The King and Queen Tour #CassieXHollyInPH

Last week, two wonderful authors went to our country. It was none other than Cassandra Clare and Holly Black! I know, its still pretty bizaare in my head that they went here. National Bookstore successfully made another event that brought so much joy to all of the booklovers here. Seeing both of them in real life, is almost the feeling of being ten times closer to the characters that I’ve fallen in love with, which is basically Will Herondale and Cardan. LOL.

The King and Queen Tour was held at Cebu and Manila. Readers are so eager to see them in person and they’ve asked a lot of questions. The kind of questions that really comes from their heart. I was at the public signing in Manila, with my friends Lyra(defiantlydeviant.blogspot.com), JM(bookfreakrevelations.com), Salve(cuckooforbooks YT channel), Miel and Gela. Being there is one of the most memorable moment of my bookish life. (basically all of the book signings). 

The anticipation to see them grows bigger, the crowd was holding on too tight on their beloved books, some are already recording every single moment when they are up to enter the stage. And when they arrived, we all went wild! We were screaming with all our hearts. Screaming in so much joy. It was a day of mixed emotions and I’m so glad to be a part of it.

Cassandra Clare and Holly Black were very enthusiastic, funny and most of all, they are so open to share everything. Well of course, not all about their upcoming books. But they answered all of the questions in a detailed manner. They accomodated every questions as many as possible. After that, we went on to the signing.

Then we were so lucky to have an upclose interview with Cassandra Clare and Holly Black. Here are some of our questions.

Cassie: I’ve never been to Phillippines. This is my first time and I’ve been wanting to visit here for several years. We got into Cebu and we were both exhausted because we came from Dubai. We slept for like the first day but we were lucky to be on the beach it was really great. We got to see a little of Cebu and so far the crowds have been great. The one in Manila is bigger than that. Everybody has been really enthusiastic. Everyone asked great questions and they’re really sweet. 

One of the things that’s been really interesting in the Philippines is that, people brought me some gifts and notes which is really nice! Signings can be a bit overwhelming, you’ve come up and you only have like one or two seconds to say something what you want to say so it was really smart to write down what you wanna say. 

Holly: The crowds have been really great. It’s super great to see people cosplaying. Cassie was right, the questions have been great and their enthusiasm. I haven’t been to any mall signings before, but Cassie has been, where you have a crowd here and you could also have a crowd above! I was not ready yet. That was really fun after a few minutes, but after a while its a new feeling. I was never in Cebu before and I have been in Manila. My husband is from Pangasinan, so I sometimes came here just to visit them.

Holly: I think its interesting when you realize that you have readers who have been with you since the beginning. Like I have readers coming out with their Spiderwick books back from 2002 and it is, I think seeing people all over the world with your new book feels great! Seeing them with your old book, it feels like you’ve been having a relationship with somebody that you haven’t had it like, you haven’t got thre opportunity yet to meet before and I find it really special and different.

Cassie: Many people says that you were in my chilhood, you were in my teenage years and its a really great feeling. Its feels like you’re very lucky to have been able to reach out across the world and form relationships with people. 

I think thats what’s important about coming here is that you guys have been able to have something of a relationship with us, bu we haven’t had a chance to meet you so it was really kinda great to come and to actually meet the people.

Holly: It’s great, obviously we have a long way to go before we have like true inclusivity and you know, representation that matches the actual demographics of our world. But I think that, the increase has been really helpful, really great. You know,  we know writers who had a great deal of trouble getting marketing for their books. Getting placement for their books, because of the protagonists race or sexual orientation and to see books coming out now and really getting that marketing the beautiful covers really being pushed hard. And you know and seeing readers who are clearly looking for these books is so great.

Cassie: I guess what makes me worried sometimes is when I hear people talk about it as a trend. Because to me, trend is something that passes and its like saying there’s a trend for red sneakers or something. And you know, im like hopefull this is not a trend and hopefully it is a direction. A direction that will continue and one of the things that we see from behind the scenes is that many of the people who work in publishing can make the decisions about buying books and marketing books are strictly in YA. 

Cassie: I have a lot of friends who told me, Holly included that they didnt like a love triangle and I love love triangles. And one of the things that bothers you is that when their indecisive they cant choose and you know thats not to me what a love triangle should look like or be necessarily about. Realistically speaking, in life we often love more than one person. We will fall in love a few times before we end up with whoever we are gonna end up with. And so I wanted to write about a love that is trully equal on both sides and on all the sides, because I think also with love triangles, you often get this shape where its person a loves person b and person c loves person b but person a has no relationship at all or they hate each other. And that doesnt really interests me, what interests me is that all of them love each other equally. 

I love all the relationships but the relationship between Jem and Will that was as important and beautiful as the love between Tessa. Because I think it needed to be super significant.