I have a confession to make: before RomCon, I only had one signed book, and it was one that the author coerced me into buying when she spotted me at Borders and proceeded to personalize it for me. Since the book is significantly awful (think literal bodice ripper, with multiple episodes of head trauma, passing out, sexy starvation, and imprisonment), my BFF Liz and I trade it back and forth as an entertaining gag gift.

However, when we saw the list of authors who would be coming to RomCon, and how many of our favorites were on there, we kinda geeked out.  I mean, NALINI SINGH! I love her.  And it turns out, she really is the sweetest, and she speaks with a great accent, so she's both entertaining and fun to listen to.  And just to make it really clear: I think she is the bees knees and ridiculous levels of awesome.  So I told her so, multiple times.  And then she was in the room two doors down from ours, and we had to make sure she understood that we just loved her, but were not psycho or stalking her, since it is, at times, a fine line.

The other author we were really psyched to chat up was Julia Quinn, and she was just fabulous, fun, and friendly.  I arrived a little late to her intimate chat (because Liz arrived after I did and was having issues with the hotel not recognizing her name and refusing to send a shuttle to pick her up from the airport), and Julia was great, and kindly disregarded my emergency texting throughout the session.  Then she stayed afterwards and chatted with us, since Liz arrived at the very end, and I think Liz is an even bigger JQ fan girl than I am. She signed all of our books and took hilarious pictures, and was just generally as lovely as can be.  Lovely enough that I'm willing to share this extremely unflattering, but hilarious, photo:

Luckily, we also took a normal picture:

Then there was the opportunity to meet new-to-you authors, or rather, many opportunities to hang out with any and all authors, some of whom were new to you.  Two of my favorites were Meagan Hatfield and Jessa Slade, whom I hung out with during the Build a Hero workshop, which was extremely fun.  We sat around brainstorming the perfect paranormal hero, as a group, for two hours. Which means basically just giggling and making smart literary choices.  You can see a glimpse of some of Team Awesome's work (and my handwriting!) at Jessa's write up here.  It turns out that many of the characteristics that are popular in designing a hero are being tall, dark, handsome, and scared of matches.  Who knew?  Our hero, Shikar, came in second place (perhaps because he lacked that fear of fire?), but only because we weren't allowed to vote for our own hero.  Our group was by far the largest and felt the strongest about him, but we were foiled by that last-minute rule. Oh, well!  It was still a blast, and Shikar was awesome.  As was our entire group.  Seriously.  This might have been my favorite activity.

I met so many authors, so many of whom were just so lovely, that I feel compelled to go out and buy their entire backlist now.  I mean, I ended up on the shuttle with Elizabeth Hoyt, Cindy Gerard, and Lori Foster going over to the hotel from the airport.  It was just that kind of trip, with tons of unlimited access to authors.  In that particular case, Elizabeth was lovely and introduced me to everyone and we chatted about conventions and her daughter, and how difficult it can be to pack for these things.  I ended up accidentally stalking Cindy Gerard for awhile on Friday, running into her at almost every activity, until we just started laughing because we kept ending up at the same tables.  When we went to the book signing on Saturday, which we were told in advance we were only allowed to bring three of our own books to, I was expecting lines.  Nope, not at all.  Just more author hanging out time!  It was so awesome.  I apologized to Jo Beverley for accidentally sleeping through her intimate chat, and she laughed, forgave me, and gave me some stickers.  Elizabeth Boyle was adorable, and got so excited at meeting two other Elizabeths that she insisted on taking an Elizabeth picture with us.  I wish I had thought to take one too, but I was distracted in the frenzy of having so much fun.  Nalini Singh chatted with us for awhile, and revealed the cover art for Archangel's Consort (it's gorgeous).  She'd also had the foresight to buy some sparkly purple pens for the occasion, so all her dedications are extra fun (and personal - she wrote different funny things in each book I had her sign).  Anna Campbell is so much fun, and has such infectious energy, that you can't help but be giggly and cheerful when hanging out with her. I chatted with one of my new favorites, Veronica Wolff (who writes paranormal Scottish historicals, straight Scottish historicals, and has an upcoming vampire young adult series! Also, her middle name is Elizabeth, so she is clearly awesome). I briefly spoke to Jeaniene Frost and sat with the lovely Meljean Brook for a bit, and it was all just so surreal and awesome that I don't think I can properly describe it.  And so many of the authors felt the same, I can't tell you how many confessed how excited they were to meet Christine Feehan (who was also fun and awesome).

Basically, I'd recommend this conference for the authors alone.  They were all so fabulous and wonderful, and I met so many awesome new people, that the whole trip was more than worth it.

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