{"id":664,"date":"2012-11-12T16:30:01","date_gmt":"2012-11-12T23:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/?p=664"},"modified":"2012-11-12T21:29:01","modified_gmt":"2012-11-13T04:29:01","slug":"vicki-delany-and-donis-caseys-great-arizonacalifornia-book-tour-of-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/?p=664","title":{"rendered":"Vicki Delany and Donis Casey’s Great Arizona\/California Book Tour of 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

And what a trip it was. \u00a0My sixth Alafair Tucker novel, The Wrong Hill to Die On<\/em>, happened to come out at about the same time as Vicki Delany’s latest standalone, More Than Sorrow<\/em>, and though Vicki lives in Canada, and I live in Arizona, we have the same publisher and have met on numerous occasions. \u00a0Having found one another agreeable, we thought it would be a fine idea to promote our new books together here in the U.S. \u00a0And so the idea for the book tour was born.<\/p>\n

We started out with four events here in the Phoenix area, first\u00a0on October 25\u00a0\u00a0at Velma Teague Library in Glendale, home of the inimitable Lesa Holstine (who authors of one of the best review sites going, Lesa’s Book Critiques<\/a>). \u00a0Great crowd, great reception, great article about the event (read about it here<\/a>)\u00a0and as always, chocolate.<\/p>\n

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Me (l.), our hostess Shelly, and Vicki (r.)<\/p><\/div>\n

Next we did the Coffee and Crime event at the Desert Foothills Library in Cave Creek, AZ. \u00a0What a wonderful bunch! Check out this crowd:<\/p>\n

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Desert Foothills Library<\/p><\/div>\n

Then Saturday was the Poisoned Pen Bookstore<\/a> in Scottsdale, home of both Vicki’s and my editor, Barbara Peters. \u00a0Once again, another fantastic audience, which I was most gratified to see, since this event was the official launch of my book. Cathy Cole, who authors Kittling Books<\/a>, another well-known mystery readers’ site, was there, and wrote a great recap of the event that you can check out here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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At the Pen with Barbara (l.), Vicki, and Yours Truly (r.)<\/p><\/div>\n

Our last but far from least event in Arizona was Authors and Artists, a charity do for P.E.O., a philanthropic educational organization which raises money for women’s education through projects such as this. \u00a0Original works of art were raffled off, then four authors spoke; Vicki and me, Betty Webb, and Frederick Ramsay, all of whom are published by Poisoned Pen Press, which then made a donation to the organization. \u00a0It was a smashing success, with over 100 attendees, and many books sold.<\/p>\n

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Me, signing books at Authors and Artists in Tempe<\/p><\/div>\n

Then it was off to California for me and Vicki. \u00a0We rented a car in Tempe and took off for San Diego, spending our first night in Yuma, where we visited the library and discovered our books on the shelves, which was certainly gratifying for both of us. (especially Vicki. \u00a0Imagine being a Canadian and finding your books in the Yuma, AZ, public library). Then we drove to San Diego, where we spent the night at a boutique hotel on Coronado Island ( No, we’re not fabulously wealthy.\u00a0It was off-season.) We introduced ourselves at the library again, then went out to see the sights. \u00a0Since it just happened to be Halloween, we caught the islanders’ annual “Halloween Parade”, in which every kid and adult in Coronado – and I suspect in San Diego – dresses up in her costume and walks up and down the entire downtown area and collects treats from all the merchants. \u00a0It was un-freakin’ believable and a delight.<\/p>\n

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The next morning we checked out the Del Coronado Hotel, where as you all know, the movie “Some Like It Hot” was filmed, and near where Vicki’s mother was stationed in WWII.<\/p>\n

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The Del<\/p><\/div>\n

But duty called, and we had to leave paradise and head up to LA. \u00a0Our first bookstore event was at Anne’s Book Carnival<\/a> in Orange, owned by the warm and lovely Anne Saller, who treated us like queens.<\/p>\n

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Book Carnival in Orange with Vicki (l.), Anne, and Do…(r.)<\/p><\/div>\n

November 2 found us at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore<\/a> in Redondo Beach. \u00a0I had never seen their new digs in LA, and I must say I was impressed. We looked sharp, too.<\/p>\n

\"Mysterious<\/a><\/p>\n

On to Mystery Ink<\/a> in Huntington Beach on November 3, where we were hosted by the lovely Debbie Mitsch and got to meet up with another of our Poisoned Pen Press compatriots, Tammy Kaehler<\/a>, author of\u00a0Dead Man’s Switch.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Huntington Beach. At least this time we’re not holding books.<\/p><\/div>\n

November 4 was Book’em<\/a>, in Pasadena, hosted by mystery reader extraordinaire Jean Utley. \u00a0My beloved niece Shannon came to see us do our schtick at that event, so that was an especially good event for me.<\/p>\n

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Book’em, South Pasadena<\/p><\/div>\n

We left the Los Angeles area on the morning of Nov.5 on our way to San Francisco, and drove up the Pacific Coast Highway, \u00a0spending the night in a guest house on a fabulous horse ranch in wine country. \u00a0We made a bunch of stops on the way because we couldn’t help ourselves. \u00a0There is just too dang much to see on the Central Coast. \u00a0We didn’t even get out of town before we stopped at the Getty Museum and spent hours amongst the Greek and Roman art and made plans to put similar atria in the homes we intend to have built after our blockbuster books come out.<\/p>\n

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The Getty Museum<\/p><\/div>\n

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Then we stopped for lunch in Malibu.<\/p>\n

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Vicki enjoying lunch with the surfer dudes in Malibu<\/p><\/div>\n

As you can see, by this time we were having way too much fun. \u00a0It was 2:00 p.m. and we had hardly made it out of the LA area. \u00a0So we zipped up Highway 1 – as fast as one can zip on Highway 1 \u00a0– with a brief pause to refresh ourselves with Danish pastries, and made it to our destination in Paso Robles after a hair-raising drive on twisty mountain roads in the dark (Daylight Savings Time ended on us, much to our surprise). \u00a0Thank God for GPS, which got us where we were going. After a wonderful night in the horse-ranch 2-bedroom guest house, we finally made it up to San Francisco in time to catch the election results from our hotel room. \u00a0I had voted early, of course, and Vicki, being Canadian, had no dog in this particular fight, but we both got plenty interested in the drama, anyway.<\/p>\n

Our ultimate event was Nov. 7 in Berkeley, a literary salon at the home of Janet Rudolph. \u00a0Janet is a woman of great renown in the mystery community. She authors Mystery Readers Journal<\/a>, the Mystery Fanfare<\/a> blog, is one of the movers and shakers of the Left Coast Crime<\/a> annual convention for mystery fans, and is involved in other blogs, award programs, publications, committees, too many to mention. Our last full day in San Francisco was the only cold and cloudy day we had on the entire trip. \u00a0The salon was not until 7:00, so Vicki and I walked up and down the Embarcadero, enjoying the freezing wind in our faces, until time came to head up to Berkeley and wind up a steep, narrow path in the dark and the fog to reach Janet’s home with the eye-popping view at the top of Grizzly Pass. \u00a0A more a warm, engaged, and kind audience we could not \u00a0have wished for, and a perfect ending to our book tour. To commemorate the event, Janet and her husband Frank even gave us each a bottle of wine with our book covers on the label.<\/p>\n

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From the Literary Salon<\/p><\/div>\n

Vicki and I flew out on Nov. 8, each going our separate ways. \u00a0It was a wonderful way for me to finally get back in the game after being out of commission, promotion-wise, for so many years. \u00a0But I had a great time, many thanks to Vicki, and Don survived without me here futzing over him constantly! \u00a0In fact, my guess is he quite enjoyed the silence.<\/p>\n

And last, in case you missed me in the Phoenix area, on Nov. 14 I’ll be at Tempe Public Library at 3:30. \u00a0Come on by!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And what a trip it was. \u00a0My sixth Alafair Tucker novel, The Wrong Hill to Die On, happened to come out at about the same time as Vicki Delany’s latest standalone, More Than Sorrow, and though Vicki lives in Canada, and I live in Arizona, we have the same publisher and have met on numerous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2H58s-aI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=664"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":682,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions\/682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}