Highlights from Chapter 5's Proof Party

Last week my lovely friend Laura invited me to join her for the proof party of Chapter 5 (Hodder & Stoughton's YA list), which was a brilliant break from what was a very stressful week at work. In the days leading up to the event I'd been stalking eyeing the Chapter 5 social media channels for any hints as to what books and surprises would be at the Proof Party, and from it I'd made a wishlist of top 3 books I loved to see. And lo and behold, all three books were at the event and I managed to pick up a copy of each! You can find out more about them below.

The first hour or so of the Proof Party was spent mingling with fellow book lovers (I met lovely bloggers and booksellers) while enjoying drinks and canapes. Usually at these events there is quite a limited choice of drinks, however as it was held at a pub the choice was endless and I had a bottle of delicious fruity cider (as well as mini burgers and scrumptious mushroom and cheese quesadillas, we were properly spoiled!).

We were surrounded by gorgeous, gorgeous books while chatting and when we saw the huge piles of books diminishing (it only takes one person to pick up a book at one of these events, for everyone to dig in!) we made sure to pick up our favourites too. I made my tote bag happy with copies of:

• Replica by Lauren Oliver. This books is a super hefty one but very cool too in that you can flip it both ways to read the stories of two different girls: Gemma and Lyra. You can either read one story after another or you can alternate chapters. How cool is that?! It will be published on 6 October 2016.

• Frostblood by Elly Blake is set in a world divided by Frostbloods and Firebloods. The proofs of this novel are divided in two as well and you can either pick up the fire version or the frost one! The latter definitely appealed to me the most (and many others as the blue pile of books was gone in a poof) and I cannot wait to learn more about this world. It sounds a little bit like Red Queen (which I adore) and is published on 12 January 2017.

• Caraval by Stephanie Garber has had a lot of positive buzz online (you'll be hard to find any reviews under 5 stars on Goodreads, for example) and it sounds super intriguing. There is a touch of The Hunger Games to it but in an entirely new, inventive world and I for one cannot wait to explore it! This one isn't published until 26 January 2017
  

I am so excited to read each of these novels and I'll be sure to report back here when I've done so!


While the proofs were already super exciting, the event was topped off by the attendance of none other than author Jennifer L. Armentrout! There was a proper Q&A with the guest of honour and she was a delight to listen to. Some highlights included:

• The quickest she's ever written a book was Obsidian in 7 days (!!!), followed by another novel in 21 days. How insane is that? She did say that of course there was a lot of editing afterwards, but even so.
• She was inspired to write by L.J. Smith of The Vampire Diaries fame in the nineties, and an author she really enjoys is Sarah J Maas.
• Jennifer prefers to write from a male point of view because there is less flowerly language and pages and pages of the main characters' internal conversations.
• Finally, I asked her about The Problem With Forever and whether she is working on more stand-alone contemporary reads and she said that actually she did work on a novel around Ainsley from TPWF but eventually had to let it go because it was too close to her. Her next contemporary is The Possibility of Tomorrow which is going to be published next year. I can't wait!

After the Q&A we were treated to some delicious cupcakes from Lola's Cupcakes which were adorned with hunks from Jennifer's novels - double yum!


Thanks so much to the Chapter 5 team for an ace event and the gorgeous, GORGEOUS proofs I'll soon be devouring ♥ ♥ ♥