Parties & Potions Event- RECAP

Brought to you by Erika. (With comments by Lorena in Red), (Julie in Green) (and Brigitte in yellow)

The day started at the Jr. Orange Bowl golf tournament, which my dad runs. We were all volunteering on holes doing the live scoring. (Asking players for the scores of their past few holes). Blegh, nasty farmer's tan is what we ended up with. (I've always had a farmer's tan so no complaining!)

Lorena and Brigitte stopped around 2 and started getting ready. A damn good thing too since Brigitte is notoriously known for ridiculously long showers. When you have gorgeous hair like mine, you have to pamper it. Julie and I started about 3. (Because WE work as hard as possible. Cough...Cough...)

So, we took showers, you know for all the prestige of the Biltmore, you'd think they could spring for a lock on their showers, (seriously) got into our purple dresses, blow dried/curled/did nothing our hair, and then attempted to walk in high heels across from the pro shop to the tournament office. Yeah, I've made a vow to only wear flats to signings from now on. Seriously, no more limping around everywhere even if heels do look nicer than flats. Once there everyone was repeatedly saying how beautiful we looked, so embarrassing, and in front of the golfers who happened to be GUYS, and we put on our which hats. Though we had a bit of a dilemma since I made one hat much too small and it didn't fit anyone.

Since my mom was alone at the scoring table, I went over and helped her. Players came in and were probably wondering why in the world we were wearing dresses.

We went outside by the fountain, my dad attempted to take pictures, but my camera wasn’t cooperating, so that failed. We went back, took everything we could and walked to the parking lot. We were carrying a ton of stuff and had no idea where my mom had parked. Who sends someone to a car, when that said person wasn't there when the other person parked it? Back and forth, back and forth, was it 4th row from the front or from the back? So in heels we were wandering around the parking lot… Then, we eventually found the car, put everything in it, started walking back, but my mom met us halfway. All throughout our escape there were some golfers putting away their clubs, we must have passed them by at least 4 times.

After getting in the car, there was some scoring emergency, so my dad called and we waited in the car as they discussed what it was. One of the golfers previouslty mentioned was sitting in a bench near the car and kept looking at us quizzicaly. Eventually at about 4:30 we left the area and began driving to Bal Harbour.

Lorena and Brigitte fell asleep in the car. Long car ride, what else did you expect? I wasn't sleeping! I was merely resting with my eyes closed. Yeah but imagine being me stuck in the corner watching you two sleep. And you, Julie, as I recall were reading a book, not staring at us. I wrote my introduction in my i-pod for Sarah.

Eventually as we were getting close, Julie woke them up. Then, we saw there was a toll and all of our coins were in the trunk. Luckily my mom got behind someone else who didn’t have exact change and was able to get out and get her and Lorena’s bag. We managed to find a dollar and made it inside Bal Harbour. My mom decided to call 2 minutes after we escaped the toll and I was trying to explain what had happened without laughing. She failed. Then, we got to the parking garage, but weren’t exactly sure where the Books & Books was inside, so I called Debra. She told us, so we parked where we needed to and headed on in. That walk to the store must have been the most agonizing walk of my life. So, so true. With 1 being "Skipping through a meadow with puppies and butterflies" and 10 being "the Trail of Tears", I'd give it a 9.

It was now about 5:10, and it was supposed to have started at 5:00, but Debra said Sarah had just gotten there so we weren’t too bad.

We found the Books & Books and made a grand/exhausted entrance. Sarah saw us and immediately said how great our dresses and hats were. We gave her her hat as well as the baby one we made (which she adored) and she hugged us all. It was my first time meeting her and I was surprised at how nice she was! She was also so surprised that we had known it was her birthday in a few days (Thanks to facebook) and was overall delighted. Apparently it was the first time she had ever had cake at an event. Gee, I wonder why...

Debra brought us to the back, going through the front of all the seated fans (The seats were practically full!), and we put down all our stuff.

Then, we made our proper entrance with Sarah. Debra introduced us all and then I stumbled through my introduction of Sarah. Hey, least it was better than my Nerfighter lingo intro at John's event. Yeah it was better than that... They were both alright, all things considered. Sarah began saying how great we were and began reading from Parties & Potions. We stood in the back and Lorena began filming. Haha! The memory card kept getting filled so I spent a good 5 minutes deleating all the videos from past events to make room. She then began taking questions, by which point our feet were killing us and we sat down.

Afterwards, we brought out her cake and began singing Happy Birthday to Sarah, then there was signing. Everyone had kind of bunched around her table, so we only got to do post-its for the second half of the line. I tried to give out bookmarks to whomever wasn't crowded around the table, which weren't that many people. Me too.

Once most people were gone, Sarah began signing stock while we talked to her (taking a few breaks for cake).

Then, she signed Debra and my own books. We took a few pictures with her and she thanked us all again repeatedly. More hugs!

We raided the ARC stacks, talked to Debra, then went to eat.

Parties & Potions!

In honor of the release of Parties & Potions by Sarah Mlynowski today, we have a special post.

A Short Q&A With Sarah herself!:

Who pwns everything?
I’ll admit I had no idea what this meant until you guys kindly explained it to me. (Apparently I am now on the wrong side of thirty.) Anyway, the answer is Lauren Myracle! She writes awesome books, she’s a terrific mom, she’s the most kind-hearted and generous person I’ve ever met, she loves to buy her friends gifts, and she manages to keep a seriously funny blog (that often include video of her superimposing John Green’s face over inappropriate images.)

If someone suddenly threw a wad of twenty thousand dollars at you, how would you respond?
By saying thank you. And possibly curtseying. It seems curtsey appropriate.

If 'they' decided to make a movie of your life, which actress would you want to play you?
Rachel McAdams. Because she’s Canadian like me! Who else is Canadian? Wayne Gretsky, Alex Trebec and the Barenaked Ladies. Fine, they can be in my movie too.

What's the most random question you can think of? Answer it.
Do you have any weird allergies? Why yes. My teeth get itchy when I eat pineapple.

Can you do the Time Warp again?
Obviously.

Which character in the Magic in Manhattan series is the most like you? (Or what parts of the characters if it's a mix?)
I’d love to say that I’m a mix of Miri and Rachel, but I’m all Rachel all the time. I should probably be embarrassed about that, eh? (Us Canadians say ‘eh’ instead of ‘huh’. If you already knew that, then you too might be eligible to be in my movie!)

Erika's Parties & Potions review:

Parties & Potions is the fourth book in the Magic in Manhattan series and one you don’t want to miss. The entire series is about a girl named Rachel who finds out her sister, Miri, is a witch in the first book. Her mother was a witch, but turned away from the witch community and never even told her ex-husband about it. Through the entire series magical spells and occurrances showed their consequences.

In the fourth book, Rachel has finally gotten her own powers and her sister is begging her to attend witch school with her in order to have their own Samsorta. A Samsorta is basically a witch coming out party for girls and takes place on Halloween. So, the entire book is them getting ready for this event as well as everything that happens in the meantime. There are guys, Simsortas (the boy version of a Samsorta) on the top of Eiffel Tower, and skiing on school nights. It’s an extremely enjoyable book that you won’t want to miss. If you’re already a fan of Rachel, then you definitely need to continue reading about her life with this book. And if you’re not already a fan and are up for an entertaining series, you should read them and become a fan. They’ll be times when you’ll want scream at Rachel and other times when you want to hug her and Miri both. Sarah’s writing is humorous as well as serious in all the right parts. It’s a book most will have a pleasure reading.




Here's the winning Kirkus Review teen book award video by Ben Cox for Parties & Potions:

And on top of that Sarah will be at the Books & Books in Bal Harbour in less than a week for the official launch party for Parties & Potions!

We're also encouraging if everyone could wear formal clothes as in a real Samsorta. However, this is by no means required, so just as long as you come is great to us.

-The YAthenaeum Team