B-day and book signing highlights

Announcements first:

1. The Wonderful folks over at Eve's Fan Garden have been very kindly promoting TDD. They even posted about a new TDD inspired make-up collection created by Mixology Makeup. Holy crap, TDD make-up?! That's just so darn cool.

2. Lots of good things are brewing for me and TDD right now. Wish I could share, but I've been told it's a no-no for now. But stay tuned for announcements coming soon.

3. I'm not making any promises, but if you are outside of Utah and would like to have me sign books in your hometown, be sure to let the folks at Egmont USA know.

4. I will be signing at the Sandy Barnes & Noble on February 6th from 1-4 pm. This event is an Authorpalooza, so there will be over 30 other authors signing there at the same time. You really should come. I mean, 30+ authors in the same room, who wouldn't have a great time at that? I don't know exactly who all will be there, but I do know my friends Emily Wing Smith, Bobbie Pyron, and James Dashner will be part of the party.

5. I will be speaking and signing at the Orem Barnes & Noble on February 13th from 1-4 pm. This is a great chance for Utah County peeps to get a signed book. Plus, TDD makes the perfect V-day gift!! If you're going to the LTUE conference that day, it would be easy to take a few minutes to pop over to the signing . . . just saying.

Okay, on to the real post:

As promised, I am finally posting about my birthday and my latest book signing. Let's just say it was all awesome--and I'll share with you some of the highlights:

1. I got some awesome presents for my B-day. Including a beautiful purple charm bracelet that says "The Dark Divine, 12-22-09" on a silver heart from my friend Rachel, other beautiful jewelry, a sweater and a scarf, a chair massager with packaging that can't be shared in mixed company, a Marc Jacobs tote bag (squee!), some awesome books I've been wanting to read, and these shoes


from Sara Bolton (one of The SIX, and co-owner of My Shoe Shoppe) who finally started her own blog.

Not to be outdone by my friends, Hubby gave me this:

Aw, he knows me so well!

(Yes, that is a tiny cow. I have named him: Tiny Cow.)

Hubby also promised to make dinner and do homework with Kid Z every night for the next 3 weeks while I finish up TDD2. Isn't that just the sweetest? Hey, wait a second, isn't Kid Z out of school for the next 2 weeks . . . ?

2. Hubby also took me out to dinner to one of our favorite restaurants and then we went to see the play THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. Which led me to the realization that Oscar Wilde plays were pretty much the GOSSIP GIRL of the late 1800s. No wonder I <3 href="http://rowijo.void-star.net/index.php/2010/01/bree-despain-signing/">Robbie from Boy With Books who drove 5 HOURS from Grand Junction to be there.
4. Not only did a ton of friends, family and fans show up for the event, there was also a very special visitor who came along with Debbie from my street team and her pals. He even wore a purple shirt, a black and purple boa, and a sign proclaiming his love for Team Daniel. (Which originally said Team David on accident, until everyone in the audience started asking, "Um, who's David?") Anyway, I can now die happy.




Final Note: I'm in CRUNCH time with deadline for TDD2 right now, so if you've emailed, facebook messaged, or tweeted to me lately and I haven't responded to you yet . . . please forgive me. I can tell you right now that I am going to continue to be slow for the next few weeks. I'll try not to fall off the face of the planet . . . and hopefully you'll all still love me when I get to come back to the real world. (Is that mixed metaphor? I don't even know anymore.)

Oh, one more final note: If you come to one of my signings, please introduce and tell me you are a follower of the blog. It is so hard to recognize people by their tiny blog icons.

TDD Jewelry Winners!

So I had a wonderful B-day and an awesome signing at B&N. I was totally planning on blogging all about it tonight (and showing you a pic of the very special visitor who came to my signing) but I am totally beat at the moment. . . so it will have to wait until later this week. (I'm promise!) But since I didn't want to leave you hanging as to who won the TDD jewelry, I'm just doing a quick post to announce the winners.

Grand Prize Winner: Jilly

2nd Prize: Kelsey Dickson

3rd Prize: Tynga (Who says the first commenter never wins?)

Winners, email me at readbree(at)gmail(dot)com with your mailing address, and I'll send you your prize.

It's my B-DAY, and I can give stuff away if I want to!

So the last few weeks have been a wild ride, and I'm so happy that you all are here to experience it with me!! Today is my birthday, and I have to say that I LOVE my birthday! And I also love giving people gifts, so I think it's time for a special B-day giveaway.

Here's the gist:

The talented Heather Zahn Gardner has created a jewelry collection inspired by THE DARK DIVINE for her Etsy shop. I am totally in love! So for our contest, I'm going to give away some of her pieces to you guys.

All you have to do in order to enter the contest is go check out her TDD jewelry collection on her website, and then leave a comment here about which two pieces are your favorites. If you win the contest, then I'll send you one or both of your choices (depending on which prize pack you win).

Earn extra points by blogging/facebooking/ or tweeting about the contest. (1pt for each.)

Grand Prize: Win 2 pieces of TDD jewelry + a YA book of your choice

2nd prize: Win 2 pieces of TDD jewelry

3rd prize: Win 1 piece of TDD jewelry

Okay all, have a happy 13th of January! The contest ends Saturday, January 16th at 11:59pm. I'll announce winners on Sunday the 17th.

P.S. I'm having a birthday party and everyone is invited. It's this Saturday, January 16th at the Barnes & Noble in West Jordan, Utah (Jordan Landing) at 2pm. I'll be reading from TDD, answering questions, and signing books. (Okay, so it's a book signing and not an actual party, but we can pretend it's a birthday party, right?) Come celebrate TDD with me! I'll be handing out Dark Divine nail polish, and may even have a few posters to give away.

Launch Party Pictures (Part 2)

Latest Announcements:

1. Being on Blog Talk Radio last night was awesome. We even got into my vivid dreams about cheese, and my brief "perfectly-pressed grunge" phase as a teen. You can listen to the interview HERE.

2. Late Bloomer Online is hosting a chat tonight (1/6) for TDD at 7pm MST/9pm EST. http://l8bloomeronline.blogspot.com/ Come chat with me!

3. I'll be reading and signing at the West Jordan B&N on Jan 16th at 2pm.

4. And I'll be reading and signing at the Orem B&N on February 13th at 1:00. Great place to get V-day presents!

Okay, time for more pictures from the launch party. There were just too many good ones to limit to one post.

Oh, and a funny story: I took my cell phone up to the podium with me while I was speaking so I could keep track of the time . . . but totally forgot to put it on silent. I was about 15 minutes into my speech when it started ringing! At first I was like, "Who didn't turn off their cell phone?" And then I was like, "Oh wait, it's me." I picked up my phone, and not recognizing the number, I said to the audience, "This person obviously doesn't know me very well." Turns out it was one of my neighbors calling to apologize that she couldn't make it out to the launch--but she thought she was calling my home phone.

Again huge thank yous go to Michelle Sallay for these beautiful pictures:

Hubby. Ain't he cute?

Valynne Maetani sporting the official TDD nail polish

KidA insisted on sitting next to me almost the whole time and passed out free nail polish

As you can see, he was very helpful

Me and my sister Brooke. People used to ask if we were twins. I have no idea why.

Good friend Matt Kirby,
soon to be famous author when his MG book THE CLOCKWORK THREE debuts with Scholastic Fall 2010

TDD featured on the Indie Next list!!

And a couple of non-Michelle taken pictures:

Sara Bolton, Sarah Williams, and Kimberly Webb Reid

That's Emily Wing Smith sporting our new "The SIX" t-shirts we had made for the event.
And she's with readers Alana and Mary who are sporting copies of Emily fabulous YA novel
The Way He Lived.

Launch Party Recap & Pictures (Part 1)

So announcements first:

1. I'm going to be on Blog Talk Radio tonight (1/5) on the "Book and a Chat" program. Click HERE to find out how to listen. And you can call (347237-5398 to ask me your questions. It starts at 5pm MST/ 7pm EST. Come listen so I won't be talking to myself!

2. Late Bloomer Online is hosting a chat tomorrow (1/6) for TDD at 7pm MST/9pm EST. http://l8bloomeronline.blogspot.com/ Come chat with me!

3. I'll be reading and signing at the West Jordan B&N on Jan 16th at 2pm. And signing at the Orem B&N on February 13th at

4. TDD just went into a second printing!! I am so excited.


On to what you've been waiting for: Launch Party recap & pictures!!


The King's English, one of my favorite book stores, was gracious enough to host a launch party for THE DARK DIVINE last Saturday. The even was absolutely amazing, and I was completely blown away by how many people showed up. The staff had me set up in the children's room with about 30 chairs for the audience--but people just kept coming in and coming in until the room was packed. I was nervous enough about the idea of speaking in front of a handful of people--so now I was really feeling green. I spoke for about 25 minutes and managed not to faint when reading out loud to such a big crowd. But it's a good thing that I didn't know until after I was done talking that the rest of the bookstore was filled, standing room only, with people!!! I couldn't see this from where I was standing--and I'm glad I couldn't!

TKE served beautiful purple crescent moon cookies, and my 3 year old insisted on sitting next to me during the signing and very adamantly passed out Dark Divine nail polish to everyone who came through the line. You couldn't even think about not taking a bottle! A lot of the people who came to the launch were friends and family, but I was surprised at how many people I didn't know who came through the line. I go to a lot of other authors' signings so it was really surreal to be the person on the other side of the signing desk!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to TKE for hosting the party, and many many thanks to all of you who came out to celebrate with me.

And huge thanks to BFF Michelle Sallay for taking all these wonderful pictures for me! Blogger won't let me upload as many pics as I'd like, so I'll do another post tomorrow.

Sara Zarr

A.E. Cannon, one of my mentors, who introduced me at the party


I could make a montage of all the pics of me making weird hand gestures--um, but I won't

This was what the room looked like when I started talking--wish I had a pic of when the place got even more filled up!

Douglas Cootey and his daughters--the first in line at the signing

Me and my cousin