Thursday at BEA - Fierce Reads Blogger Event

BEA was in Chicago this year, which is a pretty easy drive for me from Columbus, Ohio.  I arrived around noon on Thursday with the hopes of meeting Ransom Riggs, David Levithan, and Stacey Kade.

I missed Ransom by an hour or so, but I was thrilled to meet David Levithan.  I tried to get his autograph at BEA 2014 when I was in New York, but it didn't work out.  It felt like I ran into him everywhere this time around and was surprised by how personable and accessible he was.  Even when he wasn't at a signing or a show event, he was hanging out in the booth .  I even saw him passing out copies of Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven King during her signing.

Then I was off to see Stacey Kade, who I have been Facebook and Twitter "friends" with since meeting her at RT back in 2012.  I loved her Ghost and the Goth and Project Paper Doll series, which are both YA.  738 Days is her first NA novel, which is scheduled to be released June 7th.  I will try my best to have my review up prior to the release.

That evening Mary and I attended the Fierce Reads blogger event at the Berghoff, which was definitely one of the highlight of our trip.  THANK YOU Fierce Reads for the invitation!!

Below is a picture Fierce Reads shared on their twitter page thanking the bloggers.  Mary and part of me made the photo, so I had to share it :)

This is about as crazy as it gets at a book event, so I will caption this one Authors Gone Wild.

From left to right are Kami Garcia, Marissa Meyer, Caleb Roehrig, and Leigh Bardugo.

Here I am with Marissa Meyer, the author of the Lunar Chronicles series.  I've read the first two books in the series (Cinder and Scarlet) and LOVE this series.  It amazes me how creative and imaginative she is.

I haven't read any of Leigh's books, but her The Grisha and Six of Crows series are both on my TBR list.  I think I'm going to start Six of Crows first since Flo gave it a 5 star review.

Caleb was definitely the life of the party.  The Book Nerds will be reading his debut novel, Last Seen Leaving, as our June read along.  The release date isn't until October, but we can't wait that long.  If you have the chance to meet him, keep an eye out for the little purple hat he is wearing.

Kami Garcia was a completely new author to me.  I looked her up on Goodreads and she has quite a few books and series currently available.  I have obviously been living in the dark.  We received a copy of The Lovely Reckless, which is a contemporary YA romance scheduled to be released October 4th.

When we left the party, we each received a bag containing Last Seen Leaving, The Lovely Reckless, Heartless by Marissa Meyer, and George Orwell's 1984 along with some other great swag.