Kindle Fire Giveaway

20 Amazing Authors plus more than 100 of the Best Bloggers have joined together to bring you 1 Amazing Giveaway!

The winner will have the option of receiving a Kindle Fire HD (US Only)

Or $199 Amazon.com Gift Card (International)

Or $199 in Paypal Cash (International)

This giveaway is sponsored by these Awesome Authors:




The Essence by Kimberly Derting
Alaina Claiborne by MK McClintock
Excuse Me, My Brains Have Stepped Out by Pandora Poikilos
Uncontrollable by S.R. Johannes
Hunted by Ednah Walters
Cliffhanger by Amy Saunders
I Was Here - Before You Came by Camelia Miron Skiba
Everlost by Brenda Pandos
Blood Oath by T.L. Clarke
Reaper's Novice by Cecilia Robert
Bulletproof by Jeff LaFerney
Lancaster House by Taylor Dean
Two Halves by Marta Szemik
Murder on Potrero Hill by M.L. Hamilton
Bellyache by Crystal Marcos
Kill Shot by Anne Patrick
Skid Out by Ann Marie Frohoff
Between by Mary Ting
Dragon Stones Saga by Kristian Alva
Rapunzel Untangled by Cindy C. Bennett


Giveaway Details
1 winner will receive their choice of a Kindle Fire HD (US Only), $199 Amazon Gift Card or $199 in Paypal Cash (International).
Ends 1/31/13

Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use an Amazon.com Gift Code or Paypal Cash. Winning Entry will be verified prior to prize being awarded. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent enter for you. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter and announced here as well as emailed and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way associated with Facebook, Twitter, Rafflecopter or any other entity unless otherwise specified. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Giveaway was organized by Kathy from I Am A Reader, Not A Writer http://iamareader.com and sponsored by the authors. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

People's Choice Awards--Proving Just How Big Books Factor Into Movies

My teenage daughter and I are watching the Awards tonight, and we have just screamed our hearts out 3 different times!

First, The Favorite Face of Heroism comes up.  The nominees:

• Anne Hathaway
  The Dark Knight Rises
• Emma Stone
  The Amazing Spider-Man
• Jennifer Lawrence
• The Hunger Games

        Kristen Stewart

• Snow White and the Huntsman
• Scarlett Johansson
  The Avengers

The Winner.....Jennifer Lawrence!!!!

Next, was Favorite Movie Actress.  The nominees:

• Anne Hathaway
• Emma Stone
• Jennifer Lawrence
• Mila Kunis
• Scarlett Johansson

The Winner..Jennifer Lawrence!!!!

Next one that had us screaming was Favorite Dramatic Movie Actress. The nominees:

Charlize Theron

Emma Watson

Kiera Knightley

Meryl Streep

Rachel McAdams

The Winner.....Emma Watson!!!

(for Perks of Being A Wallflower)

We just got to scream one more time!  

Favorite Movie.  The nominees:

• The Amazing Spider-Man
• The Avengers
• The Dark Knight Rises
• The Hunger Games
• Snow White and the Huntsman

The Winner....The Hunger Games!!!!

What a night so far!  It was great to see Emma win something that had nothing to do with Harry Potter! And she beat out MERYL STREEP!!!  My daughter and I haven't gotten to see the movie yet, but we will soon I'm sure! And way to rock, Jennifer Lawrence!

Book Cover Revealed: Hero by Althea Kontis

GoodReads
The Woodcutter series #2
Release date: October 1st, 2013

I just absolutely loved Enchanted.  The Woodcutter family has seven daughters, each named after a day of the week.  Enchanted's main heroine was about Sunday.  The rest of the family was heavily weaved into the plot line, though.  The second book's main heroine is Saturday! I was hoping for this!  This cover is gorgeous, just like Enchanted!

Synopsis

Rough and tumble Saturday Woodcutter thinks she's the only one of her sisters without any magic—until the day she accidentally conjures an ocean in the backyard. With her sword in tow, Saturday sets sail on a pirate ship, only to find herself kidnapped and whisked off to the top of the world. Is Saturday powerful enough to kill the mountain witch who holds her captive and save the world from sure destruction? And, as she wonders grumpily, "Did romance have to be part of the adventure?" As in Enchanted, readers will revel in the fragments of fairy tales that embellish this action-packed story of adventure and, yes, romance.

 Althea Kontis is amazing!  The fairy tale retelling of Enchanted was based off of the Princess and the Frog, but there are so many references to other fairy tales within the story.  If you haven't read the first book yet, I really hope you check it out!

What Are You Reading Monday #12

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Book Journey, where us bloggers highlight our book reading week. 

This is actually going to be covering the last 3 weeks, as I wasn't posting over the holidays!

What I read

I got a lot of reading done over break! What I'm planning on reading this upcoming week

My blog schedule should be pretty easy this week, as I'm caught up on all my reviews!

Monday--What Are You Reading Monday
Tuesday--Vanquished review
Wednesday--Wishlist Wednesday & Announcement of winner for New Years Contest!
Thursday--Paranormal Thursday
                 Review
Friday--The Sullivans Blog Tour post #1, with giveaway
Saturday--The Sullivans Blog Tour Post #2, with giveaway
                  In My Mailbox
Sunday--Catching up on any reviews

What are you reading this Monday?

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

GoodReads
398 pages, YA Dystopian
Across the Universe #1
My rating--5 stars

Synopsis

A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder. 

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

My 2 cents

Okay, so I'm probably the last blogger on earth who has finally gotten to this book.  Its been sitting on my shelf for probably a year, and I finally decided to pick it up and read it this weekend.  After hosting the "Bringing YA2U", I though it was appropriate that I read one of Beth Revis's books!  I am so glad I did!  This story was not at all what I thought it was going to be. I was expecting it to be an overhyped, kind of drab kind of dystopian.  Well, that impression ended after the first chapter!

I didn't expect this book to be so creepy.  But it was, in a good way.  As I got further and further into the book, my interest was piqued.  So, imagine a HUGE spaceship with over 2,000 people on board.  Only 1 person is in charge of these people.  He has a leader-in-training, and a head doctor.  And the only person who knows all of the ship's secrets is this dictatorship style leader.  Meanwhile, all of the normal citizens (with a few expections) are like sheep.  Intelligent sheep that can keep their society running, but have no individual thoughts whatsoever.  Now you are picturing the creepiness!

In the middle of all this emerges Amy, someone from our future, but is just like us.  She's "normal", but the rest of society things she's a freak.  All except Elder (leader in training), and a few of his friends.  And while Amy is trying to come to terms with the fact that she will not see her parents for 50 years and she's stuck on this ship until then, more frozen people (not sure what else to call them!) are being murdered, like she almost was.  

Elder was the most interesting character in the book for me.  He tries to buy into this society to be a good leader.  He's not really fond of Eldest, but he respects him.  Watching him start to see another way, and start to fall in love with Amy, were the best parts of the book for me!

So this book had the creepy factor, romance, adventure, a mystery to solve, and sci-fi fantasy.  I'm not sure how you would get a more interesting plot!  I was even telling my hubby about this book, and he wants me to get it for him on audio book, so he can listen to it! That's pretty rare for him!

There were a few things I didn't like--mainly because they are disturbing images, but again, it gave us some perspective on what was really wrong with this society, like any dystopian.  But couples "mating" in the streets when "The Season" was happening, and threatening to throw someone out of the hatch into the universe if they didn't "behave" was kind of hard to read about.  But I got the author's purpose for it.

This book is ranked right up there for me on my favorite dystopians, and I read it all in one sitting!  I'm giving it 5 stars!

Quotes

“I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one.”   Amy's thoughts after she glimpses the fake sky on the ship

“Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own.”   --Elder's thoughts

“...So, I do what any reasonable person would do when faced with a crying girl.
I get the frex out of there.” --Elder's thoughts on Amy

“He sounds like a regular Hitler to me", Amy mutters. I wonder what she means by that. Eldest has always taught me that Hitler was a wise, cultured leader for his people. Maybe that's what she means: Eldest is a strong leader, like Hitler was."  --Elder's thoughts on Amy

“A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people.” -- Elder to Eldest

Book 2: A Million Suns, available now
Book 3: Shades of Earth
Releases January 15, 2013

Tempest by Julie Cross

GoodReads
352 pages, YA Sci-Fi, Time Travel
Tempest #1
My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis

The year is 2009.  Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he’s in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it’s not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there’s no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it’s just harmless fun.

That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he’s stuck in 2007 and can’t get back to the future.

Desperate to somehow return to 2009 to save Holly but unable to return to his rightful year, Jackson settles into 2007 and learns what he can about his abilities.

But it’s not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these “Enemies of Time” will stop at nothing to recruit this powerful young time-traveler.  Recruit… or kill him.

Piecing together the clues about his father, the Enemies of Time, and himself, Jackson must decide how far he’s willing to go to save Holly… and possibly the entire world.

My 2 cents

I knew when I heard about this book that I would love it!  I love the mystery of time travel, and all the questions it brings.  Its not like you can know exactly what's going to happen in the universe!  But I didn't expect to love Jackson and Holly as much as I did.  I fell in love with Jackson after about 4 pages!  He was the perfect male lead character.  He's rich, pretty popular, easy going, very smart, and witty--and at time, a bit of a jerk.  He's definitely not perfect, but he's very honest about his mistakes.  Holly I didn't like very much in the beginning of the story.  I thought she was a little cold.  Until Jackson gets stuck in 2007, and goes out of his way to meet her and try to protect her.  Then she definitely grew on me!

The other characters in the book are just as good.  They just came alive on the pages.  I loved Adam, he was definitely the sidekick comic relief so badly needed in this intense story!  I was most impressed with the author on how she made it feel like Courtney was an active character in the story.  Courtney was Jackson's twin sister, who died of a brain disease when they were 14.  Jackson jumps back a few times to talk to her when she was 12, and again at 14.  So she wasn't there in most of the story...but I could feel her presence all through the book.

The writing was superb.  There were so many great little moments between the characters.  It wasn't all gloom and doom, which was refreshing.  Some of it was from Jackson's memories.  Another thing I really liked was that Jackson, Holly and his friends were 19 years old.  It was a refreshing change from 16 or 17. 

What I think I love most about this book, is there is so much that happens in 350 pages--but we still get all these beautiful little moments between characters, true character development, and some major twists and turns.  Again, the writing was just superb.  I am a huge fan of Julie Cross now!  I also really enjoyed the short story ebook from this series, Today and Tomorrow.  Its a story about Jackson and Holly before they were dating.  They are just so perfect for each other!  Both the short story, and the book are getting 5 stars from me!

Quotes:

 “We were an island. Me and Holly. Completely alone in this strange moment.” --Jackson thoughts after telling Holly he loves her.

“Nothing went exactly right. And yet it was perfect.” --Jackson thoughts, on remembering his and Holly's first time.

"  'So you're not afraid to walk on a swing set ten feet above the ground, but you're scared to kiss me?' I teased.  The whole idea was amusing and made me realize how much of a journey she would take between now and 2009.  
'Later,' she said with a smile.
'Like I said, only if you really want to.'
She turned her back to me and headed down the hall.  'I do.' "--Jackson and Holly's exchange in 2007 after Holly confesses she is worried about their second kiss. 

"I'm just a little bit of a freak sometimes.  That's all."  --Jackson to Holly after a time jump, trying to cover it up.

Book 2 in the series: Vortex
Releases January 15, 2013

In My Mailbox #16

In My Mailbox is hosted by The Story Siren.  Us bloggers feature any new books we've received in the past week, either bought, borrowed, or received for review. 

eBooks

Bought

Received for trade with other bloggers

The Stork series on MP3 CDs

So, I think it was a pretty nice week for my mailbox!  I'm so excited, I can finally pick up where I left off on Jana Oliver's series!  

What did you get in your mailbox?