#RiGoesOutside: HCCFrenzy Presents!

Hello everyone!

I was lucky enough to be invited to the HCCFrenzy event this year! It's the blogger Harper Collins YA event in order to learn about all the coming novels this fall and winter.




Travelling down to the city was a little bit of a hassle, involving a car and the subway. I had it lucky though, since there were road closures and subway closures. So I made it to the office early and of course I had to go get myself a Starbucks. I chugged that down and definitely got the caffeine jitters.


Their office is so nice! They have all these books displayed out front showing off the novels they publish. It was super hot in the elevator area though omg.

Anyways, you can just barely see it in the bottom right corner of the photo, a copy of THIS SAVAGE SONG. Love that novel and I can't wait for the next book to come out!

When the doors were let open for the mob of bloggers, we all walked in, walking past these gorgeous books and into a beautifully decorated meeting area where they put out some RED QUEEN notebooks and a pen!

I saw those Red Queen notebooks in pics from the people who attended the Indigo Teen preview and I wanted them so bad. I'm a sucker for notebooks so I'm super grateful that the HCCFrenzy peeps gave them to us!

I mean, look at that gorgeous thing, with the awesome quote on the bottom of every single page. The paper takes fountain pen ink pretty well.

ANYWAYS, that's enough about the notebook. The HCCFrenzy peeps also put out a nice spread of food for us, involving candy, cookies, chips and cupcakes! The cupcakes are super cute with a mountain of icing and little book cover decorations with some of the featured books!

Here's my cupcake: (I only ate the cake, because that icing is a MOUNTAIN)




Cute right? Unfortunately, that chocolate ball was hollow and not a Lindt truffle like I had hoped it'd be.


The first novel we talked about was GIRL MANS UP by M-E Gerard. We were lucky and M-E Gerard was actually there! She talked about her novel and Shelly of Read.Sleep.Repeat got a shout out since she loves this novel. To be honest, contemporary isn't much what I go for, but this sounds interesting and I got a signed ARC since the author visited us!

Then we talked about As I Descended by Robin Talley, which was described to us as modern day, LGBTQ Macbeth. Sounds interesting right? But apparently according to Karen of kmn04books, it's super creepy, which ngl, sells me on it. I have a strange aversion to creepy movies/tv, but am interested in creepy books.

Next up was The Thosuandth Floor by Katharine McGee! Gosh that book is gorgeous! The gold part on the finished novel has this frosted metallic sheen to it and it's so pretty. I'm excited for this novel since it sounds great and I was kind of hyped up when I did the #BBTC chat for this novel. We were given this really beautiful stiff poster that depicts a diagram of the tower with a bronze metallic finish. So beautiful!

Then we talked about a book that I've literally just started (I'm on page 1): Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake. It's a novel that's right up my alley: fantasy, fighting and magical powers. I'm so excited to get into this one! I'm also super in love with the cover. That typography <3.

After that came the new Mindy McGinnis novel, The Female of the Species. The cover is absolutely gorgeous and it's about how girls are the dangerous ones, which is pretty evident by the title and the way the girl characters are described in the synopsis. It sounds interesting. It's that dangerous bit that really draws me in.

Next, was the third novel in Sara Raasch's Snow Like Ashes trilogy: Frost Like Night. I still haven't read the second book (oops). I loved Theron and I should definitely get around to reading it soon. The cover of this one matches the others and I love it.

Then we talked about The Queen of Blood by Sarah Beth Durst and holy moly this book sounds awesome. There are killer nature spirits and the queen is the only one who can keep these spirits at bay and keep them from slaughtering everyone. There are multiple heirs for the queen since she's still only human. Scary violent fantasy is definitely up my alley.

After, was Every Hidden Thing by Kenneth Oppel. This novel sounds awesome! It was described as "Romeo and Juliet meets Indiana Jones". It deals with early palaeontology and the children of the first palaeontologists, who were very bitter rivals. The cover is gorgeous also!

Kenneth Oppel visited us and talked about the novel, and how he came up with the idea for this novel. He's super charismatic in person and it was fun listening to him talk about his novel. Obviously since he was there, we all went home with a signed copy of his novel. I'm excited to read this one!

Then Rosamund Hodge's Bright Smoke, Cold Fire came up and omg I can't wait. I love Rosamund Hodge and the way she puts a dark fantasy twist on fairy tales and classic tropes. This one is a dark Romeo and Juliet based novels involving lots of fighting, death and apparently zombies.

Next was Replica by Lauren Oliver. It seems interesting. It involves literal replicas of people (hence the name) and so it talks about two replicas and there are two stories. You read the novel from one end and in the perspective of one of the replicas and then you flip it over to read a story from another replica's perspective. It's an interesting premise and apparently there are slight Stranger Things vibes to it.

Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst was the next book. It's a fantasy where some kingdoms outlaw magic. The main character is a princess with magic who is engaged to a prince from another kingdom that outlaws magic. She also finds herself falling for the prince's sister. Need I say more? ;)

Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth. Need I say more? The hype is real.

Also another book that needs no explanation, The King's Cage by Victoria Aveyard. I haven't read the second book yet, but that's okay!

Then we talked about The Valiant by Lesley Livingston and I am SO HYPE FOR THIS ONE. It comes out on Valentine's Day of 2017 and it talks about female gladiators and Julius Caesar and seriously I am so into Roman history. Yes please.

Almost done guys, this won't go on for too much longer. LOL

Next was The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli. I haven't read her debut novel, but all I know is that there was a tremendous amount of love for it and people are hype for this novel.

Lastly was Fireworks by Katie Cotugno. It's about popstars and the girl/boy band craze of the 90s and friendships.

Those were most of the novels we talked about, I may have missed a few unintentionally, but these are definitely the ones that made an impact on me. There are so many awesome new novels that are about to come out!

After all this talk about books, we got to line up and get our books signed by M-E Gerard and Kenneth Oppel! I talked with some other bloggers in the line as we waited to get our novels signed, namely Jamie from Books and Ladders.

I got to meet and talk to a lot of bloggers and it was so much fun. Here is what I picked up in my swag bag at the end:



Thanks to the HCCFrenzy and HarperCollins Canada peeps for inviting me to this event! I'm so psyched to read some of the novels I received yesterday and to also check out some of these new novels we talked about!

Happy Reading!