We sold our first Blind Date With A Book on October 9th, 2014, and on the 10th anniversary, we hosted our first, and what turned out to be a fun and successful “Blind Date With a Book Speed Dating Night“. We had so much fun, that we decided to do it again for Galentine’s Day, with special guest and Queen of first lines, Jane Doucet, author of The Pregnant Pause, Fishnets & Fantasies, and Lost & Found In Lunenburg. After a one-week delay, due to the weather, 16 ladies gathered at the store for what will now be a regular event held every four months, October, February, and June.
For our “Blind Date with a Book Speed Dating Events”, the opening line or two serve as the Blind Date’s “Pick-Up” line, so Jane started the night off by talking about her favourite first lines. She did her homework and brought several books with her that the first line caught her attention. This was the deciding factor on whether she took the book home with her to continue to read. She read all these to her husband and asked him what they had in common. They came up with two things. Her husband said that they have an “economy of words“, in other words, they are short. The second thing they had in common was that they each had a “whaaat…must read more” factor or as author Anne C. Kelly said “a hook”.
Jane read the first sentence from each of the books she brought including; Senior Management by Martha Vowles, Crow by Amy Spurway, Mary, Mary by Lesley Crewe, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic by Michelle Hebert, and The Burbs and the Bees by Cathryn Fox. All of which are local.
“At the age of fifty-five, I became a parent for the first time. My new charges were reckless, accident-prone, pig-headed, out-of-control, over eighty years old, and bigger than me.” ― Martha Vowles, Senior Management, Nevermore Press
“There were three other times in my life when I’d woken up in a strange bed and didn’t know where I was or how I got there.” ― Michelle Hebert, Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, Nimbus Publishing
“I come from a long line of lunatics and criminals. Crazies on the one side of the family tree, crooks on the other, although the odd crazy has a touch of crook, and vice versa.” ― Amy Spurway, Crow Goose Lane Editions
“My father was right. There is a dumbass born every minute.”― Cathryn Fox, The Burbs and the Bees
Then the audience took turns reading and having a laugh at the first lines from Jane Doucet’s novels.
“Shortly before Rose Ainsworth’s thirty-seventh birthday everything went to shit.”
― Jane Doucet, The Pregnant Pause
“The first time Mary Lohnes and Lorne Pictou tried to have sex it was a disaster. To be fair, the tick that Lorne plucked with tweezers from between Mary’s ample breasts was mostly to blame.”― Jane Doucet, Fishnets & Fantasies, Nimbus Publishing
“Shortly before Rose Ainsworth’s fiftieth birthday everything went to shit.”
― Jane Doucet, Lost & Found in Lunenburg, Nimbus Publishing
Jane spoke about her upcoming Spring of 2026 Nimbus Publishing release “Blood Typed, a contemporary mystery set in Nova Scotia’s author community… The darkly humorous novel follows an eclectic group of authors shortlisted for a prestigious prize and the intrepid reporter determined to get to the bottom of the strangely literary murders plaguing the awards gala.” Jane says that she has to come up with a first line before she can start a novel. We are all looking forward to reading Jane’s upcoming book and checking out her first line.
Then we jumped right into the speed dating.
The format of our Speed Dating nights is as follows;
• Participants were given 30 seconds to flip over the Blind Date in front of them, read the pick-up line, and decide if they were interested before the bell rang. If they were interested in the date, they brought it back to their seat and a new “Blind Date with a Book” replaced the one removed.
• If they were not interested in that particular date they just flipped it back over, for the next person.
• This continued until all participants chose their date for the night.
This fun event filled up FAST. We had to close the registration on January 20th, a full two and a half weeks before the event was set to occur. We had a four-person book club sign up, four members of a family, a few couples, and two people who were brave and came solo. Based on the laughter and smiles, everyone had a great time.
Such a lively & fun evening…Lots of laughs!!- Sylvia Manette
After everyone had picked out a Blind Date. We played a game called “Pass the Book” with the leftover Blind Dates and three lucky people went home with an extra date.
Our next “Blind Date With A Book Speed Dating Event” will be on Thursday, June 12th, with special guest Cathryn Fox, author of many novels including The Burbs and the Bees, set in the Annapolis Valley. Pre-registration is required. We hope to create some serial speed daters with these fun events, along with attracting novices.
