Review: Few are Chosen by Storm Grant

Format Read: ebook provided by the publisher
Number of Pages: 43 pages
Release Date: February 18, 2012
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Genre: Young Adult M/M Urban Fantasy
Formats Available: ebook
Purchasing Info: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Author’s Website | Publisher’s Website

Book Blurb:

Sparks fly between virgin teenage demon hunters when the Chosen One turns out to be the Chosen . . . Two?

Apprentice warrior Blake St. Blake is the Chosen One, raised by an ancient order to defend the world against evil. Well, maybe not the whole world, but at least his neighborhood in downtown Detroit. When a dreaded reflux demon is sighted in a local cemetery, Blake is sent off to his very first battle, armed with his sword, his super-senses, his black leather duster, and a few well-rehearsed one-liners.

But another Chosen One gets in Blake’s way—an apprentice wizard named Shadow. While the boys argue about who’s the more chosen of the two, the demon escapes.

Blake wants to be angry, but it turns out he and Shadow have a lot in common. Besides, Shadow’s pretty cute, and Blake can’t help but think that the wizard’s skills (and hands and lips and other bits) might make the perfect complement to his. Blake and Shadow are brave enough to challenge the reflux demon in a second battle, but will they have the courage to tell each other how they feel?

My Thoughts:

This was originally posted at Book Lovers Inc.

I read this right after I finished Jim Butcher’s latest entry in the Dresden Files, Cold Days. Blake, the apprentice swordsman, goes through the story wearing a black leather duster, because he thinks it’s what a cool “Chosen One” should be wearing. This is in spite of the fact that Harry Dresden does NOT fight with a sword, and that it’s way too hot in Detroit in the summer (or Harry’s Chicago for that matter) for a leather duster to be reasonable fighting gear.

The kid is so self-conscious about the duster. But I was laughing too hard at the demon. Really. Reflux demon! As in acid-reflux? (And yes, it is the acid-reflux demon. Or an acid-reflux demon. And it’s meant to be funny.

Poor Blake, he keeps trying to talk like the dialog in the Lord of the Rings movies, which he’s seen way too many times.

Then there’s the wizard apprentice, Shadow. Who unfortunately only saw the movie about halfway through, and named himself Shadowfax, not realizing that was Gandalf’s horse, and not the wizard himself. Oops.

Their relationship almost never recovers from Blake’s laughter.

But in between the geeky-nerdy pop-culture references, it’s easy to see why these two need each other. Only Blake is under the mistake impression that there’s only supposed to be one “Chosen One”. Shadow knows there are several. What they both are is orphans, raised by their “orders” to fight evil in the world.

Actually, that does sound kind of like Harry Dresden, doesn’t it? The difference is that the orders that found these kids are trying their best by them. And training them with kindness and decency.

Both Shadow and Blake are apprentices. They are also teenage boys. Neither of them wants to admit they need help fighting that reflux demon they aren’t actually supposed to fight.

Neither of them wants to admit that they are interested in the other one, period. Or that they don’t have a clue how to proceed, either with the demon, or with each other.

Figuring out how to become partners could either be fun, or a complete disaster. Or both.

Verdict: For a short story, there was a terrific amount of story packed in. The set up of the apprenticeships, the orders, the demon, how the boys got recruited, everything was all laid out quickly and surprisingly thoroughly.

I thought the author did a great job with the mentors understanding the psychology of the young men needing to get to the next step of their journey as “Chosen Ones”, and figuring out a way to move them forward without pushing them. Or by pushing them the opposite of the way they wanted, knowing it would make them go the way they really wanted.

All of the urban fantasy and pop culture references were fun, and funny. Harry’s duster, the Star Wars lightsaber, and Shadowfax. The story was a smile a minute.

The love story part of it was sweet. These two are both virgin heroes, so this was a beginning discovery, and the scene was just right. The comment about tighty-whiteys not being superhero underwear was hilarious!

I happily give Few are Chosen 4 laughing stars.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Hot Holiday Hop

The Hot Holiday Hop is organized by Romance at Random, sponsored by Random House

The prizes are

  • Grand Prize $25 Gift Certificate to a retailer of your choice!
  • 10 print copy winners of RELEASE ME, must be 18 or older!
  • 15 Net Galley Preview copies of RELEASE ME, must be 18 or older!

Here’s how to enter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Review: Cold Days by Jim Butcher

Format read: ebook purchased from Amazon
Formats available: Hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Dresden Files #14
Length: 528 pages
Publisher: Roc
Date Released: November 27, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

HARRY DRESDEN LIVES!!!

After being murdered by a mystery assailant, navigating his way through the realm between life and death, and being brought back to the mortal world, Harry realizes that maybe death wasn’t all that bad. Because he is no longer Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard.

He is now Harry Dresden, Winter Knight to Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness. After Harry had no choice but to swear his fealty, Mab wasn’t about to let something as petty as death steal away the prize she had sought for so long. And now, her word is his command, no matter what she wants him to do, no matter where she wants him to go, and no matter who she wants him to kill.

Guess which Mab wants first?

Of course, it won’t be an ordinary, everyday assassination. Mab wants her newest minion to pull off the impossible: kill an immortal. No problem there, right? And to make matters worse, there exists a growing threat to an unfathomable source of magic that could land Harry in the sort of trouble that will make death look like a holiday.

Beset by enemies new and old, Harry must gather his friends and allies, prevent the annihilation of countless innocents, and find a way out of his eternal subservience before his newfound powers claim the only thing he has left to call his own…

His soul.

At the beginning of Harry’s story, all the way back in Storm Front, Harry wasn’t all that much. He was a wizard-for-hire. A private investigator. And hanging on to his life and freedom by his fingernails, because the White Council was pretty damn sure that he was much too loose of a cannon.

Well, Harry has always been a loose cannon, but he’s acquired one hell of a lot more firepower. Some of it literally from hell. But he’s not small potatoes any longer.  Harry Dresden is one of the Great Powers, now, whether or not he remains the Winter Knight (that’s not a spoiler, that’s this reviewer speculating on Harry’s ultimate future).

Magic is often written of as “the will and the word”. In Cold Days, it’s about Harry’s will and Mab’s word. Mab tells Harry to kill an immortal; her daughter Maeve, the Winter Lady. While Harry is required, as the Winter Knight, to obey, Harry never meekly obeys. Ever.

Harry’s magic is all about mastering the force of his will. His will, no one else’s. And even though the mantle of the Winter Knight raises, often literally, every base instinct Harry, or any man, every had, he knows how to suppress those instincts. Even if it hurts.

No matter how tempted he might be to give in. Molly is very pretty, and very willing. But taking her is the first step to becoming a bastard like the last Winter Knight, and Harry will not give in.

Besides, Karrin is still there. Even if she has to come find him. And even if they are both afraid of the monsters that live inside them.

There are too many monsters, and too many games being played. The Winter Court has always been a place where things go down their natural cycle to die, but that is not the game being played now. Too many people, too many agencies, too many beings have changed their behavior all out of recognition because someone, or something, on the outside has changed the game.

And Harry has been made the Winter Knight to stop them. No matter what, or who it costs.

Escape Rating A+: Cold Days lived up to every scrap of shivery anticipation that I had invested in it. I lost myself in this story at every opportunity, no matter what insanity was going on around me, and there was plenty of insanity.

The stakes of Harry’s world have gotten so incredibly high, but it has happened so naturally, that it feels natural and not forced. It’s marvelous and awesome, in the original meaning of the word awesome, full of awe. Harry started out small-time, and now he consorts with gods and legends, and he has become a legend himself. Yet he’s still afraid to see his daughter again. He’s still the same guy inside. That’s why we love him, and that’s why we keep following his story.

I can’t wait for Harry’s next adventure. I’ll say this right now, I wonder how long before he finds a way out from under Mab. We’ll see.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Comics Review: Kevin & Kell by Bill Holbrook

Have you ever heard of Kevin & Kell? If not, please let me introduce you.

Kevin & Kell is about a very mixed marriage. Kevin Kindle is a rabbit, and he met his future wife, Kell Dewclaw, online. It wasn’t until after they finally worked up the courage to meet in person that they discovered that they really were from the opposite sides of the tracks.

When I said Kevin was a rabbit, I meant that he’s an actual rabbit. Possibly the size of Harvey in the movie, but a real rabbit. As in a salad-chomping prey animal. And Kell, the love of his life, is a wolf. Really, a wolf.

(Kevin and Kell are not were-animals. They are just intelligent animals. The ecology of this universe doesn’t bear thinking about. Work with me here. It’s worth it.)

But what they found in common, online, was that Kevin was a single dad raising his adopted daughter (a hedgehog!) and that Kell was a widow raising her son. Being single parents of teenagers gave them more in common than a silly little thing like the predator/prey divide that would normally keep them apart.

They’ve been going strong since 1995. I have a feeling that somewhere back there, there’s a relationship in the real world that someone said didn’t have a chance. I bet it’s still going strong, too.

Kevin & Kell, the comic strip, comments on real life, by looking through a slightly wacky lens. Kevin and Kell live a typical suburban life, and yet, not. I love them.

I’d never have met them if I hadn’t moved to Atlanta. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the only newspaper that prints the strip. It’s available online, but this is Bill Holbrook’s hometown paper, so they print it. His other two strips, On the Fastrack and Safe Havens, are syndicated in multiple papers.

Since we’re leaving Atlanta, I was going to miss Kevin & Kell over my morning cereal. I know it’s available online, but I’m terrible about checking for comics that way. All is not lost. There’s a Kevin & Kell app for my iPad. Hopefully the mapping will be better than Apple maps.

Echoing Walls

The rooms echo. It’s always a surprise how much the furniture dampens the noise we make. And how quickly a team of movers can ship it all away.

Another adventure.

Our stuff is somewhere down the road. The driver said his next stop is Boise. We’ll see him again next week. Hopefully Wednesday. Probably Thursday. We’re beat.

The car is inside the truck with our furniture. Watching them drive it inside the semi was surprisingly cool. It’s also amazing how small a percentage of our stuff the car makes up, at least by volume. Maybe not by weight. Maybe compared to the books, I don’t want to know.

The cats are not happy. It’s like sharing a hotel room with three very leaky teakettles. Everyone hisses. Steam explodes at inopportune moments.

Our current hotel room has a chair. Everyone keeps trying to hide inside the chair. The chair will not accommodate all three cats at once. Once in a while, the feline version of World War III breaks out. Ten minutes later, it’s nap time again. Until the next battle.

The bed, thank goodness, is a platform bed. For once, they are not hiding under the bed. Getting them all to the vet for their health certificates (we’re flying them to Seattle) was enough fun without that.

Jim Butcher’s Cold Days is awesome. I never thought I’d want to read on my iPhone. I was wrong. On weeks like this, having something to read in my back pocket is a life-saver.

 

Review: Spectra by Joanne Elder

Format read: Trade Paperback provided by the author
Formats available: Trade Paperback, ebook
Genre: Science Fiction
Series: Spectra #1
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: MuseItUp Publishing
Date Released: June 27, 2011
Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Light years away from Earth a mining exploration crew makes an amazing discovery…intelligent life comprised entirely of energy. This living energy is so pure and unique, it could provide proof of the existence of the human soul. Those exposed to the entities gain unimaginable cognitive abilities but at a terrible cost.A rogue scientific group will do anything to maintain their mind-enhancing gifts, even if it leads to the destruction of the peaceful beings. Only two people stand in their way, and they will sacrifice everything to end the slaughter.Could the quest for the secrets of life lead to the creation of true evil; one so dark it threatens to tear down the walls of sanity and redefine our very existence?

On Star Trek, alien life almost always looked pretty much like us–bipedal, humanoid, and pretty generally human-shaped as well. There were occasional variations, like blue skin and antennae (remember the Andorians?) but the alien races were limited to the human actors.

One notable exception was the Next Gen episode “Home Soil“, where the aliens discovered by the terraformers turn out to be silicon-crystal based. They are tiny beings, but they are physical. And the proposed terraforming of their planet will kill them.

I raise this example because it bears some similarities to the story in Joanne Elder’s Spectra, but Elder has added multiple layers of complexity to her tale. On Spectra, the planet, a mining exploration group discovers a planet rich in minerals, and something extra–a life form that is pure energy.

It is also purely several other things: purely good, purely curious, and purely able to enhance the intellectual capabilities of the humans who come into contact with it. There’s only one problem. As the energy forms are absorbed by the humans, they die. Our enhancement comes at a great price to the tiny energy life forms. Hundreds, thousands of them die to enhance one human. And the process needs to be repeated or the human fades back to what they were. It’s somewhat addictive to go from being average to being DaVinci. Or Einstein.

Once their curiosity is sated about the physical beings who have invaded their world, they beg the humans to leave. Of the six people in the mining group, four agree to leave and declare the planet off-limits, two disagree but seemingly bow to the will of the group.

Then people start dying. Because those two who disagreed, well, one of them, Ivan, finally found himself smarter than everyone else for the first time in his life, and he just wasn’t willing to let that feeling go. So he went back to Spectra, and brought back some of those aliens. Just to augment himself and a few select friends. And get research grants. And get rich.

And kill anyone who might stand in his way. Including the four people who said no.

But as Ivan got smarter, his plans and plots got more convoluted. Back to Star Trek, as Scotty famously said, “the more they over-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.” Especially since those entities are very, very unhappy about the whole situation, and even without bodies, have ways of making their displeasure felt.

Escape Rating B+: There’s a lot going on in Spectra, and all of it is fascinating. The discovery of the entities, and what they do to get themselves freed makes for one cool story. As part of the plot to keep the whole situation with the entities under wraps, Ivan’s machinations to get one of his colleagues from that mining expedition framed for murdering another, and how that all finally goes to smash makes for an exciting and harrowing prison break story.

There is, as is often the case in science fiction, an underlying ethical question. What would you do in the same situation? The scientific breakthroughs enabled by exposure to the entities appear to be astounding. But the entities die from the exposure. Is it worth it? This is not a question of whether the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but whether the needs of this many over here outweigh the needs of that many over there?

When we meet our first aliens, how will we decide?

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Buzzard Table by Margaret Maron

Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: Hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genre: Mystery
Series: Deborah Knott #18
Length: 320 pages
Publisher: Grand Central
Date Released: November 20, 2012
Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Judge Deborah Knott and her husband, Sheriff’s Deputy Dwight Bryant, are back home in Colleton County amid family and old friends. But the winter winds have blown in several new faces as well. Lt. Sigrid Harald and her mother, Anne, a well-known photographer, are down from New York to visit Mrs. Lattimore, Anne’s dying mother. When the group gathers for dinner at Mrs. Lattimore’s Victorian home, they meet the enigmatic Martin Crawford, an ornithologist researching a book on Southern vultures. He’s also Mrs. Lattimore’s long-lost nephew. With her health in decline, Mrs. Lattimore wants to make amends with her family-a desire Deborah can understand, as she, too, works to strengthen her relationship with her young stepson, Cal.

Anne is charmed by her mysterious cousin, but she cannot shake the feeling that there is something familiar about Martin . . . something he doesn’t want her or anyone else to discover. When a string of suspicious murders sets Colleton County on edge, Deborah, Dwight, and Sigrid once again work together to catch a killer, uncovering long-buried family secrets along the way.

A visit with Judge Deborah Knott is my Thanksgiving treat every year, although usually not with buzzards looking over my shoulder. Or over Deborah’s shoulder. Last year we were in New York for Three-Day Town and it was fabulous (see review), this year Deborah is back home in North Carolina.

Margaret Maron’s Deborah Knott series is an excellent mystery series, usually set in Colleton County North Carolina, involving the crime-solving skills of Ms. Knott, who now sits on the county bench as a judge. In her first outing, Bootlegger’s Daughter, Deborah was just a lawyer, and she was, and is, that bootlegger’s daughter. One of her fears is that someday her daddy will appear before her in court, but it’s not likely. Her daddy is in his 80’s, and doesn’t seem to be operating a still any longer.

But everyone knows that he used to. Everyone knows everyone’s business in rural North Carolina. Deborah knows everyone’s business, too. If they don’t appear in her courtroom, her husband is second-in-command in the county sheriff’s department. She hears about most crimes, sooner or later.

The events in The Buzzard Table strike much closer to home for Deborah. Her cousin, Lt. Sigrid Harald, is down from New York, along with Sigrid’s mother Anne Harald, because Anne’s mother is one of the grand old ladies of Colleton County, and she is dying of cancer.

Another family member is visiting, a long-lost cousin. Martin Crawford is staying on the estate, studying Southern vultures. In other words, Martin is an ornithologist who studies buzzards. He’s also a photojournalist.

So is Anne Harald. Anne is an award-winning photojournalist, and there is something about Martin Crawford that seems familiar…she just can’t place where she’s met him before in a life that has been full of travel, chance-met people and exotic places.

But Sigrid Harald, skeptical New York cop that she is, is suspicious. She knows that Martin Crawford is lying about something.

Then people start dying, and Martin’s excuses and alibis seem just a shade too contrived. Especially when the buzzards give him away.

Escape Rating B+: The reasons behind the murders turned out to be chilling, but I don’t want to give the game away.

The build-up to finding out what was going on was a bit slower than is usual for this series. I think that may be because neither Deborah nor Sigrid was in actual danger this time. While that’s more realistic, it does drop the suspense factor down just a bit.

I definitely enjoyed seeing the development of Deborah’s relationship with her stepson Cal. That ended the story on a high note.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 11-25-12

I feel a certain amount of nostalgia as I write this Sunday Post. This will be my last Sunday Post posted from Atlanta. Next Sunday I’ll be in Seattle. Our stuff will be somewhere in the middle, but I’ll be on the west coast again. I’m looking forward to it.

My cats, probably not so much. We’re flying them again. It’s about five hours on a plane vs. five days in a car. There just aren’t enough tranquilizers in the world for that trip, no matter who the tranqs get administered to.

But this past week has been anything but tranquil. It was Thanksgiving week here in the U.S. And speaking of thankfulness, there are a couple of thankful type-winners announcements!

Kelsey Summer won the Black Friday Blog Hop and Erin Fender won the copy of Ice Cold by Cherry Adair. Congratulations winners!

One specific Thanksgiving note. I spent Thanksgiving in Little Rock, Arkansas with Galen’s sister and her partner. Because we were in Little Rock, I was able to meet up with Jo Jones, the blogger behind the Mixed Book Bag. Jo was in Little Rock visiting her family. Us book bloggers sure do get around!

 

Reading Reality got around last week, too.  Here’s what happened:

A Labor of Love: Picking the Best Ebook Romances of 2012
B- Review: Promise Me by Tara Fox Hall
C+ Review: Broken Promise by Tara Fox Hall
Guest Post: Tara Fox Hall on the Love of Books
B+ Review: Whip Smart by Kit Brennan
Fall In Love Blog Hop
Black Friday Blog Hop
Stacking the Shelves (23)

 

 

 

 

The Fall in Love Blog Hop is still open! The giveaway here at Reading Reality is the winner’s choice of any one book in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, under $10, print or ebook, to any country that Book Depository will ship. I love Harry Dresden, and I want everyone else to fall in love with the poor unlucky wizard too.

So what will be happening this week? I confess, I’m going to be spending a lot of this week moving. There will be pain, and anguish. And three cats locked in the spare bathroom.

On Tuesday, I’ll be reviewing Spectra by Joanne Elder. This book is very cool. It’s science fiction. Not science fiction romance, at least not so far, but science fiction. At the heart is an ethical dilemma. What if you discovered an alien race that were spirit only, no bodies? And what if exposure to them made you smarter, but killed them? And no one would know what you were doing, but you became really, really brilliant? But really evil. I’ve just gotten to the good bits.

And speaking of Harry Dresden…well, I was, just a few paragraphs ago. The latest book in the Dresden Files is coming out on Tuesday. Cold Days, just in time for winter. I’ve already pre-ordered my copy. As a treat to myself, in the midst of all this drama, I will read it, probably immediately, and review. I can’t wait.

What’s exciting in your world this week?

Stacking the Shelves (23)

First lesson to be learned here is not to let the Stacking the Shelves post go three weeks without posting. It gets positively ginormous.

Second lesson to be learned, is that if you ask your programmer husband to create the cover grid, instead of creating the grid, he will start creating an entirely new utility to create cover grids. That’s still a work in progress, but the idea definitely has merit. Gimp was better than MS Paint, but the bigger the cover pile, the more it made me crazy. And since they are usually almost all, or like this week, absolutely all, ebooks, photographing the books is not practical. I love my iPad, but it’s just not that photogenic. Especially repeatedly.

Third thing, not a lesson, one of my favorite all-time series is finally available in ebook. Open Road has released the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries by Dorothy L. Sayers in ebook in the U.S. If you love mystery, these are absolutely marvelous.

What’s overflowing your shelves this post-Thanksgiving weekend?

For Review:
The Ambassador’s Daughter by Pam Jenoff
Big Sky River by Linda Lael Miller
The Boy in the Snow (Edie Kiglatuk #2) by M. J. McGrath
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Clouds of Witness (Lord Peter Wimsey #2) by Dorothy L. Sayers
A Conspiracy of Alchemists (Chronicles of Light and Shadow) by Liesel Schwarz
Devil in the Making (Devilish Vignettes #1) by Victoria Vane
Dragon Age: Those Who Speak by David Gaider
Enchanted Ever After (Mystic Circle #3) by Robin D. Owens
Forever a Lord (The Rumor #3) by Delilah Marville
A Galactic Holiday by Anna Hackett, Stacy Gail and Sasha Summers
Hammer of Angels (Shadowstorm #2) by G.T. Almasi
Heart of Atlantis (Warriors of Poseidon #8) by Alyssa Day
The Journey (Northwest Passage #2) by John A. Heldt
A Legacy of Stars by Danielle Ackley-McPhail
The League of Illusion: Legacy by Vivi Anna
Like Hearts Enchanted edited by Kathleen Tudor and Cecilia Tan
Muscle for Hire by Lexxie Couper
Naughty & Nice by Ruthie Knox, Molly O’Keefe & Stefanie Sloane
The Night of the Swarm (Chathrand Voyages #4) by Robert V.S. Redick
Perfect Betrayal (Double Helix #2) by Jade Kerrion
Perfect Weapon (Double Helix #3) by Jade Kerrion
Perfection Unleashed (Double Helix #1) by Jade Kerrion
Red Hot Holiday by Anne Calhoun, K.A. Mitchell, Leah Braemel
The River of Shadows (Chathrand Voyages #3) by Robert V.S. Redick
Romancing the Holiday by Jaci Burton, HelenKay Dimon, Christi Barth
The Ruling Sea (Chathrand Voyages #2) by Robert V.S. Redick
Smoke and Mirrors (The Gifted #1) by Marie Treanor
Tangled Web (Dezian Empire #1) by Christa McHugh
TekWar (TekWar #1) by William Shatner
Wait Until Dark (The Night Stalkers #3) by M.L. Buchman
The Water Witch (Fairwick Chronicles #2) by Juliet Dark

Purchased:
Beauty and the Bounty Hunter (Once Upon a Time in the West #1) by Lori Austin
Her Sky Cowboy (The Glorious Victorious Darcys #1) by Beth Ciotta
Interface (The Naravan Chronicles #3) by Isabo Kelly
The Promise of Kierna’Rhoan (The Naravan Chronicles #1) by Isabo Kelly
The Secret of Narava (The Naravan Chronicles #2) by Isabo Kelly
The Silvered by Tanya Huff
Vanquished (Hell Kat #1) by Vivi Anna (free)

Black Friday Blog Hop

What does Black Friday mean to you? Traditionally, it’s the first day of the Christmas Holiday season. It also used to represent the day that a lot of retailers finally turned a profit for the year, meaning that their account books turned from “red ink” to “black”.

As a public librarian, for me it’s usually meant one of the busiest days of the year. Sounds funny, doesn’t it. People don’t shop at the library. But for students, it’s the last big weekend before end of semester, and a lot of students have big papers or projects to finish. College students are home for the weekend, and turn up at their local library to study.

Even with the internet, people still come in for help. And folks who are off work for the long weekend come in looking for good books to read. Libraries have lots of those. Patrons who want ebooks want recommendations.

The more things change, the more things remain the same.

So this is my last year with the holiday weekend off. I start my new job in early December. Next Black Friday, I’ll be working. It’s all good.

What does Black Friday mean to you? Work? Shopping? Bargain-hunting? Or just a long relaxing weekend in a turkey-induced coma? Participating in the Black Friday Blog Hop?

Speaking of the Black Friday Blog Hop

We have THREE grand prizes. You as a reader can go to EACH blog and comment with your email address and be entered to win. Yep, you can enter over 200 times! As for MY prize, I’m giving away a $10 Amazon Gift Card, to help with all that Holiday shopping you still have to do. Follow the Rafflecopter to enter.

Now what are those prizes?
1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet
2nd Grand Prize: A $75 Amazon or B&N Gift Card
3rd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack that contains paperbacks, ebooks, 50+ bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more!


To Find the other 200+ Authors & Bloggers Click HERE!


a Rafflecopter giveaway