RomCon 2011 Recap

Be warned this is a long post but well worth it for what happened to us on the last day 🙂 ALL PICTURES HAVE BEEN POSTED TO OUR FB PAGE.

When Melanie and I planned our trip this year all we knew was that we were going to have fun, meet more authors and new people. One of the things that we did differently this year was we signed up to be buddies. In both our groups we had authors so that made it different as we had already made these connections with attendee’s and authors. I had Terry O’Dell and Mel had Dee Davis and Julia London. We also had some fun people that we were able to hang out with and get to know a bit better.

On Thursday we got to Denver early and were met at the hotel by our friend Tiffany (who has a book coming out soon with Ashley March and Bernandette Marie). Once we had dumped the luggage we were off to help stuff the swag bags for various events.

As we were stuffing we got to visit with new to us authors Shayla Black (well she is new to Melanie as I talk to her on twitter), Sophie Oak, Sylvia Day, Erin Quinn and a friend from last year Erin Kellison.

As we were standing by the registration desk we meet Robyn Carr, unbeknown to us Robyn lives up the street from us. I promised to go to her event that she holds at our local library if she comes to dinner with us when our dinner group meets.

Then it was time for dinner. Before  RomCon started we thought it would be fun to have dinner and catch up with our author friends from last year so we sent out the invite and was happy to see that all of them said yes. Before we knew it our dinner of about fifteen turned into a dinner of thirty three, with some new author friends and new friends joining us. It was amazing. The list of authors could be read as a who who in romance, and yes I am going to brag that we got to eat dinner with these authors. Robyn Carr, Melissa Mayhue, Janelle Denison, Carly Phillips, Shayla Black, Sophie Oak, Sylvia Day, Isobel Carr, Jessa Slade, Erin Quinn, Erin Kellison, Gabi Stevens, Delilah Marvelle and Jenn LeBlanc.

After dinner the authors had their author event so we went and unpacked our clothes before heading down to the meet your buddy event. This event this was a lot of fun as the different buddy groups ended up just hanging out together and having a great time visiting.

Friday morning dawned bright and early. We meet Terry O’Dell for breakfast but our waitress was really slow and we ended up not getting anything (next year we are taking oatmeal). Then it was off to the various events.

I went to the Build  a Hero event that was a huge hit last year and sat at a table with Jenn Le Blanc and another whose name escapes me at this moment I and I will probably remember in a week and go that was her name. At our table we also had Kati from Romancing Rakes and Jamie @jamielyn831. Our hero name is Ewan MacGregor who is a 9^th century highlander that ends up in the 21^st century won the event.

While I was building a hero, Melanie went to a contemporary authors panel and got to listen to Carly Phillips and an intimate chat with Julia London.

We then ran into Melissa Mayhue and went to lunch with her. It was great getting that one on one time with her as we count her as a friend.

After lunch it was off the Highlander Panel with Melissa Mayhue, Margret Mallory and Kimberly Killion. Kimberly was gracious enough to provide a model Brooks to show what the highlander wore. While Mel was in playing with the highlanders I was over playing taboo with the paranormal authors. Jessa Slade was on my team however we lost.

Then it was time for Melissa Schroeder’s Luau. I was super excited for this as I LOVE Melissa and her A Little Harmless Series.

Halfway through the Luau however we went over to help finish setting up for dinner.We got to meet and hang out with Beth Williamson there. Beth and I bonded over our love of Angel from Johanna Lindsey.

Dinner was wild west theme, there was a mechanical bull and sepia pictures to be taken. Mel and I had our picture taken with Melissa Mayhue and Tiffany James, and then I got on the bull. There is apparently video of this event.

After dinner it was time for the Choc Mangasm. This was a huge success. Delilah did an excellent job of organizing it. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. (All pictures are on FB).

Saturday I swear we were busier than ever. When we left the room at 8am I didn’t return until almost 11pm. We ran ran ran.

In fact Saturday seems like a giant blur to me. I know that I was in the intimate chat with Tara Janzen, where she talked a bit about the upcoming anthology that she and Cindy Gerard are participating in along with several other authors. I’m sure you have all seen the picture of the cover of the book. It has a SEAL with his back to the camera and is titles Seal of my Dreams. She shared with us the fact that the SEAL on the cover is an actual SEAL and the picture was taken as a SEAL stationed in Faluga was getting ready for a mission.

We both went to Melissa Mayhue’s intimate chat where she told us about her new book Warriors Redemtion (I think that is the name) and showed us the cover. This book is one that will be read as soon as it comes as the premise is amazing.

Melanie then went to the Historical Fashion show where Deeanne Gist, Melissa Mayhue, Mary Wine, Kimberly Killion, Jade Lee, and Delilah Marvelle modeled the clothes of the time periods we love to read about. She took a lot of pictures and had a great time. Here are just a few of the outfits that were modeled.

While she was doing that I played madlibs with Janelle Dennsion and helped Jessa Slade judge her game (the name of which is escaping me at this moment) I got to judge with Jeanne Stein, having never met her before I was excited to visit with her.

We had lunch with Erin Kellison and great conversation as well.

I went with Erin to help her with her game of quick draw that where there was a bit of drama, but was worked out really well I think.

I then got to go to Julie James intimate chat where she dished on her books, and how she made the transistion from lawyer to full-time author, oh and she gave us a sneak peak into Kyle’s book (I will just say this it is going to be great).

Then it was time for the FAB 5 cocktail hour, hosted by Shayla Black (who bless her heart had been sick most of the day), Sophie Oak, Sylvia Day, Erin Quinn and Erin Kellison. They had some awesome swag that they gave out.

Dinner was a paranormal themed event and we had great conversations with our table mates.

After dinner we had Melissa Mayhue’s blogger event, she had some great authors and swag as well, I won the big prize from her, a Melissa Mayhue bag signed by all the authors as well some great goodies.

Then it was time for the pj party. At the pj party the amazing Jessa organized a round robin story telling that got more than a bit weird.

Sunday morning brought us to our event. Melanie and I had been stressing for months about this event and how it would go off. A couple of publishers had sent us a lot of books and several of the authors had given us the left over from their events so we had A TON of books to giveaway.

When I walked into the room ten minutes before the event and saw how many people were in the room I was floored. The conversation was great as we talked about the books and authors that we love. We talked about Vampires and what we liked in Paranormals. We all agreed that if there is a guy wearing a kilt on the cover we will buy it. I also discovered that there is a place for me to utilize all the book info I have in my head and that is in this event.

We dashed around the author signing like mad women making sure we hit everyone and said good bye to everyone as we were leaving after the signing.

The Double E’s (Erin Kellison and Erin Quinn) invited us to lunch as we were all catching the same shuttle, so we had lunch with them Sylvia Day and Mary Wine.

Up to this point we had been drama free (unlike last year) then we got off the shuttle at the airport to discover that the hotel hadn’t loaded one of my suitcases onto the shuttle. Erin Q and Sylvia were with us as we were all flying the same airline and didn’t want to check in without making sure that we were okay (wasn’t that sweet of them). It took the hotel 40 minutes to find my suitcase, at this point we were on the verge of missing our flight. As we were waiting for the hotel manager to bring me my suitcase we got a message from the airline, our flight was delayed by an hour. This gave us plenty of time to check in, make our way through security (as we entered the airport we were told if we walk to the other end of the airport the line through security was shorter, it was a bit of a hike but well worth it) Melanie got the privilege of going through the full body scanner, I told her to ask for the mammogram image. We figured it was a perfect way to get a free cancer screening.

By the time we got the plane we were flat out exhausted. Then halfway through the flight all the bookmarks in my bag (and there was a lot) fell out of my bag. As the flight was full we had no room whatsoever to bend down and pick them so Melanie used her toes.

The thing that I wasn’t able to do was to pin down Cindy Gerard about the MAJOR cliffhanger at the end of Luc’s book.

This was our RomCon 2011 adventure and we will be going back again next year. The dates have been announced June 21-24.

Here is a picture of Heather’s swag haul, one of the more popular items was the trading cards. These seem to have been a huge hit with everyone.