August 30th seemed to be quite a popular night to have book events in Toronto. Andrea (Cozy Up With a Good Read) and I wanted to attend both the Emily Giffin book signing as well as Lesley Livingston’s book launch party for Starling. Unofficially dubbed as “Andrea & Michele’s Book Event Marathon Night”, we were determined to make it to both.
It worked out that Andrea was able to get to Indigo Manulife earlier than me, so she snagged an amazing place in line for us until I was able to meet her after 5pm. They let us get seated just after 6pm (1st row!) and with an hour to spare, we were chatting and tweeting when I got a tweet that Kaley (Books Etc.) was also at the event. Looking around, we managed to spot each other from afar and give a wave among the crowds.
Emily made her way up to the front just after 7pm looking gorgeous. I called out to her as she walked by that I loved her dress 
but Andrea and I were saying afterwards how we loved her whole look! Right off the top, she grabbed her camera and took some group shots and asked us to tag ourselves in them. I absolutely loved that idea! What a great way for her to remember the crowd, and get to put some faces to names on her FB fan page. Emily spoke about the inspiration to write Where We Belong, how she wanted to delve into what a secret could do to someone and adoption was the way she wanted to approach it. Kirby, a character in this latest book, has usurped Darcy from Something Borrowed and Something Blue as her favourite character now and she relates to Ethan or Claudia as a character the most.
Surprisingly she didn’t do a reading from her book but just before the book signing, she did say that those with fussy babies and fussy husbands were allowed to jump the line. Babies, I can understand but we thought the husbands thing wasn’t really fair. They’re grown-ups, they can deal with some waiting considering some of the people had been waiting forever in line to see her. Thankfully, because Andrea was there earlier to get us good seats, we managed to get our books signed before the apparent parade of babies and husbands.
Emily Giffin at Toronto’s Indigo Manulife
Amazingly we were out by 7:45pm and booked it (hah!) to Queen St East to Dominion on Queen, where Lesley’s book launch party was to be held. Arriving around 8:30, we were just coming in on the tail end of her speaking to the crowd. Turns out we had missed 2 readings from Starling as well as a performance from Lesley!
(Video courtesy of tgargall on Youtube)
Before spotting our friends sitting in the back, I bumped into a good friend that I used to work with almost 6 years ago! We chatted briefly and she said she follows my blog so Hi Julie!! 
What an amazingly small world.
We grabbed some seats with Gwenyth (Rants n Scribbles) & her sister AJ, Jenn (Lost in a Great Book), Wendy and Siobhan (Conversations of a Reading Addict) and ordered some DELICIOUS perogies (seriously, highly recommend) and soon joined the long line-up to get our books signed. Jenn & Wendy had lined up before we even ordered food, and they were still halfway up the line when we finished eating and joined them! While the signing line was quite slow-going, it just meant that Lesley was taking the time to genuinely get a chance to say hello and talk to everyone that came out to her party – which is amazing. Also bonus, while waiting in line, we met the lovely Adrienne Kress, author of The Friday Society! She was taking pictures for Lesley, documenting the event and she mentioned how we have to go to her book launch, I made the connection of who she was (I believe Adrienne & Lesley sat next to each other at Fan Expo)! I think I might’ve just called out to her “OH! Friday Society!!!” 
(check out this adorable pic from Adrienne’s instagram that she took of us!)
Starling book launch party | Bottom centre (with Adrienne Kress) & bottom right, photo credit Andrea @ Cozy Up with a Good Read
Gwenyth & AJ generously let Andrea, Siobhan and I go ahead of them since we were anxiously trying to make our train and we had our few moments to chat with Lesley (and somehow her tell her helpful friend Simon that the three of us wanted clones of him!). Snapped a few quick pics, bid everyone farewell and we dashed out onto Queen St to hopefully catch one of the elusive streetcars.
A fantastic evening with even more fantastic company!
Sounds like a whirlwind of a night! So happy that you made it to both events.
Chrystal @ Snowdrop Dreams of Books recently posted..Cover Reveal: The Unnaturals by Jessica Meigs
It sounds like a fantastic night!! I totally agree with you about the fussy babies and fussy husbands. Babies, okay…husbands, suck it up and be an adult lol!! Anyways, awesome pics! Thanks for sharing the recap of this event!!
Amy @ Book Loving Mom recently posted..My One Year Blogoversary!!!
What great events! I would have LOVED to do the Emily Giffin one — she’s one of my favourite authors. And I love Where We Belong — what a great book! I’ll have to check out Lesley Livingston.
Thanks for the recap!
Kristilyn (Reading in Winter) recently posted..AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Married With Zombies (Living With The Dead, #1), by Jesse Petersen
Keep me posted about the Friday Society launch – I LOVED that book as well!!!
Jenn H recently posted..Top Ten Tuesday: Books that Make You Think