Share it Saturday

Hey guys!

The summer has been a whirlwind of busy. Two six year olds will do that to you. :D It is going so fast, which I strangely love and hate at the same time. Love it because I do miss my quiet time to write, which I'm finding very hard to do right now having the girls with me all day. And yet, I hate it because I love my girls so much and appreciate the time we are able to spend together (except when they are fighting--I spend a lot of time breathing and counting to ten ;)). They are growing up SO fast.

Besides kids, I'm trying to keep up with keeping the house clean (OMMessiness!), keeping my fridge and pantry stocked with food (Holy cow these girls want to eat ALL DAY-Yay for fresh summer fruit!), beta reading, pleasure reading, writing, library events, playdates, going to the pool/beach, and watching the olympics. I LOVE THE SUMMERRRRRRRRRR!

What have you been up to this summer? 


Oh, and if you haven't seen this, this is a cute little video made by the US swim team to the song Call Me, Maybe :D (ETA: you have to click on the Youtube link--sorry!)

CONTEST!!!!

Nope, not mine. My good writing buddy (and one of my amazing crit partners) Rachel Allen (newly signed author repped by the amazing Susan Hawk of The Bent Agency) is running a contest on her blog for a chance to win a copy of Larkstorm by Dawn Rae Miller AND a copy of Looking for Alaska by John Green. Check it out HERE! 

Good luck! Both are great books!!!!!!

AND THE COURTNEY SUMMERS' 3 BOOK GIVEAWAY WINNER IS...

MONICA GUTIERREZ!!

Congratulations, Monica! Hope you enjoy owning these awesome books (and of course lending them to all your friends so they can share the love as well!--just make sure you get them back!) I will be emailing you shortly for your addy deets!

Thanks to all who entered! I wish so hard I had copies to give everyone! But, if you have not yet read any of these books, please do so. You will not be disappointed! I will be having more contests in the future with other awesome titles so please check in!

And to Courtney Summers, CONGRATULATIONS on all your success and I look forward to owning This is Not a Test. Knowing me I'll probably end up purchasing an additional copy to give away so I can continue to share the CS love <3 <3

GIVEAWAY! SHARING THE COURTNEY SUMMERS LOVE!

Okay, people, this is it! We are only a couple of weeks away from Courtney Summer's official release date for This is Not a Test! (June 19th for those of you not keeping track *smack smack* shame on you!)

Anyone who really knows me knows I totally fangirl over CS. Well, not her per se ('cause that would be like stalkerish, right?), but over her awesome books. Oh, and I love the fact that she's a gamer. And that she likes zombies. And that she sometimes has a dark/funny sense of humor that I can relate to. Okay, so I might be slightly stalkerish, but I swear I don't sneak into her window and watch her sleep ('cause she's like in Canada and that would require me showing my hideous passport photo and going through customs and that wouldn't be pretty 'cause I pack some weird ass stuff when I travel--ALL LEGAL, I SWEAR!) But really. She's crazy cool and has a great online presence. (I tweeted my idea to her one day that we should invent a treadmill that's set up with a virtual surround screen with zombies chasing you. She thought it was a great idea :D)

Anywhoo, lets keep this short. Here's the deal. In celebration of the release of her latest novel, I'm giving away all three of her previously published books. Yep. You heard saw it here. No need to clean that wax out of your ears gunk out of your eyes. I'M GIVING AWAY ALL THREE OF HER PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED BOOKS!!!!

I actually bought these books to give away. I bought one copy of each for myself and additional copies, which I have been saving for when her next book was coming out. 'Cause I is cool like dat. :D But srsly, it's because I love her stories and her writing style so much and want to share the love with others who have not had an opportunity to read these books or wanted to own them but just haven't had the money to purchase them but would love to have them sitting on their book shelf because they're COURTNEY FREAKING SUMMERS' BOOKS!!! 

I'm going to make this contest easy. All you have to do is leave me a message in my comment section and then tweet this contest or blog about it or tell a friend about it. I'm not going to make you join my blog or my twitter account (though if you want to you're more than welcome to do so). I'm not even going to stalk you to see if you have tweeted or blogged about it. I'm going on good faith here, people. I'm going to trust you, my fellow human being, to do the honorable thing and help me spread the word about this contest. And don't be greedy now. I know how this works. You think, if I don't tell anyone less people will enter to win and I'll have a better chance of winning. *insert evil smiling emoticon* Uh, huh. Yup. Been there, done that, thought it. You are all my Obi Wan Kenobis.  I need your help!   

Don't forget to leave your email or a link to your blog or twitter  or some way I can contact you if you should be the winner. You have until Friday, June 14th at midnight to enter and I'm going to pick a winner using random.org. Unfortunately, I'm pretty broke at the moment so I will only be able to open this contest to people in Canada and the United States. Sorry :-(  

Good luck!!!

EVERYONE MUST READ THIS BOOK!

Hey guys! Sorry I've been gone for so long, but all my spare time has been dedicated to writing and reading, which leaves very little time for blogging. ☹

 BUT…

I had to come out of my secret cave to rant and rave about a book I've just finished. Okay, so it wasn't the physical form of the book. And no, it wasn't even an electronic version of the book. I experienced this book by audio (my first audio book ever) and I plan on purchasing a hard copy of it as soon as I can because I need to physically hold this book in my hands so I can hug it and caress it and have it on my book shelf forever and ever and EVER INTO ETERNITY.

"Tell me the name of the freaking book already!" you scream.

 Okay, okay.

The book I'm talking about is called Between Shades of Gray (please, PLEASE do not confuse this book with 50 Shades of Gray!!!! I'm still so mad that author chose a title that is so closely related to the master piece that is Between Shades of Gray).

The book is written by Ruta Sepetys and she is an absolute genius. Period. I have never been so touched and so moved by a book ever and when I said before that I experienced this book by audio, I specifically chose the word "experience" because that's what this book is. It is an experience like no other. BSoG made me feel and experience every emotion the human soul encompasses including some emotions I didn't even know existed! I laughed, I cried, I smiled so big my cheeks hurt. I was angry, I was appalled, I was educated and enlightened and there were moments where I literally thought I might throw up from the anguish and pain of what I was reading. The fact that it is based on facts from history (and a mostly hidden one at that) and the lives of real people and events these people went through, makes the story so incredibly important and that much more amazing and beautiful and ugly and heartfelt. Every person and their mother, brother, father, sister, cousin, aunt, uncle, grandparents, Mother from another, sister from a mister, and every friend and friend of a friend and their friends should read and experience this book.

 It. Is. Phenomenal.

 If you are not touched by this story and by the characters, then in the words of Hermione Granger, "You have the emotional range of a teaspoon." As soon as I get to a book store I will not only be buying one copy of this book, but two because I want to give one away. If I could afford it I would buy 50 copies to give away. Maybe one day when I sell one of my books ;-)

Lastly, I have to note that Emily Klein, the woman who did the reading for the audio version of this book, is AMAZING. Truly, truly, truly, AMAZING. She was a huge part of this experience for me and I'd like to thank her and congratulate her on the job she did with this reading. She gave this book true justice and her voice will forever be as important a part of this experience for me as was the story.

When you have time, check out Ruta Sepetys' website for Between Shades of Gray and watch the video. I fell more in love with her and this story after knowing all that she went through to write this amazing book.

Summary for Between Shades of Gray:

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously-and at great risk-documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives.Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.

Cover Love--My Heart Be Damned by Chanelle Gray

The summary from Goodreads:

If you're a Hunter, there are only three things you must know about the Damned. The Damned can't lie, can't live without a body, and can't leave you alone.

Amerie Carter has the blood of a Hunter, unfortunately. She is one of a rare line of women who, upon her sixteenth birthday, will come into extraordinary powers used to hunt the Damned; escaped souls from Hell who take up residence in human bodies. It's supposed to be her sweet sixteen, but Amerie has never dreaded a day more, and her worst fears are confirmed as the celebration turns tragic when her mother is killed.

Grief-stricken, Amerie vows to never hunt a day in her life. She's determined to hide behind normalcy, attending school, hanging out with her friends and working an after-school job at The Hut. All Amerie wants is to be left alone. But try telling the Damned that. The harder Amerie tries to ignore her powers, the more the Damned come looking for her.

When an attack leaves one of Amerie's friends in the hospital, and endangers the lives of her fellow students, she knows she has no choice: Hunt or Be Hunted. Thankfully, the gorgeous, secretive, and so-off-limits Marshall offers to train Amerie to take out her supernatural enemies. But training with Marshall means leading lying to her friends, her family, and confronting the mysterious circumstances surrounding her mother’s death.

Amerie soon discovers she’s not the only one with something to hide, Marshall's secrets might kill her before the Damned get the chance.

I love this cover! And I'm not just saying that because she's one of my good writing buddies. But as someone who knows how hard it is to make it in the writing industry and all you have to go through, seeing your first cover (or a friend's first cover) is so SOOOOOOO exciting. I love the feel of this cover. I love the model and the creepy fog with a girl in a gorgeous dress standing in a cemetery with a dagger in her hand. It's just made of awesome all around.

Most of all, I love seeing Chanelle's name on the cover! I'm incredibly excited for her! This is a BIG DEAL people! The book is set to release on July 15th and I for one cannot wait to have my very own copy of this book! And I'm not just saying that because she's my friend. I'm saying it because the story sounds awesome. The cover is awesome and it's totally my kind of story!

A LESSON LEARNED REGARDING EMAIL AND QUERYING...

I always thought the spam folder was the best thing ever created for email. I hate all those stupid emails that are obvious scams and have the potential to deliver a bug to my computer system. For a while, I would look through the folder, curious to see what was in there. But after a while, it was the same old stuff, sooooooooo....I started just hitting that little trash can button and deleting them without looking because it was filtering the bad stuff quite well.

Today, for some odd reason, I saw there were 2 emails in the Spam folder and decided to just take a look. And guess what? There was a response letter from an agent re: my query!!!!! W.T.F.??? Okay so it was a Rejection letter and you probably think, meh, could have done w/out seeing that one, but nooooooooo. I love to receive back a letter even if it is a form R because I like having some sort of closure with that agent to file away from my project being queried.

Obviously, my concern now is, what if I have deleted other letters? WHAT IF ONE OF THOSE LETTERS REQUESTED A PARTIAL OR FULL???? GAAAAAHHHHHHH! Such a horrible feeling.

So, my advice. If you are in the process of querying, check that spam folder before deleting and when an agent tells you that it may have accidentally gotten into their spam folder...THEY AINT LYIN'

Damn. :(

Lesson learned.

Carry on.

Melanie is MIA

Yes, I have been MIA for the last few weeks because I have been doing a ton of beta reading and working hard to finish up my own revisions based off of beta reader feedback. Well, I have FINALLY finished all revisions and edits to my novel, UCDs, and I am now on the Query Highway, riding it fast and hard.

I will be back soon and hopefully with some amazing news. A couple of crossed fingers would be cool if you can spare them. Oh, and maybe some crossed legs and crossed eyes, too. :D

Thanks!

Hugs to you all!