Any Of You In LA?

On Sunday the 24th I will be doing my very first book signing at the LA Times Festival Of Books! It’s being held at UCLA and I’ll be there at 12 at Borders/ Brentano's booth # 201 located on the far west side of Dickson Plaza, in front of Powell Library. I’m very excited about this although I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that anyone other than Visa would want my signature on anything. My book will be available for sale there which is a day or two before it will become available at most bookstores. I’m thrilled that Red Dress Ink arranged for this early release so I could participate in the event, but on the other hand I’m at a slight disadvantage---being a new author not many people have heard of me so I kind of doubt that my booth will be attracting a large crowd. Plus I could probably count the number of people I know in LA on my fingers so please, please, please stop by to chitchat if you’re in the area. If you do I promise to provide you with candy. I have this cute serving bowl that I would love to serve the candy from but it’s ceramic and I’m not sure if they’ll let me take it on the plane. I guess theoretically I could hit someone over the head with it. The newspaper headlines would read: Overly caffeinated chick lit author attacks fellow airline passenger with a really cute pastel purple bowl!

Speaking of my book: it’s sitting next to my keyboard right now!! It came a few days ago and I’ve been lovingly fondling it ever since. When it arrived my 5 year old helped me rip the package open and we both just gazed at it. Finally my son smiled and said, “Well, this is an occasion!”

We went outside for a while and ran around throwing water balloons at one another and enjoyed the moment. When we came back in I expected my son to request television time or something along those lines. Instead he looked at me almost timidly and asked, “Mom, would you read me a few funny scenes from your book?”

Well I’ll admit that Sex, Murder And A Double Latte is not exactly a 5-year-old-friendly novel but I was so touched by the request that I took the time to find a few humorous nonviolent scenes with little to no foul language or sexual innuendo (this was no small feat). Anyway he actually found the scenes very funny and we laughed together while sitting on the couch. Later that night he asked if I would skip his normal bedtime stories and read those scenes to him again because he wanted to “laugh in (his) dreams.”

That night I realized how incredibly lucky I am. I am at the beginning of a wonderful writing career and I have such an amazing son. And the funny thing is I wouldn’t have had either of those things if I hadn’t gone through a really rough time a few years back. It’s odd but in retrospect I see those previous hardships as a gift. They made me wiser, more compassionate and motivated me to do things with my life that I would otherwise never have dreamed of doing.

What can I say? Life is good.

Kyra Davis
www.kyradavis.com
Sex, Murder And A Double Latte
Available at Amazon and Barnes And Noble.com now!