Barnes And Noble at the Americana in Glendale scheduled an impromptu book signing for Jessa Hastings on February 15. The Australian author has written a total of six published books and has multiple other novels contracted for the future. In this particular photo, we are shown a display of Hastings’s meet and greet and book signing on the bottom floor of the bookstore, The lines began around noon and fans waited in sections for hours until Jessa Hastings strode in at 7pm to meet her fanbase.
Magnolia Parks Into the Dark is Jessa Hastings’s newest published novel. In the Magnolia Parks universe, it is the final story of BJ Ballentine and Magnolia Parks on a rough journey through love. It is a time capsule from their youth to their mid twenties. For them, Jessa states, “Parks our love was written in the stars.” On the stand awaits tens of copies of her books as they await the hands of readers who will later take them home, signed and with memories of such an event. On the second floor of Barnes And Noble, people began to show up with bags of books, crates of her books, and special editors coveted in bubble wrap or fabric for safety. Jessa Hastings spent just near three hours signing books until ultimately she was forced to finish the event outside, in the dark and cold, because Barnes And Noble closed.
Attending this event, many fans met with online friends, even meeting for the first time, to greet their favorite author: Jessa Hastings. This stack of books holds 23 novels, with the original graphic cover published by Indie Publishing: The Original Collection in 2021 and the new covers: The Shoe Collection, shot in real time published by this year. In the line, as many people waited, fans began to track their books and take content for their social accounts as well as show off their masses of Jessa’s work. Clearly, her fanbase is dedicated.
Jessa Hastings eventually made her way down the escalator. She was welcomed by cheering girls and a spattering of men. Her and her team walked by the lines, hugging her fans, signing their books off the bat, regardless of their spot in line, and having small, benevolent whispers with some. She is wearing a trench coat, a black dress beneath and Mary Jane heels to top it all off. Hastings, renowned for her stories on British socialites fits her characters quite well. Author Hastings lives quite lavishly herself, and has struggled with recent grief and ADHD. As we see these topics brought to life by characters in her books, we see Jessa through another eye. Her readers submerged in the Magnolia Parks universe are looking through a kaleidoscope of Jessa Hastings throughout the course of the story over 5 lengthy books.
And to top off the event, here are the books I, myself, brought to have an author of whom I’ve looked up to for years, sign my books. On the left side, we see two Daisy Haites books and one Magnolia parks. These covers were the original graphics published in the very beginning by Indie Publishing. And if you take a look at the pink cover titled Never, that is her most recent release as of December 13th. Finally, the entirety of the stack taking up the right side of the photo is the said and second printed edition for the Magnolia Parks Universe as the controversy behind graphic images on the first ones put off many booksellers from carrying her work.