On 30th April I had the privilege of attending Glamour Book Club, held in a very swanky private members club in London and featuring Laini Taylor and Lauren Owen!
If you’ve not heard of either of these lovely ladies before, then Laini Taylor is the author of the Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy which comprises of Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Days of Blood & Starlight and Dreams of Gods & Monsters. Lauren Owen has just released her debut novel, The Quick.
I was excited before attending the event, because not only was I going to meet some wonderful authors, but also some fellow bloggers! Asti from Oh, The Books!, Kristy from Book Nerd Reviews and Daphne from Winged Reviews were all going to be there. Me and my friend Emily got there first, and I recognised Asti and approached her in my awkward way, and she introduced me to Kristy. We then proceeded into the event and got our free cocktails (gin and tonic). Daphne turned up a bit later, and we hung around chatting for a while – next to the goodie bags, trying to work out what was in them… – before the event proper started.
Thoughts from Laini Taylor:
- Laini said she was currently reading the Expanse series of books by James S.A. Corey, which I was happy to hear as I recently read and reviewed the first book, Leviathan Wakes.
- She has a new series and new standalone planned. And some science fiction – eeek!
- When asked about how she starts to write, Laini said she starts writing in the middle of the book and works from there.
- We spoke a little about the film adaptation of Daughter of Smoke and Bone. It hasn’t officially been given the green light yet, but Laini was off to meetings about it a few days after the event, so maybe we’ll hear more soon. She said she doesn’t think it would be fair to speak about her fantasy cast, mostly because no guy could ever live up to Akiva’s looks!
- Daughter of Smoke and Bone came about when Laini was avoiding writing her current book at the time: a book about ballerinas in space!
- She said that you just have to make as much time as you can to write – and don’t procrastinate too much!
- Apparently Laini hasn’t had a single negative fan experience. Let’s hope it remains that way!
Thoughts from Lauren Owen:
- Lauren said she was currently reading The House of the Vampire by George Viereck. I’ve not heard of this one before, it’s a Victorian Gothic horror novel.
- She’s currently writing a sequel to The Quick. This was actually her original idea for the book, but she sort of ended up working backwards.
- Lauren won a prize for her dissertation, and her professor then referred her to an agent who approached her interested in her work.
- She urged budding writers to go out and talk to people, and discuss their experiences.
- Her favourite books include Little Women, Anne of Green Gables and Watership Down.
- She has mostly stopped herself from reading reviews online as she finds the constantly changing viewpoints and criticisms confusing – if one person loves part of the book and another hates it, I guess you don’t know what to do either way!
- She did a lot of research to prepare for her book, and admits that sometimes she got distracted by it.
After the talk, we got the chance to meet the authors and get stuff signed. It didn’t take too long, as it was a fairly intimate gathering, and I had my photo taken with Laini:
They were selling books there, and I didn’t really want to buy The Quick at the time because I’m not a hardback person at all. I’m going to wait for the paperback to come out, so I asked Lauren to also sign my copy of Daughter of Smoke & Bone (as I had nothing else for her to sign) and basically made a huge, flustered fool of myself, and did not explain in any eloquent manner that I WILL be buying her book once it’s out in paperback. I still feel embarrassed when I think of that moment. Ugh. I’M SO SORRY LAUREN.
And that was the end of a great night! Me and Emily had to go and catch our train home (I live a ninety minute train journey from London) so we couldn’t hang around for too long, especially as our route back to the station was made difficult by tube strikes. But it was a great evening, despite the embarrassment I caused myself – I got to meet some awesome bloggers and fantastic authors, and the goodie bag was most definitely worth the ticket price! It included three books (Angelfall by Susan Ee, Dracula by Bram Stoker and Dear Daughter by Elizabeth Little), some great headphones that I’ve already used lots for gaming (I like to immerse myself), some Hotel Chocolat chocolates, a candle, nail polish and some other beauty samples. I would definitely be up for attending another Glamour Book Club event! The only downside was when me and Emily received one of the dirtiest looks ever from a member of staff at the club for no apparent reason… probably because we’re not paying members, all dressed up for dinner!
Rinn Reads 