Vampire Academy Spin-Off Countdown plus a Contest to Win a Meeting with Stephenie Meyer...

First things first, the countdown for Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy spin-off series, Bloodlines, has been announced and there's even a countdown website for the late August publication date.

At our library, we are waiting with bated breath for this series to come out.  With Rose's story pretty much concluded, all the VA fans at our school are excited at the idea of Adrian's story continuing, with particular affection for Sydney as the narrator. Here's a video of Richelle Mead talking about the new series.  Last Sacrifice was brilliantly written (it is the best ending to a series I've read in a while, and everyone knows how much I enjoyed Melissa Marr's ending to the Wicked Lovely series!) as it left enough of an opening for the future series.  While our favorite characters may not be the protagonists any longer, the political and personal situation surrounding Lissa is so frought with tension and conflict that it's easy to see how Mead could continue that world in her usual page-turning way. 



Has anyone ever read Stephenie Meyer's "blog"?  It's deserving of quotes, because she clearly doesn't write it herself - it's merely a vehicle for her publicist to make unexciting announcements every three months or so.  But every now and then you'll get a good tidbit of information, and this latest one is a jewel.  Meyer is quoted in the release as saying that the thing she really misses is how on her first book tour for Twilight, prior to its phenomenon status (back when it was mostly *cough* cool librarians and booksellers promoting it to patrons) she would connect with 10 or 20 people in a bookstore and really get to know them.

Along those lines, and due to the release of the Meyer-endorsed, The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide, her publishers are offering a contest - to win a meeting with Stephenie Meyer (a total of seven people from all over the world)!  You can enter at the official Twilight Saga website and one person will be chosen from the United States and one from Canada.  Other lucky individuals will be selected from the contests based out of other countries publishing her book (like Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom).  I've never jumped on the anti-Twilight backlash wagon because 1) I like the books because they are romance novels, people, 2) I didn't watch the movies because I know that these actors wouldn't pull it off, and 3) 99% of the people who say they "hate those books" actually have never read them.  So I'll totally be entering to win - I have some very nice things to say to her and lots of questions to ask!