Welcome to another edition of the Montreal Book Bloggers meet up except this one is a little different from what you are use to reading. What is the difference you ask? That is a very good question and the answer is this:
The Montreal Book Blogger group that use to be just six of us meeting up monthly turned into this huge gathering today. This has roughly been about a month in a half to two months in the making finally happened today. We all agreed to meet today at a restaurant downtown.So let me introduce you to the local bloggers who made it to the luncheon and they are all local Montreal area bloggers.
Front Row:
PK @ Aisle B, Me, Cat @ Beyond Books and Lisa @ Starmetal Oak.
Back Row:
Avis @ She Reads and Reads, Amanda @ Tales and Treats, Melissa @ YA Book Shelf, Jennifer @ Mrs Q: Book Addict, Cindy B. @Tynga's Reviews, Lucy @ Moonlight Gleam's bookshelf, Donna @ Book Bound, Laura @ Library of Clean Reads and last but certainly not least Tina @ Bookshipper.
When I first started blogging I actually thought I was the only one from Montreal blogging but quickly realized that I wasn't alone and that was when I met up with Donna, Avis and Tina. Over the past three years we have added Linda from Better with Books (she sadly was unable to make it today because of a previous commitment, we missed you Linda.) , Amanda and Laura. So if there was this many book bloggers in Montreal there must be more and I knew of Tynga's Reviews because I have been a followers of Tynga's for awhile and slowly the pieces fell into place and we discovered that in fact there is a whole bunch of us here.
I was excited to get to meet everyone today and to finally put a face to the blogs that I have recently been reading.
Thanks to Lucy she made everyone these awesome name tags for everyone.
Speaking of Lucy, I was excited to meet her because we have been emailing back and forth for a good part of a week now almost 3-4 times a day.
You see that cute waiter behind us? He was our waiter and he was amazing. I think we kind of surprised him when he realized we were a bunch a book bloggers/readers because he asked me how long did it take us to read a book.Of course no meet up would be complete without books so here is what I brought home:
Thanks to Laura from Library of Clean reads I was able to get The Queen of New Beginnings by Erica James. Thanks so much Laura I am looking forward to reading this one.Also a huge Thank you to Laura for driving us to the restaurant. Along the way we had picked up Tina and Avis. From Tina I brought home:
UnSweetined by Jodi Sweetin, A Girl's Life Online by Katherine Tarbox and The Lipstick Laws by Amy Holder. Thank you Tina another set of great books I am dying to read.Then at the meet up I got the following books from Melissa at YA Book Shelf
Clarity by Kim Harrington (I have been told that this is really good from Lucy so I was dying to read this), Forever by Maggie Stiefvater and Extraordinary by Nancy Werlin. Thanks so much Melissa all great books I am dying to read. It was so nice to finally meet you even though we were at Cecil's booksigning and didn't realize it at the time.Its so great to find and talk to other book lovers because we all have the some interest and this is books. There is never an awkward moment when you are in the presence of other bloggers. The only thing is I wish I could have spoken to more of you more and I guess we will have to save that for the next meet up. Please feel free to email me.
I also have to send out a huge huge Thank You to some awesome publishers here in Canada that were so kind and gracious to send us a whole bunch of goodies when they found out we were starting a Montreal Book Bloggers event to bring awareness to Montreal bloggers and hopefully get the word out that authors need to come to Montreal more often.
So a huge Thank you goes out to Simon & Schuster Canada, Random House Canada, Harper Collins Canada and Scholastic Canada. Thank You so very much it was truly appreciated.
This is some of the swag everyone got from bookmarks, postcards, tattoos, and there was even some Pretty Little Liars lip balm. Thank you for sending that to us.Here are the books that I brought home.
From Simon & Schuster:Finding Sarah by Sarah Ferguson and Untold Story by Monica Ali (Two of my favorite royals)
From Harper Collins:
Variant by Robison Wells
From Scholastic:
Dark Souls by Paula Morris (not sure if this is book in a series, does anyone know if it is?)
Want To Go Private? by Sarah Darer Littman
Thank you once again to Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, Scholastic and Random House once again for the nice little surprises you sent to us.
If you haven't already checked out these fantastic bloggers then you should because they are an awesome bunch.
See you all at the next meet up.