Cassandra Clare & Holly Black book signing, London - Aug '17

I MET CASSANDRA CLARE AND HOLLY BLACK!!!

Okay so now I got that initial excitement out there lets talk books. I was one of the lucky ones to bag myself and Victoria tickets to the Cassandra Clare and Holly Black book signing on Thursday 17th August 2017 at St. James's Church in Piccadilly, London. We took advantage of having the whole day and spent the day around Oxford street shopping, obviously we made the last stop Waterstones in Piccadilly where we spent a good hour or more trying to find three certain books (of which we only found one). While we were in the store we got talking to three girls who were also going to the book signing and we ended up staying with them and chatting for the rest of the evening. Whilst with our new friends we discovered we not only share a love for Cassandra Clare but also other book series and TV shows, it's safe to say we hit it off. I think that is one of my favourite things about book signings/comic cons/concerts, its so easy to make new friends, because you already know you have something in common with the people you meet.

So once we got inside the church we sat down and just chatted amongst ourselves while we waited. Cassie and Holly were then interviewed on stage and answered some questions about The Dark Artifices series, Holly's new book The Cruel Prince, which is released in January 2018 and the Magisterium series which they write together. They also shared with us an amazing story about how they came about writing a book series together, and I honestly just love the friendship they have. 

I did mean to take more pictures of the talk, but I was concentrating so much on listening to them and taking in the fact that I was in the same room as one of my favourite authors that I genuinely forgot to take pictures. Luckily when we went to the front to have our books signed there were people at both Holly and Cassie's sides of the table to take pictures on our phones of us with each author - due to the number of people and minimal amount of time we couldn't take selfies unfortunately. However, I think I love the pictures I did get better than I would have loved selfies with them.

So for my pictures with Cassie my favourite is the bottom one of the three, quite simply because I made her laugh - she asked me who my favourite character was (in LOS) to which I replied, "Julian... and Mark. I just have a thing for the Blackthorn boys" and then I told her how much I love the character Lucas in her short story from the Summer Days & Summer Nights book. 

For my pictures with Holly my favourite picture is (again) the bottom one of the three quite simply because she made us both laugh by asking what her name was instead of what my name was (when signing my book) then we chatted for a minute about her new book which I told her I'm impatient and hate that I have to wait until January for it.

The rules for the signing were that Cassie would only personalise one book (either Lord of Shadows or The Bronze Key) and sign two further books - without personalising them, and Holly would sign all copies of her books. Because the Magisterium is written by both of them I got The Iron Trial (which is book number one) signed by both of them. I got my special edition Lord of Shadows personalised by Cassie and also got her to sign her short story Brand New Attraction in the Summer Days & Summer Nights book. Holly (as well as signing The Iron Trial) also signed her short story Krampuslauf in the My True Love Gave To Me book and because I have pre-ordered The Cruel Prince I was given a beautiful card bookplate along with a sticker that Holly signed, so that when we receive the book in January we can stick the signature in - which I am still amazed someone thought up that amazing idea.

Everyone who attended the event also received an exclusive poster of Emma and Julian as well as a pack of postcards of LOS characters; Julian Blackthorn, Mark Blackthorn, Tiberius Blackthorn, Emma Carstairs, The Seelie Queen and The Unseelie King. The poster and the postcards are beautiful and I have already framed the poster and hung it in my bedroom.

I think one of my favourite parts of the day were as we were leaving the church and I spotted a sign on one of the noticeboards by the exit which said 'Julian Group' so of course we had to get a picture with said sign because Julian Blackthorn is life....

Before we parted ways with our new friends we made sure to exchange social media handles so that we can keep in touch and then off we went home. It's been almost a week since the signing and I still cannot believe I met two amazing authors who I love, one of which is in my Top 3 favourite authors. I'm so grateful to Waterstones for putting on this event, along with Cassandra and Holly and everyone else who made this signing possible. I also want to thank my mum because if it wasn't for her lending me the money for tickets then we wouldn't have been able to go (The tickets went on sale a week before my payday and I had already spent my previous month's wages on photoshoots for LFCC - which I will also be doing a post about on here so keep your eyes peeled for that too)