Win a Kindle Fire or $200 Amazon Giftcard

If you're lacking in a certain popular color-bursting reading device like me, you just might be lucky enough to win one in this giveaway. Please let it be me!!!! And, as I write this, I'm wondering if my Kindle for PC books will be transferable to a Kindle Fire. Does anyone know? Does Amazon keep a track of all my Kindle downloads like it does with the Cloud? Poor and Kindleless that i am, I haven't checked it out and poked around.

Anyway, all you have to do to enter is go over to Win With eBooks, click on the rafflecopter linky and follow the directions when you get there. No purchase necessary, but purchasing any of the books of the month for $0.99 will score you an earn 25 extra entries per book.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

The Celebrate Black Books Giveaway Hop is Open

Come one, Come all! And celebrate this neglected segments in books, either as a giver or a hopper. Sybil Nelson, author of Priscilla the Great, is hosting the Celebrate Black Books Giveaway Hop, and if you have a book you'd like share, add your blog to the linky here.

This Hop runs from February 24 - March 2, 2012 and the deadline to linkup is February 20th. It is open to any genres, except erotica, but your giveaway must feature a black MC or a black character on the cover.

I've read contemps and romances lately, which have been cool, but I'd especially love to discover any urban fantasy, futuristic, dystopic, fairytale or mythological books, you know, weirdy types, with black MCs. So, even if you have nothing to giveaway, let me know what I'm missing and where to look, even if it's indie, I'm not particular. Of late, the only weird book with a black MC, I've only found was The Apocalypse Gene by Suki Michelle and Carlyle Clark--which is bursting with action and myth, check it out, and that's it. So, point me to hidden gems please.

Hope you join the hop!

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Book Review: The Iron Witch

Author: Karen Mahoney
Publisher: Flux (February 8, 2011)
ISBN-10: 073872582x
ISBN-13: 978-0738725826

SYNOPSIS:

Freak. That's what her classmates call seventeen-year-old Donna Underwood. When she was seven, a horrific fey attack killed her father and drove her mother mad. Donna's own nearly fatal injuries from the assault were fixed by magic—the iron tattoos branding her hands and arms. The child of alchemists, Donna feels cursed by the magical heritage that destroyed her parents and any chance she had for a normal life. The only thing that keeps her sane and grounded is her relationship with her best friend, Navin Sharma.

When the darkest outcasts of Faerie—the vicious wood elves—abduct Navin, Donna finally has to accept her role in the centuries old war between the humans and the fey. Assisted by Xan, a gorgeous half-fey dropout with secrets of his own, Donna races to save her friend—even if it means betraying everything her parents and the alchemist community fought to the death to protect.

MY REVIEW:

The cover is gorgeous and it sounded like a winner, but it so wasn't. Being a writer, I hate rating books so low because I know all the hard work and love that goes into writing a novel, and I realize it's someone's baby, but this book just never won me over and the author never took me into her world or made me feel anything visceral. With Donna's parents killed in such a gruesome manner, there was so much emotion that could've been explored but never was, to the depth it could've been.

I thought Donna's insecurities were identifiable and I wanted to like her because of her tragic past and "freakishness", but the author left me in want. I found it bland and underdeveloped at every turn. Like, Donna's pain or fear could have been palpable but it remained a surface thing, and with one info dump after another, I was like come on, come on, get going already. Give me a through line in the now, a story question, a hook, something that snags my heart, soul and gut and compels me forward and makes me skip supper. But, that never happened. I had to force myself to continue as the story stumbles along plotless, chapter after chapter, where alchemy and fey are discussed, without the terror they should induce, and remembered in near-numbness, rather than seen in action, until the end where I really didn't care at that point. On the back of the cover it says Donna's best friend, Navin, gets kidnapped and I was itching for this to happen, because finally, finally, there would be a plot, maybe. This story literally has no story until then, so that's the main reason I couldn't bump my rating up to a 2. The bulk of it is exposition and backstory.

And the romance. Yeah, it was another one of those "Just Because!!!" thingies, with no reason for its existence. Show some chemistry, sparks, something.

With the hints of wood elves early on, like her hands hurting and always being bone-cold, I thought her anxiety should've been way more heightened, since her parents were killed by brutal fey. And even though he's wounded too, I would also expect her to be much more leery of Xan at first because of this, but she's soon spilling her long-held family secrets and kissing him. I didn't get it.

I was really excited to read about alchemy and a new brand of fey, but I just felt both of those to be lacking. There was so much depth and wonder to be had in both of those worlds, but it only skimmed the surface. I really don't like the trend of books lately that only serve to set me up for a sequel. I feel cheated out of money and time when this happens. And that's what I felt happened with The Iron Witch.

MY RATING:

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs

Sorrrrry

I know I've been neglectful here when I've been meaning to post more consistently, but as I'm waiting for the paperback of Kings & Queens to go live--come on! come on!--after countless delays, I've been working hard on its sequel, Sapphire Reign. I can't wait to put it out. The editing is coming along nicely, but because it's insanely crazy, even twistier than K&Q, I need to have it checked for continuity to make sure I answered everything and didn't leave any danglers. I have the cover design that I'll share in a few. So Gorgeous. Kings & Queens features lips prominently, and this one, hands. [a little teaser]

The only problem with Sapphire Reign I foresee is marketing. I mean, I can't really blog tour in the same way. The YA book bloggers are the best!!!! No offense to the rest of you, but they're the most enthusiastic and fun. Yes, SR is a sequel to a YA book, and SR has YA POVs, but it also has several adult POVs too, so it's not actually YA. It opens up 10 years later from where Kings & Queens left off. Authors don't usually split genre but I'm a nonconformist. I write the stories that NEED to be written. And this book HAD to be written. Sometimes creativity doesn't yield so easily to the rules and rigidity of the industry. It's a good book, it's just so entirely different from anything that's out there. I know writers say that, but, no, mine really is. There's nothing like it. It's a weird, dark, and of course, twisted tale, and it's the kind of book that stores won't know where to shelve. Oh well. It needs to be free.

This was the main reason I decided to seek out a small publisher instead of continuing to shop Kings & Queens to agents. It gives me more control and I don't have to scrap an awesome book just because it's an odd, red-headed step child from a marketing and shelving standpoint. I suppose, once I get into my heavy marketing for Kings & Queens, that the people who love that book will be my market. If I keep writing great books, maybe I can develop a fan base of readers who will actually seek out my work. Hey, I can dream.

After reading Kings & Queens, some of my early readers would ask how my characters were doing. And, I secretly wondered about that too. Like, honestly. It's crazy to think of characters that way, but they just feel so real and alive to me. And apparently, to my readers too! So, I'm not the lone nut in this. And a couple dreams later, a story was born. I like that both K&Q and SR were inspired by dreams. I think that's really cool. And I guess the stickiness of my story and characters is the mark of good development, but Sapphire Reign has an arc all its own, and it's got new characters to fall in love with. They are stand-alone reads. One could read Sapphire Reign without having read Kings & Queens and still get it, but the entire mystery of K&Q will be lost ... which would be sad, since that's the best part, going along for the crazy, gut-wrenching ride to arrive at the answers of whodunit and why.

I'm really excited about Sapphire Reign. I can't wait to share it. I'm just not sure who will find it, but, hey, at least, its insanity and my inspiring, kid character, Crystal, will be out there for lucky readers to find, instead of stuck in a folder on a shelf ... or a computer that can get fried in an electrical storm--eh-em.

I'm believing I won't have similar setbacks and the process will flow more smoothly this time. Don't they say second time's a charm? Oh, wait. Or is it third? Forget it. Don't tell me. I don't wanna know. Positive thoughts. Positive thoughts. Positive thoughts.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs

Dreaming of Books Blog H0p Winners

According to the magical wizardry of Random.org, tah dah,
here are the winners of my giveaway:

BJ ~ winner of the Writers Pack

Krystal L. ~ Winner of the Royal Swag Pack

Thank you to everyone who entered. Hope you enjoyed hoping around.

Next month I'm participating in the Black Books Blog Giveaway Hop hosted by Sybil Nelson, so check back to see what books you can enter to win.

In My Mailbox

I just received Deadly Cool, a YA mystery novel by Gemma Halliday. Since my book is mystery suspense, I'm especially interested in novels in the same genre. And I also got Matched by Ally Condie, because I'm on a futuristic kick and love seeing what inventive worlds people can come up with. I'm hoping they're good books. I usually read a few reviews with various ratings, and then if it sounds good enough, I'll buy it.

I know Kindles and other e-Readers are super hot, but there's just something extra special cool about a physical book that can't be matched. Sometimes you can miss out on lovely visual goodies. Like, the paperback cover of Matched is a sheeny, gorgeous, metallic green that you can't really see in a screen pic, and it also has a full color inner title page. So pretty, pretty. And Deadly Cool has wicked cute, full-bleed, winding cords on all chapter title pages. I know you get the same words, but you don't get exactly the same reading experience with e-Books.

Have you ordered anything lately? What's your preference? Paper or screen?

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.