Meeting The Queen (and The Asshole): Natalie's Adventures.

So I'm kicking this new feature off with an exciting post - I met Sarah J Maas. I mean, I met Sandra @ Tea Between Books on the same day too, so all in all, it was an incredible day.

Sandra and I have had a short but complicated friendship. We met as fellow 5(trash)SOS bloggers on Tumblr and as we discussed or she taught me photoshop techniques and found the perfect nicknames for our favourite most hated band. Of course, we eventually realised our mutual love of books and through Sandra I fell in love with the idea of blogging. Sandra, very kindly and bravely, asked me to be a co-blogger on TeaBetweenBooks so obviously I agreed. We soon realised it wasn't working out and went our seperate ways, but it wasn't until I saw her on Oxford Street yesterday that I pushed her through a shop window.

I'm totally kidding - kind of. 

Here are some of my favourite highlights from our day together:

Okay, so we weren't TOTALLY lost. But we both had the plan to just pick one direction and walk that way until we got where we wanted to go which happened to lead us in the wrong direction a few times - but we made it to all of the places. It's good logic people. You'll get there eventually. Anyway, I'm an anxious person so I was really nervous when it came to the thought of being with one person for multiple hours without knowing if we're going to get along in person or not, but the walk to Foyles really broke the ice for me and after that I'd say I was only slightly awkward. Go me!

It was the first trip to Foyles for the both of us and let me tell you - It was beautiful. I've never been a fan of my local bookstore, finding that their selection of YA is seriously lacking and disorganised but this was like heaven on earth. Well, more like hell since I wanted to buy ALL THE BOOKS. I saw P.S. I Still Love You sitting there and it may have brought a tear to my eye since I was pretty sure the book hasn't even released yet. I wanted to get Sandra a present to say Thank You for everything and for being such an awesome assholeish friend so I picked her up the copy of Dangerous Boys that she was lusting over. Never let a friend leave a bookstore without a book people. Honestly, the YA section in Foyles was so big and beautiful I could have spent hours in there just looking at all of the titles I want so badly. The conversation between the two of us was pretty much 'Have you read this?', 'I've been looking EVERYWHERE for this!' and 'I know I won't like this book but I'm so tempted to buy it because of the cover'.

At this point we still hadn't found Angelfall so we did what most normal people do and walked to Piccadilly Circus so we could go to the Waterstones there. On the way over to the store we were talking about how we should try and sneak into the Sarah J Maas signing or at least hang around so that we could get a peek of her - but more on that later. We got to the store, headed straight for the fantasy section and HURRAH - What do we see? Only Angelfall, World After and End of Days. It felt like the Angels were falling at that moment, trust me. We spent a while looking at the rest of the books in the Fantasy section and then headed up to the Young Adult floor where we got chatting to a woman who was wondering where we picked up our copies of ACOTAR from (In the unlikely event that you're reading this - Hello! It was lovely to meet you) and then spent a few minutes talking about Sarah J Maas, because, why wouldn't you?

We were headed towards the checkout with our book when The Blessed Employee (as he shall forever be named) asked us if we were heading to the event. He must have seen the pure disappointment on our faces when we told him that we didn't have tickets because he let us know that he had two spaces left for the signing and that he would write our names on the list so we could get in! What a man! What a lad! I'll never forget you.

There we were, sitting in our chairs, third row from the front, desperately awaiting for The Queen to walk in the room when I asked the dreaded question. Yes, I asked Sandra about Chaol. I don't know what I was expecting, I don't know why I thought that it was the perfect moment for me to ask this, I don't know what was going through my head but as soon as she uttered the words 'Chaol needs to die' it felt like I was thrown off the Titanic into an ocean of ice water. I won't let you go, Chaol. I won't let you go.

Sarah J Maas came walking down the stairs looking ethereal and every other synonym for 'otherworldly' and 'beautiful' you can find. The interview and the Q&A was hilarious and it only cemented my views that Sarah is an inspirational, genuine, hilarious young woman - with her infamous line 'Mornings are reserved for eating' it's hard not to fall in love with the type of person that she is. We didn't manage to get any pictures with Sarah because she was pushed for time but I did get a few - of questionable quality - of the woman herself.

Sandra and I being, well, Sandra and I, thought that standing in the queue to get our books signed would be the perfect time to start discussing Darkling's sexual tendencies. Needless to say we were a little bit flushed and giggly when it came to actually getting our books signed - but Sarah was absolutely lovely and took the time to talk to both of us and Sandra even explained to her that it was our first time meeting each other that day (I think she was a little shocked/impressed at that if I'm honest). 

We had McDonalds, walked back to Oxford Street and was approached by a strange man who a) asked us if we drank coffee b) invited us to a party and c) walked away angrily when we lied told him that we were underage. It was a nice wind-down to a perfect afternoon-evening with Sandra and I missed her the moment we said goodbye. It was emotional I'm not going to lie to you.

I would show you the books that I got on our trip but instead I will just put them all into a Birthday Book Haul since I'm still waiting on a few deliveries to arrive.