queensthief | New friends!

Last night I went to my friends' house for a low-key Halloween-ish gathering with a few people that they knew. I got there pretty early, followed soon by another couple, two guys about my age.

The two guys talked about trying to buy a new car earlier that day, and then one of them asked me, "Is that your car in the driveway? With the vanity license plate?" and I said yes the ATTOLIA plate is mine, and he asked me what it was from. I said something like, "Oh, it's a name from this book series that I've been obsessed with since middle school."

"What book series?"

"It's 'The Thief' and sequels by Megan Whalen Turner."

His eyes got wide and said, "The Thief is a whole SERIES?"

"You know The Thief?!"

"Yes, but I only thought it was two books! I saw your license plate and was like, nah...can't be a reference to those books."

His boyfriend spoke up, "Wait? The Thief has sequels? I just thought it was the one book!"

What followed was about twenty minutes of everyone in a ruckus: me all excited because someone had actually recognized my license plate AND that I'd met two new people who had BOTH read and loved The Thief, both of them excited to learn that there was a whole series.

The guy who'd only read the first one was especially excited, and wanted to read the rest of the series immediately. My friend who was hosting went and got their set for him to borrow, and he put them in his car immediately so he wouldn't forget.

He later pulled up a picture of the edition he'd read (the Jesus cover), and said something about how he'd read it when he was really young, but then kind of forgot about it for a while until he woke up one night remembering so many details. "I thought it was like a fever dream." He then had to google it until he figured out the book that he was remembering, and he's since reread The Thief numerous times.

Hooray for meeting new Thief fans out in real life! I'm thinking we need to have a get together in a couple of weeks to chat after they've both had a chance to catch up on the series!