Hey readers, it’s me, Laura, and I’m here to give you the scoop on the recent event at Book People that took place on May 26, 2012.  Michael Scott, the author of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, came to celebrate the release of his latest book The Enchantress, the final book in the series. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this series, click on this link to read about the series.

Some fans at the event.

Now we can move on to the actual event. Every seat in the house was filled (some kids were even sitting on the floor)! From book clubs to sisters doing their brother a favor to parents, there were people from every walk of life attending. Luckily, I was able to interview some people from the crowd. Here are some of the questions I asked them:

  1. What are your thoughts of the series?
    “Fun and exciting” was the opinion of Jonathan, a book club member that has been to quite a few of BookPeople’s teen events. From a more laid back Eric, a “good series” was his response. Ruth, a kind sister who wanted to do her brother a favor, gave me a much more in depth response, describing the series as “fascinating…and interesting”.
  2. What was your favorite book of the series?
    Elizabeth’s answer was by far my favorite, telling me that “all of the above” were her favorite when I started listing the books.
  3. What do you think the event will be like?
    Everyone agreed on one answer: that the event would definitely be “exciting and “interesting”.

Michael Scott greeting a fan.

And exciting it was. All throughout the talking portion, Michael Scott was interacting with the crowd, making jokes and occasionally actually talking with them, rather than at them. As I was listening, I noticed that Mr. Scott made a lot of points about this series. The main ones were that he started this book because he wanted to introduce teens and young adults to the mythologies of the world that were less known along with historical characters that he found interesting. Mr. Scott then went on to read a chapter from The Enchantress and gave some very important warnings:

  1. DON’T READ THE LAST PAGE/CHAPTER FIRST! – It will ruin the rest of the book
  2. Have a box of tissues nearby – this one book is a real tear-jerker

Now that you have been sufficiently warned, on we go with this recap of this event. After the reading of this riveting chapter, the question section began. I particularly liked this portion because Mr. Scott answered a lot of questions, making sure to answer each one in depth.

Now for some fun facts revealed during the beginning of the event:

  • When Michael Scott first started writing The Alchemyst, John Dee was the original hero. It wasn’t until Scott went to Paris and ate at the restaurant that was once the Flamel’s home and kind of explored there that Nicholas became the hero.
  • John Dee, who was a spy for the queen, was the original 007.
  • After the death of Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel, grave robbers decided to raid their house. However, all they found was a completely cleaned out home. After that, they went to their grave, hoping to find any expensive bobbles worth taking. Even more strangely, they found the tomb of Perenelle and the grave of Nicholas completely empty and never used. Years later, Nicholas and Perenelle were spotted in Berlin. Centuries after this, they were once against reported being seen by Queen Victoria herself.

That’s all folks! Now before I sign off, I have one more exclusive piece of trivia that has never before been revealed:

In The Alchemyst, when Sophie and Josh first come to the world tree, Scatha mentions an unnamed man who was killed with a hailstone. That man was Michael Scot. Now don’t be confused, this Michael Scot is not our author, but an old, Scottish magician!