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Deborah Harkness – The Book Of Life Pre-Launch Party: an article by Sarah Bruch.

On Friday 4th July, I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the pre-launch party for the last book in Deborah Harkness’ trilogy ‘The Book Of Life’. This was my first ever event and happened to be for one of my favourite authors so, needless to say, I was incredibly excited! I took the train down to London and managed to navigate my way across the city to the Royal Institute where the party was being held. Once inside, I was handed my name label along with a glass of Kir Royal which I felt looked fittingly like blood.

Deborah_Harkness_Goodie_Bag Deborah_Harkness_Gothic_room

I managed to get a look around the room hosting the event prior to everyone arriving and it was stunning, filled with goodie bags, copies of the book and truly gothic-looking chandeliers. Slowly, the place began to fill with some of Deborah’s fans and book reviewers and I discovered that I was one of the lucky few who had already read the book. Luckily everyone who attended found a signed hardback copy of the book in their goodie bag along with a handy-dandy little kit including a tiny torch and a coffee drink to help them stay awake all night reading the book.

Once everyone had arrived, Deborah appeared and spoke to a few people in the room. I managed to be introduced to her by Graham Green from Headline Publishing which made my day! Luckily, I didn’t pass out or speak gibberish, two of my biggest failings when talking to authors. In fact, I had a lovely long chat about her book and about some Twitter conversations I’d had with Deborah previously.

Deborah_Harkness_Wine_Charm       Deborah_Harkness_Book_and_Champagne

All too soon, she was called away to start her question and answer session. Here, Deborah revealed some interesting background to the books like her favourite character was Phillipe, which for some reason surprised me. Possibly because to me he seemed to be a peripheral character and not one of my favourites. She also mentioned that one of my favourite characters nearly wasn’t in the book at all, Gallowglass apparently just suddenly appeared without her realising it.

Deborah_Harkness_and_Fans     Deborah_Harkness_and_Sarah

Deborah was asked about the movie rights to the book series which must be in the front of a lot of her fans’ minds. She said that the rights had been taken by a movie company a while ago but they had recently reverted back to her so there is currently nothing in the pipeline with regards any movies being made of the books. Deborah also spoke about her plans for the future with regards writing. Unfortunately, for her fans, there are no more books currently being planned as she will be busy touring with her books until November at which point she is going to go back to her day job of lecturing about European History and the history of science.

I really enjoyed being a part of this pre-launch party, everyone was so interesting and inviting and meeting Deborah was fantastic. I know that she is going to be making her way around the UK and the USA with ‘The Book Of Life’ and I would urge any of her fans to make it to one of these events as she really is a truly lovely person to listen to and to meet in person if you’re lucky enough.

I would like to say thank you to Caitlin Rayner who was the kind publicist who invited this early adopter to a fantastic party!

Sarah Bruch

July 2014

Follow me @shelbycat

Tour Details links:-

http://deborahharkness.com/book-life-us-tour-information/

http://deborahharkness.com/book-life-uk-tour-details/

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