Linger Launch Party And Contest!

(Sorry for the lame pictures. Our camera got left at home so we had to settle for our phones.)

So, after a few hours of driving and me rushing everyone (my mom, Friend, and Friend's mom) out of the hotel early because I knew from other recaps that you don't get seats unless you come early, we made it to the Linger Launch Party with time to spare. (And we found seats, because I am an excellent rusher.)

We waited about 15 minutes for everyone to show up, then Maggie came out and started talking about Shiver, Linger, her blog tour, Plant People, her childhood, and more. If you've ever wondered if Maggie is as entertaining in person as she is on her blog and twitter and such, I'm happy to tell you that she is.

Afterward, they handed out raffle tickets and Shiver Trivia cards, which was how you won the awesome guitar that Maggie doodled. It's been about a year since I've Shiver, so of course I didn't do very good at all. Even though it was an open-book test.

Maggie then came back and read a chapter from Linger.

I couldn't fully appreciate it because I was still working on my Shiver Trivia questions, knowing for sure that I hadn't won. But I did win a Shiver shirt that I'll never wear (because it'd be way too tight on me, and I don't want to wash the autograph off). Then she did a Q and A, which was a lot of fun and pretty informative too.

Then we had CAKE.Isn't it pretty? It was also really good. But of course, on my way back to my seat, shimmying through the isles, my cake fell on the floor. Because that is the type of thing that happens to me in public. It landed in between some woman's legs and you could tell that she was kind of horrified. I then went on a little search for a trash can, then got another piece of cake.

Then we all got in line to get our books signed and picture taken with Maggie. When I walked up to Maggie, it was pretty nerve-wracking. Meeting Maggie, one of my favorite authors, was probably as exciting to me as any other normal 14 year old girl meeting their favorite pop star or whatever. I'm pretty sure I sounded like an idiot:

Maggie: You gonna run?
Me:...To where?
Maggie: Downstairs. They're making me sign downstairs after everything up here's done, so you'll probably have to run.
Me: Really? (You see, I was very nervous, and Maggie had been joking around all night.)
Maggie: Yeah...

She was really nice, but we didn't talk for very long since I'm pretty shy and tend to only have good conversations with people I know really well. But we did get a few pictures, like this one:

We had two cameras pointed at us, so Maggie and I were a little overwhelmed since we weren't really sure which camera to look at.

Then they announced the trivia winners, which I wasn't, obviously. Then we ran downstairs. We waited a little while in line, then finally she signed all of our stuff. When I walked up she said, "You're back!" Then signed all five of my things (4 books, 1 shirt) as we talked for a minute longer.
They have all already become some of my prized possessions, along with my MP3 player and chili pepper cup.

Then, we went across the street to the candy store that was the one from Shiver (or at least it was based off of it.) When we asked Maggie for directions, she told us to, "Walk in, close your eyes, and take a deep breath." So we did.

I don't know about the rest of you who have read Shiver, but that was exactly how I'd imagined it looking, and smelled just as Maggie had described it too.

Here is me and Friend outside of the store. (And yes, we did buy things, like white chocolate snow caps, and chocolate covered marshmallows on sticks and such. And I only ate the white chocolate snow caps, but I can tell you that they were delicious.)

There's what you missed at the Linger Launch Party. It was my first ever book event for an author that I've already read, and it was tons of fun! Hopefully I'll be able to go to some more.

And of course I didn't forget about you guys and your love of free books. I've got one signed ARC of Linger up for grabs, along with a super-snazzy bookmark! Wanna win? Fill out this form to enter. The contest will end on August 5, and is only open to those in the US and Canada. (Sorry, I'm broke from my last contest.) Good luck, I can't wait to give someone else their own new prized possession!

And be sure to look at for my (rave) review of Linger that will be up soon.