OPAL Release Party!! ♥ Recap

Um, yeah. That happened. On the 15th. In Humble, Texas. And I was there to witness it!

 

You remember the Opal Release Party, right? I mean, I've had the #VoteHouston button at the top of my left sidebar for weeks now.

 

Well, I actually got to go!! So I'm going to ATTEMPT to recap it somewhat for y'all. Notice, I say "attempt." It was so much fun, I will probably not have words sometimes. Plus, I don't have the absolute BEST memory in the world. But there WILL be pictures. So yay!

 

Since I live around Austin, we had to drive a good amount to get to the signing. I also planned on helping setting stuff up, which meant we got to leave that much earlier. Not too bad, though. Some people came from waaaay farther than us. Valerie from Stuck In Books? She flew from Colorado. And I heard there was a girl there from Costa Rica. Um, WHOA, right? I unerstand, though. If I could, I totally would.

 

So there was a nice amount of waiting all around, but at least I had stuff to do and/or people to talk to. Then Jen and Pepe got there. And...um....PEPE IS GORGEOUS. Let's just get that out there now. He is. He is he is he is.

 

DO YOU SEE THAT? *swoon* And he has an amazing accent, which we all heard when he announced that Houston was the winning city! Only thing better than that? Pepe saying "Hey, Kitten, want a cookie?" Or aha, maybe "Hey, Kitten, want a cookie again?" (Both of these things DID happen.)

 

Jen? Well, Jen is so. Flipping. Awesome. Seriously, I can't even. She's so nice and she knew who I was! That's such a big deal for me you don't even know.

 

Mmhmm. She hugged me. When she realized I was me. I still have zero words.

 

So there was a Q & A, of course, and honestly, I can't remember specifics. Like, I can't tell you "So and so asked this" and then "Jen said this" followed by specific word for word quote. So I'm going to give y'all bullets of information of what was said.

 

- Jen liked being able to use...certain words...when writing Obsession.

- Pepe misses Sztella. (We all "AWWWWW"ed when he said this.)

- Jen likes to eat microphones, apparently.

- Pepe prefers not to use microphones. (Luckily, I was close enough to hear his beautiful voice.)

- Sztella couldn't make it because of school and stuff. Totally understandable. We missed her, though!

- We should pretty much thank Liz Pelletier for everything Lux related.

- Liz loses all her bonus points because SHE'S the one who says no to Jen telling us what was in the note in Onyx.

- Jen has an idea for the title of book 5, but can't share it because Liz doesn't even know it yet.

- When Pepe & Sztella first came to the U.S for the original Dameon Invasion, it took Jen two hours to find them in the airport.

- Obsidian was originally titled Fallen Stars. (Is that so pretty or what?!)

- Jen had never seen Pepe before in her life when she wrote the character of Daemon, but he fit Jen's idea of Daemon perfectly. AND, he already had an obsidian necklace. BEFORE he even knew about the book or anything. (Um, yeah. Meant to be, right?)

- In Humble, Texas, there is officially a Jennifer L. Armentrout Day.

 

And that's all I've got for you guys as far as the Q&A went. Did I get everything for you guys? Honestly, I probably didn't. But I got the cool stuff.

 

After the Q&A, there was the signing. Where Jen signed so many books...I have no idea how she did it. Pepe, too, but he only had to sign the Lux ones. Jen had to sign her Covenant ones and Cursed, too. But she did! And she was so cool about it. I brought/bought/recieved a gazzillion books for her to sign. But I repeat: she was so cool about it! I kept apologizing about it. She told me I shouldn't apologize and Pepe...well, he asked me WHAT I was apologizing for. Sweet boy.

 

 

 

 

Fun fact: During the signing (after my books were signed, of course) I spent a nice amount of time sitting on the floor near Pepe. Don't think Pepe noticed much, though. Not because I'm creepy, but because I was helping out with swag but then I wanted to sit down...so I did. Great view.

 

After the signing, we got to take pictures! Well, before that, there were raffle drawings for jewelry from Hebel Designs and some little bags and stuff. All the winnings were awesome. I won nothing. BUT my mom and sister-in-law DID, and gave their winnings to me. You shall see later. Anyway, back to pictures!!

 

I have PROOF of how sweet Pepe is. Ready?

That, my friends, is my nephew. Guess who talked him over to take this picture? (Well, with a little of my help, but I think he didn't want to get in trouble. He's four, guys.) SO CUTE! This is my absolute favorite picture from the signing. Even more than the one with just me and Pepe. And the one with just me and Jen. Even though Pepe's not looking at the camera here. He's looking at Billyboy.

This child was CLUTCHING my hand. But in the end, I did get him to say "Hi, Pepe." And Pepe gave him a high five. I'm telling you, Pepe is so freaking sweet.

 

Then there were the other pictures...

 

 

 

Yeah. I'm that short. And that IS Jen's leg. As much as I adore Pepe, I think her leg is my favorite part of this picture.

 

I really like how there is a huge wall of LUX right behind all the pictures. Perfect background, if you ask me.

 

So...those are my pictures! After the pictures...well, it was over. Some of us went out to dinner afterwards where I sat next to my friend Jodie and Rachel Harris (yes, author of My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century) and dropped some money on the floor so I got to crawl underneath the table to find it. Then I talked to Jen some (which was so insanely cool, I can't even) and...um...kind of ran after Pepe so I could get one last hug when we were all leaving. As I...said? I can't rememeber, but it was coming out of my mouth, "Pepe Pepe Pepe!" Um. Yeah. Got my hug, though!

 

All in all, the signing was so insanely fun. Anyone who couldn't make it for whatever reason--lived too far away, had to study for the dreadful midterms that start tomorrow for me (ohmygosh, I am so doomed), or their grandmother's ninetieth birthday party--I am so sorry. I tried to put everything cool that went on into this post, though! I'm sure I'm not the only one who's going to do this, so be on the lookout for recap posts and read those, too for more stuff!

 

Aha, I went to this with eight books. Then I bought two. We were part of the first 100 people, so we got four free copies of Opal, then I got an extra copy of Opal at the end because people are nice. PLUS, I won some books at the blogger mingle and my friend Jodie gave me one that SHE won because she already owned it. I at least doubled the amount of books I went home with compared to when I arrived.

 

As of this moment, I own seven copies of Opal. I have plans to send off some and keep some, but still. Right now, there are seven.

That's five of the seven. The other two were in the car and since it was early this morning before we got ready to check out or our motel, I, nor did anyone else, want to go outside to get the other two. But there are seven. Trust me. Or ask JLA. She knows.

 

My Covenant books. Now all signed and personalized. Well, kind of. I've decided on good homes for the extras to go to, after a lot of mind-changing. I have to send them this week sometime!

 

My Lux books! Now signed and personalized. Sorry for the flash. Remember, early this morning. I was too lazy to retake the picture without flash. My copy of Opal was in the stack of five. Because I'm a genius, I didn't think to take a picture of all three together. *facepalm*

 

Those are the books I acquired from the dinner after the signing. All of those are signed. I'm so glad I own Fallen and Hush, Hush now! I kind of want to re-read.... And I haven't read the other two. I'll have to do that sometime!

 

ALLLL of the books I went home with. Well, that were involved with the signing. I had a library book lying around somewhere, too, and a copy of Dear Teen Me which I got signed by Mary Lindsey (because she was at the release party!) for a friend. I have a picture of that somewhere...

 

Yeah, there it is. See it? Off to the left. And, um, that's a majority of the swag I got. I have a better picture of that...

 

That;s most of my swag I got. Not all, though. Some of it was in books or scattered through my bag and I didn't feel like digging it out. I'm lazy, in case you hadn't noticed. Either way, I have more than enough Lux stuff to give people I like. :) And to stow away for things...yeah. You may see some of this again, folks. Plus, I have LOTS more at home. Well, I'm at home right now...but I wasn't when I took this picture and I'm too lazy (ha!) to take another picture right now. And yeah.

 

So that's my recap, guys! I had an amazing time, got some cool stuff, polished off my Christmas gift buying (well, kind of), and got to meet Jen & Pepe!

 

I have no idea what I should ask you guys to comment about. So leave a comment if you have anything to say! I love reading comments!

 

P.S. I hugged Pepe. At least twice. And I hugged Jen at least three times. Just saying.

 

And I have more pictures. I'll post those some other time, though, because I already have so many in this post, I have a feeling blogger's going to rebel against me...so yeah. That is all.

 

Wait, no it's not. Pepe? *swoon*

 

And Jen? Easiest author to talk to I have ever met.

 

Okay, NOW I'm good. So we can end with this, becasue it's my favooorite:

 

 

♥Jessica(: