawberries and sparkling rose like classy gals, enjoying the view of all the cosplayers leaving the LFCC preview evening and schlepping their way down the street. Then came the obligatory early night before the Morning of Mayhem that was destined to be DAY ONE AT YALC!

Saturday was fucking hot. I mean seriously hot. Like hotter than hell's muggy balls - hot. Ask anyone in Earls Court what they thought of the Con on Saturday and "hot as fuck" would have been their first answer. We got pre-baked outside in the immense queues for standard entry that snaked around a good length of the conference centre with only oohing and aahing over cosplayers to entertain us. When we finally made it inside after narrowly avoiding sunburn and getting into a minor argy-bargy with some snotty queue-cutters *ptuey*, we had to batter our way across the merch zone with our trolley in tow in order to get to the Book Zone. Obviously this was in the furthest corner away from the main doors so it took us a good 10 minutes or so to break free of the crush.

By the time we made it to the Book Zone information point we found that all of the Superfans Panel tickets had gone and that the places for C.J. Skuse's writing workshop had already been drawn - much to our dismay. So to commiserate we flung ourselves at the lovely Waterstones staff and swapped them handfuls of money for armfuls of books - so it worked out quite wonderfully. Then we plonked ourselves down in the awesome beanbags next to the even awesomer Book Wall in order to kill a bit of time before the signings started.

At this point we started chatting to Lily from The Whispering of the Pages  and had the first of several fab booky conversations with her over the weekend (I'm still rather jealous that Lily had C.J. Skuse as a lecturer at Uni). Then we made the slightly deranged decision to venture out of the relative quiet of the Book Zone and plunge back in to the smorgasbord of people in the LFCC merch area. Lots of shuffling, one Batman bobblehead and a growing sense of panic later we retreated to safety and joined an already impressive queue for Rainbow Rowell.

Jess, Charlotte & Lucy Queue Buddies !

This became the queue of legends; that defied all queuing logic and decorum, snaking hither and thither with the end of the line being an elusive pot of gold that no one could seem to find. We landed a spot about one and a half snakes from the start and were standing with a fabulous few ladies who became the Ultimate Queue Buddies as we chatted for the hour and god knows how much extra we waited for the signing to start. Charlotte & Lucy thanks for making the time pass so enjoyably!

During this time there were two awesome occurrences. Firstly I was able to dash over to C.J. Skuse's signing table and get my copy of Dead Romantic signed. There followed a lot of gushy fangirling about how much I loved Rockaholic and Pretty Bad Things and how much they helped me deal with some of the crazy shit I was dealing with back in 2011. Plus my glee about the fact my review of Pretty Bad Things is actually *quoted* in the back of Dead Romantic! C.J. was so lovely and wrote me such a nice message in my book and she even posed for a pic!

The second awesome occurrence during the Rainbow queue was due to the random happenstance of the Celebrity Wrangling Area (or the Green Room in common parlance) being tucked behind the Book Zone. We all got a rather gob-smacking surprise when Lena Headey (Queen Boss Cersei herself) came breezing through the queue right behind Jess! Needless to say there was quite a good deal of flailing amongst the Queue Buddies after that! Eventually Rainbow did appear and we slowly shuffled our way alond to get our books signed. I can't now remember what I said to Rainbow but I'm sure it was fangirly :P

Sashaying sideways from Rainbow's table I stopped at Lucy Saxon's and got her to sign my copy of Take Back the Skies. She was looking amazing in her Captain America Cosplay and I loved seeing the suitcase full of books that she brought to get signed - it's great to know that authors get just as fangirly as the rest of us :P

After all that we needed a bit of a break so Jess went to acquire more drinks while I stood pressed against a wall keeping me and the trolley out of the way of passer-bys. Then Jess dashed to her Blogger Workshop while I nabbed a seat at the Bring me My Dragon Fantasy panel. Alas I don't recall much of it as I was spacing out massively with the heat, dehydration and hunger plus I had to dash off partway through so I could sort myself out before I got in line for the Patrick Ness signing .

Another pleasant queue chatting experience whilst waiting for Patrick - and as we wound our way round the Book zone in the queue I managed to dive over to Amy McCulloch's table and get my copies of The Oathbreaker's Shadow and the Shadow's Curse signed. Amy was really nice and I'm really looking forward to reading and hopefully reviewing this duology in the next couple of months. (Pray to the reviewing gods for me so they send me some mojo).

While Patrick Ness was signing my copy of A Monster Calls, which I read very recently, I told how it made me cry while I was at work - he replied with "You're Welcome." Proof of what I had already suspected; that authors revel in the tears of their readers. :P Something I'm sure Jess would be quick to accuse me of as well *looks innocent*

We were onto the home straight now and at some point around this time (everything got real fuzzy towards the end of the day) I stumbled across Laure Eve on the Books With Bite stand and asked if she would sign my copy of The Illusionists. I didn't manage to read Fearsome Dreamer before I bought the second book but I've got faith that I'm going to really like this series so no worries.

The last two authors we met were Holly Bourne (who Jess was super-excited for since she got to exclusively reveal Holly's new book and she is quoted in the back of it :D) and Natasha Ngan. I got a pic of Holly as she was signing our copies of The Manifesto on How to Be Interesting
in her perfectly colour-matched dress. She told us how hard it had been to find a dress in the same colour as the vibrant page edges of the book but she succeeded magnificently!

Natasha was wonderfully chatty and really nice and I'm going to have to look into getting her first book The Elites after I've read the Memory Keepers as I mentioned to her how glorious I thought the cover was. I don't know how coherent I was by this point so I may just have drivelled at her most of the time we were talking.

So we had reached the end of everything we wanted to get done on Saturday and we had to get ourselves freshened up for the Fringe Blogger & Author Event at a nearby pub. So very wearily we trundled our way back across the now-slightly less crowded Earls Court (Managing to get this pic of the most awesome Castiel cosplay I saw all weekend on the way), so we could drop off most of our stuff at the hotel.

For me Saturday was generally a successful day, I did gripe and bitch about the heat, my crappy knees and the need for proper queuing lanes, but I really enjoyed myself and all the conversations I had with authors and bloggers especially since I've not felt like a proper book blogger for a few years as the last actual book review I did was in 2012. It was a really great opportunity to reconnect with the community and I do now have some of that blogging fervour back that I lost along with my confidence in reviewing. Maybe over the next few months when I'm not working full-time and in a strange limbo space of studying and whatever else I fill my time with I can start to ease myself back into writing reviews and articulating my thoughts and feelings about books like I once did.

Now if you have gotten this far you are to be commended as it's been a post of epic proportions and I'm only a third of the way through. There is still to come my write-up on The Fringe & Blogger Brunch events and Sunday at YALC itself. So stay tuned for those later this week.

Alas it is late and I must sleep because work tomorrow and grumpy Ray is not all that good at her job.

ALSO GO CHECK OUT JESS'S SATURDAY WRITE-UP!!

Hope you like this post folks!
Ray x

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My First (two!) Awards!!

Wow I'm on a roll today! Two posts within an hour of each other is extraordinary! But it needed to be done since I just found out that I got awarded a *second* award by Sasha @The Sweet Bonjour (which is a fabulous name for a blog I have to say). So anyway on with the awards!!

The first award that I received was the Bliss (Happy 101) award which was passed on to me by Serpentine Librarian @The Serpentine Library

It definitely was a surprise when I got this since I've only been blogging for a very short while and I'm terribly inconsistent and don't do a good job at posting reviews. But I was very happy to receive it so thank you very much!

I now have to list ten things which make me happy:
1. My sister - clumsy crazy gal that she is
2. My boyfriend - for being so wonderful and understanding the importance of matching book covers!!
3. Books - yes they come third, I'm generally rather antisocial so books are my main refuge.
4. My best friends - especially my Twin of Oddness Jess, love ya girl!
5. Sleep - I know it sounds daft but I *love* sleep and just wish I didn't need so much cos then I'd have more reading time!
6. Chocolate - that's pretty self-explanatory really
7. Penguins - I'm addicted to these awesome creatures. Currently there are 10 penguin related items in my room, one of which is my coin purse- George :D
8. Being warm - I get cold fairly frequently so anywhere that's toasty warm is fantastic
9. Writing letters- frankly everyone should write letters more often cos it's such a fun way to talk to people and there's loads of funky paper you can get. I actually have purple ink and a quill!
10. Being totally nerdy - I am a nerd to the core and damn proud of it. I love getting the giggles when I randomly think of something that only a true dork would find funny. It's even more fun being odd with a fellow nerd :P

Now to pass it on to some more awesome people:
Sasha @The Sweet Bonjour
Sarah @Sarah's Random Musings
Briana @The Book Pixie
Erica @The Book Cellar

My second award was the Kreativ Blogger award from the aforementioned Sasha. Thanks!

I love the premise for this award- Tell us 7 interesting things about yourself and then past it on to seven other creative bloggers (I'll probably only do 3 I'm afraid since my blog roll is not quite as large as other people's may be)

#1. I'm weirdly ambidextrous - I am left-handed for writing but I play sports right-handedly
#2. One of my front teeth isn't real - I broke it with a cricket ball when I was 8
#3. I'm appallingly bad at time management - I find it nearly impossible to keep to a schedule
#4. I'm currently studying for a degree in French & Spanish - me gustan las idiomas :D
#5. I'm a pretty poor cook - before I started at university I could just about manage to heat stuff up, I'm not much better now though
#6. I'm also working on a story at the moment but I shan't be saying any more on than for a *long* while
#7. I have a rubber ball from inside a computer mouse in a film canister which is a weird kinda stress toy.

Ok enough randomosity about me!
Other Kreativ Bloggers:
Sophie @So Many Books, So Little Time (yay for Brit Bloggers!)
Carla @The Crooked Shelf
Jenny @Wondrous Reads

Well that's all for now folks! But before you go heres a fun little pic of George and me :D

Isn't he the cutest little thing you ever saw? Gotta love the French (I bought him while I was over there on a French Exchange)

Laters!
LadyV

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