My parents came home with pizza the evening of Saturday, February 9th. I am lactose intolerant but I had two slices anyways. “Do you want to go to the thing at the bookstore?” my mother asked.

It took a while, but I decided to go. Anna Meriano, the author of the series-in-progress Love Sugar Magic, was speaking at a local bookstore. I hadn’t read the whole book, but after going hearing her, I am determined to finish it. Which shouldn’t be hard. I read three novels over the weekend.

Anna Meriano had written the first book of the series, Love Sugar Magic: A Dash of Trouble the second book, Love Sugar Magic: A Sprinkle of Spirits, has just come out.

I noticed several things when we got to the bookstore and the event started. First, everybody seemed really excited, which made sense. The books are excellent, and you should totally read the first book here and the second book here, because they’re that good.

I think that the author writes well, but she is not so successful in terms of speaking. I don’t think that she planned or prepared very well, and there was a lot of “um” and “so, yeah” which phrases I don’t think she had planned to be present in her speech.

That was easy to overlook, though, as the smiles on people’s faces were so apparent and admiring as she signed copies of the book. Kids lined up, jumping up and down, people took pictures, adults stood waiting with new copies for which they had waited in line at the cash register. I thought that it must be pretty neat to have a whole evening dedicated to you and your accomplishments.

My mom and I left the bookstore happy, with our new signed copy in hand. I really enjoyed our little adventure, and strongly recommend the two books, which I will be reading, too.