Tag: mysteriousgalaxybookstore

Posted on

Book Event

I attended an event hosted by Mysterious Galaxy for the book Playing the Witch Card by Jenni Marchisotto.

I loved the beginning because the host asked Jenni to choose between spooky things. Apparently, she likes Sabrina the Teenage Witch over Hocus Pocus because Sabrina was her childhood. She loves Beetlejuice over Nightmare Before Christmas. She laughed about the fact that she has been a witch as an adult almost every Halloween. How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix is one of her scariest reads. And she isn’t a big fan of scary movies because they stick to her. There is a scene in Independence Day that still haunts her. Blare Witch Project is the only scary movie she has sat through.

If anyone wants to learn about Jenni’s history with tarot cards and where they began, apparently, she was sent off to church with a friend because her parents wanted to take a vacation without her. Because her family wasn’t a big church family, she brought a tarot deck with her to church camp, thinking it would be cool. Hahaha. From then on, she went in and out of tarot cards as a young adult but really leaned into them as a full adult. She loves them because it makes her think of her life in full circle, like her past and what may be coming up. She doesn’t think of tarot cards as a fortune-telling thing but as a way to push someone to think about their situation differently.

She then gave a little history of tarot in general. She explained how they became more to the forefront of popularity during the time of the civil war and that they didn’t come from any particular tradition. They are European and came from games and spiritualism. So, she was very intrigued by how tarot cards can be whatever someone decides them to be. They have always been that way.

What makes the town special in her story is the town matriarch that keeps it looking very Halloweeny—in a spooky not scary way. She said one of the main characters has a steampunk Victorian Halloween vibe.

Jenni explains how she can’t name her characters until she knows their parents because she needs to think about what their parents would name them. So, to develop characters, she has to think about where the people came from and what the generations before may want from the characters. She has to dive into the past and figure out the whys.

There is the trope of fated mates in the story, but the main characters make the trope their own by tearing it up, throwing it aside, getting out, having a kid, and insisting on not being the fated mate. They made their own way.

Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow is a witch book recommendation by Jenni. She also enjoyed Cackle by Rachel Harrison.

Her absolute favorite trope is second-chance romance. She loves that because she loves the idea of people being fated to be together. Later, she would love to try the one-bed situation and a secret baby situation.

When asked if she would dive into another person from the town’s story, she said it depends on how things go with her publisher.

This was a fun and cute event. Thank you Mysterious Galaxy.

Posted on

Book Event

Had a meeting last night with Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore discussing Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao. The setup was very interesting and one I hadn’t done before. I was on zoom with one other person while the meeting was in person in the bookstore. The attendees in the bookstore had masks, so sometimes it was hard to see who was talking and it was also hard to wait for cues to speak up and know when to make a comment, but it was a good experience and very friendly. I was very happy with the experience since there isn’t many bookstores around where I live just like the other person on the zoom who lives states away had said about her location. It was a very accepting and kind group and open enough that someone was allowed to even bring a baby!

The meeting opened with the question ‘what is your useless talent’, which was a nice ice breaker. The meeting then went right into talking about how murderous the book was, which was a topic that the discussion kept going back to. It was interesting to hear everyone’s different opinions on that subject and how it ties in with the book.

Something that everyone loved that got everyone hooked right away in the book was when they had thought the book was going to be an enemies to lovers kind of book, but then the author tied up the revenge plot in the first fifty pages and there was still so much of the book left. People wanted to know, what now? Then were pleasantly surprised with all the other shocking turns the book took.

In the meeting everyone formed an inside joke together about the triangle, making a triangle with their fingers to represent the awesomeness of the polyamorous relationship in the book. That was fun and cute and brought joyous laughter whenever it was used.

We discussed how badly everyone wants the book to make it onto TV. The interesting part was the differences in opinions on what it should be rated, either R or MA, and how it should be displayed, a series or a movie. The biggest want from everyone is to see the unique fighting on screen. One of the attendees even had a very interesting want for the series to be made in Mandarin so that it would be more impactful and certain elements could carry more weight.

Lastly, we discussed what we want or expect from the duology. In my opinion, I thought that the second book needs to be just as extreme as the first one to fit in well, since the first book was so extreme. A few others are worried that since most of the time in duologies they don’t like the second book as much as the first, that they won’t like this second one. A real big fan of the book mentioned that the author is worried about writing the second book because they don’t want to let people down, especially since some of their fans have gotten tattoos and this is only their debut. Needless to say, everyone sounded excited to see what will be coming next. Maybe we will even get a whole different perspective.