I love getting the chance to attend bookish events. I don’t go to them that often. I might be fairly close to London, but I’d still have to stay the night in the city, and most of the time, I can’t excuse that. So when one happens a little closer to home, I’m happy.
The launch party for The Very Secret Society of Witches was held in the Waterstones in Norwich. It’s a place local to the author and a store that hosts many events. I’ve blogged about one such event before. But that Tuesday night was dedicated to Sangu Mandanna herself.
To celebrate there was a beautiful display of the books, some delicious tea-inspired cocktails and an interview with the author. We could’ve asked her questions, but as so few people had read the book yet – the problem with a Q&A session at a launch, unfortunately – no one did. Still, that meant that people could spend longer with her when signing, so it wasn’t exactly a problem.
The team at Waterstones did a great job with this event. The atmosphere was friendly, there was a good variety of snacks and drinks, and it was pretty well-organised. I’ll mention the cocktails again as, oh boy, they were good. I tried the strawberry gin and black tea one. It was seriously delicious. It tasted like I was drinking strawberry jam but not in an overpowering way. I definitely want to make it myself. I think I found the recipe Rayna used online, but I’ve also seen her wondering on Twitter if her work email will be inundated by recipe requests. Which honestly…fair. You did a too good job with everything, Rayna!
Sangu herself was obviously lovely. I’ve not even read the book yet, but I’m glad to hear that she has another adult book coming out! I won’t say anything yet as I don’t think the information is online, but it sounds right up my alley. And her next middle-grade book sounds right up my brother’s alley too. So that was pretty fun to hear about. She also talked about what type of magic she’d like – drink magic – and said around where in Norfolk she thought Nowhere House would be. Oh, and of course, some conversation about sexy librarians. Which…yeah, I can see it. Kind of makes me a little more excited to read the book too, ha!
I grabbed a copy of the book for myself and got it signed. It was lovely that the author recognised my name from Twitter, and I had some conversations with other bookish people too.
Overall, though it was shorter of an event than I’d expected, it was still lovely, and I’m glad that I grabbed a ticket for it. It was a lot of fun, and I’m even more hyped to read the book now!
Lace and Dagger Books 