Continuing with the BEA recap, we're up to Thursday and the first full day at BEA, that was quite full from the very beginning for me, even if I had sacrificed a few signings to attend since I had got the ARCs on the day before!
I woke up ungodly early (again), tried to go back to sleep (again), for the most part failed (again) and ended up waking up to do some yoga! I made myself some tea on the coffee maker (thank goodness for hotel rooms with coffee makers, even if they lack kettles, at least it means there's no need of a do-over of last year's "shower tea") and waiting for the rest of the roomies to wake and get ready!
We went pretty early to the floor (7 am) and we started really appreciating the awesomeness that being in a hotel directly connected to the convention center is! We were really close to the front of the line, and the wise people at McCormick brought out the ropes to make the line orderly and nice! Something that never occured to the people at the Javits last year...
While we were waiting I met more of my bloggy friends and met Hafsah & Asma again and they had these super cute notebooks they were giving out if you had the word code they tweeted! I got me one and even if yellow is not my fave colour, the notebook is so perfect for me! (and any other bookworms that love tea!).
A bit more plotting and pondering happened while we waited and then at 9 as soon as the doors opened, we headed straight to the Macmillan booth to get the tickets for their morning signing(s).
There was a bit of a rush, but I refused on principle to run (after last year's RUN FOR TRUTHWITCH!!) but I managed to get my ticket for Metaltown and promptly joined the signing line. I was super lucky to meet Lori M Lee on said line and we spent the waiting time chatting!
While waiting in line I met again the lovely Patricia & Anasheh from FFBC Tours, both Patri and me are some of the rare Spanish bloggers and we've been chatting for a long time but we hadn't met yet till BEA, how crazy is that! Patri totally made my day when she handed me her Leigh Bardugo ticket because she had other signings she wanted to attend and didn't want the ticket to go to waste. Thank you so much Patri, I hope some serious good karma will go your way!
Then it was time to get Metaltown signed and to meet the lovely Kristen Simmons! I loved chatting with her and I'm really excited to read the book while listening to the soundtrack of Les Mis!!
Right after the signing I said bye to Lori and run to the forming line for Of Fire And Stars! Since I was very close to the start of the line of Metaltown, I was also very close to the front of the line for Of Fire And Stars and even a lot of people used their Front of the Line Pass for it (I really don't blame them, this a book we're all super excited for) which slowed the line quite a bit for us going regular, and the line ended up being cut because there weren't enough books. I was lucky enough to get my copy and to meet the so very lovely Audrey Coulthurst!
After getting the book signed and the lovely extra swag, I quickly headed to the signing line for Leigh Bardugo that was quiiiite loooong but luckily there were no issues since they had as many samplers as they had tickets! Meeting Leigh again was fantastic and the Macmillan people with her were lovely chatting with you and making sure they got pics if you wanted them! I'm probably not gonna read the sampler (TEASE!) but I so wanted to meet Leigh again!
After the Leigh signing I had nothing else until 1 pm when the drop for the afternoon Macmillan tickets would happen. And since I had nothing else in my list... I roamed around for a bit, spent time chatting with friends on other lines like the lovely Jenny from Supernatural Snark and her mum!
Then the wait for 1 PM started and there were some false starts at forming a line one both sides of the Macmillan booth, but they didn't allow any of them to become official and kept saying that they expected an orderly line to form at 1 PM, which anyone seeing the massive amount of people around the booth knew it was a clear impossibility... and it happened, what I call a MOB, and has been known as the Macmillan Stampede of 2016.
I was again refusing to run or push people on principle but I was moved along by the mass of people and ended up quite behind on the massive line, despite having been waiting for nearly an hour. Fortunately I managed to get the tickets for Marissa Meyer and Sarah Porter, so I have to thank my good karma for that!
After that rather messy ticket handing, the Macmillan people learnt fast and started organizing lines for all signings very early and very well, so big props there! I joined the line for Vassa in the Night and had my protein bars lunch while chatting with my roomies and other fellow bloggers that had survived the stampede.
Not only I got to meet Sarah Porter who is adorable and get my signed ARC but I also got to meet the awesome Ksenia Winnicki! Too bad we didn't take a pic together this time!
Once I got my Vassa I went onto joining the line for Marissa Meyer and Heartless and while waiting in line, my dear Britt came with a copy of Stalking Jack The Ripper and she told me that the lovely Kerri Maniscalco was signing them at the Hachette booth and there I run! I was so excited that I completely forgot to grab my phone so I could take a pic with her! She's so adorableee and lovely! I got my ARC signed and I'm still trying to restrain myself to read it right away!
Then I got my absolutely gorgeous edition of the Heartless ARC in a really fancy box and met the lovely Marissa Meyer again! No photo this time.
Then I went around a few booths, bumped into bloggers and roomies, grabbed a brownie at Harper and ended up returning there to wait with Jenny's mum for the 4 PM drop for Female of the Species, and after that... back to the hotel room!
My Day 2 haul!
A bunch of my roomies were going to publisher parties but those of us uninvited stayed in one room, ordered food and ended up enjoying a lovely Hamilton singalong! There's video proof of that since Michelle seemed to be rather amused by our singing!
Most of my roomies were off to publisher parties, Nikki was the one that returned early and we ended up chatting books for a long while and she totally convince me that I needed to get Audible and listen to The Scorpio Races (and I'm doing just that next month!). ;)
