Where’s ALICE BLISS?

After I reviewed Laura Harrington’s gorgeous debut novel, Alice Bliss, she invited me to participate in the Where’s Alice Bliss? campaign, in conjunction with BookCrossing.com, to release copies of the book into the wild and see how far it travels. It’s like a message in a bottle, except there are a lot more pages and the book probably wouldn’t fit in a bottle. Then again, they can fit those ship models inside bottles so I don’t know.

Anyway, today I released my extra copy, which Laura generously provided, at a bus stop outside NBC Studios in Burbank (you can see the peacock logo in the background). I couldn’t pull away, though, because it looked so lonely. So I waited in my car to see who would pick it up. Within a few minutes, a tired-looking woman came along and sat on a bench right outside the bus stop shelter. She can’t see there’s a gift waiting for her just inside!

I figured I’d help things along a little so I jumped out, grabbed the book, and walked up to her.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Do you like to read?”

She took her time looking me up and down and then at the book before responding. “Sometimes.”

“Great! How would you like a free book?”

Another long pause, then, “Okaaayy.”

She was still giving me squinty, suspicion-filled eyes, clutching her pocketbook more tightly to her chest, but I ignored it and launched into my speech about how much I loved the book and wanted to pass it on, blahdy blahdy blow. When she became certain that I wasn’t selling Amway or trying to mug her, she suddenly smiled. “My boyfriend and I are writers. We’ll read it.” Then she tucked it into her bag like a treasure and promised she’d keep it going.

If you’d like to participate in this campaign, find out more at Laura’s website and see where other copies have been by going here. I sure am envious of all the places it’s visited so far.

Have you ever used Book Crossing to release a book into the world? Or found one somewhere that was sent out by another?