Alea's 13 Most Anticipated BEA 2011 Titles

Today I am going to share with you the 13 books that excited me the most at BEA this year. Most I came home with ARCs of, and then a few a sampler and a few posters but regardless of what I came home with these books have got me excited!

In no particular order, my 13 most anticipated BEA 2011 Titles!

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith (January 2nd 2012)

This book just sounds super super super cute! I'm totally loving all the British love interests in YA lately! I also like how this is set over 24 hours and in an airport and a plane!

 

Shut Out by Kody Keplinger 

 (September 5th 2011)

I really enjoyed Keplinger's first book, The DUFF so I'm sure this one will be just as good! She doesn't shy away from telling it how it is and using the real language teens actually use!

Straw House, Wood House, 
Brick House, Blow by Daniel Nayeri (October 11th 2011)

I really enjoyed Another Faust that Nayeri wrote with his sister. And this sounds like a highly original book, it's 4 novellas from different genres. The sampler I got features the novella Blow I believe which is a love story told from Death's perspective, this definitely seems like it will be interesting!

 

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler art by Maira Kalman (January 2nd 2012)

This is the second year in a row I failed to meet Daniel Handler aka Lemony Snicket, hopefully someday! But I was still lucky enough to score a copy of his upcoming book Why We Broke Up. It looks like the story starts with a box of things from the relationship of these two people! I think it could be fabulous!

The Future of Us by Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler
(November 21st 2011)

I love the idea of The Future of Us, in 1996 two kids find their facebook pages from 15 years in the future. Not something you will see everyday! I am always attracted to books that explore social media as a means of storytelling!

 

Bunheads by Sophie Flack 

(October 10th 201)

I danced for about 12 years from Elementary school until I graduated from High school and while I was never as serious as it sounds like the characters in this book are I've always had a soft spot for dance,t so I'm totally excited about this book!

Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick 
by Joe Schreiber (October 25th 2011)

When I saw the title for this book on the screen at the YA Editors Buzz I burst out laughing. And even though it turned out the book wasn't about anything I had expected it to be, it turned out to be even more crazy and original sounding! I don't want to give a lot away but the back of the ARC says "Ferris Bueller Meets La Femme Nikita in this funny, action-packed young adult novel."

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling (November 1st 2011)

I was lucky enough to hear Mindy speak at one of the Adult Author Breakfasts at BEA and let me tell you, she was HILARIOUS! I read a few of the sample chapters  and I love her writing style, it's going to be wonderful! No wonder the Office can be so funny when they have someone like her writing it!

Cakespy: Sweet Treats for a 
Sugar-Filled Life by Jessie Oleson
(October 11th 2011)

This book has never made me want to eat paper more. The sampler came with two recipes, one for S'moreos and one for Ice Cream Pudding Pie, both which look delicious There are also cute illustrations sprinkled throughout! To hold me over until the release I have been checking out the CakeSpy blog!

Good Girls Don't by Victoria Dahl (August 30th 2011)

I've loved all of the Victoria Dahl books I've read so far so I have a feeling this one will be just as fun!

Until There Was You by Kristan Higgins (October 25th 2011)

I've also really enjoyed all the Kristan Higgins books I've read! I think Victoria Dahl and Kristan Higgins are definitely my two favorite contemporary romance authors!

Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found by Sophie Blackall (September 22nd 2011)

When I was looking up events that were going to be at BEA a found a listing for Sophie Blackall's Missed Connections and wondered how I had gone so long without knowing about her! The book is set to be a collection of her beautiful drawings of missed connections, you know, the ads in the newspaper, I saw you (insert place) and you were wearing (insert color and shirt type) and I was the person in the.... anyhow from what I've seen of her drawings and the poster she signed for me at BEA this is going to be one beautiful book!

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On: Things About Me by Jenny Slate & Dean Fleischer-Camp 
(November 1st 2011)

What else can I say about this one besides it's Marcel the Shell AS A BOOK! I've heard there are going to be paintings in the book instead of photography like I had imagined. I was so excited to meet the two creators at BEA!

To see a full list of the books I picked up at BEA click here.

Arrival of the BEA Box (only 1 this year!)

My box of BEA books arrived this afternoon and I was very excited to see the box was intact, unlike last year! I tried to approach BEA with a more casual attitude this year (which included being more picky about what books I came home with), and I think I mostly succeeded! I'll share some highlights of my trip soon! If you want to see the visual highlights visit this post! 

If you went to BEA or even if you didn't, what book are you most excited to read from BEA?

 

What Alea Saw in NYC

Alea's BEA Picks On A Theme or OMGGGG!

I know this is a little late, but it's never too late to be exciting about books! BEA got me excited about a lot of books and for some reason I noticed a few themes within those books so here are my BEA Picks on a Theme! I can't wait to read them!

College Girls

Cum Laude (6/1/10) by Cecily von Ziegesar and The Ivy (8/31/10) by Lauren Kunze with Rina Onur both deal with college, which I love love love to read about but it's sort of uncommon in the type of fiction I read... until now! I know The Ivy is the beginning of a series, I wonder if the same can be said for Cum Laude?

Girl Detectives

Girl's Best Friend (10/12/10) by Leslie Margolis and Judy Moody: Girl Detective (8/10/10) by Megan McDonald are both about young female detectives, which I must say I adore! Girl's Best Friend (I couldn't find the cover but I can tell you this, it's damn cute!) even mentioned Harriet the Spy on the back, count me in!

True Vows Series

This Fall HCI is launching a new line of romances, reality based romances called True Vows, what a very cool concept. Their first three are The Icing on the Cake (9/14/10) by Alison Kent, Hard to Hold (9/14/10) by Julie Leto, and Meet Me in Manhattan (9/14/10) by Judith Arnold. These three were my most anticipated book signings at BEA and honestly I can't even pick one I'm most excited about, they all sound great!

Vampires

I know, I know what you are thinking. Haven't I been saying for the last year I'm sick of paranormal and vampires.... well yes, for the most part. But these 3 vampire books seem to be utterly original in a sea of books that are all the same give or take a vampire or werewolf! Let's see what we've got here, iDrakula (10/1/10) by Bekka Black is remake of Drakula told in texts, emails and websites, Bloodthirsty (10/5/10) by Flynn Meaney is about a pale kid pretending to be a vampire to get girls (!!!), and Fat Vampire (7/27/10) by Adam Rex is about just that, a fat vampire! This is where paranormal should be heading, bravo!

Young Adult Historical Fiction

I'm slowly coming around to historical fiction (especially historical romances!) but at BEA I was taken with two Young Adult historical fiction books, Dangerous Neighbors (8/24/10) by Beth Kephart and Prisoners in the Palace (10/13/10) by Michaela MacColl. Dangerous Neighbors looks to be a mysterious story about two twin sisters set around the Philadelphia Centennial fair of 1876 and Prisoners in the Palace takes us back to the time before Queen Victoria is Queen, seen through the eyes of one of her lady's maids.

Girly Books

Who doesn't like a good girly book, I know I sure do! Claire LaZebnik (author of The Smart One and the Pretty One which I adored) returns with If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now (9/27/10) about a young mother and her son returning home, Chasing Perfect (4/27/10) by Susan Mallery starts off her new series, Fool's Gold about a town with tons of women and not enough men, Carly Phillips also starts off a new series with Kiss Me If You Can (7/27/10) about the most eligible bachelor and the woman that could care less, and finally All I Ever Wanted (7/27/10) by Kristan Higgins (which I've already read and loved!) about a women, her boss that she loves and the vet she falls for when she's trying to get over her boss!

High School

I just adore high school stories, too bad most of them are paranormal these days.... here are a few that don't appear to be! In Accomplice (8/1/10) by Eireann Corrigan we have a staged disappearance gone wrong, in The Mockingbirds (11/2/10) by Daisy Whitney we encounter a secret society, in Girl Parts (8/10/10) by John M. Cusick a female Companion bot, in The Duff (9/7/10) by Kody Keplinger a girl falls for a guy who's guts she hates, and in Mostly Good Girls (10/5/10) by Leila Sales we head to boarding school!

So there we have it! What sounds good to you?

BEA 2010: Day 2 - Thursday

Thursday started right on the BEA floor after a breakfast at a local diner where Gail and I were asked if we were high school students that went to J. John (dude, I so wish!).

While everyone raced off to get Clockwork Angel ( I went a bit later) I wandered around for a bit. And then started my day off with some signings at the Harlequin booth.

Other highlights of the day included:

Meeting three of the authors from Trickster a graphic novel of Native American tales.

Meeting Gretchen Rubin the author of the Happiness Project which I just adore!

Finally getting to meet Beth Kephart in person, she's just as sweet in person as she is online!

Also getting to meet Penelope Przekop for the first time in person as well, I really enjoyed her book Aberrations! It was a day of semi-reunions I guess!

Getting a Glee t-shirt promoting the upcoming book, which I've already posted about!

Here's what I picked up that day (click to enlarge):

Signed

Unsigned

Complete list

After shipping our boxes from that day, Gail and I headed downstairs for the Book Blogger Convention Reception. It was a really fun event when I got to meet a lot of people for the first time including Lisa Roe the online publicist, Chelsey and Dina from Big Honcho Media, and author Maria Marnane who's book Perfect on Paper I LOVE! We chatted with a lot of authors and publicists and other industry professionals.

I was given the pictured books (below) by one of the authors there.

Leaving it was sad to see all the BEA signage going down but we went on our way. For dinner we had pizza with Erica from the Book Cellar! I literally had like 6 business cards left so Gail had the great idea for me to try and make some of my own which I did after we bought me some poster board and scissors. I didn't end up needing as many as I made for the next day but it was nice knowing I had some if I needed them. And of course since the trip was coming to an end we had to get Pinkberry one last time!

BEA 2010: Day 1 - Wednesday

First of all I'd like to say sorry for the lack of pictures, not sure why I didn't take that many! The first day of BEA was the day that Gail and I wanted to pick up tickets for some of the signings (Adriana Trigiani and Lemony Snicket-didn't end up meeting him, the line was outrageously long) so we were up bright and early!

After getting our tickets we did some chatting and decided to head over and get in line early for the Children's Breakfast (my first BEA breakfast event!)While waiting someone came over and offered us this little round promos for I Am Number Four, they had tons and they all were numbered. We were told to go over to Harper Collins to find out if we were winners of a signed copy of the book, and turns out we were! I do think it helped that I had number 4! Anyways back to the Children's Breakfast. Luckily since we got in line early we got seats towards the front of our section, which was the seating only section and we also got the speakers books which was nice! We also got to spend some time chatting with Julie from Booking Mama and Kathy from Bermuda Onion. Unfortunately the program started awfully late so we only stayed for Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York and Cory Doctorow because we had a lot packed into our day on the BEA floor. I think in the future I could take a pass on the breakfasts unless there was someone I really really really wanted to see speak.

Luckily for me, the day started off with my most anticipated event. The signing for the first 3 books in the True Vows series from HCI, the first Reality-Based Romance series. Unfortunately not all 3 of the authors were able to make it but I did get to meet 2 of them! I actually stood in line with Judith Arnold (one of the authors of the series) at another signing, I was kind of freaking out!

Other highlights of the day included:

Meeting Susan Mallery (three times actually over the course of BEA).

Seeing Adriana Trigiani again, what a sweet sweet lady! It's impossible to be in anything BUT a good mood when you are around her!

Meeting up with Barbara and Sarah of Blueslip Media. They are just as kind in person as they were via email, they are also extremely encouraging!

Saying hello to Marilyn Johnson the author of This Book Is Overdue, she was walking past me while I was standing in line and I recognized her and we had a quick chat!

Seeing Elizabeth Scott again, she's just a sweet and funny person!

Finally figuring out what the "Various Authors" signing was at the Harlequin booth and it was what I had hoped it would be, authors of the category romances! Yay!

And the surprise highlight of the day was seeing an advance reading sample of this:


You might be asking yourself, well what is it? Well, I'm glad you asked! I actually designed that cover! So imagine my surprise when I walked by and saw that! I pretty much freaked out! I also got the opportunity to meet someone from the Press who I had done some work for in the past! So as you can imagine I ran around the rest of the day showing the ARC to anyone and everyone I knew!

Here's what I picked up that day (click to enlarge):

Signed

Unsigned

Complete list

After shipping off our books for the day Gail and I headed back to the hotel for a quick change and a rest and then headed to the Algoquin for a Harper Collins Book Bloggers reception! Had some fun bonding with some fellow bloggers and when we left we found out there was a parting gift, see below! How kind!


Overall thoughts for the day. I was expecting to feel horribly like I did last year at the end of the day but I actually didn't feel so bad. I guess my shoes were better this year and my posture was as well so yay me! Also I did like how everything (except the shipping) was on one floor this year but the Autographing Area certainly could have used a lot more space. It was kind of a madhouse over there! I think I went to a lot more signings this year, and feel like I was interested in more than last year. Overall, a great time!

Upcoming/other posts:
BEA Day 1
BEA Day 2
Book Blogger Convention
Alea's BEA Picks On A Theme or OMGGGG!

BEA 2010: Arrival of the Boxes

Ok, ok these actually came Thursday but I thought I would share a sneak peek before posting the rest of my BEA recaps, which will be occurring sometime soon. Disclaimer: I somehow ended up with 2 boxes this instead of one. How? I have no idea! I did ship at the end of each day though, to try and avoid the theft that happened last year. And one came with a big old rip in the side, luckily everything seemed ok for the most part!

Big old rip, oh no!

Wednesday's Box

Thursday's Box