#BTCYA Sydney

Last night was the BTCYA event here in Sydney, at Harper Collins. The night was basically a get together of bloggers/booktubers and more, discussing the upcoming Young Adult books that’s going to be released in 2016. There were books available for purchase, prizes to be won from mini games, goodie bags, and snacks, look at the cupcakes!

[instagarm url=https://www.instagram.com/p/-TFG0Bwin_/?taken-by=alyssaisreading]

At the beginning of the presentation, a slide was put up on the screen, showing a few of the bloggers that BTCYA works with, and I got super excited seeing my header up there. Yes, these are only “a few”.

It followed with the upcoming books of 2016.

And my favourite:

Tim described Demon Road perfectly as a micro season of Supernatural but without the angst. And I agree. My review of Demon Road is up here. Desolation is definitely one of my most anticipated releases for next year.

The guest speaker for the event was…..Jamie Curry! She runs a YouTube channel called ‘Jamie’s World‘ and her new book, They Let Me Write a Book, recently came out.

The event was so much fun and I got to catch up with a few people I’ve met on meet ups earlier on in the year. Gotta get working on my 2016 TBR now.

Happy Reading!
-Alyssa

#AlwaysKeepFighting

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Holly Black & Cassandra Clare Talk and Signing

On Saturday, August 15 2015, Holly Black and Cassandra Clare went to Kinokuniya for an author talk and signing. They were attending the Brisbane Writers Festival and stopped by Sydney for one event only, both answering questions and talking about the series that they wrote together, the Magisterium series, and also each of their own individual work, mentioning a possibility of another novel following ‘The Coldest Girl in Coldtown’ and a graphic novel for ‘The Mortal Instruments‘ series.

There were a lot of people who attended, we took up an entire section of the store. It was the first author talk and signing that I have been to and it was definitely a lot of fun to hear advice from them such as how to go about writer’s block and how to make a character more likeable. I will definitely be keeping tabs on future events like this. They shared a lot and it was really fun to get inside their heads and hear them talk about how they see their worlds and characters.

I was fortunate enough to attend the event, getting a seat and a definite chance for my books to be signed. I originally brought hardbacks of ‘The Coldest Girl in Coldtown’ and ‘City of Bones‘, however on the day, I also purchased ‘The Shadowhunters Codex‘ written by both Cassandra Clare and her husband, Joshua Lewis.

For every one bad thing, there are one hundred good things

-Cassandra Clare

Happy Reading!

-Alyssa

‘In the Skin of a Monster’ Book Launch

On July 30 this year, I attended the book launch of Kathryn Barker‘s debut novel ‘In the Skin of a Monster’, at Kinokuniya Sydney. It was the first book launch that I ever attended and I did not have any booknerds with me so I ended up leaving earlier than I expected. I got a poster and a bookmark along with the novel, signed! 🙂

              

 

In the Skin of a Monster
Kathryn Barker

Expected: August 2015
Publisher: Allen & Unwin

What if your identical twin sister was a murderer? Does that make you a monster too? A profound, intense, heartbreaking fantasy that tackles issues of fate versus free will, and whether you can ever truly know someone.

Caught in a dreamscape, mistaken for a killer … will Alice find a way home?

Three years ago, Alice’s identical twin sister took a gun to school and killed seven innocent kids; now Alice wears the same face as a monster. She’s struggling with her identity, and with life in the small Australian town where everyone was touched by the tragedy. Just as Alice thinks things can’t get much worse, she encounters her sister on a deserted highway. But all is not what it seems, and Alice soon discovers that she has stepped into a different reality, a dream world, where she’s trapped with the nightmares of everyone in the community. Here Alice is forced to confront the true impact of everything that happened the day her twin sister took a gun to school … and to reveal her own secret to the boy who hates her most.

 

Sydney Meet Up (July 2015)

@sorry.im.booked in Instagram organised a meet up that occurred today. It was the first meet up that I attended and there were over twenty of us bookstagramers/booktubers. It was a very new and interesting experience for me. Seeing as how most of us didn’t take selfies with books, we couldn’t put names/usernames to faces. Having to meet a lot of new people at once was really new and fun for me. I met Cat (@littlebookowl) and she was so nice and sweet 🙂 (and tall). There was also a box set of the first three books in the Throne of Glass series. I haven’t read any books by Sarah J Maas and I’ve been wanting to, so I got the first three and I plan on starting soon, hopefully I finish Heir of Fire close to the release date of Queen and Shadows. Also, I haven’t read anything by Jennifer L. Armentrout, so I picked up the first book in the Covenant series, Half-Blood.

       

A group photo below, photo credit to @bookskay

I got comments from other people about which books I should get, at one point we even talked about TV shows. It’s nice to step away from reality and into the fictional world most of the time. This experience definitely made me more open and a bit more confident in meeting new people.