Rabid Reads

SO. A lot of you have probably noticed that I haven’t been around a lot the past couple of weeks . . .

There’s a very simple reason for that . . . and that reason is—ILONA ANDREWS.

This is ME with Ilona and Gordon Andrews. Ilona and Gordon Andrews, my FAVORITE authors. Did I mention that this was my very first book signing? ‘Cause it was. My very first book signing was with my FAVORITE authors. How cool is that?<——SO COOL.

 

YEP. I’m not shy about sharing my Ilona love, and if you’re friends with me on Goodreads, you know the first half of my absence was due to my last minute decision to say, “Who cares that I’ve got a least a dozen books I should be reading? (<——NOT me.) I want to reread Kate Daniels AGAIN, b/c Magic Breaks is the last book in this story arc, and I’m not going to miss something, b/c I haven’t read the books in a year.”

So I did.

I’m sorry I’ve neglected some of the blogosphere (but not too sorry, b/c KATE). *shrugs*

Then I had to get over my EPIC book hangover, and after that . . . after that I had to get ready to MEET MY #1 FAVORITE AUTHOR, OMG.

Seriously guys . . . the second I started doing this blog thing, and learned about the book cons, it became my life’s ambition to make it to the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention next year, and meet Ilona Andrews. <——I need a new life’s ambition.

OKAY. First you need to know how awesome the Andrews are. They didn’t even have to do a book signing in Atlanta. They were given the option of taking the day off, but they said, “NOPE. We don’t need no stinking day off. Six cities in six days . . . pfft. We got this thing.”

And not only did they sign on for six book signings in six different cities in six days, but (as they are apparently wont to do) they arranged “Meet and Greets” before the actual signings at nearby coffee houses to give fans a chance to just hang out in a casual environment.

And that’s what is going on here (ALSO—the chickypoo in the hot pink shirt is my bff Katy, who was awesome enough to drive 3 hours roundtrip with me, after only getting 3 hours of sleep the night before, b/c nightshift—can we get a round of applause for Katy!):

There were probably around 50 people who showed up for the Meet and Greet. We were arranged in an arc all the way around the Andrews, and how lucky for us that this particular coffee house had stadium seating, right?

Once the Andrews arrived, we had about an hour and half to ask questions, beg for spoilers, see the cover of Kate #8 (it’s amazeballs), and generally just fangirl the heck out.

By the time all of this—both Meet and Greet, and the book signing—was over, I had THREE HOURS of digital recording, which accounts for the second half of my absence. I’m not going to tell you how long it took to transcribe all of it, b/c it’s embarrasing, but trust me . . . it was a LONG time.

I really wish you hear them for yourself, b/c 1. they are hilarious, and 2. Ilona has a fairly thick Russian accent (which is just cool to listen to). Everything I transcribed, from the spoilers and whatnot, are word-for-word verbatim, so even if you won’t be able to tell when her voice goes all sing-song, if you read it with a Russian accent in your head, you can still get a pretty good idea of what it sounded like. PLUS it’s more fun that way.

The very first question was about Nick (Nolastname for those of you haven’t gotten around to reading Magic Breaks yet *looks down nose in condemnation* *taps foot*). Don’t read the spoiler unless you want to know both what Nick’s last name is, AND some spoilery background info that I don’t feel guilty sharing, b/c they shared a less detailed version on their blog.

[View post to see spoiler]

Before Kate #7 came out, there was a lot of discussion concerning certain aspects of the story arc, predictions about the answers to long-running questions, etc., and one of the questions I encountered the most was, “What are the longterm implications of Kate having a intimate relationship with someone?” ALSO—for those of you who are getting sick of people NOT dying, there’s an explanation for that in there as well.

[View post to see spoiler]

Other random Q & A’s:

1. YES, Gordon does intend to write more Curran POVs. The next one most likely will be from Magic Rises to give us some insight into his . . . *coughs* . . . . objectionable . . . *coughs* . . . behavior.

2. YES, the dragon from Magic Tests (the novella included at the end of Magic Breaks) is the same dragon from the Jim and Dali novella, Magic Mourns, and Magic Mourns takes place first in the timeline.

And the dragon question set off a whole slew of novella questions, and you remember how I said the Andrews were awesome? Check this out (it’s about halfway down):

Ilona: We try to do like one mythology per book and Magic Slays was our modern take sort of, and we took the whole idea of like an atomic bomb basically and covered our magical device. We actually got a really, really angry email [from some woman] who felt, even though it was not specifically stated that the creator was autistic.
Gordon: That the creator was what?
Ilona: Autistic.
Gordon: Oooh.
Ilona: She said that it was really unfair that he was treated that way, which is, we didn’t write the character as autistic. You know . . . I see how it could be taken that way, but it was . . . it’s very interesting what people get out of a book, but we also had somebody—we were actually in the copyedit stage—in the original draft of Magic Breaks Doolittle actually walks. B/c he healed. And at the copyedit stage we got this email from this gentleman who said, “You know, it’s so nice to see a disabled person portrayed as an able, functioning member of society. We have nobody, well, we have Professor Xavier, you know, and we just do not have those role models and I’m disabled . . . ” And we read that, and I was like ooohhh . . . Doolittle cannot walk.
Gordon: We gave him like, “I can wiggle my toes.”
Ilona: That’s right. The value of Doolittle to that person supersedes the value of Doolittle to us, so that was one of the cases where we altered the narrative. In general though we don’t do like people who like write us, “Can you wriiiiite where Derek and Julie get togeeether, and then they have babies . . . ” We don’t write to order.

In Magic Rises a beloved character dies, and there was discord in the Andrews home over it. *snickers* If you want to know the details . . .

[View post to see spoiler]

And finally someone did ask about Christopher. It’s not terribly spoilery, but yeah, it is a little bit, so, again, don’t click on it, if you don’t want to know. There also a brief explanation for why someone a lot of us REALLY wanted to die, didn’t die:

[View post to see spoiler]

Thus concludes the Meet and Greet portion of this post.

So about two minutes before the book signing was supposed to begin, we all walked from the coffee shop to the bookstore where we more than doubled our number. Atlanta had the biggest turnout of any of the book signings. (*fist pumps*) ALSO—you may be surprised to learn that I am apparently NOT the biggest fangirl, b/c someone made the Andrews a picture book that catalogued all of the different versions of all the different covers of the Kate books . . . SO THERE.

That, of course, prompted them to show the cover to Kate #8 again, but this time we got a funny story to go with it:

Ilona: Here’s the thing—they asked us what we wanted on the cover, and since the book is not written yet, we said, “A girl, a sword, and a lion.” (<——*snickers*) And our editor actually got fussy with us, and she was like, “I will need a little bit more than that.” Okay. “A girl, a sword, a lion, and we want it to be green.” (<——*snickers AGAIN*)

Actually, the next book will be a little bit more about . . . umm . . . we’re hoping to do some Arabian Nights mythology in there . . . and here’s how weird they get, right? So we are, we’re discussing the cover and the fact that Arabian Nights are in there, and she’s like, “You know what we should do? We should have crumbled buildings on the cover again, ’cause that’s GREAT.” So I’m like, YES, okay, crumbled buildings. [Editor------>] “We should have a crumbled mosque.” I’m like NO, we shouldn’t.

Hahahaha!!

People, we will not have any crumbling houses of worship on the cover. We actually got a really nice email one time from a Rabbi . . . over the contents of Magic Bleeds. They were like, “while you research into Talmud is sound . . . here’s why the theory wouldn’t work in real life.” We were kind of not planning for it to work in real life . . .

SEE. She’s hilarious.

There were probably another half dozen anecdotal stories, as well as a lengthy introduction to their next book Burn for Me, but this post is already ridiculously long, so I’m forced to cut it short. (<——HA!)

If anyone is a crazy fangirl like me, shoot me an email (jessica@rabidreads.com), and I’ll send you the transcript.

So that is it. Life should be getting back to normal now that I’m not spending several hours everyday transcribing, but honestly—I regret nothing. And seriously, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email if you want more Ilona and Gordon. I’ve got funny stories about their daughters, about the (in)accuracies of their alternate world maps, crazy doomsdayers in Savannah, HOW THEY MET AND THEIR FIRST DATE. Hit me, people!