Charlaine Harris Book Signing

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the Dead Ever After book signing with Charlaine Harris at Ghillie Dhu in Edinburgh. When I first found out that Charlaine was coming to my city I was over the moon. One of the drawbacks of living in Scotland and having favourite authors that are all American is that they very rarely venture to these shores. Usually when they come to the UK it's just London they visit. My excitement at learning that, finally, one of them was headed my way was therefore immense.

I'm probably not alone in coming to the Sookie Stackhouse books through the TV show True Blood. Ironically when the first series aired here in Britain we were having a very hot, humid summer, much like we are now. I remember sitting up in my room every Friday night at 10pm, sweltering away in the heat, feeling like I was actually in Louisiana. It took all of one episode to get me hooked and the next again week I had ordered the first three books online. The rest of that year was dedicated to reading the first ten books in the series and I quickly fell in love with a certain Eric Northman, who is even more amazing in the books than he is in the TV show (where, let's face it, he is pretty damn awesome!)

Admittedly I haven't read any of the books since the 10th. This is partly down to the poor reviews they received and also partly due to being caught up reading other series. All the same, I was determined that I wasn't going to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to meet Charlaine face-to-face and to hear her discuss the Sookie books.

Meeting John Barrowman

It's been another really busy week, but the highlight was attending a book signing on Wednesday at Waterstones by THE John Barrowman. That's right, Captain Jack was in Edinburgh to sign copies of Bone Quill, his newest novel, and there was no way I was going to miss the chance to see him in person. I've never met anyone famous (anyone exciting anyway) and I've loved John since the moment I first saw him on Doctor Who. Plus, I'm making it a point of attending as many book/publishing related events as I can, and a book signing is definitely publishing related.

Needless to say, Waterstones was chock-a-block with fans, but luckily my friend, Jen, arrived early and got a spot near the start of the queue for us. The level of excitement and impatience amongst the crowd as we waited was almost tangible, and when John and his sister, Carole (who co-authors the books with him) started to descend the stairs everyone cheered. Immediately phones were whipped out as people tried to get pictures. I attempted to take some myself, but I was shaking through sheer excitement so much that they came out a bit blurry! Still, as Jen pointed out, they are proof that we did indeed meet him.

John & Carole Barrowman

Both John and Carole were so nice. Carole asked me how I was, which I thought was really sweet of her. And John was so gracious when I embarrassed myself and asked him if he'd be interested in teaming up with Merchiston Publishing for a potential e-book. I was coerced into asking this by my so-called friends (thanks guys) and my excited tutor who found out I was attending the book signing. I am still in a state of utter horror that I actually asked him about it; sorry, John! But the silver lining is that I actually spoke to him and he was lovely. He's just like you see him on TV; completely down-to-earth. It was a brilliant, if slightly surreal experience, and now I have two books signed by one of my favourite actors. As days go, that was pretty darn good!

One of my signed books

I shall be reading Hollow Earth (the first of the two books) next, so stayed tuned for my review at some future date.

Annette xx