Dark Days of the Supernatural at Anderson's

You know that crazy driving thing I do sometimes? Well, I did it last weekend. I hopped in the car and headed to Chicago to be at a Dark Days of the Supernatural event, which was awesome, and meet Claudia Gray (Afterlife), Courtney Allison Moulton (Angelfire), Ellen Schreiber (Once in a Full Moon), and Kimberly Derting (Desires of the Dead). I could have shaved three hours off my drive and gone to Michigan, but I had friends going to the Chicago stop and it offered the chance to see the famed Anderson's Bookshop so the extra drive time was well worth it.

I left my place Thursday morning, admittedly not as early as usual, and was on my way. I had to take the same seemingly-serene-but-somewhat-creepy route I took when I went to Smart Chicks Tour in Ohio last fall. This is desolate two-lane country highway that produced the house where the windows had been fitted with boards and slits, eight or so inches long and about an inch wide, cut into them. What I thought was a cute farm house was suddenly not so cute, hence the creepy. I must have blown past it this time or I would have taken a photo. (If anyone can expain the slits please enlighten me!)

Anyway... I traversed Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio before finally crossing into Indiana, but insted of continuing on to Illinois I took a detour to The Story Siren's house! It was about 9p.m. when I arrived so I was running a little late. Mr. Story Siren was nice enough to hold dinner for me! He is truly Master of the Grill.

I spent the night in a super-cool green room that made me happy and slept on a leaky air matress that made me less happy because I woke up in the morning with my butt on the floor. Regardless, I slept well. Kristi and I had breakfast then got on the road around 11a.m. Little did I know that Kristi planned to chronicle the entirety of our roadtrip...



After arriving in Naperville we stopped by a Half Price Books to waste some time while Stacey from Page Turners Blog, who we were staying with that night, drove in to meet us. We had a huge blogger dinner at Ted Montana's Grill just up the block from Anderson's. I met Anna from Anna Reads, Tara from Fiction Folio, Erika from Moonlight Book Reviews, D.J. from DJ's Life in Fiction, Jacinda and Jasmine from Reading Housewives of Indiana, Heidi from YA Bibliophile, Jen from Makeshift Bookmark, and Lynn Marie from Bringing the Epic. (Later at the event I met Heather from One Pushy Fox.) It was a blast and the food was delicious to boot.

There was a good crowd at the event. It ran really smoothly and the authors just had fun the whole time which made for a good time for everyone. We hung around so long that we actually shut down the store! No really. They made us go out the back door.

Thanks to all the authors and Anderson's for a great event!

Sarah from Harper Collins, Claudia Gray, Courtney Allison Moulton,
Ellen Schreiber, Kimberly Derting, Stacey, me, Kristi, and Heidi.



Bloggers in all their glory! (The "Ask Us" sign was a total photo framing accident.)

GIVEAWAY

I got a few ARCs signed at the event, so I'm going to give them away to one lucky reader. Up for grabs are signed ARCs of Afterlife, Angelfire, and Desires of the Dead.