Waiting On Wednesday (46)

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly meme, hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine, in which we highlight an upcoming book release we're eagerly awaiting.

This week I'm waiting on Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore, the companion to Graceling and Fire. News about this book has been a long time coming, but earlier this week the cover was revealed on Publishers Weekly, and waiting's only getting harder. I wish there was a real blurb!

"Book 3, tentatively titled Bitterblue and currently in progress, is a companion book to both Graceling and Fire and takes place in the seven kingdoms eight years after Graceling. Bitterblue will tie all three books together in some way. Bitterblue is the sixteen-year-old protagonist, and Katsa, Po, Giddon, Helda, and other characters from Graceling will be part of the fabric of the book. Plenty of fighting still to come!" 

[Synopsis by Goodreads]

Bitterblue is being released by Dial (and by Gollancz in Australia) on the 1st of May, 2012.

Feel free to leave a link to your own Waiting On Wednesday post in the comments, and I'll be sure to have a look.

Kristin Cashore and Cassandra Clare signings!

On Friday, conveniently my school's Athletics Carnival Day (no school for the non-athletic!), Dymocks hosted two of my favourite authors: Kristin Cashore and Cassandra Clare.

Kristin's appearance was quasi-secret. Only the Dymocks Events email subscribers received news that she was coming. She was lovely, and signed my copies of Graceling and Fire with an awesome message related to the books:

Kristin and I. Very blurry, but in my defence, I didn't take the picture.

Just before her appearance, I ran into Braiden from Livin' Thru Arts and we hung out for Cassie's 'tour wrap party' (in quotations marks because that's what they called it, but it wasn't much of a party.)

Before Cassie arrived, there was trivia. Some questions were really hard (what did the buttons on the bag in Luke's house in City Of Bones when Clary, Jace, and Simon went there say?) to slightly less hard (asking about Jace's cornucopia of names and which he had when). I got three right, and won three lollipops. The girl behind me won, with 7. I should have just caught all of her prizes when they were thrown out.

Then Cassie arrived to squealing fangirls (and the odd fanboy) and read us an excerpt of Clockwork Prince (really great scene!) and answered questions we wrote down as we arrived. Then we formed some semblance of a line (and my that, I mean we swarmed her table) to get our books signed:

Just some of the crowd to the left of me.

She was excited to hear that my favourite character was Eric, and told me she'd based him off someone she knew in real life who liked hearing about what fans say about him.

Also on the way out, we received small swag packs, including a postcard, bookmark, and healing rune necklace!

And then I made my way out of the crowd (but really, I should have crowd-surfed out) and just caught my tram, and then ran to catch my train, and then all-but-ran home because my town at night time isn't exactly 16-year-old-girl-friendly.

So in the comments, tell me have you met either Kristin or Cassie? Or if you've been to a signing before, which has been your favourite?