Winners! and Celebrate the Small Things

The Winners of the Champion in the Darkness Book Tour Giveaway Are:

Tonja of Kidbits - winner of a paperback copy of Champion in the Darkness!

Miss Jack of However Improbable - winner of an ebook copy of Champion in the Darkness!

Jennifer Hardy - winner of a $20 amazon gift card!

Allison of GeekBanter - winner of a $10 amazon gift card!

And in case I forgot to mention it, the winner of the Champion in the Darkness ebook giveaway at Laurel's Leaves was: Michael Di Gesu

And a huge thank you to everyone who participated! And a huge round of applause and big HUGS for all the totally awesome people who helped me with that really long book blog tour:

  Susan Kaye Quinn  Laura Josephsen Dianne L. Gardner Laurel Garver Tara Tyler Allison at Geek Banter  Jamie Ayres Livia Peterson  Alex J. Cavanaugh Nickie Anderson

 Celebrate the Small Things from VikLit happens each Friday and encourages us to celebrate the small things in life!

 

1. I had an awesome exercise day on Wednesday - 2 mile walk in the morning, cardio exercises with my kids for 20 minutes in the later am, then 1 mile of jogging, 3 miles of biking, and 10 minutes of strength exercises at the YMCA in the evening with my husband. It was a hot, sweaty date. :)

 

(the rest of the week was very slow, and involved some crazy snacking - I made myself eat carrots and celery because I just had the continual nibbling feeling . . .must stop that somehow, any advice?)

 

2. I talked to another independent bookstore owner. She didn't say yes immediately, she said she would read it first, and then she told me about a tour she had at Lightning Source.

 

3. I'm collecting some bits and pieces of advice and info that I'll be giving out soon . . . hopefully next week.

 

4. My book signing at our homeschool co-op has now been extended to a two event deal - book signing at lunch, with a parent's night out + book club event in the evening. My book was the book of the month for the book club for March! The big day will be March 25th - and I'm excited.

 

5. I'm hand-selling books faster than I'm selling them via the internet so far this month and I'm surprised every time someone buys one from me. I have literally mumbled, stumbled, and said anything but the "official" pitch I have in my head, and people are still interested. It's totally amazing when someone wants to buy my book! Seriously, it is amazing every time.

 

6. My kids have been coaching me to answer the question, "How are you?" with this phrase, "Great, because I recently published my first book!" and it has definitely started some conversations I might have been too shy to have otherwise.

 

7. Nickie, my critique partner, rolled out the red carpet on her blog, Here's the Story this week with both a Book Review and an Interview! It was the perfect ending to a great book tour! Thanks Nickie!

 

And again, thank you to all who hosted, participated, encouraged, commented, and made me smile! :)

 

Oh . . .and I'm on the Amazon Breakthrough Novels of 2013 list at Goodreads. (as of this morning I'm at #21)You can vote for up to 5 people, and I would really appreciate it if you spent one of your votes on me. :) Other writers I highly recommend voting for are: Nancy Thompson, Cherie Reich, Rachel Morgan, Michael Pierce, Alex J. Cavanaugh, and Christine Rains.

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrate the Small Things, News, and Champion in the Darkness Blog Tour



Champion in the Darkness Blog Tour Stop with Laura Josephsen today!



We're supposed to be celebrating small things, but this has been another huge week for me.
1. My book, Champion in the Darkness, is out in ebook format! (Paperback is coming soon)

2. Awesome people helped spread the word about my book in big and small ways. Friends, family members, blog buddies, homeschool co-op friends, and even random acquaintances congratulated me throughout the day. My homeschool co-op group sent out a mass e-mail about my book. Bloggers posted and tweeted. My family took my out to dinner and gave me balloons and flowers. It was amazing, and I felt overwhelmed by all the amazing support! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

3. A local book club chose my book as their March book! Wow! I found out while standing in line at Costco.

4. I started my blog tour, and it's been fun. Today I'm at Laura Josephsen's blog discussing How a Rejection Letter Started a Novel. Come check it out!

NEWS This is what I know, there's probably more.
Cover RevealCover reveal for Sheri Fink's new book, the Little Firefly

 Christine Raines' book The Dragonslayer is out, and she's touring. Look for her around the blogsphere!


Open Minds by Susan Kaye Quinn is currently free! I highly recommend it!











Champion in the Darkness Tour
Today's Stop: Laura Josephson     Topic: How a Rejection Letter Started a Novel
Next week:

Sick Day Reviews

The last few days I've had that stuffy head, sore throat, coughy, dizzy feeling which has been awful. My house is a mess. However, I allowed myself some reading time yesterday . . . actually several hours worth of reading time, in between sleeping on the couch moments. I still have a pile of books I want to read, but I had a bunch of uninterrupted reading time yesterday. Here are my reviews for some  of those books, plus one movie.

Rising Book 1: Resistance by Larua JosephsenLaura Josephsen made my day yesterday. I stumbled across a recommendation for this at Alex. J. Cavanaugh's blog, and out of idle curiosity and interest I went to take a look at the sample chapters at amazon.com. Hooked from the beginning, I decided to splurge and buy it for my Kindle. I finished it last night. I loved this book, and I'm looking forward to the next in the series. The main character, Alphonse, is a scholar on vacation when he is thrown into intrigue and chased by enemies of his country disguised as soldiers. I'm afraid to say more, because I would probably ruin the plotline. I highly suggest checking out those sample chapters at amazon.com.

Cassafire by Alex J. Cavanaugh is out! I thought I had to wait until the 28th, but I found it yesterday and purchased the Kindle edition. I'm only 40% into this book, and since I am back to health I don't have a good excuse for sitting and reading all day . . .but I am hooked by Alex's imagination, and the relationships of his characters. Byron may attempt to be aloof and alone, but he is drawn into relationship with a challenging female pilot and a very young linguist who needs his brotherly friendship. Alex's joy-filled descriptions of flight are awesome. Since the Catch Fire celebration of CassaFire is coming on the 28th, I suggest being prepared by getting this book today. I know I sound like a bad advertisement on TV, but seriously, it's a good book and Alex is one of the nicest bloggers I know. Here's the link to Cassafire at amazon.com.

"On her seventeenth birthday, Cassia meets her Match. Society dictates he is her perfect partner for life. Except he's not. In Cassia's society, Officials decide who people love. How many children they have. Where they work. When they die. But, as Cassia finds herself falling in love with another boy, she is determined to make some choices of her own. And that's when her whole world begins to unravel..." - Blurb and pic by amazon.com
Matched by Ally Condie is a dystopian romance adventure that my oldest daughter picked up at the library on Tuesday. Romance is usually not the main genre in our household - everyone prefers adventure, scifi and fantasy, but this book caught her eye and now there are three of us reading it at the same time . . .well, there are three bookmarks in it anyway. I haven't had my hands on this book since Tuesday (when we picked it up) and we are all vying for turns with it. Well-written and intense, the part that truly drives the story forward is Cassia, the intelligent, determined protaganist in love with words and saddened by her Grandfather's death.


In movies . . . well, I actually went to see Journey 2 The Mysterious Island with my family.

And we liked it . . . because we were prepared for a departure from reality, for some fun, and for some laughter. I still noticed that the helicopter scenes lacked realism (my dad used to have a pilot's license and trained me to look for details in movies) and the part with the flying bees made my husband groan a little (how did they "pilot" the bees exactly?) but we still enjoyed this romp through Verne book on film, Hollywood style. My daughters mainly noticed that the directors didn't do much to segue from this movie from the first one . . .we would have liked a line or two about his uncle, or something to tie into the first movie. What happened to all those diamonds? Why is his stepdad footing the bill? Anyway, apart from that it was a fun ride 2 The Mysterious Island. BTW, the best actor in this movie is . . .Josh Hutcherson, just like in the first one even with Michael Caine and Dwayne Johnson making quips at each other. One reason my family is looking forward to The Hunger Games movie is that we know at least the actor playing Peeta can act well, so we are hopeful that the movie will be good. 

(photo from IMDB)

So, I know I'm off schedule this week - posting on M, T, and Th instead of M,W,F. I'm not sure what my schedule looks like tomorrow - I may be skiing and going to see Brandon Heath in concert at a local church, or I might be driving to Portland to visit our neice and the biggest bookstore in the world (not that I need any more reading material).

Next week: Evil Genius, and Catch Fire!!!