Redux: Colleen Gleason is Guest Blogging

Quick! Head over to Twisted Kingdom now! Colleen Gleason is guest blogging and doing giveaways and Ames has a review up!

Guest Blogger: Rene Lyons ~ Contest: And The Winner Is....

Kailana!!!!!

Congrats, babe. You've won a free download of Tempting Darkness and your name has been entered in Rene's April drawing. To see what you might win from that, see here.

Kailana, please email either myself or Rene.

Congrats again!

And thanks so much to everyone else who visited yesterday. Don't forget to buy your copy of Tempting Darkness. You can get it here.

Guest Blogger: Rene Lyons ~ CONTEST!!!!!!!

So......anyone want to win a prize? Tonight at 10pm est I'll select one person at random who's left a comment on one of our posts today to win a download of Tempting Darkness.

You'll also automatically be entered in my April contest, of which the winner will receive a mouse pad with the cover of Tempting Darkness on it, signed by both Andy and Rene. A bookmark, postcard with the image of Andy Douglas, and a print copy of Midnight Sun – all signed by Rene Lyons. From Andy, you’ll be getting a bandanna and a signed picture of him! Oh, and let’s not forget, a $10 gift certificate for My Bookstore and More!

Just leave a comment to be entered. GOOD LUCK!

Twisted Kingdom V. 2

Something very exciting is happening at Twisted Kingdom.

Welcome to Twisted Kingdom v.2! As you know, we are re-inventing this blog to make it better than it was! Lots of new features and reviews coming up! Read about the Re-birth of the blog here.

To help promote V.2, the wonderful ladies over there are hosting some wonderful contests:

To celebrate TK's rebirth, we will have two contests!

Here's how they work:

The first contest is simple and the goal is to spread the word about TK's rebirth! All you have to do is make a short announcement on your blog, myspace or website about TK's rebirth and link back to us using the buttons in the sidebar. Of course, if you can find better ways to let the world know about TK, go for it :D

The dateline for this contest will be March 25th, 11:59pm. Let us know that you have participated by leaving a comment and the url to your blog, myspace or website in this post! Simple, no?

The second contest is a tad more challenging, but probably much more interesting. That is, you have to write a guest review! It can be any book, as long as there is some fantasy or paranormal element. It could be a book you have just recently read or your favorite fantasy/paranormal book and it doesn't matter whether it has been already reviewed at TK or not! So, how to participate? Easy, you write your review following TK's simple guideline (really just a few requests to make all of our reviews uniform) and submit it at thetwistedk@gmail.com by April 15th, 11:59pm. Your review will most likely be post the following Tuesday or Thursday. The more guest reviews you write, the better your chances to win!

For each contest, we will have a draw to determine the winner :) But, what is the grand prize? The winners will be able to choose their own prize: a fantasy/paranormal book written by one of our featured Author of the Month! Since we have not chosen the Author of the Month for the next following months yet, the winners will be given one year to choose!

Easy, simple and you get a free book!

Head on over and help Twisted Kingdom Celebrate!

Guest Blogger: Kim Howe

We want to thank aspiring writer Kim Howe for visiting with us yesterday. Learning about the American Title contest and her personal Kill Me Off contest was wonderful.

Don't forget to stop by the contest site and vote for your favorite, and be sure to enter Kim's contest, too.

Thanks Kim, we loved having you here.

GOOD LUCK!

Holly (and the rest at SF)

Guest Blogger Kim Howe: American Idol for Writers!

Reality TV has infiltrated the world of fiction writing! Yes, that’s right. Dorchester Publishing and Romantic Times BOOKreviews magazine have teamed up to create the American Title Contest, the fiction writer’s version of American Idol. The contest has crowned two talented writers, Janice Lynn with her hilarious novel, Jane Millionaire, and Gerri Russell with her captivating historical, The Warrior Trainer.

This year, over 250 aspiring writers sent their manuscripts in for consideration. Ten novels, including my romantic suspense One Shot, Two Kills, were given those proverbial golden tickets. The wonderful editor of RT magazine, Liz French, e-mailed or called us to share the exciting news that we were in the top ten of the American Title III Contest!

That’s when the fun started. We prepared excerpts from our novels—our first sentence, short character sketches on our hero and heroine, a story summary, a dialogue scene, and the ever popular love scene. This year, the stories span the full range of contemporary romance, including paranormal, romantic comedies, chick lit, and romantic suspense. The grand prize everyone is shooting for? A publishing contract with Dorchester, including publicity from Romantic Times!

Every month, the excerpts are showcased and critiqued by three judges patterned on American Idol’s Randy, Paula, and infamous Simon. From firsthand experience, I can tell you that Flavia Knightsbridge gives Simon a run for his money on the scathing factor!

Readers of the magazine vote for their favorite submissions. The two contestants with the lowest number of votes are eliminated every round. One Shot, Two Kills has reached the final four! Why not stop by the contest site at http://www.romantictimes.com/news_amtitle.php and vote for your favorite dialogue scene? Hopefully the fiery quips of my sniper heroine will make you smile. :) If you’d like to read the first chapter of the novel, please stop by my website at www.kjhowe.com

Thanks to Sanctuary’s Finest for your warm hospitality. It’s been a pleasure stopping by!

Kim

Guest Blogger Kim Howe: Living or Dead…Get in Print!

Have you been tuckerized? If not, it’s time you found a way to make it happen. A few of you may be scratching your heads, wondering what I’m talking about. Tuckerization is a long-standing literary tradition, but the problem is recognizing it when you see it!

Maybe telling you my story will help explain. My husband is a big fan of speculative fiction. When the World SF convention was in Toronto, he came home with a big smile on his face, telling me he bought me a present—then the kicker—I don’t get to find out what it is until next year. Okay, you don’t do that to little Miss Curiosity. I quizzed him endlessly, but to no avail. He’s a trial lawyer…nothing penetrates his armor!

The year goes by and I eventually forget about the present (I’m sure it was lingering in my subconscious.) One weekend, while up north at my parent’s cottage, he hands me a fantasy novel and recommends I read it. I’m like…wait a minute…I’m Ms. Suspense! But, being the trusting wife, I dig into the novel, Laura Anne Gilman’s STAYING DEAD. I enjoyed it, found the pacing strong, the characters fascinating. Then…in comes an older woman, an interesting villain…and her name is KimAnn Howe! I start laughing and realize what he has done. During an auction to support medical benefits for writers, my husband bought me a Tuckerism.

A "tuckerism" is the use of a friend's name as a character, place, equipment name, or the like in a story. The term is derived from the actions of Wilson "Bob" Tucker, who initiated this practice in SF books. For example, some of the Star Trek™ novels from Pocket Books are alleged to have names of the author's friends for minor characters.

I was so touched by his gesture. And this character—KimAnn Howe—who was supposed to show up in just one novel has turned into a strong presence in five novels! Okay, does that mean technically I’m multi-published?

Would you like to be a character in a novel? To celebrate making the final four of the American Title competition, I’m running a Kill Me Off contest. Just send me an e-mail via my website www.kjhowe.com with the phrase Kill Me Off and your name. The lucky (???) winner will have his/her namesake suffer an untimely demise in my next novel. And, no, you cannot nominate your boss or mother-in-law! J Yes, I know you won’t last five novels, but I promise to make “your death” memorable!

Here’s to Tuckerisms!

Kim

I Won! Woot!!!

Author Meljean Brook was recently a guess blogger at The Good, The Bad and The Unread (I'm a total Sybil fangirl, btw) and she was holding a contest. One lucky winner would receive an ARC of Demon Moon, which is being released in June of this year. And I won!

WOOHOO!

I love free stuff.

Her first novel, Demon Angel, was just released this month and looks fabulous. She's been getting great reviews, too. See Dear Author and The Best Reviews. Even Bam gave her a raving review. High praise indeed.

Buy Demon Angel here.

You can also visit her website and her blog (which I stalk now and then).

Thanks, Meljean! I'm so excited!

End of Year Giveaway: Winners!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, Everyone! We here at SF hope you had a wonderful and relaxing weekend and that the new year brings you nothing but health, wealth and happiness!

To hopefully get you started with the happiness part, we're here to announce the winners of our End of Year Giveaway.

Before I do that, however, I'd like to thank each and everyone of you for supporting us through 2006. When we started this blog, we just wanted a place to talk about the books we loved (and the ones we didn't). We never realized how many other wonderful people out there loved the same books we did. I feel very blessed, and I know the rest of the girls do as well, to have met you all.

2007 looks to be a great year, and we're very excited to get it started. We have some fun things coming up, and we all look forward to sharing them with you.

In the meantime, however, let's announce those winners!!!

Dylan and I picked the names last night (she used her nephew's money jar for the names) and I was a bit surprised by the winners. We had some newbies to our blog recently, and guess what? They won!

The winners are:

J.T.!

and

Emily!

Congrats to you both.

You need to go to our Library Thing account and decide which three books you each want, then email us. Please include your selections and your full names and addresses in the email and we'll get the books out to you by the end of the week.

Once again, we thank all of you for participating and hope you had a wonderful Holiday Season. I can't wait to see what 2007 brings!

Hugs,
SF (Holly, Dylan, Jazz, Isabel, Grace and Daphne)

Happy Holidays from SF! Want Free Books??

This holiday season at SF, what's ours is yours. Please join us in celebrating the holidays by participating in our End of the Year GIVEAWAY!! (Ok, really? We totally stole borrowed the idea from Twisted Kingdom, but meh, whatever..LOL)

The rules are simple and easy.

Just copy/paste this post and/or put a link to it on your own blog, and then let us know you did so, either by emailing us, or leaving a comment here.

On January 1st, 2007, we'll draw two names and each lucky winner will have his/her choice of any THREE books from our Library Thing account. That's right, we're offering three books each, to two lucky people.

Merry Christmas, Buon Natale, Feliz Navidad,
Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa (and anything else we missed) and Happy New Year!!

***This is a sticky. Please scroll down for our regularly scheduled programming.

A Holiday Giveaway!!!

Who doesn't love free books, right? Well, the wonderful ladies of Twisted Kingdom are offering some in their Holiday Giveaway. Just follow the link to see the rules.



Happy Holidays!

The Winner of Dream Man by Kelley Vitollo

Since Stacy has already gotten her own copy of Dream Man she has said we can give it to someone else. So we picked another name, actually my daughter did, and the winner is (drum roll please) Kristie (J)! And I know she doesn't have it cause I emailed her first. lol. So congrats girl and enjoy.

Thank you all for participating in our interview with Kelley. And best wishes to Kelley and her book...

SF Contest: Lover Awakened by J.R. Ward

When I was trying to decide what kind of contest to do for this book, I kind of hit a brick wall. I mean, normally I'm chock full of ideas, but lately I'm sort of creatively tapped out.

So here's the deal. I have a copy of J.R. Ward's recent novel, Lover Awakened to give away. Write a paragraph telling me who your favorite brother is and why, and I'll pick the best answer and mail you the book. Sound good?

Fabulous, dahling, fabulous. Now go forth and write.

You may email your answers to sfinest@gmail.com.

You have until Saturday at noon to get your answers in. I'll select a winner Sunday and the book will be mailed (provided I have your information) Monday morning.

So, get to work and you just might end up with your very own FREE copy of Lover Awakened. (and Free is good, right?)

New, Contests and Reviews

Mornin all! I would like to take a moment to apologize to all of you for my recent lack of posting. Sadly, real life has interferred and I've been unable to post as often as I used to. Have no fear, though, I'm back and better than ever!

Today we posted an interview with the lovely Kelley Vitollo. She has a short story ready for release on September 8th. Check out our interview and be sure to say hello to Kelley while you're at it, because she's graciously offered a copy of her first release to one of our commentors. She's very sweet and I, for one, feel extremely blessed to have gotten to know her. It was a great honor to interview her and I can't wait to see what she has in store for us in the future.

I'm also in the process of working out a new contest for our site. I just happen to have an extra copy of J.R. Ward's latest Black Dagger Brotherhood novel, Lover Awakened, and I'm planning to offer it here, to the grand prize winner of our contest. I realize I'll be offering it after the release date, but if you live in an area where books are hard to come by, or if you're on a book budget and have over-spent, then this is for you. Check back on or before Friday for the contest.

I've been behind on my reviews lately. I know, it's terrible of me, but things have finally settled down for me in my personal life, and I'm rarrin' to go. Be on the lookout this week, starting tomorrow, for reviews.

Jazz just finished Lover Awakened, and I know she'll be posting her review soon. Along with that, we were contacted by a fairly new publishing house not too long ago and have a book from them to review as well.

Don't forget, coming soon, Tami Boyer, another soon-to-be-published author has agreed to an interview with us.

I've got a few things in the works as well, so don't be strangers.

I've just about put the finishing touches on my latest non-review blog, Erotica, Romantica and Romance: What's the Differnce.

Once again, I'd like to apologize for not being around more. But I'm back, and better than ever! I can't wait to catch up with all of you.

Hugs!
Holly

Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh, a blogging experiment

Why not, right? If Jane says to do it, who am I to argue??

I am participating in a blogging experiment hosted at dearauthor.com. To enter the contest, put up this blurb, image, and trackback and you are entered to win the following prize package.

• $200 Amazon gift certificate


• Signed copy of Slave to Sensation


• New Zealand goodies chosen by Singh


• ARC of Christine Feehan's October 31 release: Conspiracy Game

You can read about the experiment here and you can download the code that you need to participate here.

SLAVE TO SENSATION

Nalini Singh

Berkley / September 2006

Welcome to a future where emotion is a crime and powers of the mind clash brutally against those of the heart.

Sascha Duncan is one of the Psy, a psychic race that has cut off its emotions in an effort to prevent murderous insanity. Those who feel are punished by having their brains wiped clean, their personalities and memories destroyed.

Lucas Hunter is a Changeling, a shapeshifter who craves sensation, lives for touch. When their separate worlds collide in the serial murders of Changeling women, Lucas and Sascha must remain bound to their identities�or sacrifice everything for a taste of darkest temptation.

Excerpt