Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Free Online Books from Avon


Avon started something really cool this month called Love Gives Back. They are giving sneak previews of new books up to two weeks prior to their release date. In addition featured authors will be selecting books that will available entirely free online. Right now there are 10 books that I'll definitely be checking out. The best part is that Avon will be donating books to charity based on the number of pages you read online. For every 100,000 pages browsed Avon is going to donate 100 books to ProLiteracy Worldwide. Each month, now through December 23rd, they will donate up to 1,000 books. Click here to get started reading now!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Book Covers

I have some pretty new designs for my Hide-a-Book covers. For a limited time I'm also offering free shipping on all US and Canada orders. If you mention this blog when you make a purchase in the "memo to seller" section I'll send you a free gift. Check out some of the designs below and visit my online shop for many more choices.



Etsy
Buy Handmade
HideABook

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Free Kindle E-Book from Samhain

Samhain Publishing announced that they are giving away an Amazon Kindle e-book. The title is Unbreakable from Sydney Somers. The free download period begins on Monday, August 18th through Sunday, August 24th. This title is the first in the Shadow Destroyers series from Somers.

They will be doing another Kindle giveaway in September of The Dragon’s Demon from Marie Harte. So stay tuned Kindlers...

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Book Shopping

On Friday I went shopping for books at a mall near work and I stumbled across this large kiosk ad for Gena Showalter's latest release, The Darkest Pleasure. I think this has to be the biggest ad I've seen for a romance novel. Does this mean romance advertising is becoming more mainstream? I'd like to think so since romance is the biggest selling segment of the fiction paperback market. Notice the strategic beam of sunlight across the cover?

Back to shopping, I picked up Sherrilyn Kenyon's Acheron. It's quite possible thicker than any other book I've purchase before topping out at 728 pages. Once I'm finished (this could take a while) I'll be posting a review over at Vampire Genre.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

I Hate You Anne Rivers Siddons

Years ago I read a book by Anne Rivers Siddons called Low Country that I really enjoyed. Somehow that lulled me into thinking that I might enjoy other books by Ms. Siddons. Boy was I wrong. I just finished Off Season and I feel like I just got bashed over the head. Off Season now ties with Dream When You're Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg as the most depressing book that I have ever read. Here's your spoiler warning. Stop reading now if you don't want to know what happens because all these spoilers are central to why I hated this book.

  1. The main character Lilly loses her first childhood love, Jon at the age of 12. He drowns as the result of cruel words uttered by a hideous girl child called Peaches.
  2. Lilly tragically loses her mother to breast cancer and to cope with these two deaths walls herself off from the world and becomes a hermit with her grief stricken father who is unable to cope.
  3. Many years later, Lilly loses her husband Cam, a man she loved deeply, to a brain aneurysm.
  4. When she goes to Maine to scatter his ashes she discovers that Cam cheated on her with PEACHES and has a son with her!!!!
  5. At the end of the book Lilly dies. Seriously???
Need I say more? Thanks a lot Anne.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

2008 RITA Award Winners

Best Contemporary Romance: Catch Of The Day by Kristan Higgins - loved this one
Best First Book: Dead Girls Are Easy by Terri Garey
Best Romantic Suspense: Ice Blue by Anne Stuart
Best Paranormal Romance: Lover Revealed by JR Ward - loved this one too
Best Regency Historical Romance: The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn
Best Historical Romance: Lessons of Desire by Madeline Hunter
Best Young Adult Romance: Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

For the full list of winners and nominees in each category, visit DearAuthor. Congratulations to all the authors who were recognized.

Just One of the Guys by Kristan Higgins

I'm a big sucker for books with adorable dogs on the cover and Kristan Higgin's latest book Just One Of The Guys is no exception. Kristan made it to my auto-buy list with her previous books; Catch Of The Day and Fools Rush In (click on the titles to see the gorgeous puppies). I pre-ordered this from Amazon but forgot all about it. When I got the shipping notice I couldn't remember what I ordered and had to go find out what the book was again. Here's the cover blurb:

Being one of the guys isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…

So when journalist Chastity O’Neill returns to her hometown, she decides it’s time to start working on some of those feminine wiles. Two tiny problems: #1 — she’s five-foot-eleven of rock-solid girl power, and #2 — she’s cursed with four alpha male older brothers.

While doing a story on local heroes, she meets a hunky doctor, and things start to look up. Now there’s only one problem: Trevor Meade, her first love and the one man she’s never quite gotten over — although he seems to have gotten over her just fine.

Yet the more time she spends with Dr. Perfect, the better Trevor looks.But even with the in-your-face competition, the irresistible Trevor just can’t seem to see Chastity as anything more than just one of the guys…

Just One Of The Guys wasn't as good for me as Kristan's previous books. The main reason was that Chastity and Trevor don't get together until (swear to God) the last page of the book! Okay, not counting the epilogue. Seriously? I also didn't think there was quite enough quality interaction between the two to make their love believable. For the first time I was actually wishing for the book to have been written in third person so I could find out what the hell was going on in Trevor's mind. I still don't understand his motivations. But at $4.99 this book was definitely not a waste of time or money. Charity is such a cool character and it's nice to have a tomboy once in a while who isn't ashamed to be strong and athletic. But if you want to start somewhere else I highly recommend Catch Of The Day and Fools Rush In.

UPDATE: Catch of the Day just won the RITA award for Best Contemporary Romance tonight at the 2008 RWA Conference. Now you have no excuse not to buy it. Thanks to on the spot bloggers at Smart Bitches and Dear Author for the live results.

Friday, August 1, 2008

RWA in San Francisco

Romance Writers of America is having their annual conference this week in San Francisco. The Today Show had a segment this morning about the popularity of romance featuring Nora Roberts and there's also an appearance by Sarah Wendell from one of my favorite web sites, Smart Bitches who Love Trashy Books. Check out the video here.