Holly Black/Cassandra Clare Signing Recap

On Friday, April 22nd, I went to the Cassandra Clare/Holly Black signing with some fellow blogger buddies. The Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA is absolutely adorable…and the place was packed. If Jen (The Secret Life of a Bibliophile) hadn’t been thinking and reserved our seats weeks ahead of time, we would have been standing.

Just before the signing, we were lucky enough to sit down with both Holly and Cassie at a little café and talk books and such. If you have the chance, say hi to these ladies because they are both incredibly nice and more than personable and funny.

The signing itself was a little chaotic. The house was more than packed, seats all filled up and people standing around. There was this tiny little aisle for Cassie and Holly to get up to a podium. It all felt a little claustrophobic to me, but Cassie and Holly handled it very well.

They both started by reading excerpts from their upcoming books (Cassie from Clockwork Angel and Holly from Black Heart), then did a Q&A session.

Here’s a little recap of the Q&A, all thanks to the tweets from Jen at blog name here:

• The idea for the Shadowhunter world came to Cassie after visiting a friend and seeing their tattoo designs, then playing around with the idea and what ifs.

• Magnus Bane is based on Cassie’s friend John, who is a very intelligent guy (like Magnus) and also happened to be covered in glitter one night when they went out clubbing. 

• Magnus was supposed to only be featured in one scene (his party scene in City of Bones) but Cassie like him too much for that to be it.

Holly always wants to see more of Luke in the TMI series

In the original City of Glass, there was a very brief kiss between Jace and Alec, but it was replaced with Alec’s realization that kissing Jace is gross, because he’s like a brother to him.

• Cassie says writing Jace is comfortable for her, but writing Will is crazy and fun because she doesn’t know where he will go or what he will do.

Cassie says that we will find out where/what Tessa’s parents are sometime in the Infernal Devices series.

• Cassie and Holly said they would consider writing a full length story together – they’ve written short stories together – if the idea worked and their schedules worked out.

• Cassie’s favorite character from Holly’s books is Rioban from the Modern Faerie Tale series and Holly’s favorite characters from Cassie’s books are Cassel’s grandfather from the Curseworkers series and Will (not in a shipping way) from the Infernal Devices series. 

• Cassie enjoys killing off characters and has actually waited to kill a character because she wanted the readers to be more attached to him. (Good job, Cassie, because that one hurt)

• Holly has never planned to kill a character and not gone through with it, but she has really liked characters and given them more time.

• Holly says the first book in a series is hard to write because you have to set up the whole world, and Cassie chimed in that the last book is hard too because you have to make everything pay off.

• Holly says the reason her characters appear in Cassie’s book(s) and vice versa is because it makes the world feel more real. Even though they appear in each other’s books, it’s not really the same world.

• Crazy fan experiences include: Shadowhunter tattoos and two Jace babies at the City of Fallen Angels/Red Glove tour launch.

Like I said, the place was packed, but the two hours or so we spent waiting in line to get our books signed passed by quickly enough. That's what happens in the company of good people. Plus, we were the last ones up to see Cassie (we had already went up once in Holly's line) and unfortunately they had run out of chapter samplers and TMI postcards, but Cassie gave each of us some Shadowhunter goodies and I walked away with this awesome stele/pen. All in all, it was a fantastic night!

For more info on the signing, check these blogs:

Ticket To Anywhere

Overflowing Shelf

The Secret Life of a Bibliophile

Frenzy of  Noise

I'm sure they'll be posting recaps soon enough themselves...also, they are all pretty much amazing, so you should check out their blogs anyway :)