For years, Mirela Kanini imagined herself on the other side of the bookstore counter. On August 15, that dream became reality.

The Albanian-American author presented and signed her books at Barnes & Noble in Algonquin, Illinois, during a special book-signing event from 1 to 3 p.m.

For Kanini, the moment was about more than selling books. She has shared that whenever she visited bookstores as a reader, she imagined one day sitting there as an author, signing copies of her own work.

Now, she has done exactly that.

Kanini is an Albanian-American author who emigrated from Eastern Europe to the United States in the 1990s and now lives in a northern suburb of Chicago. She has published several books, writing in both Albanian and English.

Among her English-language works are The Sins of Mrs. Ema and The Trafficker. The latter, a romantic suspense novel about an immigration lawyer who becomes involved with a mysterious client, was published in 2025 by MindStir Media and is available through Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

Kanini’s books have also reached readers beyond the United States, while her Albanian works include Mëkatet e Zonjës Ema, Klienti, Mallkimi i Melloneve, Trafikanti and Për Pak Dashuri.

Following the event, Kanini expressed gratitude to her publisher, Barnes & Noble, the readers who attended and purchased her books, and the friends who supported her.

For an Albanian writer building a literary career in America, the scene at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Illinois represented something much bigger than a book signing.

It was a dream she had once imagined as a reader — finally becoming reality as an author.