What a wonderful time we had at Alice’s launch party for A Dash of Daring, her fourth adventure, at Waterstones Aberystwyth! ‘Waterstones Aber, as those of us who live here call its, is one of my favourite bookshops and Chloe and her amazing staff are always so welcoming.
For my book launches I have a tradition that I never know what the cake will look like till the day of the launch. We have an AMAZING bakery called Fay’s Cake Boutique and Fay who runs it is just wonderful with her creations. I take a copy of the book to show her, give her some hints about the plot and she creates these incredible cakes. How wonderful does Alice look! The cake tasted as good as it looked too.
The pigeons were knitted by my sister. Each of them had a factsheet about one of the real life pigeons who won the Dickin medal for bravery. I got to tell everyone about the work that messenger pigeons have done and the inspirations for the character of Columba in A Dash of Daring.
The big challenge was thinking of an activity. Lovely though Waterstones are, I wasn’t sure that they would welcome me organising a bicycle race in the store, but I came up with a solution – a cipher race! We learned how two use a cipher wheel based on the wheels of a bicycle like Adele’s in the book and then it was Ready Set Go to solve the message delivered by Columba!
It was a bittersweet event, welcoming Alice’s final adventure while knowing that it is her last, but, as always, the young people that I met who have loved reading her adventures and wanted to talk about books and reading made it a BRILLIANT afternoon.
Sarah Todd Taylor 