Last week I attended BEA 2014, currently being held in New York City.  This was my fourth year in attendance and I had a blast.  Getting to see the city, hang out with my blogger friends, meet amazing authors, and finally put faces to some of the people I email with constantly was such a great opportunity.

I arrived late Tuesday night and while the BEA show floor didn’t open until Thursday, I did get to spend my Wednesday at some bookish events.

I started the morning with brunch at the NOVL headquarters at Little, Brown.  The lovely people of Little, Brown had an awesome setup for us.  There was food, mimosas, and goodies in the form of ARCs and swag!  While I knew a little about Little, Brown’s young adult offerings for this fall season, I learned a lot more that really moved them up my TBR and even added some to my radar.

I’m not a memoir person but Josh Sundquist’s memoir, WE SHOULD HANG OUT SOMETIME: EMBARASSINGLY, A TRUE STORY, definitely made it on my radar.  Josh is a Youtube personality who has already published a few books but this is his first truly YA offering.  This is the story of all his misadventures in dating and it looks laugh out loud funny.

Ryan Graudin’s sophomore novel, THE WALLED CITY, was already on my radar but I definitely it moved it up my TBR after this brunch.  The cover is currently in the process of being changed so I don’t have one to share with you guys but I’m excited to see what the team at Little, Brown comes up with.  THE WALLED CITY is told from 3 points of view, one of which is a young girl masquerading as a boy so that she can find her little sister.  The concept for THE WALLED CITY is based on the actual city of Kowloon which I would highly recommend looking up!

Kendall Kulper’s debut novel, SALT & STORM, was another one that I had already heard about but once again I’m even more eager to read it now.  The story follows a young witch who has been raised knowing nothing about her powers but must learn about them to save her own life after she sees a vision of her death.  It also features a tatooed harpoon boy.  Oh and the publicist for SALT & STORM said that the writing reminded her of Laini Taylor’s writing in the DAUGHTER OF SMOKE & BONE trilogy.  You can check out a lot of cool information about SALT & STORM on Kendall Kulper’s inspiration Tumblr: the-old-whaling-island.tumblr.com

A novel that’s new to my radar was WILDLIFE by Australian author Fiona Wood.  WILDLIFE is said to be the “thinking girl’s YA novel.”  It’s the story of two girls coming together during a semester in the wilderness and is ultimately the story of their friendship, no matter the fact that there is a boy and a girl on the cover, not the two main girls.  Also, there’s actually a funny story behind the cover.  Originally, the author didn’t approve of the stock photo being used because the boy wasn’t wearing a shirt and the girl was not wearing pants so the cover designer actually had to add clothes to the stock photo!

Little, Brown also a new apocalyptic novel on offer, THE YOUNG WORLD by Chris Weitz.  THE YOUNG WORLD features a cast of teenagers that are all that is left after something called The Sickness wipes out babies and adults.  It takes place in NYC and features many places that people will immediately recognize such as Central Park, the New York Public Library, and more landmarks.  It’s supposed to be a gritty novel featuring gangs, cults, militias, and cannibals.

Last but not least, Little, Brown has another contemporary novel coming up this fall, FAMOUS IN LOVE by Rebecca Serle.  FAMOUS IN LOVE is said to be a guilty pleasure read featuring a girl thrust into fame when she is chosen as the lead girl in a supernatural movie based on a series of books.  She is caught up in a love triangle both on and off screen.  Little, Brown mentioned that FAMOUS IN LOVE is definitely aware of it’s love triangle and they use it to the book’s advantage.

While there were other titles mentioned at the brunch, these 6 were the focal points and they are all I’m going to mention here.  They were also kind enough to give us a tour of the Little, Brown offices and I decided that I would love to work in publishing.  The whole office was just overflowing with books and it was awesome!

Immediately following brunch, I headed over to Hotel Pennsylvania to meet up with my roommates, Bonnie and Kat from A Backwards Story.  We wandered the city for a while and searched for hoodies since it was rather cold and I had not packed for the weather.  After that it was time to head to the hotel so I could get ready for the Epic Reads party hosted by Harper Teen!

The Epic Reads party was hosted at Ainsworth Park, a gorgeous restaurant only about a 20 minute walk from my hotel.  I headed that way and ran into multiple blogger friends as soon as I arrived.  This party was more of a mix and mingle gathering than a set presentation.  HarperTeen had invited tons of their authors and I got the chance to chat with Megan Shull (author of THE SWAP), Eric Kahn Gale (author of THE ZOO AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD), Michael Grant (author of MESSENGER OF FEAR), and many more.  There were drinks flowing and yummy food being passed around and it was a fun gathering.

About an hour into the party, the Epic Reads girls, Margot and Aubry, got up in front and introduced a fun trivia game.  Everyone was split into groups (which each included at least one author) and Amanda Maciel (author of TEASE) was the resident author in my group.  All the trivia questions were book related (not necessarily Harper books) and let me tell you, we were stumped by quite a few questions.  It was a fun chance to test our memories and it was also a fun way to find out about what books everyone had read and what books people had been meaning to read.  There were also some book to movie questions thrown in which definitely were not my strong suit.

Following the trivia game everyone split up to mingle again and the awesome goody bags were handed out.  The highlight of the goody bag was definitely the book shimmy t-shirt that I must say, I rocked wearing on Saturday at BEA/bookcon.  There were also tissues to be used in case of feels, tea (because what would tea time be without it?), a mystery ARC for each bag, and a cookie!  It was a really thoughtful goody bag and a wonderful event!

My first day in NYC was a full day and I was exhausted by the end.  I crashed as soon as I got to the hotel and I got as much sleep as I could in preparation for day 1 on the BEA show floor!