Three Book Launch Events for Shine Shine Shine

My book will be released tomorrow, July 17th! On this day you can walk into any bookstore, demand to be sold a copy of my book, and the bookseller will cheerfully comply. Cheerfully. And honorably. It's true.

I am having three book launch events because triangles. Here I have arranged them chronologically.

EVENT 1: Signing/Reading/Meeting/Greeting @ Prince Books: 12:00pm Tuesday, July 17

Prince Books

109 East Main St.

Norfolk, VA 23510

757-622-9223

http://www.prince-books.com

Special note: The first ten people to buy books from Prince Bookstore will receive a coupon to receive an item of your choice for free at the Leaping Lizard cafe. Browse the menu. Let Maxon buy you lunch. 

EVENT 2: Virtual Book Launch Party @ Shindig Events: 7:30pm Tuesday, July 17

http://shindig.com/event/shineshineshine

No need to register, download, install, get a ticket, drive anywhere, or put on pants. There will be special guests including Joshilyn Jackson, who read the audiobook for Shine Shine Shine, Andrea Kinnear and my husband, who wrote the math equations. I may be wearing a robot head. I may be singing a song. You can participate with audio/video and appear on the screen via your webcam, OR you can participate via chat only. 

Official cocktail of the event:

The Perfect Mother

The perfect mother is always minty-fresh and peacefully diluted with vodka and sugar.

Start with this:
1 cup fresh mint leaves
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

Combine and boil, simmer, cool, then strain to make mint syrup. While it's bubbling, whisper your suspicions about your neighbors over the pot. As you're straining, mash the mint with vigor, attempting to extract all the secrets from its leaves. Should yield 1 1/2 cups if you strain angrily enough. 

Juice three limes into a pitcher. With each lime you strain, visualize one way you've changed for the better in the last ten years. Add a cup of vodka and a cup of club soda, and all the mint syrup. Stir with satisfaction.

Mix and pour over ice into glasses. Garnish with a straw topper by punching out the holes and sticking your straw in and out (click for larger image): 

EVENT 3: Book Launch Party @ Barnes & Noble : 7:00pm Wednesday July 18th

Come a bit early for appetizers, Italian soda, cupcakes and a beautiful book cake from Frank's cousin who needs a Facebook page so I can link to her! I'll get the party started at 6:30 and the actual event will begin with an intro from my son Benny at 7:00pm. 

A Visit from Joshilyn Jackson

My excellent friend and NYT bestselling author Joshilyn Jackson was in town this weekend for a visit and some book events promoting her awesome new book, A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty! We have been friends since graduate school, but since we normally go away together to hole up in the mountains and write, we have not seen each other's children in forever. It was very nice to have her here and witness my actual life when I'm not stuffing sticks into my hair and foaming at the mouth in the middle of novel production. The children loved her. The dog loved her. She saw my new house. She saw my old house. And there was rejoicing.

We started out in Richmond at The Woman's Club. Joshilyn did a talk and Q&A hosted by Fountain Bookstore. Here she is talking:

Here we are in the bathroom, wondering what's in that abandoned glass on the counter:

Here's Joshilyn with fantastic bookseller Kelly Justice from Fountain Bookstore:

And here we are afterward at the British pub around the corner, eating sausage rolles, Cornish pasties, and absolutely dreadful fish that was full of bones and fail:

Finally, here's Joshilyn at her reading at Prince Books in Norfolk. This morning she rolled out in her orange car to travel back to Atlanta. I miss her already!