On Saturday, thanks to blogger and publicist extraordinaire Kim and author Holly Martin, I found myself drenched in sunshine by a canal in London chatting all things books with a lovely bunch of authors and book bloggers.

Admittedly, wandering away from the tourist-infested parts of Kings Cross into what felt like the depths of London’s residential jungle with bloggers The Haphazardous Hippo and Rosie Amber, I did start to feel as if I was in one of those horror movies where the unsuspecting women walk straight into the villain’s lair. Although using surroundings for the setting of a crime novel was reinforced by other people’s thoughts (particularly those of author Barbara Copperthwaite), the venue itself was a lovely open-air space overlooking the canal, with a bubbly and friendly atmosphere.

There was a lot of excited ‘It’s you! You’re real!’ conversations, as people who’d only ever spent time online were presented with their virtual friends in the flesh. I got to meet, amongst others, some of the amazing bloggers on the blog tour for Lost in Static, including Linda from Linda’s Book Bag and Jo from mychestnutreadingtree, the fabulous and larger-than-life Anne from Being Anne, and Rachel of Rachel’s Random Reads.

Then there were the new faces. Bloggers Rebecca of If Only I Could Read Faster and Karen of My Reading Corner were warm additions to the bookish glow of the day.

And let’s not forget the authors. I always hear authors refer to themselves as introverts and generally quiet folk, but the authors I met on Saturday were anything but (and I mean this in the best possible way). I can’t list them all, but it was wonderful meeting the likes of Jan Ellis, Jan Brigden, Sue Fortin, Abigail Osborne, Eva Holland, Jessica Norrie and Steven Hayward.

Can’t wait for the next one. And Barbara Copperthwaite has promised to dance on a table, so there’s that.