The Post US Book Tour Blog

OK, so I'm a little bit late with this, but here is my post-US-book-tour blog. The being a little bit late has got something to do with the following:

• Straight after the US tour, I moved house.
• Straight after moving house, I did a UK book tour too.
• Since then, everything's been upside down, all over the place or inside a box.
• Oh, and I had a book to finish writing.

But enough with the excuses. You must be bored of them by now. So this is just to say - I went to the states and I had an AMAZING time!! It really was absolutely wonderful. If you are reading this (well, obviously you're reading this, or you wouldn't have just read that bit - unless someone's reading it to you - but either way) and you are someone I met while I was in the states then a special thank you to you, because every single person I met made it an absolutely brilliant ten days.

We went to Chicago first, where I did some lovely events at some brilliant bookshops. This is an event at The Magic Tree Bookshop, which was fab.

This was one of many lovely events in Chicago. Had a really good time everywhere and I was treated like royalty! All the schools I went to had made banners and posters, and were so welcoming and lovely - and bought lots of boooks!

Whilst in Chicago, we did as much sightseeing as possible . We went up the Hancock Tower for the most amazing views of the city. Like this...

And this...

And caught a few more views from a boat trip on Lake Michegan. Like this...

And discovered amazing art in the nearby Millenium Park, like this incredible thing called The Pebble.

OK, so that was Chicago, and it was fab. Oh, and a huge thanks to Bill and Judy for the brilliant company and for taking us everywhere. In case they're reading this, which I'm sure they're not as they are far too busy driving people around! But if you know Bill and Judy, say thanks from us!

So, then it was on to New York. Again, loads of brilliant events with lovely schools and bookshops, and loads of fab sightseeing. Top moment in New York was going up the Empire State Building at night time. Wow - the views!! Here's one of my favourites, from about the fifty million that I took.

Another top moment in New York was meeting Kate Fletcher, who is my US editor. We've been working together for a few years now but this was the first time we met in real life. That was great, and we had loads of fun with her - and got good advice on important life issues such as how to choose the perfect cupcake.

After a couple of days in New York it was off to Philadelphia - and this was when we said goodbye to Kate and hello to Tracy. Tracy is the Candlewick Publicity Manager, who organised the whole tour. Another thing about Tracy: She is FAB!

We had such fun together and did some brilliant events. In Philadelphia, I did an event which was organised by Barnes & Noble, in conjunction with their local Girls Scouts group. They made cakes; they made up a sketch to introduce me; they bought LOADS of books; they even dressed up specially for the occasion...

It was an absolute blast. And look how many people were there!!

After Philly came the high point of...well, probably of my writing career to date. It was the National Book Festival in Washington DC. The event itself was an incredible thing to be part of. So many people around, lots of famous authors, and a fantastic vibe everywhere - even if it did start POURING with rain halfway through the day.

The reason this was the high point of my career...well firstly because I did an event which LOADS of people came to, which felt amazing. I then sat signing books non-stop for my allotted hour, and couldn't believe that all those people were queueing up to have their books signed by ME. (But they were!) Look, see, this is them queueing.

And then there was the thing about meeting one of my own favourite authors, Jodi Picoult. Meeting her was exciting enough, but when she turned around and told me that her daughter had read all of my books and loved them - well that put the icing on an already rather scrumptious cake, topping off the whole tour perfectly. Here's me and Jodi.

After the book festival, we just had time for a brief high-speed sight-seeing tour with the grumpiest taxi driver in the world and a very jolly evening back at the hotel having, er, one or two drinks with the Candlewick girls. Then it was off to the Baltimore Book Festival, which was such fun and rounded the whole thing of perfectly.

And that was it! Phew. An amazing, brilliant, fantastic, fab fab fab time. Thank you so much to everyone that had anything to do with it!

Just time to give a quick mention to updates since then...

Moved into new house in St Ives - hooray, hurrah, whooppee, yippee and hallelujah! LOVE the house, LOVING being properly in St Ives, and more on this next time.

And of course there was the fab UK book tour too! Despite the fact that I'd JUST come back from the states, and JUST moved house and was VERY exhausted as I hopped on and off trains round Plymouth, Bournemouth, London and back in St Ives, it was really fab - loads of brilliant events with lovely bookshops and fab schools - so a big thank you to Kate from Orion for this one (if you're reading this, hi Kate - you're a star!)

And now, it's on with Life In St Ives. About which I shall tell you more next time. For now, I'm off to go for a walk with my lovely Mummy, who's visiting this week, and do some shopping and play scrabble and watch the X Factor with a Chinese takeaway. A perfect Saturday!