Have you ever been lucky enough to attend a panel where the entire room is excited to be there? It's an amazing experience, and combined with one of the most bright and welcoming bookstores I've seen in a while, and you've got an incredible way to spend a Thursday night.

But ok, back to last night. East City Book Shop brought together a fantastic group of authors (all new to me because I'm lame). Mia Sosa and Tracey Livesay are both local to the DC area, and Sally Thorne is traveling the U.S. from her native Australia! Oh, and did I mention that the panel was moderated by Sarah Wendell, of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books fame? BECAUSE IT WAS.

I know I'm biased, but I really do think Romance readers are some of the best people. Every one of us was so excited for the opportunity to listen to some of our favorites talk not only about their books, but about the industry as a whole and their experience navigating it. It's an even rarer opportunity to be able to do that in your own proverbial back yard.

And so I leave you on what was possibly the best moment of the entire night, when Mia Sosa brought down the house after relating an inspiration story that involved her, her husband, and a quaint play on the words "night cap" (I implore you to listen to the podcast, because I could never do it justice).

Friday night was a good one for me. Not only did I end up with a free ticket to Neil Gaiman's talk (& book signing) at George Washington University, but due to unexpected friend of a friend connection, I got a seat in the second row! Wahoo!


It was incredible to hear Gaiman speak in person, his words and personality over blogs/Twitter has always been so much fun, but the book reading was my favorite part. I didn't know much about The Ocean at the End of the Lane but hearing it in his own voice definitely has me intrigued. I just wish I was a better audio book person though because Gaiman recorded it himself!


Either way it was a really fun night and if you're looking for something new yourself why not check it out? It's only $15.22 on Amazon! A steal!

Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.