It’s been five weeks since I got home from my book tour. But because of jet lag, catching up with my family and work, and just the overall surreal aura of the whole thing, it feels like the week-long event occurred sometime in a past life. Which makes me want to get the details from the last two stops down for posterity’s sake before they start going all fuzzy and inaccurate. (What do you mean two dozen wonderfully interested and interactive attendees? I remember reading to a stadium full of rabid fans trying to claw their way to the stage!)

Ahem. So here’s how it went.

My host for the New York events was my friend Claudia, librarian and Beta-reader extraordinaire. She not only organized the two events, but her husband Bill (old friend and Sotheby’s colleague) picked me up at JFK and drove me two hours to their house, where they fed me a fabulous Mexican meal and let me go to bed at a ridiculously early hour.

Me with Claudia and Bill, good friends and generous hosts.

The next day began at Newburgh’s Barnes & Noble, where I read my book in public for the very first time. I had practiced that morning for Claudia and Bill, who had timed Chapter 4 as taking 8 minutes, which seemed a reasonable length for a public reading.

My first public reading! (DIE FOR ME, Chapter 4)

The group was small but attentive, and asked a lot of questions. After the huge crowds that the Dark Days tour pulled in, it was a nice change to be able to speak to everyone individually.

Signing books for the Newburgh group

After a delicious crab-cake sandwich lunch at one of my friends’ favorite locals, we drove to The Tuxedo Park Library, where Claudia is the Director. She had all sorts of delicious treats set out for attendees and directed me in to a gorgeous reading room, where the first person I met was Carla of Emberchyld’s Blog. She had driven two hours after an ice skating tournament to come, which won her dedicated DIE FOR ME fan-of-the-day award.

Me & Carla (who was wearing a gorgeous vintage dress)

There was a book club in attendance who had just read DIE FOR ME, as well as several teenagers who all had questions about the story and writing process.

Reading room at Tuxedo Park Library

And then, smack-dab in the middle of questions I recognized two friends from university and had a mini-freak out (“Hey! I know you! And I know you too!”). I actually knew that they might be coming, but hadn’t seen them for twenty years and had been staring at them for the last half-hour without realizing who they were.

Christine and Susan, friends from that past-life called university.

This time the hour flew by. I wasn’t nervous. In fact, I was having so much fun that I was surprised when it was over. I felt like calling HarperCollins and saying, “Hey – I can do this now. Sign me up for another couple of weeks!” But alas, the tour was over. And to celebrate the end, Claudia planned something that took me back to the very start.

When I was just beginning to write DIE FOR ME, I was constantly chatting online about it with Claudia and two of her friends, Nancy and Christine. They helped me choose anglophone-friendly names for my characters and gave me input at the very beginning. I had never met them in “real life”, so Claudia invited them over for some celebratory champagne and we chatted and marveled about the amazing road that the book had traveled from those very first days when DIE FOR ME was still SLEEPWALKING and Vincent was still “Aurelien”. It was the perfect way to say “au revoir” to an incredible fairytale of a week.

Nancy, Me, Claudia, India and Christine

I love book clubs and reading groups, and feel especially honored when someone writes me to tell me that their group chose DIE FOR ME for their reading list! So I decided to do something to show my appreciation. I have a few goodies for reading groups of five or more, libraries, or school groups who have read my book.

1. A list of discussion questions for reading groups.

2. Signed bookmarks.

3. A Skype session up to 20 minutes. I can answer questions about the writing process, the inspiration behind DIE FOR ME or a general Q&A session with your members.

You can read all of the details on my Goodies for Reading Groups page. A heartfelt THANK YOU for choosing DIE FOR ME for your group!

Thursday, June 9: Austin

Hotel lobby, Portland: 4:45a.m. Actually more like 4:50, because this time I was the one who was 5 minutes late, and when I arrive in the lobby everyone is on their phones trying to reach me. (Eek!) We book it to the airport, and jump on a plane for Salt Lake City, and as I sit down next to my row-mate, she asks me if I’m traveling for business.

I say “yes” and she asks what kind of business. Turns out that she noticed all of us wearing Veronica’s tattoos on our hands (see example below), and just had to know more about it.

Veronica's "Dauntless" tattoo on my hand (during Portland signing)

Travel tip: if you don’t want random people chatting with you on airplanes at an ungodly hour of the morning, don’t display a mysterious fire tattoo on a noticeable part of your body.

We changed planes in Salt Lake City and landed in Austin around lunch time. Our perky media escort, Kristen J Holland, was waiting for us in a Pucci-style dress and an accent that slingshot me right back to my Birmingham childhood. Not that Texas accents are the same as Alabama’s. But for me, her voice evoked a sweat-beaded glass of ice tea with a sprig of mint in it. I felt at home in Texas as soon as she opened her mouth.

And if the accent weren’t enough of a welcome, in her van she had a cooler filled with sodas, Hershey’s kisses and pretzels. She had magazines about Austin. She pointed out the best restaurants and shops along the way. And as we drove over a long bridge into the center of town, she told us that millions of bats lived under it, and all flew out in a thick noisy bat-cloud every night. You could almost hear five author-brains simultaneously kick into high gear as we began lobbing bat-questions at her.

Turns out we weren’t the only group staying at the Omni. We got there just in time for the Harley Davidson festival, and let me tell you, with motors revving just outside, lunch in hotel lobby was a loud affair. I’ve never seen so much leather, boots, and tied-round-the-forehead bandannas in my life.

I felt smack dab in the spirit of things as I wore my top with black-leather detailing and faux-leather skirt to the signing a couple of hours later. If you don’t already know it, Book People is an AWESOME bookstore, and once again I was sorely tempted to split off from our activities for some browsing time.

Once ushered into the author space, we were welcomed by the bookstore staff, as well as the super-peppy Katie Bartow from Mundie Moms. Katie was the HarperCollins live blogger, and you can see her stories and pictures here.

The Dark Days group at Book People, Austin

We followed our now-regular format of Q&A for a huge, enthusiastic crowd, and then the real fun began. I got to meet even more people who I knew from online, like Yara from Once Upon a Twilight, Amy Howard Green and her sister Brittany Howard of the YA Sisterhood (third sister had a very good excuse for not showing, as she was busy giving birth), Terri Zuwala, and Jen Bigheart from I Read Banned Books. (As well as many other amazing people, who I had a blast chatting with as they paused to chat.)

Aprilynne, Ellen and I signing books (Lori Ann's photo)

As soon as the last book was signed, Katie grabbed us and she and and Stacey from Girls in the Stacks, filmed a short interview and took some pictures. And then it was back to the hotel, where fellow writer and fellow married-to-a-French-guy Texas native Lori Ann Stevens was waiting me (we have been online pen pals for over a year), at the lobby bar. (Her photos of the signing are here.)

And instead of heading back to their rooms, which you would think everyone would do after such an exhausting day, the other authors all sat around and chatted with us. Katie had come along, and stayed until there was an incident involving excited gesturing and Aprilynne’s Virgin Bloody Mary, which exploded all over the two of them and their bags.

After saying goodbye to Lori Ann (who I hope I will see again in France), I headed up to Tara’s room, which had somehow become the designated after-hours spot. We all ordered room-service dinner, which we ate propped upon every available surface: bed, side table, and desk. And after dinner we stayed until our fatigue amped up the hilarity and everything devolved into the conversation-level of a teenage slumber party. Finally, knowing that we all had morning flights, we dragged ourselves away at 1am.

And the next morning I said goodbye to my Dark Days of Summer group. Three were traveling on to Phoenix, one to Oklahoma, and I was continuing my tour in New York. We hugged and said goodbye like old friends, instead of the strangers we had been just three days ago. And, with utmost sincerity and high hopes for the future, we all said to each other as we left, “I hope we can do this again.”

Wednesday, June 8: Portland

Another pre-dawn wakeup. Another early morning work-out at the Westin O’Hare hotel gym…this time with a lot of sweaty businessmen. By 8:45 I was piling my luggage into Bill’s van and heading for the airport. My fellow Dark Daysers and I accompanied each other through security checks and hung out chatting until it was time to get onto the plane, where we were all seated separately. Our theory: there must have been former Dark Daysers who actually didn’t enjoy spending every free second with each other and asked not to be seated side-by-side.

Therefore, Aprilynne and I were forced to pass notes back and forth over the seatback about the guy sitting next to her who had what appeared to be a homemade tattoo of brass knuckles on the back of his neck, which was not visible from her perspective (but which I thought she should know about in case he tried to strike up a conversation with her about jail tattoos).

We arrived in Portland to meet our media escort, the elegant Deb Flynn Hanrahan, who was another mom-of-someone-almost-my-age, which meant I stuck to her like Superglue. Got the info on her artistic daughter who lives a few blocks away from my old apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She took us to a really cool place in Portland for lunch and then on to the hotel, at which point I ditched my suitcase with Aprilynne and ran off to the Portland City Grill where a dozen members of my family had flown and driven long distances from California, Oregon, Idaho and Washington to meet me.

Aunt, uncle and lots of cousins

Our get-togethers are rare and I really really love these people, so I stayed as long as I could, and then ran back to the hotel to get ready for the Main Event: the Dark Days signing at Barnes and Noble, Clackamas Town Center Mall. However, we almost didn’t make it into the bookstore, since Aprilynne spotted an Anthropologie just a couple of shops down and had to be forcibly steered away.

We were led to a meeting room, and introduced to the effervescent Sara Gundell (who was rocking an amazing dress). Her site, Novel Novice, was serving as HarperTeen’s official blog partner, and we spent a few minutes shooting a video interview with her.

Here we are, pre-signing, being interviewed by Novel Novice

And then we walked into the main room and saw a huge group assembled there waiting for…us! I had a serious heart-in-throat moment, so it was a good thing that Deb was there to lead us to the table and show us where to sit.

Holy crap, that's a big crowd!

We followed the same “introduce ourselves, then Q&A” format, which was live-Tweeted by Sara (front row, red hair, rockin’ B&W dress). She took some great action shots, which you can see here. (How exactly she managed to Tweet and photograph at once is a mystery to me. I suspect that she types with her toes.)

And then came the signing, and let me tell you – it was AMAZING. I met so many people who I knew online, including Kristina, Melania, Jennifer, Vy, Candace, Angel Morgan, Nancy. (Click on their names to see their own photos and accounts of the event.) And then Suzanne Young, whose own book, A NEED SO BEAUTIFUL, was just published yesterday by HarperTeen, stopped by and introduced herself. Annie Jhun, a girl I used to work with in New York, walked up with her boyfriend, totally surprising me. And then my family all came up and hugged me and took pictures.

Signing next to Tara. (Photo by cousin Melissa.)

As you can see in the picture, we all had stuff we gave away. I had sea-salt chocolate that I had brought from France, Tara had the blue bracelets you see, and Aprilynne and Veronica had temporary tattoos. I signed two Nooks and a Kindle. Someone gave me a beaded bookmark she had made. People talked to me about their own writing aspirations. It was AWESOME!

Finally, after the last book was signed, we returned to the hotel and had dinner in the restaurant before heading to bed early. Because the meeting time the next morning was (gulp) 4:45a.m.!

Tuesday, June 7, Chicago

At 5:15 we were all back in the lobby, and then herded out to the car by Bill, our media escort. This time I got to ride in front with him, and used my forty minutes wisely, discovering that he had been a media escort for 24 years. That his wife is an author. That he had escorted J.K. Rowling a couple of times, as well as Neil Gaiman, which got a squeal out of the group’s Neil fans who had overheard.

I kept getting sucked into the back-seat conversations, though, and felt kind of bad that Bill had to listen to us comparing book cover stories, what our characters were originally named, who came up with their own book titles, sex versus violence as a reason for YA censorship, and other fascinating-to-us but probably trite-to-him topics. I could tell he had a million amazing stories to tell, and can only hope that I get him to myself some day so that I can mine his cache of author secrets!

Once at Anderson’s Bookstore in Naperville, Bill led us through the Secret Author Entrance (e.g. the back door) and placed us in the capable hands of the bookstore staff. We were given a commemorative Anderson’s bookstore bag, and then told that while we were waiting, we could choose any book we wanted to take with us.

You should have seen our faces: the idiom of “feeling like a kid in a candy shop” should be officially changed to “feeling like an author in a bookstore (with a freebie book on offer)”. I began wandering and petting the books, and watching what everyone else was petting, and since I still don’t know YA that well, asked the others what I should get. It was either Aprilynne or Veronica who suggested MAZE RUNNER by James Dashner, which I promptly handed to the staff-member as my pick.

Me and "Pushy" (photo from Bewitched Bookworms)

Finally, we were called up to the front, where we sat again, panel-style, behind a table. The lovely ladies of Bewitched Bookworms were livestreaming the event and taking questions from the internet audience. (You can see their great photos and commentary here and the livestream video still exists here.)

We began with a quick introduction of our books, and then launched directly into a Q&A. Book blogger Me, Myshelf & I took notes, and you can see her transcript of the questions and answers here.

After all of the interviews I’ve done in the last few months, I felt sure that there was no question I hadn’t answered. So when, much to my chagrin, someone asked a new one—”What was the most surprising thing that happened to you after your book deal?”—my brain did a little glitchy “Whaaaa?”, and I passed the microphone to Tara. And then thanked every deity I could think of that I was not doing my first tour stop alone.

Post Q&A, the crowd lines up for the signing.

After the questions, the crowd lined up to get their books signed, and I got to meet several book bloggers and readers who had been in touch with me over the last few months. Putting a face with a name (or in some cases, just their online identity) was such a thrill. I wish I had made a list of who I met, because there were so many people in so little time.

My best friend Kim showed her support by bringing a whole huge cheering squad with her, including her husband and Tizzy, her sister Carol (who I love), Carol’s daughters Penny and Ellie (who you might remember was at one point my book’s youngest fan), and a handful of her friends who I had met over the years.

A university friend, photographer Mike Hudson, showed up with a picture he had taken of me reading a book a kazillion years ago (hint – I had big ’80s hair). And a reader from the audience gave me a drawing that she had done of my book cover. It felt like Christmas in June.

Ellen, Veronica, Aprilynne, Me and Tara, post-Anderson-sigining

We took some post-signing photos, and then Bill herded us into the van and took us back to the hotel. Where, instead of returning to our rooms, as I had expected, we all headed to Tara’s room to celebrate her book birthday. We sprawled across her bed and chairs and chatted until we realized that we were about to miss last call for room service, and all dashed off to our rooms to order very late dinners and grab some sleep for DAY 3. (to come).