Meeting Richelle Mead

On 18th February, 2010 I met Richelle Mead, author of the Vampire Academy books (amongst others), in Southampton, UK where I live. I got there early so I could browse the book store and buy a couple of copies of the book to give to friends. I had a look in the YA section and then went upstairs to look at the SCI FI and Paranormal Romance section. One minute the shelves were adorned with Richelle Mead books and a moment later, they were gone! I was thinking “hang on a minute, they were there a minute ago! Maybe someone has got carried away and bought them all for Richelle to sign”. Turns out, the staff had moved them downstairs when I wasn’t looking!

Anyway, I was super early and so I found a comfortable seat by the signing table and pulled out one of my books to read. As I was waiting for Richelle ro arrive, slowly but surely people piled into the room. There was a pretty nifty 'vampire name generator wheel' which I thought initially was more for the younger crowd but I had a lot of fun spinning the wheel and this is what came out for me....

I AM....*drum roll*....PRINCESS LISSA.....*grin* We'll just forget about the "inhuman" bit they tagged on the end there..inconsequential..

When Richelle arrived, she gave us a reading from her new book “Spiritbound” which is due to be released in May, 2010. At one point she paused and had to self edit so as not to reveal any spoilers. She realised she was reading from an earlier draft and apologised profusely! She needn’t have as we wouldn’t know the difference – it’s not been released yet! She did reveal a couple of things though but since I haven’t read the rest of the books yet, they didn’t mean much to me. Richelle then went on to answer questions from the floor. The questions were varied and not all book related, some asked about how to get published and I asked if it was difficult to write from the first person POV without putting your own self in the writing which she thought was a good question! One guy referred to the books as the 'Vampire Diaries'....oh dear...he was corrected though and apologised! There was a girl there who kept repeatedly asking questions without raising her hand and waiting to be acknowledged. Apparently she was writing for a book blog but I didn’t think much of her manners.

Anyway, after the questions came the signing and the photographs. As the queue was so long, I sat down and waited until the last few people were remaining. I got my books signed, told Richelle how much I had LOVED Vampire Academy and that I’d written a review on it. Has she read it? I have no idea but I hope so! :) I had my photograph taken and I said to the photographer “Can you PLEASE try and make me look beautiful next to Richelle?” If you’ve ever met Richelle, you will know that whilst she is tiny, she is a stunningly pretty lady. I was doing my usual "I can't pose for a photograph pose" and ended up partially shutting my eyes! All I can say is that I had been up since 6am!














She was really nice, gave us free pens and badges. I even bought a signed book to give to a good cause – The Battle Collection – over on this website here

To top the evening off, I made a new friend in Suzanne Mcleod who turns out to be an author. You can check out her website here I’m definitely going to be looking into her books! In the meantime however.....I’m off to read some more of Frostbite...

If you want to check out Richelle's official BLOG, then click here You can see her posts on her UK visit and I am in one of the photos! *squee*