Project 17 Meeting with Laurie Stolarz

It's rather ironic that our latest iREAD book club choice by Laurie Stolarz, takes place in an abandoned mental institution, because after reading Project 17, we have all came to the conclusion that it managed to scare us "silly!"

At our iREAD book club meeting held on Thursday, March 14th, we had a fantastic time discussing Project 17 over a candlight dinner while eerie photos of the Danvers State Mental Institution flashed on the projection screen directly in front of us. We all had our favorite scenes and characters from the story that we wanted to discuss and especially how it left us feeling after we turned the last page. It was unanimous that we were all "creeped out"...especially by the ending. It was also universal that we were all left with somewhat of an obsession with furthur researching information on the "real" Danvers State which in turn, managed to scare us even more as we shared what we had found!

But the highlight of our evening was having Laurie Stolarz call in and speak to everyone live via our school's intercom system! Our students had a variety of questions to ask Laurie, and she entertained us with answers to everything from information regarding the development of her writing career, to questions we had about Project 17's characters, her personal experiences (with and without the ghosts!) at Danvers while writing the novel, and also with information about her upcoming novels. Everyone sat under her "spell" as she wove together a plether of very interesting facts and personal stories. Speaking of spells, she also gave a "book talk" on her Blue is for Nightmares series which she so thoughtfully sent us all a signed Spell Book that contained a collection of Stacey's spells taken from the series. In addition to that, Laurie was also kind enough to send autographed book plates for everyone who attended making our entire evening truly "personalized"!

The HMS iREAD Book Club would like to thank Laurie Stolarz for being actively involved in our book club and for encouraging us to continue reading! It's authors such as yourself that inspire us to go above and beyond! Thank YOU so much for eveything you did to make this a special meeting for us all! But most of all...thanks for writing amazing novels like Project 17 that make us WANT to read! Keep 'em coming!

We would also like to thank Tammy Lynn, owner of THE BOOK BASKET in downtown Wetumpka, for being an active supporter of our club and for donating fabulous door prize giveaways for our meeting. Thank you Mrs. Tammy!

Congratulations to this month's door prize winners!