Stacking the Shelves--The Alchemy of Secrets Edition: Part 3 + Stress, Signings, Stress, and Sadness

 

Stacking the Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts, and of course ebooks! The meme is now hosted by Reading Reality.

This week was a mixed bag, let me tell you! Work was extremely busy and stressful. One of our team was out for the week and omg, just one person short and it felt like an avalanche happened! It was insanely busy and then it was said by another team member to try to keep up with the emails of our person who was out, and NO ONE DID! I was trying my best to answer some as I could, but then issues were popping up and I couldn't find the answers within our teammate's emails notes on the form we use and I was like OMG!! I can't do this! Lol. So yeah, it got stressful.

But there was still LOTS of goodness too! Tuesday I went to see Stephanie Perkins, LARGELY so I could get my remaining YA thriller of hers signed! LOL. I had no interest in her new adult contemporary, just not my thing, but was forced to buy it to get into the signing line. Then Friday, Marie Lu came back to town and she REMEMBERED ME!! She's visited the area a few times over the years but mainly with another bookstore. I last saw her in 2023, but I always want to cry happy tears when authors remember me!

Speaking of which...yesterday I drove to Nashville to attend Spice Fest! A romance mini day festival where there were 5 authors in attendance! I went to see Sophie Jordan and to meet Briar Boleyn for the first time! And Sophie REMEMBERED ME too!! I used to see Sophie a lot back in the RT Booklovers' Convention days and she toured here for some of her YA books as well! But omg, I was ready to cry again for the second day in a row! Lol. It was really fun, the event seemed a wee bit disorganized but it was still a good event overall! I just wasn't looking forward to my long drive back where I knew RAIN was waiting for me...and it was, about halfway in! It was off/on for the first hour and then constant for the last hour and it rained HARD! And I was driving totally hungry and my head was getting that fuzzy heady feeling it gets when I need real food! The chaos of the event through off my entire plan to eat an early lunch and then eat a sandwich I made for the ride back. So yeah, not fun.

Also there was a bit of sadness waiting for me at home. On the porch, drenched in its wet cardboard folder was my German edition of Alchemy of Secrets. I was GUTTED! Firstly, this was not said to be out for delivery on my Informed Delivery report, so I didn't think to have neighbors check the porch for me or have the mail hold for crying out loud because I thought it was coming Monday! The ID report literally said NOTHING COMING TODAY! No mail, no packages, ZIP! It's currently in a ziploc wrapped in wax paper with a dozen paper towels around it and between pages trying to be saved. A google search told me to do this and then to have it pressed under heavy books, so hopefully the damage can be erased after all this. But yeah, NOT what I wanted to see when I came home in the rain!

But onto the good stuff I did get that was undamaged!

Fortress of Ambrose by J. Elle
The Haunting of Paynes Hollow by Kelley Armstrong
Always Carry a Silver Cross by Andrea Robertson
Red City by Marie Lu--SIGNED!
The Bond that Burns by Briar Boleyn--SIGNED! And an EARLY deluxe edition!

the fun swag from the signing yesterday: character art prints from Briar's series, plus a bookmark!
then a postcard with the covers (and map of the flipside as I belatedly realized!) and a dragons sticker from Sophie!

Then I got a few copies of my UK editions of Alchemy of Secrets. I received 5 editions so far and only got 3 out of the 4 covers and yes, I am going insane trying to get it because now everyone is just selling and not trading and I can't really afford to buy yet another one. My bill is coming due this week and it's not going to be pretty! I am hoping that the two copies I have coming could be my missing cover or even my Goldsboro but that hasn't shipped yet, so yes, I am spiraling into a panic!

Alchemy of Secrets by Stephanie Garber--x3 copies, 2 SIGNED!

I got two Waterstones editions with variant covers and a standard edition as well! The other two Waterstones I have were tickets, so I am still trying to find that drink glass/sidecar and it's IMPOSSIBLE! :(

Then for review from the publisher I received:

The Place Where They Buried Your Heart by Christina Henry (ARC)

THANK YOU Berkley!

And then while doing some holiday shopping (I know I shouldn't have started in the month of AOS releasing but I had to) I ended up buying myself this Out of Print bookmark because I loved the print/tshirt version and wisely talked myself out of it because I knew this month would be expensive. So I saved myself some money by allowing myself this little piece. Lol.

And that was it for me this week! Hoping I can show you the oh so gorgeous German edition of Alchemy of Secrets next week if the "save it" technique worked. Which I am hoping it will. WHY of all the books did it have to be Stephanie's?! And one from another country on top of it, on one of the RARE occasions I leave the house?! Seriously, this is a tragedy when you look at all the factors!

What did you get this week?