Laini Taylor event recap

When I first found out about Laini Taylor coming to the UK for an event, I was absolutely thrilled, we do get our fair share of great authors doing signings, but this time Laini would be coming to a town just an hour away from me and doing a discussion event and a signing! I knew immediately that this would be one event that I couldn't miss out on. The downside was the tickets for the event would go on sale whilst I was at work, so as usual I had to get my sister involved (despite being a non-reader, I can rely on her for bookish related things such as stalking the postman, sending me photos of my packages whilst I'm at work and ordering Laini Taylor tickets for me). I left my sister with a list of instructions and to message me straight away as soon as the tickets were confirmed, bless my sister in her bewildered state early in the morning, she rang straight away and was able to get tickets. The original plan was to go this event with my cousin who lived in the town the event was taking place, she is a huge fan of this series, so I knew I'd at least have another fan girl with me, but she wasn't able to make it, so I took my sister instead (who I'm sure will be become an avid reader at this rate with all the bookish events that she has attended with me, (she is currently shaking her head as I type this up). But I was also able to hang out with bloggers Donna from Book Passion for Life and Misty from Bookaholics before the event.

We decided to get to the event early so that we could grab the best seats, (we were on the front row! *fist pump*). I hadn't actually read my copy of Dreams of Gods and Monsters before the event, I had bought a Kindle copy and had every intention of doing so, as I didn't want to be spoiled at the event, but work just sort of got in the way. But luckily nothing ended up being spoiled for me. This event was an absolute delight to attend, as Laini did her discussion and question and answer session for an hour, she was lovely in taking her time answering everyone's questions and loved the enthusiasm her fans showed. I of course took a note book to jot down some notes, but my sister was like no just relax and listen to the event. So the recap below is what me and my sister were able to remember afterwards (all my sister's fault!)



Laini had originally wanted to call Daughter of Smoke and Bone Wish Bone

Laini had been working on a completely different book before the idea of Daughter of Smoke and Bone came to her, she just had the idea of this girl with blue hair arguing with her non human father. Her current work wasn't working anyway, so she knew she had to try out this new idea

Laini had planned to write a vampire book with her husband before Twilight came out

The name Karou came from her friend's parent's (or grandparents) surname, they had changed it to Karou and Laini just knew this was the right name for her character. The name Akiva actually took a while to come up with

The rights for Daughter of Smoke and Bone to be made as a movie have been sold (I for one can't wait for this, Laini was actually thrilled about this, and wanted us to give her ideas about casting)

Laini had thought about setting her series originally in Venice, but knew Prague was perfect

Eliza was one of Laini's favourite characters in Dreams of God and Monsters

Night of Cake and Puppets was a refreshing change to write, as Laini was able to write about kissing for a change instead of violence and no one needed to die in this book either

Laini wished a place like Poison Kitchen existed in real life, but she wrote it in, as she wanted a place for her characters to hang. When Laini moved to California when she was younger, there was no place for kids to hang out after school, they had to drive 40 minutes to the nearest coffee place or just crowded up In-N-Out Burger.

Laini has always found herself in the predicament where she's either known the titles for her books and not the story or she's known the story, but not the titles. She found herself in the latter situation with this series.

Laini has found in herself in awe at the lengths fans go to show their appreciation for this series, at a few book festivals fans have show her quotes from the books they have had done as tattoos and this one guy came in with huge fantastic wings and each detail on them was done wonderfully

She would like to work on some short stories with some of the characters from the series, probably Brimstone the most, but his book would involve a lot of back story

Laini didn't forsee how much of a step up Days of Blood and Starlight would be from Daughter and Smoke and Bone and just how much violence and destruction she would have to write about

Eliza's character really surprised her in Dreams of Gods and Monsters, the first chapter she wrote for Eliza wasn't actually the opening chapter, but a chapter much later on

Laini is currently working on a number of projects, she will hopefully know sometime soon, which one she will be going with.

Laini then asked us, what would we like to take from her characters, she and her husband often discussed would they like to just be able to fly or fly with wings like Akiva? My answer was with wings as was Laini's, her response to this was that we were the dreamers!

There was many more brilliant questions and discussion points that Laini made, this was certainly one event that I was left sitting there in total awe! At the end I had to quickly rush off to catch my train, but I was able to get my copy of Dreams of Gods and Monsters signed and take a photo with Laini. My sister who was the photographer, took a rather blurry photo and my eyes were closed, as we were in a rush, when we got to the train station our train ended up being cancelled, I was of course hugely miffed, as I missed out on the chance to mingle with other bloggers. But overall I had an amazing time as this event, I also got to meet Jess from Jess Hearts Books , whose blog I've been a fan for forever!