Michelle, Carolyn & Suzi's awesomesauce Cassandra Clare , Down Under, Melbourne , Australia, Book Signing Ladycation Part 1

Yes that is Michelle (me)  popping my noggin up, rather sneakily into the pic with Cassandra and her hubby , in background. I am in stealth mode hoping I am not noticed..lol!!! ( check out my half guilty face)

I am going to start by giving an ENORMOUS THANKYOU!!! to Cassandra Clare for being so gracious and signing a folder of goodies. THANKYOU!!! We so appreciated it!! 




Joanna Bennett from Walker Books , kindly liaised with me in regard to picking up the signed items from Cassandra's hotel. THANKYOU !! to Joanna, very nice lady.


There were approximately 350 peeps who attended the evening with Cassandra Clare and the High Warlock, Magnus Bane ( aka Melbourne author Leanne Hall ) book signing event at the Palace Westgarth Theatre in Northcote, Melbourne at 6.30pm.

Our Build Up To The Evening

Joanna Bennett from Walker books
and
Cassandra Clare
(The gift bag is almost in the way)

Once Miss Suzi ( our bookmark queen) had arrived at our hotel in full huggles and kisses mode ( I hadn't seen her since last September) at 2.00pm on Wednesday 25th May and Carolyn and I were all giggly etc with seeing Suzi , we had some catching up and then it was getting dressed and fluffed and buffed for meeting Cassandra. The older ya get, the longer it takes. Suzi ironed ( errr...yes used the iron and ironing board) on my hair, we were in black outfits and ready to catch a tram to Northcote. Now Suzi lives in Melbourne and shame on her she has never rode the tram, so she was kinda useless in our endeavour to get to Northcote on time. ( sorry Suzi, you were useless..lol!! )

Carolyn and Suzi in killer stiletto boots,
note the runes on their hands.

After walking 8 blocks, Suzi in killer stiletto boots,  Isabelle would be proud of..we get the number 86 tram to Northcote. now you would think this new wang fangle ticket system we could use, apparently named Mikey, I thought Jace might have been a nicer name...but nobody asked my opinion..anyhoo we 3 all stared at Mikey and because Suzi is useless helping us with tramming...hee..hee.. ( if that's a word) , we didn't know what to do with Mikey, so we asked fellow commuters and whallah tickets spewed from Mikey.

Now that is all well and good but nobody seemed to know what tram stop to get off at...so after 40 mins, Carolyn looking rather concerned we weren't going to arrive on time...I rugby tackled a few commuters up to the driver, tapped on his teeny window, he slid it open and he told me next stop, mean while Carolyn has hopped off..but we scooped her back on.

I am tackling Suzi, not sure why, seemed good
idea at the time..loL!!!

We arrive at 6.15pm, a lady comes up to us, so we must have looked reasonably like Shadowhunters...gave us a postcard each and Suzi and I got a Heal/Painless, runes necklace. Carolyn didn't, but she didn't dress up, according to the lady, so me the quick thinker said she was a human subjugate, so we got Carolyn a necklace too....hee..hee. ( well Carolyn did come all the way from Perth , Western Australia)

Carolyn tackling me..errr..again
not sure why?? lol!!

I am like an energiser bunny by now...all jabber jabber, bouncy , bouncy, because I am soooo excited. So I fly into the theatre with Carolyn and we get 3rd row on far right. Beautiful old theatre.
I'm organising all my cameras, memory cards, notepad, to calm down. Theatre is chock full of fans a lot had dressed up, which was fun to see. I loved the Silent Brothers..hee..hee.. they were very cute and the person whose skin was green with blonde hair...I think was Fey???? One girl was Camilla I think, very nicely done. Some great looking Isabelle's. Suzi comes and sits with us and she draws the Fearless rune on my neck and chest, and Carolyn gets heal rune on her hand..errr... then I realise we kinda just killed her as she human and well humans can't handle runes...and Suzi put one on her hand .

Jace, Clary, Hodge and Alec

A wonderful scene was played out from City of Bones with Hodge , Alec, Jace and Clary. Then.....

.....it was Cassandra Clare and Magnus Bane ( aka Leanne Hall) taking the stage. Poor Cassandra had a broken toe!!!

Clary and Hodge

The rest is on the videos...I have Part 1 for you below.

After the Q & A's we all stampeded, reasonably well behaved , into this enormous line that snaked up stairs , round corner, got cut off and then started again down stairs and went outside theatre!!! Well 350 peeps will do that.

Cassandra Clare and Magnus bane
aka Melbourne author Leanne Hall

It was not a long wait for us as I did reasonably well in the line about half hour waiting. I have every now and then tweeted Cassandra and I let her know we were coming. I was going to try to be all formal and act my age..lol!! but I got a bit nervous, I did reasonably well considering, she was sooooo nice she gave me a kinda hi five hand shake in the air when I babbled out I was from book blog Novels On The Run. She was very, very, nice and I thrust a goodie bag in her face as again, tad nervous with Tim Tams, Anzac bikkies, Twisties and a koala card in it, thanking her and rambling on no doubt. She signed my books, I don't even remember half of it I was that excited, but LOL!! I do remember saying I loved her...( oh dear...what can I say...)

I introduced Suzi as our designer and Carolyn as our guest reviewer and she said hello to them and was lovely.

Yup!! Still not sure what we are doing...hee...hee

Then we were all giggly standing to the side and I took a couple snaps but I didn't use flash as Í didn't want to keep flashing Cassandra .

We stood and watched her and the crowd for a bit and the one thing I noticed was Cassandra had a smile and something to say to everyone and really looked happy to be signing everything people gave her. She really looked like she was having as much fun as everybody else. We gave her a shout out goodbye and thankyou when we left and she said bye to us. A really, really lovely person.

Then after some Peri Peri chips across road at Nandos we were back on tram where I think the excitement of the night got the better of me and  I got the worst case of the giggles , so proceeded to giggle in fits all the way back to our hotel.

Crikey, it was an awesome night,  I would do it again!!

ENJOY THE VIDS BELOW MORE TO COME...

PART 1 A

PART 1 B

PART 1 C

PART 1 D



Keep a look out for Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of the vids I took of the evening. Cassandra had awesome answers to the questions.

MICHELLE