Sunday, November 30, 2014

TELL ME TUESDAY #23

Ugh, hardly anything in the bookish blogosphere irks me more than authors whose only writing motivation is to make money.



TELL ME TUESDAY is a feature that oozed from the brains of Brittersweet from PLEASE FEED the BOOKWORM, and myself, after a mind-melting Armchair BEA Twitter party. It is a weekly, or bi-weekly feature depending on your reading style, where we ask you what you are reading now, and why, and what you will be reading next from your TBR pile, and why.  Pili from In Love with Handmade is our *only child* feature follower and we luff her so much! We are all so curious why people read what they read. 

ME


LET ME TELL YOU...

I first became interested in this book because of its cover after seeing it on Netgalley, and I still love it, the cover, that is...



I think everyone who requested it was approved, so a lot of people have this eARC. I started reading it soon after I received it in September. The beginning was lack luster and left me scratching my head in a few places, but I have a three chapters before DNFing rule, and it started to get interesting right before I had to bench it for other ARCs with closer publishing dates. It is about Sleeping Beauty's daughter.

Because I love the cover art so much I entered a giveaway for a hardcover edition for my bookshelves. One of the entries was for following the author on Twitter. A day, or so, after I added PoT back onto my currently reading Goodreads shelf, I saw a tweet from the author saying this was most likely going to be her last book.



I asked her why, thinking there was a health issue or something similar, and she directed me with a link to another author's blog post. This author/blogger was basically saying that the internet was destroying the Arts, and ebooks were making it impossible for authors to have a career in writing (being able to support yourself and family with just your book income).


Very few writers were able to do that before the internet and ebooks (maybe even less). Then he started comparing publishing to the music industry (which I have worked in at least part time, at any given point, for 42 years) and I can tell you, he was way off base with his comparisons. He then proceeded to say he was turning off the comment section on this particular blog post because he didn't post about this saddening subject to get sympathy comments. Ha!! I think he knew readers were going to tell him he was full of shite! But that is not what we are talking about here, so I will get back to my main subject.


After reading the guy's blog post, I went back to the tweet thread and commented that I felt calling something one creates for the sake of making money only, art, was not right. She fired back that she has a family of four to support. I then said I wished I could have supported my family with only my music, but I never quit writing songs and playing gigs. That's when she started back peddling to save herself. She snapped back that she is a hard worker, and was being forced to stop writing in a genre she loves. If she loved it she would ccontinue to write it even if she didn't make a dime. Funny she didn't mention how important this genre was to her in her original tweets.

SO HERE IS MY MAGICAL VIOLIN PLAYING MY HEART BLEEDS FOR YOU...



Now after going back and re-reading the conversation I am angry all over again. She at one point said she was still going to write, just not this genre anymore, and I gather from what I saw on her blog it is those formulaic drugstore romances I saw advertised on her sidebar. So I tweeted that she had just invalidated her original tweet of saying she wasn't going to write anymore books at all. She said she invalidated nothing.


Me thinks the lady thought she would get sympathy purchases of her book due out tomorrow...


She should be overjoyed she was published and people liked her book.


I need a martini...


*UPDATE*

After reading one of the comments below, it dawned on me; how does she know how much or how little the book is going to make if it hasn't been released yet? She certainly can't be basing it on pre-orders if it is the first book in a trilogy. Makes me think even more that the tweet's intention was to gather sympathy purchases.

Anyway, not all is lost in the author feels department. The other book I am reading was written solely because the author wanted there to be a YA Fantasy story with a wheelchair bound MC for his walking impaired son.



Xyz is the sequel to Napoleon Xylophone which I rated four stars and you can read my Goodreads mini-review, HERE. Again, I was lured in by the cover. Don't you just love it? I found out about Napoleon X from looking up this book.



LOVE IT!!!!

About this author

Frank Lambert always wanted to be a Zangulator, but had to settle for being a Chartered Engineer. He lives in North East England with his family and a Jack Russell who always looks guilty. Frank has two main projects on-going right now, Napoleon Xylophone and Witching Hole. Both of these trilogies have a young disabled school boy as the main protagonist. Frank was inspired to write these stories by his young disabled son, Mikey, who is absolutely perfect. Mikey wanted to read about disabled hero’s he could look up to and dream about becoming one day. Without Mikey, Xylophone and Witching Hole would not exist. Without these two stories, Frank Lambert the writer would not exist.





Monday, November 17, 2014

TELL ME TUESDAY #22 Monday Special Edition...

Well, this came today...


...



...




...





SO PRETTEH!!!!

*TWIRLS*

So I couldn't contain my excitement until Tuesday!!


TELL ME TUESDAY is a feature that oozed from the brains of Brittersweet from PLEASE FEED the BOOKWORM, and myself, after a mind-melting Armchair BEA Twitter party. It is a weekly, or bi-weekly feature depending on your reading style, where we ask you what you are reading now, and why, and what you will be reading next from your TBR pile, and why.  Pili from In Love with Handmade is our 'only child' feature follower and we luff her so much! We are all so curious why people read what they read.


ME


Was ENSNARED one of my most anticipated titles?


YEP!!!!

When I found out I had won the Ensnared cover reveal giveaway Grand Prize of an ARC, I was overwhelmed.


And speechless!!!!



I did, however, work my buttocks off getting entries in on that contest.




BUT, of course, there was still a huge amount of luck (and I would like to think karma) involved.

I was so over-the-moon about the win I did a blog post about it, HERE.

In that post I explained why you would see me participating in other Ensnared ARC  contests. I was not trying to be greedy, I was hoping to win one for my Best Blogging Buddy, Brittersweet, so we could do a buddy read and tandem blog reviews. But, alas, in the next giveaway we failed, miserably.


We were going to share, but we don't have that much faith in the postal service.


So, after I am finished reading this baby, I will be going crazy not being able to discuss what happens with her.


But until then I will just...


Here it is at home with my other two Splintered series ARCs. Thank-you to my son for being a prize model for me.









This blog post has been brought to you by...





Saturday, November 15, 2014

MY VERY FIRST BLOG HOP with GIVEAWAY!!


After my first blogoversary giveaway, I was discussing my lingering dreadful blog followers stats with my feature co-host, Brittersweet from Please Feed the Bookworm, and she suggested I start doing blog hops so more readers would visit my blog and have a look around. 


Britter suggested this hop because it was a getting to know you hop. Thank-you CUDDLEBUGGERY for hosting this book giveaway blog hop!


I grew up, and still live in, Rod Serling's hometown. He is best known as the creator and narrator of...


I spent ten years, from age sixteen to twenty-six, on the road with several different rock bands. Don't get excited, no one famous, only regionally. I didn't get much book reading done during those years, so I am making up for it now.


Because of older cousins my first musical love was The Beatles.
My current favorite is Faith No More.


This is my favoite Faith No More song.


*click it*



As some of you know I accidentally registered this blog trying to validate Rafflecopter entries on one of author A.G. Howard's giveaways, a little more than a year ago. I guess you could say I fell down the blogging rabbit hole. I figured as long as I had it, I would use it, and here I still am. Because of this start I have a very laidback approach to blogging. Nothing much is scheduled; other than the only feature I follow (which happens to be my own, lol). I only post when I have a review, or have stumbled upon something bookishly interesting I want to share. Even the feature Tell Me Tuesday, I co-host with Brittersweet, can be bi-weekly if you want. I call it Serendipitous Blogging, and most of the time it is stress free.


There are also some wacky facts about me on my birthday post, HERE.

I am also a HUGE Potterhead. I started reading the Harry Potter series with my son and my ex back in 1999 before the books were popular.


My favorite HP characters are...


and



Which leads us in a wonky way to my giveaway.

I am involved in many Harry Potter themed activities on the internet. I belong to a large social site called MyLeaky, a couple of Facebook groups, and admin a few fan pages, one of which has over 5,000 followers. I even did some HP RP for awhile. This is where the La La Toadstone name came from. I have met, and become friends with many Potterheads and when one of them wrote a book (and a fellow Ravenclaw at that), I ran straight to Amazon and bought it to support her. It is a dystopian set in the UK by British author Joe Kipling. I was thrilled (and relieved) its storyline and setting were unique from other dystopians. I loved it, so that is why I am sharing it with you today.



MaryAnn is one of the privileged. It doesn't matter that her friends can sometimes be cruel or that the boy she likes just threw up on her shoes, it's all about being noticed at the right parties. But it takes a single event to rip her life apart.
Blinded by the Light is about death and coming to terms with loss, the abuse of power, discrimination and the fear of the unknown. It is the first book in The Union Trilogy.

You can read my interview with two of her characters, HERE.


The author Joe Kipling has been lovely and offered to ship her book with bookmark, INTERNATIONALLY!
 Thank-you, Joe.



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don't forget to visit these other wonderful bloggers and Get To Know them, also! Each of them has a giveaway contest for books.

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

TELL ME TUESDAY #21


TELL ME TUESDAY is a feature that oozed from the brains of Brittersweet from PLEASE FEED the BOOKWORM, and myself, after a mind-melting Armchair BEA Twitter party. It is a weekly, or bi-weekly feature depending on your reading style, where we ask you what you are reading now, and why, and what you will be reading next from your TBR pile, and why.  Pili from In Love with Handmade is our "only child" feature follower and we luff her so much! We are all so curious why people read what they read.





ME


I've been pretty lazy with my reading the last couple of weeks, but hey, I'm reading. I finished Stone in the Sky, FINALLY, and gave it FIVE STARS on Goodreads.


Right now I am finishing up NAPOLEON XYLOPHONE and will be reading the sequel, XYZ, right after.

I started TALON on Sunday and have been reading about a chapter a day. This is my first Julie Kagawa novel. I love her writing style, it's very smooth. I haven't gotten far enough to give any thoughts or impressions about the storyline, yet.


So what's up next?


Hopefully my SUPER-MAGICAL-FRABJOUS-AND-SUPERCALIFRAGALISTIC-ARC of ENSNARED arrives soon!!!!