Showing posts with label St. Louis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St. Louis. Show all posts

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Dark Days Tour in St. Louis Review!

Happy Thursday everyone! As many of you will remember, I attended the Dark Days Tour in St. Louis, Missouri a few weeks to meet some amazing YA authors and hear them speak on their works! You guys enjoyed my review of the AViD event earlier this month, so I figured I would continue the tradition. For those of you who may have missed my post about the Dark Days tour, you can find it By Clicking Here! This is just a post to share my amazing experience from that night with all my even more amazing readers!

As you will recall, the featured authors of the Dark Days tour were Danielle Paige, Kelly Armstrong, Kiera Cass, and Kimberly Derting. As you guys have read many, many times before, I am quite possibly Danielle Paige's biggest fan so I was so excited to meet her that words just couldn't describe it. My road trip partner, and fellow book lover (and Danielle Paige fan), Megan and I once again took off from the Queen City of the Ozarks, this time heading to city known as the "Gateway to the West", St. Louis, Missouri! Both Megan and I are originally from hometowns that are relatively close to St. Louis (~2 hours) so we were familiar enough with the city for it not to have been as exciting as Des Moines was for us, but still really awesome!

The Dark Days tour was hosted at the St. Louis Ethical Society, and while we are stills scratching our heads  as to what exactly an Ethical Society is, we found the place with relative ease considering neither of us are city folk! Oh well, here are a random assortment of pictures from our evening rubbing shoulders with the literary elite! :D

Neither Megan nor I could figure out what an Ethical Society was, but the building was pretty cool! We ended up having to go to their website to figure out what they were all about!







From left: Danielle Paige, Kelly Armstrong, Kiera Cass, and Kimberly Derting are asked questions by the event moderator, Allie from Harper-Collins! The authors answered questions about the content of the books, their backgrounds, and what we can expect from the authors in the future!



 

Here I am pictured with Danielle Paige. As you guys have read before, I am the self proclaimed biggest fan of Danielle's first full length novel Dorothy Must Die and have already devoted several blog posts to her and this series. Making the trip to STL to meet this amazing author and woman will forever be a memory I carry with me. I actually got quite a bit of time to talk to Danielle and actually learned a lot about the future of the series, and her work within the Oz community. She is an amazing woman and I am so blessed to have gotten to meet her. I am already looking forward to the next time!






 

Not to be missed, here I am pictured with the absolutely amazing Kimberly Derting. Although I have YET to get a chance to sit down and read her newest novel The Taking, it is at the top of my TBR list for when things slow down for me! Kimberly was amazing and even remembered me from the blog (THIS blog) and even knew the name of it! Woohoo! It really made this guy feel special! Can't wait to read The Taking!







I know many of my readers need no introduction as to who this woman standing beside me is, Mrs. Kiera Cass. Kiera is the author of the HUGE hit The Selection series! Kiera had a huge turnout of fans, including many, many young fans which really made me happy to see so many young people getting excited about reading! 












Last, but certainly not least, here I am pictured with Kelley Armstrong, author of the popular Darkest Powers and Darkness Rising series! I have had these series on my TBR list for some time and plan on tackling them this summer. It was so awesome to get to meet Kelley!





All in all, I had an awesome experience meeting these four incredible authors during their St. Louis stop of the Dark Days Tour. I am so excited to check out the works of these authors and already looking forward to what we can expect from them in the future! It's always a life changing experience for me when I get to meet an author so this was truly a special night for me to get to meet four, including one who is so special to me. An incredible experience all around!

I am so blessed to have gotten to attend this event alongside my best friend, Megan. Megan and I both graduated college this past Friday and will soon be beginning the next chapters of our lives very soon. As exciting as this sounds, it means that we will be separated by many, many more miles than ever before. These past two events have already made us decide that this will become a tradition of ours. We will potentially be traveling to Nashville for events this summer and this morning we decided that SOMEHOW we will be traveling to Philadelphia next February for the first ever Apollycon in celebration of Jennifer Armentrout's (a favorite of ours) new Titan series! 



That's really all I have for you guys right now, I apologize that it has taken me almost a month to get this posted. As I mentioned earlier, I graduate college earlier this month and then took a 10 day vacation to Mexico so I have REALLY been busy this month. Look forward to a WHOLE BUNCH of fun from me this summer though. I have lots planned and a mountain of books to keep me busy. Today is actually my two month blog anniversary so I wanted to make sure I had a fun post for you guys. Thank you to all my amazing readers who have helped me to gain quite the impressive numbers during my first two months. You are all awesome. Feel free to contact me for any suggestions, recommendations, or any book you would like to see my take on!
 
Alright guys, be sure to be on the lookout for more awesome posts soon here at OneGuysGuidetoGoodReads! Comment below and let me know if you were at the Dark Days Tour as well! I'd love to hear from you! Happy Reading!

-Ethan


Sunday, May 4, 2014

Dark Days Tour in St. Louis, Missouri this Friday!

Happy Sunday readers! Hope you are all having a great weekend! After my AMAZING experience at AViD in Des Moines last Sunday, I have caught the ailment I am henceforth referring to as "The Book Event Bug"! I know many of my readers have already contracted this illness, but I have been a little late to the party. You guys can check out my review of my time in Des Moines meeting the amazing Cora Carmack and Jennifer L. Armentrout by clicking here! After getting back home and doing some research, I came across an author event that was too big to pass up. Hope you guys are ready, this is going to be a BIG one!

Introducing the Dark Days Tour featuring some of the BIGGEST names in Young Adult literature today (including a new favorite of mine). 

 
Well, in case you aren't like me and the sight of these four women gives you chills, allow me to introduce you to the ladies of the Dark Days Tour: Kimberly Derting, Danielle Paige, Kelley Armstrong, and Kiera Cass! Here's the promo from the event sponsor:


Join four top Young Adult authors for a Q&A panel and booksigning! Kimberly Derting, author of The Body Finder series, discusses the first novel in her new series, The Taking. Danielle Paige discusses her debut novel, Dorothy Must Die, set in a Tarantino-esque Oz. Kelley Armstrong, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Darkest Powers series, discusses her new novel, Sea of Shadows. And #1 New York Times bestselling author Kiera Cass discusses The One, the final book in her Selection series.

The event is being held this coming Friday evening at 7PM at the St. Louis Ethical Society in St. Louis, MO. Find out more about the Ethical Society including directions and more information about the facilities by visiting http://www.ethicalstl.org/!  Now let me tell you a little bit about the four amazing authors you can meet! Oh and did I mention this was  FREE event? Well, it is!



Kimberly Derting





Kimberly is the author of the BODY FINDER series (HarperCollins), THE PLEDGE trilogy (Simon & Schuster), and THE TAKING trilogy (coming April 29th from HarperTeen). She lives in the Pacific Northwest, the ideal place to write anything dark or creepy...a gloomy day can set the perfect mood. She lives with her husband and their three beautiful (and often mouthy) children who provide an endless source of inspiration. 








Danielle Paige 



Danielle Paige is a graduate of Columbia University and currently lives in New York City. Before turning to young adult literature, she worked in the television industry, where she received a Writers Guild of America Award and was nominated for several Daytime Emmys. Dorothy Must Die is her first novel.  

Side note, Danielle Paige is one of my newest favorite authors. I have already reviewed two of her works and have communicated with her via Twitter and email. She is an AMAZING author who I am VERY excited about meeting. She's definitely up and coming in a HUGE way. Check out my review of Dorothy Must Die by clicking here!




Kelley Armstrong


Kelley Armstrong has been telling stories since before she could write. Her earliest written efforts were disastrous. If asked for a story about girls and dolls, hers would invariably feature undead girls and evil dolls, much to her teachers' dismay. All efforts to make her produce "normal" stories failed.

Today, she continues to spin tales of ghosts and demons and werewolves, while safely locked away in her basement writing dungeon. She's the author of the NYT-bestselling "Women of the Otherworld" paranormal suspense series and "Darkest Powers" young adult urban fantasy trilogy, as well as the Nadia Stafford crime series. Armstrong lives in southwestern Ontario with her husband, kids and far too many pets. 




Kiera Cass


Kiera Cass is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Selection series, as well as the self-published fantasy novel The Siren. She is a graduate of Radford University and currently lives in Blacksburg, Virginia, with her family. Kiera has kissed approximately fourteen boys in her life. None of them were princes. 

Can I just add that Kiera has a BUNCH of different hilarious bios online. Seriously, I just laughed so hard. This woman is awesome. Kiera is a well known name in the YA game right now and is widely known for her Selection series (Book 3 comes out this week)!




Find out more about the event and all the authors from the events official sponsor, Left Bank Books, at http://www.left-bank.com/event/dark-days-tour-kimberly-derting-danielle-paige-kelley-armstrong-keira-cass.


Ethical Society of St. Louis

Where: Ethical Society of St. Louis (pictured above)
(Click here for venue information, location, contact info, parking, etc)
Date: May 9, 2014 (this coming Friday)
Time: 7:00PM
 
As previously stated, this is an awesome opportunity to meet four of the leading authors in the business right now! It's guaranteed to be a FREE fun time for all! I will be there, along with a few members of my support staff (including my copilot Megan, whom you guys met last week). To say that I am excited to a huge understatement. Friday is actually my "dead day" for classes and signals not only the end of the semester for me, but the end of my Undergraduate career! I graduate the following week, so attending this event will be a much needed break and reward! Please comment below and let me know if any of you guys will be in attendance, I would love to meet you guys! If you can't find me, look for Danielle, I'll be the one freaking out that I'm in the same room as her (yeah, I'm THAT guy). Oh well. Well, I hope you all have a great week and be sure to check back in soon, I have some awesome giveaways going on right now and some new one this week! Be on the look out and be sure to come back to visit us here at OneGuysGuidetoGoodReads!

-Ethan