Book Con: Villains & Vixens 2025

---

I’ll start by saying that this was my FIRST book convention. And it definitely will NOT be my last one. I had a lot of fun and only attended for about 3.5 hours. Here’s my tale:

Ticket:

I entered a giveaway from Ashley R. O'Donovan after reading an ARC copy of Avidian. I never win anything so I assumed I wouldn’t get it and was planning to pay $145 for the lower ticket level. I checked back a couple days before the giveaway ended and noticed that the tickets for the lower level had sold out. And then I ended up winning the ticket which was for the highest package! I was super excited.

Preorders:

Because I’m impulsive, I couldn’t help but order a few books ahead of time. I had every intent to be responsible and limited myself to three books:

• Crown of Roses by Hillary Raymer

• Fates Illuminated by Aimee Vance

• Us Dark Few by Alexis Patton

The Week Before:

The ticket package that I had allowed for exclusive access to the early time on Friday morning. I was planning on making the hour drive and being able to attend from 9am to 12pm. I got notified a week before the convention that I was needed at work. I agreed and just accepted that I would end up needing to go on Saturday during the busier convention times.

A Sweet Surprise!:

I found out that I was only needing to be at work for the first half of the day and able to leave at lunch!!! How perfect is that!? I left and made the drive, got registered, got in line, and only had to wait 20 minutes before they let us into the convention hall!

The Convention Hall:

I am no stranger to conventions. The process of registering and navigating the convention was easy for me. I ended up going by myself which honestly let me focus so much on what I was doing. The low stress way that I was able to hang out and chat with other readers and authors made it a great experience!

First, I stopped by and saw Ashley to thank her again for my ticket and get a photo!

Next, I was on to find charms for the charm bracelet event and to pick up my THREE books. I was planning on buying maybe two more if I saw anything I really wanted.

I was able to get 15 of the 20 charms in the short time that I was there. The purple moon was definitely my favorite charm today.

I visited about 25-30 booths while I was there. Everyone did such a great job of setting up and decorating their areas. Here’s a few of the booths that I stopped at.

(To clarify, I did not take these photos since I was dumb and forgot to take pics… these came from the events FB page/the authors social media pages.)

The Loot

I cannot believe the amount of things that they put into the deluxe swag bags. Holy moly… I’m impressed. The swag bag included 3 novellas, a Zodiac Academy glass coffee cup, a shotglass, a playing card pack, so many stickers and art prints, a 3D printed book page holder, and I feel like I’m missing things that aren’t listed. But it was amazing.

I won a free art print from Kate King and purchased SEVEN more books, a tshirt grab bag, and some stickers.

• A Thorn in Every Heart by Kate King

• Heir of Sun & Moon by Jenessa Ren

• Unwritten by the Gods Caty Rogan

• Last Chance Cowboy by Sade Rena

• Lunaria by Kara Douglas

• Of Blood and Aether by Harper Hawthorne

• The Book of Cin by H.M. Wolfe

Overall Opinion:

I will absolutely be doing this every year. It was so much fun. I learned a few things this year:

1. A rolling book cart is a MUST! That is why I left early and didn’t get as many pics because my hands/bags were full.

2. I am making trade items. I already make bookish stuff anyway so that would be cool. But there are sooooo many people who do trade stuff like stickers, bookmarks, bracelets, pins, charms, etc.

3. I am bringing my iPad so that I can mark the booths that I want to go to ahead of time and can mark them off as I walk around.

4. It was HOT. I wore comfy lightweight pants but had two shirts on.

5. I need a loop handle for my phone case. Because I was juggling so much.

6. I will collect all the badge ribbons. I learned what this was about halfway through.

Hope this was an enjoyable read and maybe next time I can see some of you there!!!