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.

ASHES to ASHES

*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.

GOODREADS

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.