Giveaway: Bookish Swag from Gone Reading!

I enjoy bookish swag as much as the next person, so when Brad Wirz from Gone Reading offered to let me try some of their products and host a giveaway for a lucky reader of this blog, I was definitely in.

Basically, Gone Reading is a retail website that sells every kind of book-related item you can imagine, from t-shirts to journals, to those posters made from the text of a book. Even better, Gone Reading donates 100% of its profits after taxes to literacy charities like READ Global and Ethiopia Reads. Everybody wins!





So what did I get from Gone Reading? As some of you might know, on occasion I ask myself what would Jane Austen do, so I requested The Jane Austen Handbook, which claims to tell me what Jane Austen WOULD do, although not in as esoteric a sense as I usually imagine (and considering how gorgeously bound the book is, it was actually very reasonably priced).



I also got a collection of Jane Austen temporary tattoos because I couldn't help myself. I can finally realize my lifelong dream of tattooing Colin Firth's face on my butt.

Some other nifty items on Gone Reading I was tempted by: a Shakespeare finger puppet theater set, an Edgar Allan Poe bobblehead doll, Shakespearean insult bandages (basically band-aids with insults on them), a personal library kit (I know I'd probably never use it, but it's still pretty cool), and a book text poster of Pride & Prejudice.

So, as mentioned earlier, Brad is offering one lucky reader of this blog a $25 gift card to Gone Reading! To enter, just comment here with the item you'd buy if you won the lottery (the lottery to win the gift card, not the Powerball or anything... although, hey, if you want that much stuff go for it). If you can't comment because Disqus is being stupid, shoot me a tweet @heidenkind with the hashtag #gonereadinggiveaway. For my readers who don't live in the US, make sure Gone Reading ships to your respective countries here before you enter.

This giveaway will run from August 15th-22nd. I will choose the winner using random.org and notify them by replying to either the winning tweet or comment, so be sure to follow the comment thread here! If I don't hear back from the winner within three days of the announcement, a new winner will be chosen.

Good luck to all!



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Novella Round-Up: APPLES SHOULD BE RED, THE TIME TUTOR, and YOUR WICKED HEART

*Scroll down to the end of this post for a chance to win a paperback copy of The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway!*

Apples Should Be Red by Penny Watson

Beverly and Tom are in-laws whose children are married, and they HATE each other (Bev and Tom, that is, not their children). Tom hates how uptight Bev is, Bev hates how Tom swears and smokes and pretty much only cares about his backyard garden. When the two of them are forced to spend a few days alone together before Thanksgiving, their kids joke that they might wind up killing one another. Well, you know what they say about there being a fine line between love and hate...

This was a cute and funny romance. Tom reminded me of Mr. McGregor from the Peter Rabbit books ("This garden isn't some pansy-ass annual border with mari-fuckin'-golds. This is war. We're at Defcon One." <-best line of the entire book) and Bev was cartoonishly uptight, like Alison from Orphan Black in about 30 years. The "twist" on the traditional romance here is that the main characters are 62 and 59, respectively, instead of the usual 104 and 16 (haha! Twilight references FTW). Anyway, despite the unconventional set-up, Apples Should Be Red is actually very traditional in its promotion of community, family, love, and second chances. A feel-good romance with lots of foodie and gardening references. And who doesn't like that??

Your Wicked Heart by Meredith Duran

Amanda finds herself in a nightmare situation: broke, unemployed, and abandoned in a foreign country by a man who SAID he'd marry her. Turns out that's not the only thing he lied about, either—instead of being the Viscount of Ripton, he was an imposter. Now the real viscount is in Turkey and he is determined to drag both Amanda and her so-called fiance back to England to answer for their crimes.

I thought Duran told a great story with Your Wicked Heart. From the beginning it was non-stop twists and turns. Very exciting! I also really liked the three main characters—Amanda, Ripley, and Amanda's fiance, Charles. That said, I didn't feel any romantic chemistry between Amanda and Ripley, and didn't really care if they got together or not. The romance portion was just so predictable and cheesy, what with the smelling and the stupid misunderstandings and the smelling and the uncontrollable bodily reactions, etc. etc. Boring. But overall this novella evened out to an okay read.

The Time Tutor by Bee Ridgeway

Note: the publisher provided me with a copy of this book for review consideration. To find out more about my review policies, please see my full disclosure page.

In this prequel to The River of No Return, Alva is a favorite in the Guild, a society of time travelers. She's ambitious, hungry for both knowledge and power, and the only person she knows who can give her what she wants is the vampiric Hannelore. Then she meets Lord Dar, the leader of the Guild's enemies, the Ofan. They fall in love, but can they remain together and still defeat Hannelore?

I loved The River of No Return, so I was more than willing to read The Time Tutor, even though prequels are not my favorite. And this definitely reads like a prequel—there's no real ending or resolution, it's all basically a set up. That annoying fact aside, before I got to the end of The Time Tutor, I was really enjoying it. Whatever gift or skill is required to pull a reader into a story and make them care about the characters, Ridgway has it in spades. I loved the meet-cute between Dar and Alva and thought they were amazing together. I also liked the hints of an Arthurian tale running through The Time Tutor, with Dar mentoring the young "Arthur," yet betraying him with Alva. I wouldn't recommend The Time Tutor to people who haven't read The River of No Return yet; but for those of us who have read it, I think it's a nice appetizer for Ridgway's next novel. Which hopefully will be released soon!



GIVEAWAY

The publisher is offering a lucky reader of this blog one paperback copy of The River of No Return (US and Canada only). To enter, just fill out the form embedded below or click here. The giveaway will run from March 10th to March 17th.

THE RIVER OF NO RETURN by Bee Ridgway, Armchair BEA Giveaway

Nicholas is in the midst (literally) of fighting in the Napoleonic Wars when he's suddenly transported to the 21st century. He's immediately inducted into The Guild, and told only four things: there is no return, there is no return, tell no one, and uphold the rules. Then Nick finds out you CAN actually return to your own time and place. What else has The Guild been lying to him about?

The Washington Post said The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway has the feel of an instant classic, and while I might not agree with such lofty claims--the novel does have its issues--I will say it's an effing good story and unputdownable. I'm talking do-not-start-it-on-a-night-before-you-have-to-go-to-work unputdownable.

I already gave The River of No Return a "buy" vote on Book Riot, but if you need any more convincing: time travel, a lovely romance, and a lot to think about. One of the things I loved about this book was that there were Ideas behind it. Such as, how has the Enlightenment affected our world? Nick spends a lot of time in this novel trying to figure what he believes and how he will act, regardless of what society, religion and the government tells him he SHOULD do. Also, how has war and money shaped our civilization? Is it all worth it?

One last thing: I ADORED the romance in this book. It's actually a small part of the novel, but it's totally organic and compelling. Julia is a great character--as are all the other female characters, now that I think about it--and while the way her and Nick's relationship developed was a little anachronistic, it IS a time travel novel.

Anywhooooose, the publisher sent me two copies of The River of No Return for some reason, so I'm offering the copy I didn't read as part of Armchair BEA's blogger giveaways. Just fill out the form below or click here to enter. This is definitely a book you want to read!




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Bloggiesta + Reader Survey and Giveaway!

Heys people. This weekend is another Bloggiesta, aka a blogging fiesta! Olé! (I know, I say that every Bloggiesta.) Please don't mind the dust as I make a few changes.

Since this is a mini-Bloggiesta, I only have a few goals:

• Put a tag cloud back on my sidebar. I just miss that thing.
• Update my pages.
• Schedule some posts for the classics blog.
• Finish up a post I started last night.
• Read. This has nothing to do with blogging but I feel the need to put it on the list.
• Participate in the Twitter chat tonight.

That's all! I probably won't participate in any mini-challenges, but we'll see how quickly I finish the above tasks.

ALSO... this may seem like a strange request, but I've been meaning to ask my readers to take a poll for a while now. This is meant to help me understand my audience a little better so I can improve my blog. All responses are voluntary and anonymous, but if you give me your e-mail I will enter you to win a copy of Gone Girl. Click here to take survey or use the embedded form below. Thank you so much!

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Discus this post with me on Twitter, FaceBook, or in the comments below.

Holiday Giveaway: NUTCRACKER by ETA Hoffmann and Maurice Sendak

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it's officially time to start the holidays! And what better way to start the season than with a gift?

Last year for Virtual Advent, I reviewed Nutcracker and Mouse King by ETA Hoffmann (post here). This is the short story Tchaikovsky's ballet was based on, and is honestly the most perfect Christmas story I can imagine. It has all the elements you want in a Christmas tale: magic, mystery, presents, danger, and wonder. Plus the story's ending is A LOT better than the ballet's.

Because I am a big pusher of this book, I was thrilled when Random House offered to send me a new reprint of Maurice Sendak's illustrated version to give away to my blog readers. You definitely need this book on your shelves and it's a perfect Christmas gift (to yourself--ha ha). To enter, just fill out the form below or go here. This giveaway will run from November 23rd-30th.

Here are some samples of the illustrations in the book to whet your appetite:


The Mouse King with seven heads.


A prince is cursed to look like a nutcracker.

BBAW: Giveaway!

Book Blogger Appreciation Week starts September 12th, and to celebrate I thought I'd do a giveaway for something fun I'm always happy to get more of: bookmarks!



The bookmarks for this giveaway are a random assortment purchased from ibdibd's etsy store, which specializes in vintage French and Italian designs. To get a general idea of what the bookmarks will look like, feel free to visit the storefront (keep in mind that I'm not taking requests for specific bookmarks, however).

You don't have to be a follower of my blog to enter the contest, but I do ask that you be a BBAW participant! Simply fill out the form below or click here to enter.




Thank you to everyone in the book blogging community and the readers of my blog for a great year of reading and discussing all things bookish!

Chicago 4.0 by Chloe Neill + Giveaway!

Chloe Neill, one of my favorite writers, is releasing a new book in July.  To help spread the word, I asked her if she'd write a guest post about some new Chicago locations we'll see in Twice Bitten and other future releases (note:  all the photos above were taken by Chloe herself).



Hello, everyone! I'm writing this from the Loop neighborhood in downtown Chicago, just across from the Chicago River and a few blocks from Lake Michigan. I'm in town for today's 25th Annual Greater Chicago Food Depository Hunger Walk--and I'm proud to say we've raised over $1,800 to date!

I'm also here to location scout for the next Chicagoland Vampires novel--the follow-up to July 6's TWICE BITTEN--which will be released in July 2011. During my last scouting trip, I visited Ukrainian Village and checked out church architecture, and did a bit of scouting through Wicker Park and down Damen Avenue. You may recall that Mallory's house is a Wicker Park brownstone, and a good chunk of TWICE BITTEN takes place in Ukrainian Village, including a church modeled after St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church.

This time, I'm mostly scouting locations in the Loop, looking for some interesting sites for both the Dark Elite and Chicagoland Vampires series. St. Sophia's, the boarding school in FIRESPELL, is located just north of the Loop on Erie, so I'm looking into locations in which it might be interesting to host future Dark Elite events. I'm very excited about the Rookery, which has a fabulous exterior and gorgeous interior. I also love the industrial look of El track struts, and can only imagine vampirish things occur there.

I also got to pay my first visit to Chicago's amazing Harold Washington Library, with its gorgeous stone facade and owls perched on the corners. It's also ginormous, and the 9th floor hosts an amazing indoor "Winter Garden" space with a greenhouse cage-like roof.

[Little known fact: In the first draft of SOME GIRLS BITE, Ethan and Merit met for the first time outside the library. She was brooding over the fact that she wouldn't be able to visit the library during business (daylight) hours. He feared she'd expose herself to the sun waiting for the library to open, and came to her rescue. It was so NOT appropriate for their personalities.]

I also got to pay a visit to the fabulous Field Museum--Chicago's natural history museum. The Field Museum will play a key part in a future Dark Elite novel, so I wanted to get a look at the space and a feel for interesting scene possibilities--including the totem pole section of the Ancient Americas display. Truth be told, I also wanted to get a look at Sue, the Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton. Tres cool!

Also on the agenda for this trip: Another visit to Hyde Park and the University of Chicago, some purchasing of Blackhawks goods (!!!), and a little more Wicker Park action. It's amazing how much you can cram into a trip if you plan carefully. :)

Well, that's all for now. I've got to grab my maps and hit the road again. Thanks for reading today!


Thank you so much, Chloe!  I loved your "deleted scene" from Some Girls Bite, although dying to get into the library is going a little far even for me. ;)


Chloe Neill is offering a copy of Twice Bitten to one lucky reader of this blog! Just leave a comment on this post (make sure to include a valid e-mail address), and I will pull a name randomly.  US & Canada only; contest ends Sunday, June 27th, at 6 PM EST.

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