Fun with books!

(originally published at Murder Is Everywhere, March 10, 2013)

Apologies for my tardiness, Murderous Ones...it's been a bit chaotic here at my temporary abode in San Francisco...good chaotic. But sufficiently so that, well, I forgot it was Sunday.

I'll explain: I've been at author events most nights of the last week. Definitely something I like about living here. So far I've attended one by Cara Black, at the wonderful Books Inc., celebrating the release of MURDER BELOW MONTPARNASSE:

(and by the way, you can win a trip to Paris with Cara!)

Next up was a visit to the fabulous Book Passage!  I was there to see Melanie Benjamin, whose latest novel is The Aviator's Wife, a fictional telling of the life of Anne Morrow Lindbergh (and NYT best-seller!):

And it's a good thing for my bank account that I had the event to attend, because otherwise I could have gotten into some serious trouble at Book Passage. It's not only an incredible bookstore, they have an entire building devoted to travel stuff. Books, hats, suitcases, accessories. Given that I have a, well, slight bag and hat addiction, this kind of thing is dangerous for me...

My third author event of the week -- one of Janet Rudolph's salons. Janet is the founder of Mystery Readers Inc. and editor in chief of that organization's Mystery Readers Journal. This month's guest was Sarah J. Henry, author of Anthony-winning Learning to Swim -- her new book is A Cold and Lonely Place.  This is a great atmosphere to talk to authors and readers, and I came away from the evening feeling as though I'd made some new friends.

My final event of the week (and the one that kept me out late last night): "The Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show," an evening of authors and musicians, with cupcakes! Popcorn! Prizes! This was a benefit for the Variety Children's Charity of Northern California sponsored by SF in SF and organized by SF/UF author Seanan McGuire (who is an awesome singer too!). Other authors included Amber Benson (yes, the actor who can also sing and has now published 5 books!) and Sarah Kuhl (author of "the geek romantic comedy novella One Con Glory"-- as a fellow girl geek, albeit one from an older generation, I'm really looking forward to her take on Con Culture). Their joint reading of the first chapter from Sarah's upcoming novel was hilarious. Truly. The whole night was a blast. I laughed so hard my muscles are sore today:

So, readers, that is my excuse for being late. I was having too much fun with books.