Tuesday, October 18, 2016

BOOKSPLOSION WEEKEND: The Besties Book Tour (Lorie Langdon, Carey Corp, and Melissa Landers), and The Beauty Of Darkness Book Release Tour (Mary E. Pearson)


**I know I should have posted this sooner, but Blogger wouldn't let me post it! I don't know why, but how rude?! But now it's up for you too see. I hope you enjoy!**

Over the past weekend I was on the road to meet some of my favorite authors! The first stop was the Besties Book Tour to see Carey Corp, Lorie Langdon, and Melissa Landers. And after seeing them I went an saw Mary E. Pearson on The Beauty of Darkness Tour. I loved every minute of these tours, it was so fun to see some authors for the first time and fro the first time! So, here is my thoughts and experiences from each event.

August 6th -- The Book Besties Tour


What would I be doing on a Saturday? Hitting up a bookstore to go to an amazing book event, of course! At around 10 in the morning, I jumped into my little red Grand AM with a hand full of books and made the 119 mile trek to Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati, Ohio. I've seen all the authors before who attended this event at other book events in the past, but being the big fangirl I am, I just had to see them again. It was the final book tour for each author's first book series, and it was the end of two amazing book series that I hold dear to my heart. The first book series that has officially come to an end was the Alienated series by Melissa Landers, it's a action-packed YA adventure sci-fi. At this event Melissa was launching her final installment United, which was one of my most anticipated releases for this year. The other half of this book event was for the final installment of the Doon saga, co-authored by Carey Corp and Lorie Langdon, a saga about hot Scots in kilts, magic, and a every swoon worthy friendship. Each author was launching their final installment Forever Doon, which was another highly anticipated release for me too. These three authors have taken this scary and exciting journey together, so it only seemed right that when both their final book came out on the same day, they'd do a book tour together. Each author help the other out, and it had to be the sweetest event I have ever been to. Each author also met a a writing event help in Cincinnati and have all been great friends ever since. Some tears were shed, a lot of laughs were shared and tons of questions were answered. 

For Melissa Alienated was the first book/story she ever written, she wrote it during NaNoWriMo, a National Novel Writing Month that challenges writers to write 50,000 word (the minimum number of words in a novel) in the month of November. She got the idea for the trilogy while driving late at night, and she has ran with it ever since. She stressed that it wasn't easy to get this baby published. She had to go through multiple re-writes, revisions, and editing, before Alienated became the story we see today. She found the transition from writing adult fiction and romance to YA to have it's challenges, but it was pretty unique of a transition. She also shared that she needs deadline to motivate herself to get things done, and with her competitive spirit, she really doesn't have a problem with reaching them. She also shared with us that she used to be a teacher before becoming an author, she loved teaching, but likes writing a lot better. And finally, she shared with us that the message she wants readers to take from this book series is the love will always prevail. 

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For Carey and Lorie, their situation was very different from Melissa's. They each have some past writing experience on their own, but this was the first time they ever co-wrote a book series. Which has to be one of the best Scottish book series I've ever read, I haven't read Outlander yet. Sorry! But this series is right up it's ally though. It has hot guys in kilts, epic battles, dark magic, and steamy romances, so pretty close if I can compare it to the TV show. But Carey and Lorie both met at the same authors convention Melissa went too, and hit it off. They became really close and after sharing their ideas for potential books they both realized they could write an epic book series together. And so that's what they did. The first Doon book took a shorter time to write the Melissa's, but it took about seven rewrites until both Carey and Lorie go it right. And they got Doon published back in 2013, they relied on each other through their writing process obviously, but when they would both get stuck they would reach out to Melissa for help. Such a true author friendship. But they both enjoyed writing together, and even though this is an ending for both of them, it is also a beginning for they're careers apart and I can't wait to see where both of them will go.

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And so two epic book series have come to a end, and I'm so glad I was there each step of the way. Each author holds a special place in my heart, and I'm so excited to see were the future take each of them. Melissa is working on her Starflight companion novels, as well as a new fantasy series; which is so outside of her sci-fi genre, I can't wait to see where she'll take that one. Loire is writing a  more contemporary/thriller/murder mystery, Gilt Hollow, which should hit shelves and mailboxes this fall. And Carey is working on completing the series she put on hold to write the Doon novels, and I'm so very excited to see her finish that one.  This is just the beginning for these authors, and I hope to see more of their books on store shelves very soon!


August 8th -- The Beauty of Darkness Release Tour



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 And then I got a small break on Sunday, but the next day I packed up again to hit the road to head to Lexington, KY. It was another long drive, but 4 hours later I found myself at the most beautiful bookstore I've ever visited in my entire life, the Joseph-Beth Bookstore; which was their mother store. I was huge! With two stories, balcony, plenty of cool reading nooks, and a restaurant, I could have moved there. And everyone who worked there was so nice and helpful, it's truly a wonderful place to get new reads. Once I got down there I decided to take a look around and found that the event was going to be held on the balcony that over looked the entire store, which was awesome! A book event with a view, I was getting spoiled. After a little exploration, I got hungry, so I took a stop at the restaurant for a quick bite to eat before the event. As I was sitting and reading, I peeked over the top of my book and saw Mary. And my fist thought was, "OMG! It's her!" One of my favorite fantasy authors ever was just across the store. I was fangirling. Hard core. So giddy me, paid my bill pack up my sack of books, and ran/walked to the sitting area for the event. Before the event started, I met so many lovely book people, whether they were other authors, bloggers, bookstagramers, ect. I met so many lovely people. And then Mary came out and slayed the event.

I learned that The Remnant Chronicles wasn't Mary's first book series she has published, she previously published series {{{}}}; which is also getting a movie deal, and should be coming out next year. Mary's favorite place to write is in her backyard, where she wrote this series and most of her other ones. I took her quite some time to write the first Remnant Chronicles book, The Kiss of Deception. But once she signed with [[[]]], the time crunch was on. But as we all may know she took a two year period between the 2nd and last installments. She said she wanted to have the appropriate ending to this series that it deserved, so she wanted to have plenty of time to finish it. I also learned that she loved to listen to music when writing certain scenes throughout the entire series. She has each playlist for each book posted on my Spotify account and website, so if you're interested, go check them out! Next she opened the floor for questions and I asked her a question that no one has asked her before. I asked what her favorite place in  The Remnant Chronicles, she would want to visit and why? Her answer was both the sea village of Terravin and Venda. She based Terravin off of a real place, cute little island off the coast of Venice, Italy. Where they actually paint the homes in bright pastel colors, just like in  The Remnant Chronicles. She said she would love to retire there someday too. And she would love to visit Venda, just to she how Vendans rebuilt from previously torn down and existing structures. And I agree, I would love to see that too.

 After questions were answered it was book signing time, and I hopped right in because heck I drove four hours to see her. And here we are...


I loved meeting her, because she lives in California, I probably won't be able to see her again. But you never know what the future holds. After the signing there were fun games to play, and prizes that involved ARC's. And I met so many lovely people, and had the most fun I ever had a book signing event. I can't wait to see were MAry's furture will take her, becuase I'll be there every step of the way. I also can't wait to visit the Lexington Josph-Beth store again soon! Who knows, maybe one day I'll be holding my own signing event there some day?




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