Great Contest at Bitten By Books

Book Trailer for Destined for an Early Grave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZmRY9nmM38

Read 20% of Destined for an Early Grave: http://browseinside.harpercollins.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780061583216

Then head on over to Bitten By Books to enter this wonderful contest and to read the conversation with Jeaniene Frost. I haven't read this series, but plan to start it soon. It sounds very intriguing!

Review and a giveaway: Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow

rating: 3 of 5 stars
From the back:

Dru: Sixteen-year-old Dru has what her grandmother called the touch - a sixth sense that drives her from town to town to hunt ghosts, suckers, wulfen, and the occasional reanimated corpse. But when evil comes knocking, can this loner tough girl stand the heat? Or is it just a matter of time before her blood turns cold?

Graves: Goth boy Graves has a big crush on new girl, Dru. And with his lopsided grin and shaggy hair, she's noticed him right back. Then a wulf bite threatens to change him for good and Dru will have to keep her distance...or else.

Christophe: Christophe's ice cold baby blues and wicked smile are the kind of looks that kill. He's got a hunch that Dru is way more special than she knows. Trouble is, he's not the only one who has caught her scent. And it will take more than his razor-sharp fanges to take out whatever - or whoever - is hunting her.

Can Dru stay alive long enough to fall for one - or both - of the guys hungry for her affections?

There is a lot of world building in this one. As the start of a series, Ms. St. Crow has a lot of explaining to do about this world and she does it. I think it takes a little away from the book itself as it never seems to really get going until the end.

However once it did get going, it really did get going. Even though I was slightly disappointed in this installment, I have to say I will gladly pick up the next installment when it comes out. I have now fallen in love with Dru, Graves and Christophe and want to learn more about their adventures and the world they live in.

So prepare yourself for the world building and I say that you will enjoy this book. The characters are very interesting and you care about them and also what is going on in this world is intersting. It's a different take on the paranormal and I really like it. You learn about all sorts of different paranormal types instead of just one or two that seem typical in paranormal books right now.

I'm really glad I got a chance to read this book and will continue to read Ms. St. Crow's books both young adult and her other books.


Would you like a chance to win my ARC of this book. I'd like to pass on my good fortune and share it with one lucky reader from my blog.
The normal rules apply - post for a chance to win. Post again if you are a follower or have started following me now. You can also post again if you tweet about this giveaway.
I'll draw a winner from all entries next Wednesday, June 2 and post that day. Make sure I have a way to contact you!

The Winner is . . .

Alicia - I've emailed you for your address and will get the book out as soon as possible. It's a great one.

Thanks everyone for entering my contest. I hope to have a new one up soon and a review of this wonderful Travis Thrasher book in the next few days. It comes out next Tuesday and you don't want to miss it!

Sorry for the delay - I am having some health difficulties but I'm able to read like a bandit at the moment. Lots of reviews coming and more giveaways. Stay tuned!

All giveaways will be announced on Twitter so follow me there to be the first to hear!

Contest - Ghostwriter by Travis Thrasher

Oh my goodness - I just finished Ghostwriter by Travis Thrasher last night (thank you Faithwords for the arc!) and I cannot say enough about this book. I will post my review next week, but until then I would like to help build the interest in this book, so I'm having a contest to win one of my two arcs of this wonderful, scary and gripping book. Here is the summary of the book from the Hachette book website:

For years Dennis Shore has thrilled readers with his spooky bestselling novels. Now a widower, Dennis is finally alone in his house, his daughter attending college out of state. When he's stricken by a paralyzing case of writer's block and a looming deadline, Dennis becomes desperate. Against better judgment, he claims someone else's writing as his own, accepting undeserved accolades for the stolen work. He thinks he's gotten away with it . . . until he's greeted by a young man named Cillian Reed--the true author of the stolen manuscript.
What begins as a minor case of harassment quickly spirals out of control. As Cillian's threats escalate, Dennis finds himself on the brink of losing his career, his sanity, and even his life. The horror he's spent years writing about has arrived on his doorstep, and Dennis has nowhere to run.

Let me tell you that this is a wonderful book and you really want to read it. It's release date is 5/28/2009. But you can get it a little early by entering and winning.

So here are the ways you can enter:

1. Comment for the first entry (make sure I have a way to contact you)
2. Become a follower or subscribe to my blog for another entry (or let me know you are currently a follower/subscriber).
3. Follow me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/cfulcher) (or let me know if you already follow me)
4. Tweet about this giveaway or post on your blog about this contest (+1 for each)

The contest will go through next Tuesday, May 19th and I'll announce the winner on the 20th.

Winner: Threshold by Bonnie Kozek

From Random.org, the winner is:

1. Wendy

Thanks to everyone who entered! I should have a new contest up this week or next.

Threshold by Bonnie Kozek (and a giveaway!)

From the release from Author Marketing Experts, Inc. :

When a haunting past - which has left a couple of dead bodies in its wake - becomes a too painful predictor of the future, Honey McGuinness moves to Skid Row. She hires on at the local Salvation Mission - serving food to the homeless.

For awhile things go pretty smoothly: No one seems to be getting hurt. Her world becomes small and anonymous - her only real friend a prose-spouting diffident drunk named Billy. But like it or not, things change. Bad things start to happen.

Gentrification, crack and crime get a stranglehold on the neighborhood. And, when her friend Billy dies in her arms from a hailstorm of bullets, and she discovers a tape-recording device strapped to his waist, her refuge is in peril. Against her will, she is thrust right back into the slough. And, to sate the hunger for retribution that is gnawing in her gut, Honey will have to answer one fateful question: Is there any line she is unwilling to cross? Find out in Threshold, the debut novel of Bonnie Kozek.

About the author: Bonnie Kozek has written two works of nonfiction: Falling In and Out of Love . . . with Words, and Mania, a poetry book published in 2003. She also writes and produces oral histories through her company, Legacy Publishing. She has collaborated on numerous projects outside the realm of the written word with other artists, including Salvador Dali. She has worked as a sound/picture editor on features and documentaries for both big and little screens in Hollywood and New York, and has written and directed shorts, including films for Saturday Night Live. She created the first continuous running holographic movie, which premiered at the opening of the Museum of Holography in Manhattan.

She worked at and attended California Institute of the Arts. She has taught in the graduate writing program at The New School, and continues to teach writing workshops at FEGS and JCCA, both not-for-profit multicultural human services agencies in NYC. Her work has been recognized and honored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation. Visit http://www.bonniekozek.com/.

My Review:
I won this on a quick giveaway from Melissa at Melissa's Bookshelf. It sounded interesting to me so I wanted to give it a shot. I'm pretty new to hard-boiled suspense/thriller books reading pretty much just the typical mainstream thrillers. I'm glad I got this book. It was a fast, enjoyable read. I really enjoyed the character of Honey McGuinness. She is not perfect, she has had a hard life and she knows it, but she moves on with her life. She has a lot of depth and even though she is not all good, she is really trying and she will do what she can for those she cares for, such as finding out who murdered her friend Billy, even if she has to risk her life, sanity and all she has worked for up until this point to find the murderer. The suspense line of the book was interesting, but I feel that the characters make the book, from the hardened character of Honey to the cowboy-cop, Skinner and the miscellaneous crew from Skid Row, you learn about all of them and their good and bad traits. The book had a very satisfactory ending but left me excited enough about the character of Honey to read the next in the series which will be out this year. I highly suggest reading Threshold if you enjoy suspense/thrillers with the hard-boiled edge, or even if you're not sure if you do and just want to try them. I think this is a wonderful book to try out the genre.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
Title: Threshold: A Hard-boiled Thriller
Author: Bonnie Kozek
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
ISBN: 978/0595497584
Publication Date: December 2008
Pages: 132
Price: $11.95
Publisher: iUniverse.com

I (with permission of Author Marketing Experts, Inc.) am giving away my copy of Threshold by Bonnie Kozek so another reader can enjoy this great book!

Usual rules apply:

Entries can be made by the following (put all of your entries in one comment, I'll count them):
1. Comment for the first entry (make sure I have a way to contact you)
2. Become a follower or subscribe to my blog for another entry (or let me know you are currently a follower/subscriber).
3. Follow me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/cfulcher) (or let me know if you already follow me)
4. Tweet this or post on your blog about this contest (+1 for each)

The contest will go through next Monday, April 20th and I'll announce the winner on the 21st.

Really Cool Contest

Check out this really cool contest from Jill Shalvis, Alison Kent and HelenKay Dimon - it's a great one - now go enter it!