Monday, January 28, 2013

A Winter's Respite Read-a-Thon: Post your wrap-ups!


Well, another read-a-thon comes to an end.  I hope everyone enjoyed it! I'd like to thank everyone who participated.  I'd also like to thank everyone who donated prizes and Melissa for hosting the mini-challenge.  We had a couple of great Twitter chats this time.  We had a lively discussion about the tons of books we own and how they are best moved (when we move house) by movers, even though they might think we're insane for owning so many books.  I always say that people who don't understand those of us who own a lot of books are, as my son would say, "They're just non-readers, Mom" (I wonder where he got that from?).  LOL! Looking forward to Spring into Horror on April 22 - 28! How about you?

If anyone is interested in me hosting another Sit Down and Write writing challenge over at Stories Inside, let me know what month (February, March or early April) would be good for you in the comments.  It will last for two weeks again.

My wrap-up post will be over at The True Book Addict in my update post.  I didn't really do that great, but I did finish one book, well the first half of Les Mis.  My copy is two volumes!

Add the link to your wrap-up post in the linky below by 10am CST (U.S. time) on Tuesday.  I will start drawing giveaway winners Tuesday afternoon.

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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

A Winter's Respite Read-a-Thon: Prize Promotion Page

More prizes added! See below...


This is the prize promotion page for all the prizes being given away for the read-a-thon.  At the end of this post, you will find details regarding how the prizes will be awarded at the end of the read-a-thon (be sure to check out the free story on offer just below).


Ybor Noir - A Frank Geddy Detective Short (Noir De Jure, #1) by John David

John is giving away a free ePub or mobi (for Kindle) to all read-a-thon participants.  Please leave me a comment below with  your email address and what format you prefer, if you would like this free story.

About the story:
Finalist for the 2012 Creative Loafing Short Fiction Contest, “Editor’s Choice” and “Reader’s Choice” awards.

"As I read this story the voices in my head were interchanging between Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca), Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry), Elliot Ness (The Untouchables) & Dick Tracy (As Himself).

This is a great little read, PI Frank Geddy has a new fan."

Read an excerpt here:

http://www.johndavidauthor.com/upload...

Detective Frank “Giddy” Geddy usually gets his man, and sometimes the girl, too. This isn’t one of those times.

Ybor City is where the cool people of Tampa go to cut loose and have fun. Getting in to the party is never the problem. Getting out of it sometimes is. In Ybor, you never know what or who you will run into. Between the seedy clubs and bars, in shady back alleys, and at the cigar and tattoo shops–something is for sale on every corner, and there is always trouble within stumbling distance.

Where you end up is never where you started . . .

Ybor Noir is John David’s first release from his new line of short detective fiction, brought to you by Noir De Jure. Find out more about the Noir series at the author’s website, http://www.johndavidauthor.com/. Be sure to read the next Frank Geddy story, Bayshore Noir.

Ybor Noir is about 3000 words, approximately 14 ebook pages at font size 2. It is the perfect lunch or breaktime read.

John David is also giving one winner their choice of a paperback copy of the three titles listed below (U.S. only) and an ePub or mobi copy of any one of his titles (check out all titles on his website, http://www.johndavidauthor.com/)

Winner's choice out of these three copies (U.S. only)


Ten Questions - The Insider's Guide to Saving Money on Auto Insurance: Hidden Discounts Revealed

Read all about it on Goodreads


Pwning N00bs - The PC Gamer's Guide to Hardware, Strategy, and Tactics

Read all about it on Goodreads


Essays for the 99%: The Collection - Class Warfare (Essays for the 99% #4)

Read all about it on Goodreads


About the author:
My writing style is direct and honest. I don't pull punches or write as if I am getting paid by the word. My goals as a writer are to educate, amuse, engage, and entertain the reader. I also offer writing, editing, and narration services.
Read more about John David on Goodreads or at his website, http://www.johndavidauthor.com/

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Two winners get choice of two books from below (U.S. only).  Big thanks to Melissa, at Must Read Faster, for donating!


The Turning--Francine Prose (hardback--new condition)
A dark house.
An isolated island.
Strange dreams
and even stranger
visions . . .

Jack is spending the summer on a private island far from modern conveniences. No Wi-Fi, no cell service, no one else on the island but a housekeeper and the two very peculiar children in his care. The first time Jack sees the huge black mansion atop a windswept hill, he senses something cold, something more sinister than even the dark house itself.

Soon, he feels terribly isolated and alone. Yet he is not alone. The house has visitors—peering in the windows, staring from across the shore. But why doesn't anyone else see them . . . and what do they want? As secrets are revealed and darker truths surface, Jack desperately struggles to maintain a grip on reality. He knows what he sees, and he isn't crazy. . . . Or is he?

From nationally acclaimed author Francine Prose comes a mind-bending story that will leave you realizing how subtle the lines that separate reality, imagination, and insanity really are.


Incarnation
--Emma Cornwall  (paperback--gently used)  Winner--Tif
In the steampunk world of Victorian London, a beautiful vampire seeks out the author of Dracula–to set the record straight . . . If one is to believe Bram Stoker’s legendary vampire tale, Lucy Weston is Dracula’s most wanton creation, a sexual creature of the night who preys on innocent boys. But the real-life Lucy is nothing like her fictional counterpart—and she demands to know why the Victorian author deliberately lied. With Stoker’s reluctant help, she’s determined to track down the very fiend who transformed her—from the sensual underworld where humans vie to become vampires, to a hidden cell beneath a temple to madness, and finally into the glittering Crystal Palace where death reigns supreme.

Haunted by fragmentary memories of her lost life and love, Lucy must battle her thirst for blood as she struggles to stop a catastrophic war that will doom vampires and humans alike. Ultimately, she must make a choice that illuminates for her—and for us—what it means to be human.


Arctic Fire--Stephen Frey  (paperback--new condition)  Winner--Tif
Troy Jensen could do it all: he conquered the Seven Summits, sailed solo around the world twice, and even fought a bull in a Mexican slum on a dare. So when word comes that a rogue wave has swept Troy off a crab fishing boat in the Bering Sea and into a watery grave, his brother, Jack, doesn’t buy it. 

Against his better judgment, Jack decides to quit his job as a Wall Street trader and head to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, to investigate. Minutes after revealing his plan in his father’s New York City office, Jack is nearly run down in the street. He doesn’t think much of it at the time, but as he digs deeper into Troy’s disappearance, Jack unearths information about RED-CELL-SEVEN (RCS), a super-secret American intelligence group that has operated for forty years in almost total secrecy and with complete impunity—and its leaders intend to keep it that way at any cost. 

Dodging bullets as he makes his way to Dutch Harbor, Jack connects the dots that link Troy with RCS. And when he realizes that it’s impossible to return to his old life, Jack charges headlong into the deepest recesses of America’s most secret and feared intel group in order to uncover the truth about Troy’s disappearance. Along the way, Jack learns that the civilian world’s rules of fair play don’t apply to this brutal new world that has swallowed him whole—especially when he crosses paths with the leader of RCS, a man firmly committed to destroying America in order to protect it.


Feedback--Robison Wells  (hardback--new condition)
Benson Fisher escaped from Maxfield Academy’s deadly rules and brutal gangs.

Or so he thought.

But now Benson is trapped in a different kind of prison: a town filled with hauntingly familiar faces. People from Maxfield he saw die. Friends he was afraid he had killed.

They are all pawns in the school’s twisted experiment, held captive and controlled by an unseen force. As he searches for answers, Benson discovers that Maxfield Academy’s plans are more sinister than anything he imagined—and they may be impossible to stop.

Variant blew readers away with its breakneck pacing, flawless plotting, and impossibly high stakes. It earned starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and VOYA, which described it as “an exciting, edge-of-your-seat read that combines psychological themes from works like Lord of the Flies, The Hunger Games, and Ender’s Game in a truly unique way.”

In Feedback, Robison Wells delivers all the answers you’ve been craving—with enough twists and turns to keep readers guessing until the very last page.

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The most generous Laurie at Laurie Here is donating a two book and swag prize pack to one U.S. winner and an eBook copy of Hopeless by Colleen Hoover to an International winner (purchased for you by Laurie, if you are able to receive eBooks).  Thank you, Laurie!

U.S. only prize pack includes:



Defending Jacob by William Landay
Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next: His fourteen-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student.

Every parental instinct Andy has rallies to protect his boy. Jacob insists that he is innocent, and Andy believes him. Andy must. He’s his father. But as damning facts and shocking revelations surface, as a marriage threatens to crumble and the trial intensifies, as the crisis reveals how little a father knows about his son, Andy will face a trial of his own—between loyalty and justice, between truth and allegation, between a past he’s tried to bury and a future he cannot conceive.

Award-winning author William Landay has written the consummate novel of an embattled family in crisis—a suspenseful, character-driven mystery that is also a spellbinding tale of guilt, betrayal, and the terrifying speed at which our lives can spin out of control.


There Goes the Bride by Holly McQueen
"Happily ever after isn't always what you expect..."Polly Atkins, a Londoner living in New York City, is headed back across the pond for her wedding, a grand affair that has her older sister, Bella, in a whirlwind of excitement. Bella can't wait to take over the wedding plans--and neither can Polly's best friend, Grace, whose life as a wife, housekeeper, and mother is making her feel older than her twenty-eight years. She's desperate to see Polly settle down in the same city--and the same life.

The only one who isn't bursting with enthusiasm is Polly. Which is why, before things can get any more chaotic, she calls the whole thing off and lets go of the most perfect man on the planet. There's no way that Polly is going to tell anyone why she's changed her mind. Some secrets are best kept hidden. But Grace and Bella are determined to get Polly and her fiance back together if it's the last thing they do. After all, solving someone else's problems has got to be better than dealing with your own. . . .

One bookmark and one Postcard of Suzanne Woods Fisher's "Stoney Ridge Seasons Series" 

International prize--eBook of Hopeless by Colleen Hoover


Sometimes discovering the truth can leave you more hopeless than believing the lies…

That’s what seventeen-year-old Sky realizes after she meets Dean Holder. A guy with a reputation that rivals her own and an uncanny ability to invoke feelings in her she’s never had before. He terrifies her and captivates her all in the span of just one encounter, and something about the way he makes her feel sparks buried memories from a past that she wishes could just stay buried.

Sky struggles to keep him at a distance knowing he’s nothing but trouble, but Holder insists on learning everything about her. After finally caving to his unwavering pursuit, Sky soon finds that Holder isn’t at all who he’s been claiming to be. When the secrets he’s been keeping are finally revealed, every single facet of Sky’s life will change forever.

Read Laurie's review of Hopeless HERE.

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Winner--Jane Harfeld

One International winner will receive the book(s) of their choice under $10 from BetterWorldBooks.com  They have a great selection of used books and they have free worldwide shipping so you might even be able to snag more than one book!

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Giveaway Details:  This is a read-a-thon participant only giveaway.  To be eligible, you must sign in at the starting line post when you start to read and complete a wrap-up post at the end and link it here at Seasons of Reading at the official read-a-thon wrap-up post (I will give everyone until Tuesday morning, 1/29, at 10am CST to complete their wrap-up posts).  We have a total of 6 prizes.  This means there will be 6 winners (with the exception of the free short story eBook for all participants).  Four (4) U.S. winners and two (2) International winners.  The first U.S. winner chosen will get first choice of all U.S. prizes listed and I will continue in this manner until all 4 U.S. winners are drawn.  I will choose the International winners last and they will get their choice of  the prizes listed, second winner will get the remaining prize.  All eBook prizes will be sent to winner via email (or gifted) and print books will be shipped by the author or the donor of the prize.  Winners will be chosen after the wrap-up post deadline (see above).  I will ask that all participants list their country of residence when they enter their wrap up link in the linky.

Any questions?  Please leave me a comment with your email address.

A big thanks to all who donated prizes! It is greatly appreciated!

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Monday, January 21, 2013

A Winter's Respite Read-a-Thon: Starting Line #WintersRespite


Welcome to the starting line! Be sure to sign in here, at the beginning or when you start reading.  Remember, you do not have to have a blog to join us.  You can sign in linking to Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads...wherever you will be updating from.  And you don't have to start at the beginning.  Start on any day this week, or if you're working all week, join us for the weekend.  People can sign-in up until Friday night at 11:59pm CST.  I'll be stopping by and visiting you so I hope you will have your book piles/reading lists posted. *hint hint*  Also, a reminder that I'm allowing children's books as long as you read some (or from) novels as well.  And for those who asked me.  Yes, of course, non-fiction is okay too.

Join us on Twitter using the hashtag #WintersRespite.  We are going to have four Twitter chats this week.  I tried to have a good variance of time.  Hope one of the slots will work for everyone.  Here's the Twitter chat schedule:

Wednesday at 6:00pm CST
Friday at 8:00pm CST
Saturday at 10:00am CST
Sunday at 1:00pm CST

I will be popping in on Twitter from time to time in case you have any questions and also to check updates.  I try to visit as many blogs as I can, but I'm one person so please bear with me.  At other odd times on Twitter, we might even have some reading sprints throughout the week.  There won't be any prizes if/when we do, but you will get bragging rights.  Just remember to have fun this week.  Again, my read-a-thon credo is "a week of relaxed reading during which we can personally challenge ourselves and whittle away those ever looming TBR piles/shelves/libraries."  I have done away with mini-challenges so we can focus more on the reading, but please do stop by and visit your fellow read-a-thon-ers if you get a chance...and again, we will also be on Twitter for social interaction.  =O)

PRIZES/GIVEAWAYS
I will have the prize and giveaway page posted during the day on Monday so come back here to find it (sad to say, not as many prizes this time).  I will also have easy access links at the top of the blog.  Melissa at 4 a Happier Me is hosting a mini-challenge with prizes (Thank you, Melissa!).  Visit the link below to participate.

2013 YA Book Cover Challenge

Okay, I think that's about it.  I hope you all have fun this week.  If you have any questions, please leave me a comment below, but be sure to leave your email address so I can respond.  I will be posting my updates at my main blog, The True Book Addict, so stop by and visit me.  Happy Reading!

SIGN IN HERE:

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Tuesday, December 18, 2012

A Winter's Respite Read-a-Thon--Sign Up Here!


It's here! The official sign up for A Winter's Respite Read-a-Thon! It's just a month away on January 21 - 27! It will start at 12:00am Monday and end at 11:59pm on Sunday.  Times are central standard time so adjust your times accordingly.  Of course, like most read-a-thons, the books read must be novels or novellas, adult or young adult are fine, and you can read children's books too (as long as you do read some novels too).   Note:  Non-Fiction is also okay! You DO NOT have to participate the entire week.  Join in when you can, start in the middle, end early...whatever works best for your schedule.  As long as you sign in at the sign-in post and do some kind of wrap up post, you're in for the big giveaway at the end.  As with my previous read-a-thons, it will be a week of relaxed reading during which we can personally challenge ourselves and whittle away those ever looming TBR piles/shelves/libraries.  I hope you will join me! I will not be hosting any mini-challenges, as we learned from my last two read-a-thons, focusing on the reading rocks. However, if anyone else would like to host a mini-challenge, you are more than welcome. We will have a few scheduled Twitter chats again (and perhaps some more reading sprints). Our twitter hashtag is #WintersRespite

Sign up in the linky below. You do not have to do a post now, unless you want to help spread the word (hint, hint...) If you don't have a blog, use Facebook, Twitter or Goodreads. Having a blog is not required. Be sure to grab the button at the top of this post. (Don't forget that this is just the sign-up linky. There will be starting line sign-in and wrap-up linkies during the read-a-thon and doing both is required to be eligible for the giveaway).

I am looking for prize donations so if anyone would like to contribute, let me know. Authors, this is a great way to promote your book! Email me--truebookaddictATgmailDOTcom


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Monday, October 8, 2012

FrightFall Read-a-Thon--Post your Wrap-Ups!


Well, another read-a-thon comes to an end.  I hope everyone enjoyed it! I'd like to thank everyone who participated.  I'd also like to thank everyone who donated prizes and Melissa and Nova for hosting their mini-challenges.  Unfortunately, the Twitter chats were not much of a success.  I had a suggestion in today's chat that I liked which was to have a chat at the beginning to talk about goals and then one at the end to talk about accomplishments.  Let me know what you think about that idea in the comments and if I get a lot of positives, I'll implement it for Winter's Respite in January (21 - 27).  I'm hoping to host another write-a-thon in November over at Stories Inside (yes, I changed the name of my writing blog).  It's all going to depend on what's going on in my personal life.  I may be moving again and, if I do, everything else will take a back seat.  If I do host Sit Down and Write 2, I'm going to make it two weeks instead of one because of suggestions I received from some participants last time.

My wrap-up post will be over at Castle Macabre.  I didn't really do that great, but I did finish one book!

Add the link to your wrap-up post in the linky below by 10am CST (U.S. time) on Tuesday.  I will start drawing giveaway winners Tuesday afternoon.

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Monday, October 1, 2012

FrightFall Read-a-Thon: Prize Promotion Page


This is the prize promotion page for all the prizes being given away for the read-a-thon.  At the end of this post, you will find details regarding how the prizes will be awarded at the end of the read-a-thon.


The Arrow Chest by Robert Parry (One print copy--International) WINNER--RAE
London, 1876. The painter Amos Roselli is in love with his life-long friend and model, the beautiful Daphne - and she with him - until one day she is discovered by another man, a powerful and wealthy industrialist. What will happen when Daphne realises she has sacrificed her happiness to a loveless marriage? What will happen when the artist realises he has lost his most cherished source of inspiration? And how will they negotiate the ever-increasing frequency of strange and bizarre events that seem to be driving them inexorably towards self-destruction. Here, amid the extravagant Neo-Gothic culture of Victorian England, the iconic poem ‘The Lady of Shalott’ blends with mysterious and ghostly glimpses of Tudor history. Romantic, atmospheric and deeply dark.



About the author:
Robert Parry is a UK writer of historical fiction with special interests in Tudor and Elizabethan history, Victorian Gothic and Pre-Raphaelite art. His debut novel, ‘Virgin and the Crab’ appeared in 2009, and his 2nd, ‘The Arrow Chest,’ in 2011. He is currently working on a story set in the 18th century – entitled 'Wildish' - which, all being well, should arrive in February of 2013. His work spans the Tudor, Georgian and Victorian eras, and combines reality, dreams and the unconscious within a well-researched and vivid historical setting.
Details, plus news, competitions and more can be found at http://robertparry.wordpress.com
Also, various articles by Robert Parry can be found at http://endymion-at-night.blogspot.com


Tales from the Mist--Various Authors (One eBook copy--International)  WINNER--LISA (LIT & LIFE)
TALES FROM THE MIST will take you on a journey into the dark world of the paranormal. These twelve stories vary in their degree of horror, yet all reach across the boundaries of their genres into the chilling realms of the macabre. Witches, ghosts, shape-shifters and vampire rats are some of the creatures that reign within these pages.

TFTM is a collection of short stories put together by the WG2E Street Team. Our website is: http://beachbookblast.blogspot.com/ and we're on facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/BeachBookBlast?ref=ts&fref=ts

There are 11 original stories plus a reprint from Scott Nicholson.

Officially releases 10/17/2012.  You can join the newsletter at the BBB site, to get notice once it's available.

Two Prize Packs--Two Winners (US only)--thank you, Kai from Fiction State of Mind, for donating  WINNER--CHRISTINA
Prize Pack #1--Adult



Carnival of Souls by Melissa Marr
In a city of daimons, rigid class lines separate the powerful from the power-hungry. And at the heart of The City is the Carnival of Souls, where both murder and pleasure are offered up for sale. Once in a generation, the carnival hosts a deadly competition that allows every daimon a chance to join the ruling elite. Without the competition, Aya and Kaleb would both face bleak futures--if for different reasons. For each of them, fighting to the death is the only way to try to live.

All Mallory knows of The City is that her father--and every other witch there--fled it for a life in exile in the human world. Instead of a typical teenage life full of friends and maybe even a little romance, Mallory scans quiet streets for threats, hides herself away, and trains to be lethal. She knows it's only a matter of time until a daimon finds her and her father, so she readies herself for the inevitable. While Mallory possesses little knowledge of The City, every inhabitant of The City knows of her. There are plans for Mallory, and soon she, too, will be drawn into the decadence and danger that is the Carnival of Souls.

From Melissa Marr, bestselling author of the Wicked Lovely series and "Graveminder," comes a brand-new tale of lush secrets, dark love, and the struggle to forge one's own destiny.


Your House is on Fire, Your Children All Gone by  Stefan Kiesbye
Shirley Jackson meets The X-Files in this riveting novel of supernatural horror

The village of Hemmersmoor is a place untouched by time and shrouded in superstition: There is the grand manor house whose occupants despise the villagers, the small pub whose regulars talk of revenants, the old mill no one dares to mention. This is where four young friends come of age—in an atmosphere thick with fear and suspicion. Their innocent games soon bring them face-toface with the village's darkest secrets in this eerily dispassionate, astonishingly assured novel, evocative of Stephen King's classic short story "Children of the Corn" and infused with the spirit of the Brothers Grimm.

Prize Pack #2--Young Adult/Middle Grade



Grandpa's Monster Movies by A.G. Cascone
Deadtime Stories #10
C.T. and his cousin Lea are staying at their grandparents' old farmhouse. The home movies they found in the attic give them a piece of family history that nobody talked about.


Professor Gargoyle by Charles Gilman
Every volume in the Lovecraft Middle School series is fully illustrated and features an original lenticular portrait on the cover. Display them on bookshelves—and then watch the cover characters morph into monsters as you pass by!

In Professor Gargoyle, we’re introduced to 11-year-old Robert Ashton and the strange world of Lovecraft Middle School. It’s a brand-new state-of-the-art facility—so why do so many creepy things keep happening? Why is the science teacher acting so strangely? And where are all the rats coming from?

As Robert explores with his new friends Glenn and Carina, he discovers that the school may be a portal to another world.

Winner's choice from Three Books (below)  WINNER--PATRICIA (chose Interview with the Vampire)
One winner will get their choice of three of my favorite scary/supernatural books.  I will have the book shipped from Better World Books so this prize is International.  Please note:  the book will be a used copy.

18 Stories by Edgar Allan Poe (and it's edited and has a foreword by Vincent Price--the man himself!)
A chilling compilation of some of Edgar Allen Poe's best-loved stories, edited by Vincent Price and Chandler Brossard and with an introduction by Vincent Price, including:
"The Black Cat - The Fall of the House of Usher - The Masque of the Red Death - The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar - The Premature Burial - Ms. Found in a Bottle - A Tale of the Ragged Mountains - The Sphinx - The Murders in the Rue Morgue - The Tell-Tale Heart - The Gold-Bug - The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether - The Man That Was Used Up - The Balloon Hoax - A Descent Into the Maelstrom - The Purloined Letter - The Pit and The Pendulum - The Cask of Amontillado"


Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice 
'In a darkened room a young man sits telling the macabre and eerie story of his life - the story of a vampire, gifted with eternal life, cursed with an exquisite craving for human blood. Anne Rice's compulsively readable novel is arguably the most celebrated work of vampire fiction since Bram Stoker's Dracula was published in 1897. As the Washington Post said on its first publication, it is a 'thrilling, strikingly original work of the imagination ...sometimes horrible, sometimes beautiful, always unforgettable'. 

We are in a small room with the vampire, face to face, as he speaks--as he pours out the hypnotic, shocking, moving, and erotically charged confessions of his first two hundred years as one of the living dead.

He speaks quietly, plainly, even gently... carrying us back to the night when he departed human existence as heir--young, romantic, cultivated--to a great Louisiana plantation, and was inducted by the radiant and sinister Lestat into the other, the "endless," life, learning first to sustain himself on the blood of cocks and rats caught in the raffish streets of New Orleans, then on the blood of human beings... to the years when, moving away from his final human ties under the tutelage of the hated yet necessary Lestat, he gradually embraces the habits, hungers, feelings of vampirism: the detachment, the hardened will, the "superior" sensual pleasures. He carries us back to the crucial moment in a dark New Orleans street when he finds the exquisite lost young child Claudia, wanting not to hurt but to comfort her, struggling against the last residue of human feeling within him. We follow them across Austria and Transylvania, encountering their kind in forms beyond their wildest imagining . . . to Paris, where footsteps behind them, in exact rhythm with their own, steer them to the doors of the Théâtre des Vampires--the beautiful, lewd, and febrile mime theatre whose posters of penny-dreadful vampires at once mask and reveal the horror within . . . to their meeting with the eerily magnetic Armand, who brings them, at last, into intimacy with a whole brilliant and decadent society of vampires, an intimacy that becomes sudden terror when they are compelled to confront what they have feared and fled... 

In its unceasing flow of spellbinding storytelling, of danger and flight, of loyalty and treachery, Interview with the Vampire bears witness of a literary imagination of the first order.


Dracula by Bram Stoker
There he lay looking as if youth had been half-renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey, the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst the swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood; he lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion.'

Giveaway Details:  This is a read-a-thon participant only giveaway.  To be eligible, you must sign in at the starting line post when you start to read and complete a wrap-up post at the end and link it here at the official read-a-thon wrap-up (I will give everyone until Tuesday morning, 10/9, at 10am CST to complete their wrap-up posts).  We have a total of 3 book prizes.  This means there will be 3 winners.  The first winner chosen will get first choice of all prizes listed and I will continue in this manner until all 3 winners are drawn.  Regarding the book won from me, I will get it sent out as soon as I can.  I know I still owe people books from last time (and before...ugh!).  I haven't forgotten and I greatly appreciate your bearing with me during my financial problems.  The eBook prize will be sent to winner via email and the print book will be shipped by the author.  Winners will be chosen after the wrap-up post deadline (see above).

I'd like to thank Robert Parry and Rhonda Hopkins, and all the generous authors, at Beach Book Blast for their generous donations!

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FrightFall Read-a-Thon: Starting Line #FrightFall


Welcome to the starting line! Be sure to sign in here, at the beginning or when you start reading.  Remember, you do not have to have a blog to join us.  You can sign in linking to Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads...wherever you will be updating from.  And you don't have to start at the beginning.  Start on any day this week, or if you're working all week, join us for the weekend.  People can sign in up until Friday night at 11:59pm CST.  I'll be stopping by and visiting you so I hope you will have your book piles/reading lists posted. *hint hint*  Make sure at least one book is a scary one.  Also, a reminder that I'm allowing children's books for those of you who have kids...with one condition...five picture books equal one novel.  Sound fair?  Middle grade novels can count as one book.

Join us on Twitter using the hashtag #FrightFall.  We are going to have four Twitter chats this week.  I had to tweak the times on the evening chats because I'm usually not home until around 5-5:30pm CST through the week.  I tried to have a good variance of time.  Hope one of the slots will work for everyone.  Here's the Twitter chat schedule:

Wednesday from 5:30 to 6:30pm CST
Friday from 6:30 to 7:30pm CST
Saturday from 10am to 11am CST
Sunday from 1 to 2pm CST

At other odd times on Twitter, we might even have some reading sprints throughout the week.  There won't be any prizes if/when we do, but you will get bragging rights.  Just remember to have fun this week.  Again, my read-a-thon credo is "a week of relaxed reading during which we can personally challenge ourselves and whittle away those ever looming TBR piles/shelves/libraries."  I have done away with mini-challenges so we can focus more on the reading, but please do stop by and visit your fellow read-a-thon-ers if you get a chance...and again, we will also be on Twitter for social interaction.  =O)

PRIZES/GIVEAWAYS
I will have the prize and giveaway page posted during the day on Monday so come back here to find it (sad to say, not as many prizes this time).  I will also have easy access links at the top of the blog.  There are going to be a couple of easy mini-challenges with prizes hosted by two of our participants.  I will indicate next to the blog below if the challenge is live or not.  Thanks, ladies!

Nova at My Seryniti  LIVE NOW!

Melissa at Must Read Faster  LIVE NOW!

Okay, I think that's about it.  I hope you all have fun this week.  If you have any questions, please leave me a comment below.  I will be posting my updates at my horror blog, Castle Macabre, so stop by and visit me.  Happy Reading!

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