Tag: independentbookstore

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Book Event

What a delightful book event with Oxford Exchange Bookstore about Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young.

It was interesting how such a simple book could bring about so many different layers of conversations. One of the layers we went into was the authenticity of a towns and how the author captured that in many areas. Some of the areas she captured that were when it came to tourists, the orchard, relationships, meetings, and the want for things to stay the same.

One of the ways that things in the real world may stay the same when it comes to small towns, like it did in this book, is when someone is around the people they grew up with and then fall back into that mindset. Which may be a younger aged mindset. Then comes the question of if you grow up with those people all around you, do you still fall into that mindset sometimes, do you ever really grow up, or do you need space in order for nostalgia to grasp you and turn you young again?

Everyone agreed that this book was a dark cozy mystery, like a campfire story. And everyone loved the vibes. Many expected more magic and kept trying to find it within the pages, while others enjoyed the light magic and undercurrent of it, saying that it felt more real that way.

I feel like the most interesting conversation that was had was about how to differentiate YA versus Adult fiction. Many agreed that this book felt like a YA read, but it was a YA author’s first Adult novel. Was the YA-like-feel in the way the book was plotted out and in how the author held the hands of the readers through the mystery? Or was it because it was in the minds of characters who were reliving the past, a period when they were teens? Or was it because of the pacing, the themes or lack thereof, the topics, or the relationships? What makes an adult read an adult read, besides the main character in the present timeline’s age?

All very interesting questions worth hours long of conversation.

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Book Event

Books are Magic hosted an event with Camryn Garrett about her book Friday I’m in Love.

The author came dressed in a dress similar to the main character on the book cover! So that was cool! Friday I’m in Love is about a girl who decides to have a coming out party to announce her queerness to her friends and family. Friday I’m in Love is Camryn’s third novel, but first rom-com. She grew up writing lots of ghost stories and wrote this book in high school when she was eighteen. According to the interviewer, she really captured the teenager spirit in this book and it only took the interviewer under 24 hours to finish the book because she loved it so much.

The idea came to Camryn Garrett when she thought about how her friends would have thrown her a party if she had come out when she was younger. She wanted to express that you don’t need to know who you are at sixteen. She explained that parties during milestones like coming of age and sweet sixteen parties are important because it shows that the people who are there care for you, so she wishes there were coming out parties also.

They talked about the music mentioned in the book, social classes in real life and in books, also how different it is writing screenplays compared to books.

Here are some cute, fun, and funny facts from the interview. According to Camryn’s mom, all the characters in Friday I’m in Love are Camryn. Haha. One of Camryn’s favorite tropes is enemies to lovers, but with low stakes. No ‘you killed my brother or you tried to kill me’ “because that’s just wrong”. Haha. Her least favorite trope is second chance lovers because, most likely, if you didn’t work out the first time, you shouldn’t try again. Haha.

This interview was a fun, lighthearted, and uplifting. Thank you, Books are Magic for hosting it.

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Book Event

Rediscovered Books hosted Marissa Meyer’s virtual launch event for her newest book Cursed which is the last book in her duology after Gilded, a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. It was cool to hear that Rediscovered Books hosted one of Marissa Meyer’s first books she ever launched.

Many attended this virtual event where Meyer came with golden tinsels in her hair to represent the book! She started by sharing her inspirational photos that she used to develop the story. Apparently, she creates boards on Pinterest for all her books. This duology’s board was filled with pictures of creepy atmospheric settings, images, monsters, and creatures. Anyone can check out her boards on her Pinterest!

How Meyer came up with her retelling was something she brought up. Her thought process was that the main story was pretty lame when it came to happily-ever-after. She also found it obvious that the king was the villain of the story. So, she made the king the villain of her story, to do the original story justice, and decided, because she is her, that it needed a romance. That is when she came up with the brilliant idea of Rumpelstiltskin being the romantic interest. Also, funny fact, she wanted people to swoon for the king and then feel shame for swooning for him in this second book, so hopefully that worked haha.

She had her audio book narrator come in, which many people said that her books wouldn’t feel like Marissa Meyer books unless they are read by her, Rebecca Soler. This narrator said when doing a series, she has to go back and listen to herself and take notes on who is who, who wants to kill each other, and how she did the voices before. She also jots down adjectives to describe a character to be able to form a voice around them.

After the audio read, Meyer gave fun polls, where we learned that The Runaway Pancake is actually a classification of folktales. Also, that Rumpelstiltskin’s classification falls under Name the Helper. Another fun fact, scholars believe his name might have originally meant Little Rattle Ghost.

If she could change anything in her books, she said what haunts her the most is that she didn’t give Prince Kai a last name. Also, that she didn’t have more LGBTQIA+ characters in The Lunar Chronicles.

Her favorite world to build was the world for Gilded and Cursed because she loves fairytales, lore, and researching. She said she could research and do nothing else, but at some point, knows she has to write the book.

The easiest world she built was for Instant Karma because it is her only contemporary and there wasn’t as much world-building involved. Now, she is working with Locksmith Animation, which is an animation company in the UK, who are looking to adapt The Lunar Chronicles into a tv series. She is very enthusiastic and optimistic because during her meetings with them, she said that she could tell they knew what she was trying to accomplish with the series and why readers liked it.

Excitingly, Meyer said that she held onto lots of things for book two that she didn’t put in book one of this duology. I can’t wait to dive in and read all the reveals and twists that she had set up in book one but didn’t present. And more excitingly still, she revealed the title of her next book, which will be With a Little Luck. It is a companion book to Instant Karma and a ‘careful what you wish for’ kind of story. On top of that fact, she has many things in the works, including, more fairy tale retellings, graphic novels, swag, and more.

Thank you so much Rediscovered Books for the amazing event and letting many people from all around the world to get to attend.

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Book Event

Oxford Exchange Bookstore hosted an event talking about the book The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling.

The most awesome part of this discussion was dissecting the horror genre a little. Everyone agreed that The Death of Jane Lawrence did not feel like horror, but that it had some horror elements and gore that was very well described that set the tone for the story.

This book brought about the discussion that the horror genre is great because different horror books can be at a different level of scary depending on the reader and may mean different things to each individual reader, even if it is the same book.

But maybe the best definition of horror I heard tonight was that horror is something that instills a new fear and throws someone off. I feel that like definition resonates with me when it comes to what I am looking for when I read a horror book.

The theme of shame was brought up. A reader found that theme in this book. Shame may be something for readers to think about and grasp onto while reading this book.

Everyone loved the bone wedding bands in this!! Some even would have wanted one for a wedding band themselves. Also, some liked the main character and some didn’t. The ones that didn’t couldn’t find her relatable in marrying a guy she barely knows and then being surprised about his lies. The ones that did had said that the things the main character did were things they would have done also. So that goes back to the beginning of this in how horror books are seen differently by different readers, maybe even more so than most other genres are.

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Book Event

Mysterious Galaxy hosted an event with Brandie June to discuss Curse Undone, which is the sequel to Gold Spun. This duology is a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin with the main girl character being a con artist and Rumpelstiltskin being a hot fairy boy. She made it that way to make it different, distinct, and to be able to think about the characters in a different way who are normally flat.

June explained how in order to not get stuck, she writes a note to make an epic battle or anything else she needs to add and then moves on. She actually has to write an entire really bad first draft before she goes back and edits. For these two books, in the later drafts, she had to figure out how good or bad she wanted Rumpelstiltskin to be as a whole and in parts. One of the scenes she remarked seeing very clearly was the golden ball.

To answer a question asking about why she likes retellings, she said that she loves how retellings customize their own worlds. One of her favorite Rumpelstiltskin retellings was Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik.

June thought that these books would be a trilogy at first. She knew that not everything would fit in one book, but then it was decided, based on her arc, that a duology would be better and make sense. She had a huge rough draft for the trilogy and had to cut in half and make an ending for her deadline.

June explained how she went through a lot of rejections and how her first book did not sell. But without that happening, she never would have written Gold Spun. Now, she is re-querying again with a new project because she had to part ways with her agent. What she finds works with the stress of querying is to keep working on other projects. Continually working is something she can control and manage and writing more helps her become a better writer.

Brandie June was so nice, easy to listen to, and very insightful. I enjoyed the event carried on by the awesome staff at Mysterious Galaxy and June’s great personality.

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Book Event

Got to attend an event hosted by Oxford Exchange Bookstore discussing Elektra by Jennifer Saint.

What was really cool about this group tonight was that we had some more persistent readers of Greek stories who knew a lot of the character and we had some that did not. I am one of the people who does not know that much about the past stories, so I learned a lot of interesting things during this discussion. Like how Greek stories revolve around tragedy, death, and unfairness all the time. What left me feeling unsatisfied and hollow in parts when it came to what I saw as unnecessary deaths, the others that were more versed saw that those deaths fit the theme in different ways.

As someone who does not know much, it was cool following the story as a story and experiencing new things. It was also fun talking about why we sympathized or did not with some of the characters. It was also interesting that not many were fans of the first-person-point of view for the three different characters and felt a little distant from the story.

We all decided though that this was not a feminist book, just in the point of view of three women. We discussed a couple tweaks that would have made it a feminist book, which was one of the most fun discussions of the night.

I loved and appreciated everyone’s different view coming from different paths of reading when talking about this book.

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Book Event

Had a panel event this evening with Brookline Brooksmith presenting three incredible authors. The authors were Ayana Gray who has written Beasts of Prey, Kalynn Bayron who has written Cinderella is Dead and This Poison Heart, and Namina Forna who wrote The Gilded Ones. All three have sequels out or sequels that are coming out soon.

Ayana Gray described during this event how she had a harder time writing her second book than her first because of the deadline. Trying to promote while writing the second book with a deadline, had cramped her style, but what did make some parts easier was having a world already built and a magic system.

Ayana Gray said that she loves writing fantasy because she loves reading fantasy to learn from and escape into, so she loves providing that for others. She also loves tackling and thinking about the idea of fatalism in her books.

Kalynn Bayron said that when it came to her first book This Poison Heart becoming a duology, it was because she had let the story take her where it needed to go. She had wanted it to be a standalone, but it did not work out that way. She said that drafting the second book called This Wicked Fate was a challenge, but she had fun. She wanted to make it compelling and she believes that she did.

The reason why Kalynn writes fantasy is because it has a potential for the fantastical. She loves how her recent books are set in a real place with an undercurrent of the fantastical so that she can use pop-culture references. She has found that in her writing, she has the theme of destiny in all her books. She believes it is because of something she is working through personally as an author. A wall she keeps encountering in her own life when trying to find information about things like her family and past that should be simple to find, but is not simple for her since she is a black woman living in America and grew up in the deep south.

Namina Forna’s sequel took a lot out of her, but with how the book has been resonating with the readers, she says that it was worth it, although she would rather do standalones from now on. How she typically likes to write is by starting with a one-page quick story, then diving into a year of research, doing an outline after that year, and then starting on writing out the pages.

Namina Forna loves to write fantasy because she is a fantasy lover herself. When it comes to fantasy, she has no standards. She loves just about anything fantasy. She also loves how while writing fantasy, real-life issues can be tackled in them making it easier for those issues to be related to. The reason she wrote The Gilded Ones’s world the way she did was because she wanted to make an Africa that is true. She is an immigrant that came to America when she was nine years old and hates all the lies that are told about the amazing country.

One of my favorite answers to one of the questions was Namina Forna’s answer to what would happen if your main characters were put in a rom-com. She said that it would not matter if it was at the beginning or end of her main character’s development, her main character would think she was in hell if she was placed in a rom-com.

Thank you so much Brookline Brooksmith for your support and this panel!

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Book Event

I got to attend what felt like an exclusive event last night with Mysterious Galaxy interviewing Ben Riggs on his debut novel Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons which is releasing today. This was such a fun and interesting conversation to listen to full of secrets and D&D talk.

Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons is about the TSR company that rocketed Dungeons and Dragons to its success. It dives deep into why TSR started failing as a company and what happened for Wizards to buy the company. Riggs highlights many interviews in his work and mentions if he was told two different stories about one incident to make sure that he tells everyone’s story. Tom Thurman who was the person during this event interviewing Rigg described the book with high praise saying that it was not dry but very readable and that Riggs’s personality shines through.

I found Riggs to have a fun and quirky personality. He mentions that he could not interview Lorraine Williams because she refused. (Lorraine Williams was in control of TSR when it had failed). But he showed his optimism during this event that she may reach out to him and want to be interviewed because he had beautiful art of her made in his book. He did interview her brother though along with 50 plus others.

Riggs mentioned multiple times that he knows his success is all thanks to luck and timing. D&D is the most popular it has ever been in history. Stranger Things has been a help with that. He laughed and said that he did a local interview in his newspaper about his book and they did not put his picture on the article, but instead put Eddie’s picture from Stranger Things, which he is proud of. His favorite edition of D&D is the 2nd edition because that was the first one that he played and he sees the game as a cultural artifact.

Ben Riggs apparently has a podcast called Plot Points that has been up and running since 2013 where he takes a deep dive into role playing games including the influence and origins of those games. He was such a kind, gentle, and respectful person to listen to during this interview. Anyone could tell how deeply he cares about people and about games in general and how certain games have impacted culture.

I loved how much Riggs showed his love for creative geniuses in during this event and how much information he gave to everyone. I am excited to get his book and read his words. Thank you, Mysterious Galaxy for hosting him!

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Book Event

Oxford Exchange Bookstore hosted a book club event today discussing Gallant by V.E. Schwab.

Here is a link to the summary of an interview I attended where the author talks about this exact book: https://adoramichaels.blog/2022/03/10/book-event-20/

Since the author wrote this book for all ages and for each age group to be able to come away with something different, it was very interesting to hear how differently everyone approached the book when reading this. One of the big discussions was how some readers found it too spooky, while others found it not spooky or dark enough at all.

Something that everyone agreed on was how they had sympathy toward the main character Olivia and LOVED her spunk. They also had sympathy toward Mathew. We also found it very interesting how the two characters had to communicate with each other since one was unable to speak and the other did not know sign language. It was very nicely done!

EVERYONE loved the structure of this book, especially with the pictures involved in it. What was very interesting was hearing that some readers listened to the audio book and did not know that there were pictures connected to the book at all. This seemed insane to me since the pictures seemed so instrumental to the story, especially since the author herself felt they were needed for the story. But to hear that people still loved it through the audio book (some gushed at how well the audio book narrator did and were excited to see that there were pictures later on) was amazing and mind-blowing.

Everyone had different feelings about the very end scene of the book though. Some found it happy enough, some found it not happy at all, and some found it just plain sad and lonely. The takeaway though is that the ending fits the tone of the story and compared to where the main character was at the beginning, she is not truly lonely and it is in a way a happy place after all.

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Book Event

Tonight, we talked with Oxford Exchange Bookstore’s Book Club about These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong.

One of the things I found the most interesting is that one of the people in the group who normally does not like romance, really liked the romance in this book. Another interesting thing was seeing how the different povs for secondary characters displayed in this book worked for some of the people in the group, while it did not work for others.

I loved hearing about how Chloe Gong was nineteen when she wrote this and that since it is a very dense book with so much going on, many in the group believe that she will amount to great things. It was also really cool hearing how although some in the group could not relate to the storyline at all, there was someone in the group who connected with the story because they were able to relate to the storyline because of how they grew up.

A few things that everyone agreed on were that they all wish that there had been more fantasy elements or at least more of the monster, that the action was fantastic, everyone loved Kathleen, and that they wish there was a prequel about the past events that had occurred that this book talks about in length.

If you can’t tell, my favorite part about discussion tonight was seeing and discussing what worked about this book and what didn’t for the different people in this group.