Halloween is right around the corner. That means it’s time for the Spooktacular Giveaway Hop, hosted by Bookhounds!
So let’s talk about what spooks us.
I’ll admit that Pumpkin Spice Everything is really starting to creep me out. I like pumpkin pie as much as the next person, but seriously, Pumpkin Spice Cheerios? Never mind the Pumpkin Spice Triscuit crackers. That just sounds WRONG. But maybe not as wrong as the Pumpkin Spice Bailey’s and the Pumpkin Spice-filled Truffles. The only Pumpkin Spice thing I’ve liked so far is this one:
So what are you scared of this Halloween? If you’re looking for a scary book to read, I highly recommend Teeth, Long and Sharp by Grace Draven, Antioch Grey, Aria M Jones, Jeffe Kennedy and Mel Sterling. All the stories in collection are good, but the last one, Voice of the Knife by Mel Sterling, gave me the shivers to the point I needed a hug and hot drink afterwards. And the hot drink was NOT Pumpkin Spice Anything!
For Halloween, I have two books that have spooky-related themes, but are probably not too scary: Shadowed Souls edited by Kerrie L. Hughes and Jim Butcher here at Reading Reality, and Ghost Maker by Robin D. Owens over at the Book Pushers.
What scary books are you planning to read this Halloween? Or what’s your favorite scary book? Answer in the Rafflecopter for your chance at a $10 Gift Card or $10 Book. No pumpkin spice allowed!
It’s that time of year again. The days are getting shorter, the air is getting cooler and the nights are getting spookier. Yes, it’s time for tricks and treats, goblins and ghouls, chills and thrills and huge amounts of sugary sweets. But at the Laughing Vixen Lounge blog it’s also time for the 5th annual Attack of the 14 Nights of Halloween Giveaway. Join Laughing Vixen Lounge and our bewitching co-hosts The Kids Did It, The Mommy Island, Herding Cats and Burning Soup, The Hopping Bloggers, Mama Smith’s Reviews and Women and Their Pretties for a spooktacular Halloween event.
Enter to win a $250 Prize Pack filled with goodies from 10 wickedly fabulous shops. All shops are offering Gift Cards or your choice of item(s) so there will be something for everyone. Many of the shops have items perfect for any book lover along with lots of unique, handcrafted and custom designs to choose from.
Visit the Laughing Vixen Lounge blog daily during the giveaway for the Halloween Movie Marathon. Test your movie knowledge with the Guess the Movie Game. Then try to solve the Murder Mystery Scavenger Hunt, if you dare! Each event will get you daily entries in the giveaway plus a special giveaway for the Scavenger Hunt. Find full details for these events HERE.
There’s a Guess the Movie Game at the Laughing Vixen Lounge, but Reading Reality is a book blog! I don’t read much horror, but there are a couple of books that have scared me in one way or another that I’d like to share. In the more recent category, if you like a little fantasy mixed with your horror, I highly recommend Teeth, Long and Sharp, with scary stories by Grace Draven, Antioch Grey, Aria M Jones, Jeffe Kennedy and Mel Sterling. The Mel Sterling story is particularly creepy. Another book that scared me in a completely different way is Beauty by Sheri S. Tepper. While it is not horror, the portrait of the 1960s as the “last good time” gives me the creeps every time I think about it.
As far as scary movies goes, the closest I ever get to a “scary” movie is Young Frankenstein! What’s your favorite scary book or movie?
You can start by entering the Rafflecopter widget below. To experience all the games, movies, shop features, giveaway info and all around awesome fun make sure to stop by the Laughing Vixen
Lounge blog HERE.
The giveaway runs October 18th – November 1st and is open worldwide to anyone 18+. 1 winner will win the Prize Pack and 1 winner will win the Scavenger Hunt Prize Pack. Laughing Vixen Lounge is responsible for all giveaway details. Click HERE for full details.
Isn’t that a cute little spider? My opinion of spiders was forever changed by the evil Shelob in The Lord of the Rings. Now THAT was a spider! <shudder>
Speaking of bugs, however, our new kitten Freddie has taken to chasing invisible flies. Or fleas. Or leaping into the air for no good reason whatsoever. It’s been a long time since we had a very young cat, and we’d forgotten how funny, and occasionally destructive, a cat with the zoomies can be. He’s adorable. And we’re moving the breakables to higher shelves.
It’s definitely Fall now, even here in Atlanta. And now that October has begun we’re starting to see Halloween decorations sprout on people’s lawns. That is, if hay bales and scarecrows actually sprout.
Although speaking of sprouting, the stores are starting to bring out their Halloween candy. Temptation, thy name is Hershey. At least for me.
Speaking of temptation, I’m always tempted by a good book. (I have one burning a virtual hole in my iPad as we speak). So I’m offering the temptation of a $10 Gift Card or $10 Book to one lucky winner for my stop on the Bugs & Hisses Giveaway Hop.
It’s an event that is sponsored every year by the American Library Association and a whole host of other organizations to celebrate the Freedom to Read. This year, ALA is partnering with We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) to bring more attention to the unfortunate fact that books by diverse authors or with diverse content are more commonly banned or challenged than other books.
Banned Books Week focuses on efforts across the U.S. to remove or restrict access to books. I’m going to put on my librarian hat here to say that the reasons that someone might want to restrict access to, or ban, a book are many and varied. While when someone says “banned books” most people think of sex, in real life anything that makes some people uncomfortable will incite in those people the idea of banning that book so that other people aren’t exposed to whatever it is that just made them uncomfortable.
Violence gets challenged. Speaking truth to power gets challenged. Books that contain historical truths that make people uncomfortable get challenged. Books that appear to uphold an opposing, untraditional or unpopular viewpoint get challenged. And yes, books that include sexual references, or even merely seem to include sexual references, often get challenged.
As I said in my Banned Books Week post a few years ago, “Everything bothers somebody”. And if that somebody gets bothered enough, they may try to ban the book that bothered them.
But Banned Books Week is all about the Freedom to Read. Just because a book upsets one person, or even a whole group of people, does not mean that those who are upset have the right to prevent others from reading that book. If one person’s meat is another person’s poison, then one person’s book to ban is another person’s book to cherish.
For more information on Banned Books Week, including the absolutely fascinating lists of frequently challenged books, visit the official Banned Books Week site. The books on those list are guaranteed to contain more than a few surprises.
In my own celebration of Banned Books Week, I’m participating in the Banned Books Week Giveaway Hop. The prize is either a $10 Gift Card or a $10 Book, so that you can get your own Banned Book to read.
Spring is Sprung,
Fall is Fell.
Here comes Summer and it’s
Hotter than…last year.
A terrible poem, but easy to fall into its rhythm. Unofficially, Fall is definitely fell, even if the official first day of Fall is a week away. And even if you live somewhere in the U.S., like I do, where Fall mostly means that the daily high temperatures finally drop below 90, and the daily lows finally begin to dip into the 60s. Or the other way around. When I lived in Anchorage, Sept. 21 could be the beginning of winter. Complete with snow!
In Anchorage, this would be the time of year when the regular Autumn ritual was to switch to studded tires. I don’t miss that.
It’s also when school officially or unofficially begins. Some places start earlier now, and some colleges still start a bit later, but crisp fall days always carry with them the memory of starting school and hoping for great teachers and interesting things to learn. Sometimes those hopes are fulfilled, and sometimes the enthusiasm wears off more quickly than in other years. And sometimes we remember those days fondly and think that adulting isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
But this giveaway hop celebrates whatever you want to think of best about fall. For me, it just means more opportunities to curl up with a good book. So I’m giving away the winner’s choice of a $10 Gift Card from Amazon or a $10 Book of the winner’s choice.
Happy Fall. May all your apples be crisp, and all your leaves be crunchy!
As part of The Ultimate Western Blog Tour, I’m hosting Lindsay McKenna, talking about the latest book in her Jackson Hole series, Out Rider. When I reviewed Out Rider back in May, I fell in love with the cast and crew of this series, particularly all of the wonderful working dogs who are such a big part of all the stories in the series. If you enjoy slow-burn romances with hot heroes, strong heroines, and heroic (and beautiful) canines, you’ll love Out Rider and the Jackson Hole series.
Inspiration for OUT RIDER, a guest post by bestselling author Lindsay McKenna
I always write “close to the bone.” It’s an ancient writer’s way of saying: what I write is true, but I’ve fictionalized it because no one in their right mind would believe if I tried to say it was the truth.
Well, maybe you would believe it. But I find inspiration for OUT RIDER in my own ranching/farming background. I grew up in the Wild West (literally). I’m a real Californian, born in San Diego, California. But my father had a lot of Eastern Cherokee blood in him and like the seasons, we migrated/moved every 9 months. I lived in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho, Montana and Oregon. I counted one time and realized we’d moved 22 times by the time I was 18 years old and left for the U.S. Navy.
We always lived in rural areas, raised our own beef, had a milk cow, rode the neighbor’s horse or had one of our own, milked the cow daily, had goats, had a huge garden, was canning by nine years old and raising chickens, ducks and geese, as well. As soon as my legs grew long enough and my foot could reach the accelerator and brake pedal on the tractor, I was driving the tractor. I started driving our old Ford pickup at the same age. I felt very fortunate to have that kind of childhood. Not many get one like this nowadays.
I acquired my first horse, Pretty Boy, a two-year old sorrel stallion with four white socks and a wide blaze down his face when I was 12 years old. I paid $45.00 for him. He had been rounded up with a large herd of Mustangs in southeastern Oregon, which is part of the Great Basin (desert), and cowboys brought them to Klamath Falls, where we were presently living. My horse was slated to be killed and ground up into dog food, as was the rest of his herd. He got lucky and got me, instead.
He was a wild Mustang and I tamed him with love, care and attention. I broke him to ride and he never bucked once. We had an idyllic year together. It got so that when he’d lay down in the barnyard to snooze in the afternoons, I would come and snuggle up behind his front legs, my head resting on his shoulder. We had that much trust in one another.
OUT RIDER comes directly out of my horse/Western background and upbringing. I loved writing about Dev and her horse. I also liked putting Sloan Rankin as a blacksmith/horse shoer who was a Ranger in the Great Tetons National Park. Sloan is a military vet, was a K-9 handler for the Army in Afghanistan. His Malinois, “Mouse” (Dutch bred), retires when he leaves the Army. Man and dog are inseparable.
Lucky for Sloan, when he pulls over after seeing a horse trailer bearing a palomino in it, blows a tire, he stops to help the owner. Dev McGuire is grateful for Sloan stopping to help her change the tire. And when she finds out that he works out of the Tetons Ranger station, it’s a pleasant shock. She’s just been assigned to the Tetons because she’s a US Forest Ranger herself. And Bella, her yellow labrador, is also a retired K-9 Army bomb sniffing dog. These two people find they have amazing parallels. But they are going to need every bit of their courage and combat savvy to thwart a villain who is after Dev. He wants to settle an old score with her and he’s just gotten out of prison, tracking her down.
I love writing about what I know. I believe that when you write ‘close to the bone,’ you can bring in the five senses because one has lived it, and it’s easy to record and share with the reader. Enjoy!
About Out Rider: With her return to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, New York Times bestselling author Lindsay McKenna shows how love can find a way out of the darkness…
A fresh start—that’s all Devorah McGuire wants. As a former Marine and current Ranger with the US Forest Service, she’s grown accustomed to keeping others safe. But when the unthinkable happens, she can only hope that a transfer to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, will allow her to put the past behind her for good.
Dev’s mentor at Grand Tetons National Park is fellow canine handler and horseman Sloan Rankin. He shows Dev the spectacular trails, never knowing the terror that stalks her every move. Despite her lingering fear, Dev feels an attraction for Sloan as wild as their surroundings.
With Sloan, Dev can envision a new life—a real home. Unless a vengeful man fresh out of prison succeeds in finishing what he started…
About the author: A U.S. Navy veteran, Lindsay McKenna was a meteorologist while serving her country. A pioneer of the military romance genre in 1993 with Captive of Fate. Her heart and focus is on honoring our military men and women. Creator of the Wyoming series and Shadow Warriors series for HQN Books, she writes emotionally and romantically intense suspense stories. Visit her online at her website, LindsayMcKenna.com.
~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~
Harlequin is giving away an all-expense paid 3-night luxurious stay for you and 3 guests at The Resort at Paws Up in Greenough, Montana! To enter click here or on the image below:
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.
Welcome to the Freedom to Read Giveaway Hop, hosted by Bookhounds.
This hop celebrates U.S. Independence Day. This year, just like last year, it also celebrates a three-day weekend where we can read as much as we want without having to worry about the alarm clock going off in the morning. At least for those of us whose definition of insomnia is a good book we can’t put down.
To give you a chance to get even more books to keep you up at night, I’m giving away either a $10 Amazon Gift Card or a $10 book from The Book Depository. Happy Fourth of July and Happy Reading!
Welcome to the 2016 edition of the Midsummer’s Eve Giveaway Hop, hosted by BookHounds.
I checked out the Google Doodles for today. While it is the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, it is the Winter Solstice south of the equator. Looking at the two doodles, those poor rocks are obviously way happier being up north today. On December 20, I’m sure it will be the other way around.
Rocky summer from Google Doodles
The winter version shows those poor rocks blinking and shivering under a blanket of snow!
But whether you are basking in the sun or shivering in the winter chill, a good book or two always helps to wile away the hours.
For my part in this Midsummer’s Eve Giveaway Hop, I’m giving away the winner’s choice of a $10 Amazon or B&N Gift Card or a $10 Book from the Book Depository. This giveaway is open to all!
I think all readers have their secret list of “desert island” keeper books. You know the ones that I mean – the books that you would desperately want to have, to re-read over and over again, if you were marooned on a desert island. And we all think of ways to “cheat” on the numbers.
For example, if I could only have 10 books, would The Lord of the Rings count as 3 or 1? I would say one, because I have an edition where all three books are shoehorned into one gigantic volume. Would Harry Potter be 1 or 7? Would I want to take books I’ve already read and know I’ll love, or would I be willing to take one or two things that I haven’t read yet.
If they could count as a single book, it might be the perfect time to finally read Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time mega-book. I might even finish this time.
What about you? What would be on your “desert island keeper” bookshelf? Tell us your contenders for a chance at either a $10 Gift Card from Amazon or B&N, or international contestants, a $10 Book from the Book Depository.
Welcome to the Love in Bloom Giveaway Hop, hosted by BookHounds.
Spring is sprung,
Fall is fell,
Here comes Summer and it’s
Hotter than…last year.
Of course, if you believe in Global Warming or Climate Change, that is literally true. It is warmer than last year. Which was warmer than the year before that.
But unlike my year before that, even if it is warmer here in Atlanta than it was in Seattle, at least we have air conditioning.
But speaking of warmer weather, it is already summer here in Atlanta. Spring was probably back in February. I love the winters here, but the summers are beastly. And I miss my favorite flowers from the Midwest in the Spring.
The hopeful rising of the daffodils and the tulips, and the big bright profusion of luscious smelling peonies. As much as I love to get roses, peonies are my favorite flower.
So what’s your favorite flower? Or your favorite flower or gardening themed romance? My friend Amy is in the middle of reviewing Nora Roberts In the Garden trilogy. Her review of Blue Dahlia has already posted and Black Rose is scheduled for next month.
My current favorite gardening-themed series is Marty Wingate’s Potting Shed series, starting with The Garden Plot. They may not be romances but romance certainly happens to her gardening and sleuthing heroine in the course of the story.
For more information on Banned Books Week, including the absolutely fascinating lists of frequently challenged books, visit the official 
About Out Rider: With her return to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, New York Times bestselling author Lindsay McKenna shows how love can find a way out of the darkness…
