Rain Drops on Roses Giveaway Hop

Welcome to the Rain Drops on Roses Giveaway Hop, hosted by Mama the Fox and Mom Does Reviews!

There certainly have been raindrops this week here in Atlanta, but there aren’t any roses – at least not yet – for them to fall on. Nor is that remotely the idea that comes to mind from the name of this hop.

That would be the song “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music. You know the song. It’s the one that begins “Rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens…” Come to think of it, there may not be raindrops on roses yet, but there are ALWAYS whiskers on kittens around this house – even if those kittens are now full-grown and 15 pounds each.

And I’ve now passed my earworm to you in the hopes that I’ve shortened the duration that I will have to suffer with it. Not suffer, exactly, because it’s always been one of my favorite songs. But too much of a good thing is not always wonderful, and that’s certainly true with even the loveliest of earworms.

Hopefully, you won’t feel like you are suffering in vain, as this particular persistent melody is, after all, the theme of a giveaway hop. As per usual, I’m giving away the usual Reading Reality hop prize of the winner’s choice of a $10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 in books. All you have to do is tell us what one of YOUR favorite things might be!

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For more of everyone’s favorite things – PRIZES – be sure to visit the other stops on this hop!

MamatheFoxMom Does Reviews, and all participating blogs are not held responsible for sponsors who fail to fulfill their prize obligations.

Stacking the Shelves (647) + Giveaway

This particular Stacking the Shelves post has a lot of stuff stacked on its shelves today. Because today is not only my birthday, it’s also the final day in this year’s Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week, making this a hobbit birthday in that I give presents instead receiving them. As part of my birthday, I’ve also set up a Birthday Fundraiser on Facebook to Planned Pethood because I support their cause and especially because they are the place that checked out my dear, departed Lucifer T. Cat before he came to join our clowder.

It’s also First Contact Day in the Star Trek Universe, a bit of trivia that I adore because I’ve been a Star Trek fan for 60 YEARS now. I watched the original series with my dad as it was being broadcast and damn that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away and yes I’m mixing my metaphors something terrible.

The prettiest covers in this week’s stack look like The Backwater, The Knight and the Moth and Maya & Natasha. The two that I’m most looking forward to are The In-Between Bookstore and A Study in Black Brew. What looks good in your stack this week?

 

For Review:
The Backwater by Vikki Wakefield
Blob by Maggie Su
Buried Road by Katie Tallo
The Capital of Dreams by Heather O’Neill
The Enigma Girl by Henry Porter
An Ethical Guide to Murder by Jenny Morris
Feeders by Matt Serafini
Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd
The Girls of Good Fortune by Kristina McMorris
Havoc by Christopher Bollen
Hush Little Fire by Judith Newcomb Stiles
The In-Between Bookstore by Edward Underhill
The Knight and the Moth (Stonewater Kingdom #1) by Rachel Gillig
The Lamb by Lucy Rose
Let Us March On by Shara Moon
Maya & Natasha by Elyse Durham
The Oligarch’s Daughter by Joseph Finder
Our Last Wild Days by Anna Bailey
People of Means by Nancy Johnson
Rebel in the Deep (Crimson Sails #3) by Katee Robert
The Safari by Jaclyn Goldis
The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
A Study in Black Brew by Marie Howalt
Those Opulent Days by Jacquie Pham


If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

Please link your STS post in the linky below:


~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Welcome to the final giveaway of this year’s Blogo-Birthday Celebration! Today is my birthday, and it won’t be complete unless I get to give away just one more prize. So tell us what your favorite book has been so far this year for one more chance at one of Reading Reality’s usual prizes, the winner’s choice of a $10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 in Books.

Before you go, please take a moment to check out the rest of this week’s giveaways and enter any that you missed! And THANKS for coming by to celebrate!

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Blogo-Birthday Early Birthday Celebration and #Giveaway!

Today is actually the actual 14th blogoversary for Reading Reality. Tomorrow is my birthday. Having the actual dates partially fall over the weekend has made things weird as far as posting the Celebration Week is concerned. (Next year will be crazier as both days are over a weekend. The celebration will be AFTER.

Nevertheless, today is a day worth celebrating here at Chez Reading Reality as the whole thing began on April 4, 2011 and is still growing strong even though blogs are not nearly the big noise that they used to be. I’m still having a blast with this thing, so we’re still here – and plan to be for the foreseeable future.

Which leads to tomorrow’s birthday. I’ll be 68, something that I’m still having a hard time believing – and occasionally even dealing with. We were supposed to have FLYING CARS by now, and space travel for tourists was supposed to have been an actual thing. Maybe in my next life – or something like that.

In this life, however, I have books and cats. At Reading Reality, we normally talk about the books. Except for the Sunday Post, when one of the cats gets to be the Cat of the Week for the week. Not all cats – and dogs – are as lucky as our cats have been, meaning that they were rescued from whatever unfortunate circumstances they happened to be in and have found a forever home with us. To help more cats as well as dogs and other animals – because Hecate would really prefer to be an only child and we’ve already ruined that for her and enough is more than enough from her perspective – I’m doing a birthday fundraiser on Facebook for Planned Pethood, an organization which provides low-cost spay and neuter services AND wellness care for pets so that they can stay with their people in their forever homes, as well as providing Trap-Neuter-Release traps to help curb the feral population. I’ve already donated, and I hope you’ll see it in your heart to chip in a bit as well.

This is a year when many of us are probably looking for a bit of escape from a reality that just keeps on biting – and that’s something that books are excellent at. Which is why I’ve been giving some away this week.

To make your temporary escape that best that it can possibly be, today, for the PENULTIMATE giveaway of this 14th Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week, I’m giving away the winner’s choice of one of my favorite books this year – so far – to one lucky commenter on this post. As is often the case with me and lists, it’s going to be a bit loosey-goosey in that a couple/three truly excellent books that I’ve already finished come out in the next couple of months, and they are included in this list. AND, several of the books on this list are second or later books in series, because that’s the way my escapes are rolling these days.

Also my escapes this year so far have run very much straight into SF and Fantasy, and that may not be where your escapes trend. So if I’ve missed your favorite genre and there’s a book you’re dying to read, I’d be happy to help you escape to the world of your choice by sending you that book instead of one of mine (up to $25 US).

The Adventures of Mary Darling by Pat Murphy
Bonded in Death by J.D. Robb
Dead in the Frame by Stephen Spotswood
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
Direct Descendant by Tanya Huff
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill
Heir of Light by Michelle Sagara
Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow
The Railway Conspiracy by John Shen Yen Nee and SJ Rozan
Remember When by Mary Balogh
The Silverblood Promise by James Logan
Six Wild Crowns by Holly Race
Swordheart by T. Kingfisher
Symbiote by Michael Nayak
Tea You At the Altar by Rebecca Thorne
The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison
Twice as Dead by Harry Turtledove

Just let me know in the rafflecopter what book you’d most like to have your very own copy of, from my list or yours, in whatever format suits you best. Someone is going to get very lucky, at least reading-wise!

Next year – OMG it’s wild to be talking about NEXT year when this year’s Celebration isn’t ending until tomorrow – the Celebration will take place the week of April 4-10. Come one, come all, and be sure to come back over the year between to see what fabulous books and fantastic giveaways happen in all the months between now and then!

 

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A- #BookReview: The Three Locks by Bonnie MacBird + Giveaway!

A- #BookReview: The Three Locks by Bonnie MacBird + Giveaway!The Three Locks (Sherlock Holmes Adventure #4) by Bonnie MacBird
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: Sherlock Holmes Adventure #4
Pages: 418
Published by Collins Crime Club, HarperCollins on April 13, 2021
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

A heatwave melts London as Holmes and Watson are called to action in this new Sherlock Holmes adventure by Bonnie MacBird, author of "one of the best Sherlock Holmes novels of recent memory." In the West End, a renowned Italian escape artist dies spectacularly on stage during a performance – immolated in a gleaming copper cauldron of his wife's design. In Cambridge, the runaway daughter of a famous don is found drowned, her long blonde hair tangled in the Jesus Lock on the River Cam. And in Baker Street, a mysterious locksmith exacts an unusual price to open a small silver box sent to Watson. From the glow of London's theatre district to the buzzing Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge where physicists explore the edges of the new science of electricity, Holmes and Watson race between the two cities to solve the murders, encountering prevaricating prestidigitators, philandering physicists and murderous mentalists, all the while unlocking secrets which may be best left undisclosed. And one, in particular, is very close to home.

My Review:

I lost count of the total number of locks in this story early on, but I’m absolutely certain there were considerably more than three such items, particularly as more than one escape artist festooned himself with several at a time. Including Sherlock Holmes.

But the first lock in this story is certainly the most poignant, not because it’s a trick lock – although it absolutely is – but because the key to it is locked in Dr. John Watson’s mind or memory. The fancy, filigreed, metal box arrives as a very late delivery from Watson’s equally late mother. The woman is 20 years dead, the box was supposed to have been delivered 10 years earlier, and Watson isn’t certain how he feels about what might be inside other than frustrated as it was not accompanied by its key and more than one locksmith has already thrown up their hands at the thing.

As this story opens, Watson is likewise frustrated with, or certainly in even less charity than usual, with Holmes’ rather high-handed treatment of him as well as his incessant showing-off of his gifts of observation by both observing and remarking upon things that Watson would rather not hear about. Such as the fact that Watson is frequently short in the pocket because he gambles more than he can afford to lose. And that perhaps he’s picked up a pound or three of excess avoirdupois that he can’t afford to gain.

No one enjoys being reminded of their own shortcomings – particularly when that reminder comes from someone who can’t seem to resist crowing about it more than a bit even as they refuse to acknowledge their own.

The cases that find Holmes and Watson as they are somewhat on the outs with each other present the pair with plenty of opportunities to disagree while there are several rather puzzling games afoot.

They are called to Cambridge by a nervous young clergyman who fears for the life of one of his parishioners. That said parishioner is young, beautiful and wealthy, and that she is dangling her possible affections in the path of not one or two but THREE young men – including the clergyman – makes this seem like the sort of melodrama that Holmes usually steers far away from.

They are also visited by a dynamic and vibrant woman of the stage – not the theatre stage but the magical stage. Madame Ilaria Borelli sees herself as an angel who takes promising stage magicians on as projects, provides them with career-making trick devices and effects – and then leaves them behind when they start believing that their new-found success is all their own doing. Her motives for calling on Holmes are obscured – as if by the smoke and mirrors of her profession – but he can’t resist this mystery any more than he can the conundrum in Cambridge.

That these two parallel mysteries, both involving provocative women who seem to lie like they breathe, and both involving locks of vastly different types, coalesce into one deadly mess is just what we expect from this pair. Two of the three locks in this case turn out to be deadly. But one heals a bit of Watson’s long-held heartbreak and guilt. All of which seems fitting for Holmes and Watson, as they put the lock on two murders and solve one of the great locked puzzles of Watson’s life.

Escape Rating A-: When I began reading this series back in November, that first book, Art in the Blood, had been buried deeply in the virtually towering TBR pile for nearly a decade. I was looking for a comfort read. As I always find Sherlock Holmes stories comforting, and I’d just finished something Holmes-like and was in search of yet more comfort, I remembered this series and as the saying goes, “Bob’s your uncle”. That I have now finished this Sherlock Holmes Adventure series – at least until the next book appears – in just six months says something about how much I’ve enjoyed the whole thing. Which I absolutely have.

Part of the fun of this series is that the portrayals of these well-known characters owe every bit as much to the screen portrayals of Holmes and Watson over the past 40 or so years (since Jeremy Brett on Masterpiece Theatre) as they do to the original canon. Many readers have claimed that this particular version owes more to the Robert Downey Jr/Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movies than it does any other. Certainly, Watson and Holmes’ byplay in this particular entry in this particular series feels like it’s more from those movies than some of the other variations as they are more impatient with each other than is usually seen.

But what makes this particular series different from the others is the way that this author dives a bit more into their respective pasts. While the lock that opens this story is a piece of Watson’s past that we haven’t seen before, the overall series shows us a Holmes who is and has always been aware that he is a bit different from the norms of his time – and not just because he’s a genius. And that awareness gives him a sympathy with others who are similarly affected that we definitely see in this story.

Both Ilaria Borelli and Odelia Wyndham are women who refuse to fit into the boxes that Victorian society would imprison them in – and that’s why Holmes takes up their cases. He is particularly sympathetic to Odelia Wyndham, a bird in a gilded cage trying to break free by whatever means are available to her – and he fears from the very beginning that her thrashing within that cage is going to get her killed. Which it does, ensnared in Jesus Lock on the River Cam.

These are both the types of cases that the canon Holmes wouldn’t have touched. That he does here gives the reader a glimpse into the mind of a man who refuses to admit that he’s being driven by his heart and it adds new dimensions to a character we thought we knew.

If you like twisty mysteries, if you enjoy Sherlock Holmes stories, or if you’re looking for a new take on something familiar, this Sherlock Holmes Adventure series is delightful. So delightful, in fact, that I’m a bit sad that I’m caught up because now I’ll have to wait and see whether or not it continues with my fingers crossed in hope.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

I’ve read through the (so far) six books in the Sherlock Holmes Adventure series by Bonnie MacBird in just six months because they feature fresh interpretations of characters that I know and love, they are marvelous and absorbing historical mysteries, and they ably filled my need for comfort reads at a time when such have been needed more than ever. I’ve had a grand time slipping into this world with these characters, and I fully confess I’m more than a bit sad that I don’t have any left until the much hoped for next book in the series arrives.

So I’m sharing my love of this series with all of you, in the hopes that making more readers for it will bring the next book faster. At the very least, I promise a good reading time – especially for the winner of today’s giveaway. On this the FIFTH day of this year’s celebration, I’m giving away the winner’s choice of ANY book in the Sherlock Holmes Adventure series by Bonnie MacBird in any format, up to $25(US) which should be enough to get even the latest book, The Serpent Under, if you’re already caught up.

Good luck with today’s giveaway, don’t forget to check out the previous days’ giveaways and remember that there’s still more to come!

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A+ #BookReview: Direct Descendant by Tanya Huff + Giveaway!

A+ #BookReview: Direct Descendant by Tanya Huff + Giveaway!Direct Descendant by Tanya Huff
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy fantasy, cozy horror, Dark Fantasy, fantasy, fantasy romance, horror
Pages: 336
Published by DAW on April 1, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

This cozy horror novel set in modern-day Toronto includes phenomenal characters, fantastic writing, and a queer romance—the perfect balance of dark and delightful
This stand-alone novel from the bestselling author of the Peacekeeper novels mixes the creepy with the charming for plenty of snarky, queer fun—for fans of T. Kingfisher, Grady Hendrix, and Darcy Coates

Generations ago, the founders of the idyllic town of Lake Argen made a deal with a dark force. In exchange for their service, the town will stay prosperous and successful, and keep outsiders out. And for generations, it’s worked out great. Until a visitor goes missing, and his wealthy family sends a private investigator to find him, and everything abruptly goes sideways.
Now, Cassidy Prewitt, town baker and part-time servant of the dark force (it’s a family business) has to contend with a rising army of darkness, a very frustrated town, and a very cute PI who she might just be falling for…and who might just be falling for her. And if they can survive their own home-grown apocalypse, they might even just find happiness together.
Queer, cozy, and with a touch of eldritch horror mixed in just for fun, this is a charming love story about a small-town baker, a quick-witted PI, and, yes, an ancient evil.

My Review:

Lake Argen is NOT Toronto – in spite of what the blurb says. In fact, that’s kind of the point of the place, that it is DEFINITELY NOT Toronto. Because what happens there, and how it happens, and why it happens, wouldn’t be remotely possible in a big city like Toronto.

So that’s precisely where Lake Argen is – remote from Toronto – or pretty much anywhere else. It’s a five and a half hour drive north of Toronto – not accounting for Toronto or Sudbury traffic along the way. Lake Argen is tiny and remote and near enough to Timmins, Ontario that it’s easy to guess where it would be on any map.

But of course, real maps, and real mapping, and pretty much anything of the outside world tend to ignore Lake Argen. Because that’s exactly the way that the people and the creatures in and around Lake Argen, the lake and the town and the silver mine that keeps them both going, want it to be and make sure it stays.

There’s something there that makes certain that anyone who DOES manage to find Lake Argen forgets the place and anything that happened there the moment they leave. Which is where the story begins, as a pretentious little rich boy has managed to overcome all of the town’s protections to sacrifice himself at one of the town’s sacred spots at dawn on the Summer Solstice. The body – or at least the locals presume it’s a body – has been whisked away by the sacrifice, into The Dark. Which is a real thing and not just a euphemism for disappearing a body. Travis Brayden has been sucked into elsewhere – and only Cassidy Prewitt is as worried about that as everyone should have been about exactly what that might mean.

In the near term it’s going to bring out the Ontario Provincial Police, because pretentious rich dudes have equally pretentious rich families who are going to demand to know what happened to their spoiled scions. The police can be persuaded – read that as magically induced – to believe that the idiot got eaten by a bear.

It happens. It really does. Maybe not quite as often as people think it does, but it does. It’s plausible enough to close the case file for the cops. It’s even happened before near Lake Argen, so it works all the better for being an established possibility.

But families down in Toronto can’t be charmed the way that the OPP visiting Lake Argen can. Brayden’s grandmother wants answers. So she hires, not a PI as the blurb says, but a currently unemployed teacher who needs the money badly enough to not question the dubious job she’s been given.

To go to Lake Argen, poke around for a week, and come back with what she’s learned so she can give the poor, dear, boy’s old granny some closure.

And if you believe that I have a Bigfoot to sell you. Not literally, not even in Lake Argen. But there’s certainly something behind the town’s fascinating history, near-complete isolation and surprising prosperity. Something that the town is determined to keep from any potential incomers until they’ve earned the town’s trust.

Which Melanie Solvich really shouldn’t, but somehow does anyway in spite of the shadiness of her mission. Or at least the trust of Cassidy Prewitt, to her confusion, delight and heartbreak.

Which is when the town of Lake Argen reveals its true colors, and things get really, really interesting – and very, very dark indeed.

Escape Rating A+: Direct Descendant was everything I hoped for from this author, which is what got me here in the first place.

It didn’t matter that this is being marketed as horror. I didn’t even notice when I picked it up. All I cared about was the author. I’ve loved so many of the stories she’s written, including but absolutely not limited to the Vicki Nelson/Blood Price/Tony Foster series and especially the Confederation/Valor/Peacekeeper  series.

I was expecting this to be more Blood Price, at least in the sense that I was expecting urban fantasy – and that’s actually close to what I got. (Confederation/Valor/Peacekeeper is SF and the cover of this book was enough to tell me we weren’t going to go there. Not that I’d mind, you understand, not at all, if the author did go back there because that series was AWESOME.)

Direct Descendant turned out to be awesome as well, just not in the same way. Which is even better.

This is one of those stories that is best described through the book blender – and it’s going to take a big blender to fit everything in order for this to be what comes out. The blurb is right about T. Kingfisher, Grady Hendrix, and Darcy Coates being part of the mix, but I’d personally also throw in Jennifer Thorne’s Lute, Alix E. Harrow’s Starling House, Anne Bishop’s World of the Others – because The Dark is certainly Other with a capital O – along with Hazel Beck’s Witchlore and even a touch of Annelise Ryan’s Monster Hunter Mysteries. (If you’re looking for readalikes, those are ALL hints.)

The story sits right at the crossroads where horror and dark fantasy meet and nod warily at each other, while urban fantasy leans against a fencepost and gives both of them a bit of side-eye.

How horrifying the horror is depends on how one sees The Dark – and yes, that’s capitalized. The Dark is certainly not good, but it’s not really EVIL, either. It’s OTHER, and its motivations and morals are its own based on its own world which is not ours.

That doesn’t mean that humans haven’t and won’t do TERRIBLE and EVIL things to bargain with it, serve it, or attempt to conquer it. The history of Lake Argen as well as its current, totally anomalous, health and prosperity, are all direct results of a group of humans doing something really evil to get The Dark’s attention. An attention that their descendants still benefit from.

A more benign method of getting The Dark’s attention might have worked equally as well, but that’s not the kind of people the Founders were, so that’s not what they tried. And not that they, personally, didn’t get exactly what their methods deserved while their descendants reap the benefits.

What tips the scale, at least for this reader, over into urban fantasy or even, believe it or not, cozy fantasy, is the way that everyone in town is determined to do their duty, serve the town and make a real and really supportive community. It’s a truly lovely place – if you can stand the weather and the isolation and the generally creepy vibe. But most of the time, the weather is the town’s biggest problem by a considerable margin.

The romance between Cassidy and Melanie, while it is inevitable, is also utterly adorable. And it’s the perfect vehicle for explaining just how things work in Lake Argen AND finally getting to the bottom of what’s threatening the town. That the eldritch horror who brings the warning is also the cutest little thing ever described in the pages of a “horror” story puts an exclamation point on just how cozy this horror/fantasy really is – especially when it’s his nagging that finally saves the day. Or night. Or just Lake Argen’s symbiotic relationship with The Dark.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

As you can see from the above review, I LOVED Direct Descendant – and it’s far, far, far from the first time that I have fallen hard for this author’s work. Which makes the works of Tanya Huff a perfect candidate for one of this year’s Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week giveaways.

Therefore, on this the FOURTH day of this year’s celebration, today’s giveaway is the winner’s choice of ANY book by Tanya Huff in any format, up to $30 (US) which should be enough to get Direct Descendant if you’re looking for either a terrific introduction OR you’re a fan like me and you’ve already got everything else!

Good luck with today’s giveaway and remember that there’s more to come!

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Honey Bunny Giveaway Hop

Welcome to the Honey Bunny Giveaway Hop, hosted by Mama the Fox and Mom Does Reviews!

No foolin! Today is the Honey Bunny Giveaway Hop. But it’s also April Fools’ Day. If this were an April Fools’ Day prank, it might be the ‘Ether Bunny’ instead. Although, come to think of it, for parents with children hopped up on entirely too many chocolate bunnies and creme eggs, that Ether Bunny might come as a welcome relief!

But if you are looking for the best chocolate bunnies and/or chocolate eggs. According to this year’s survey at Serious Eats, the best chocolate bunnies, both milk and dark, come from Harbour Sweets, and the best chocolate eggs in the prettiest package, are made by Veruca. Notice that they did not provide a rating for white chocolate bunnies, which warms the cockles of my dark chocolate loving heart. Because IMHO, white chocolate isn’t, as Sandra Boynton delightfully illustrated in her book, Chocolate: The Consuming Passion.

Your tasting mileage, of course, may vary – but doing the survey for yourself could be loads of tasty fun!

What’s your preference in chocolate bunnies? Or chocolate eggs? Or just chocolate in general? Answer through the rafflecopter for you chance at winning the usual Reading Reality hop prize of the winner’s choice of a $10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 in books.

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For more hopping good prizes, be sure to visit the other stops on this hop!

MamatheFox, Mom Does Reviews, and all participating blogs are not held responsible for sponsors who fail to fulfill their prize obligations.

Fourteenth Annual Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week and Giveaway!

This year’s OMG Fourteenth Blogo-Birthday Week Celebration technically began with yesterday’s Sunday Post. The actual, technical blogoversary is this Friday, April 4, with my own birthday the following day, April 5, which is when the final giveaway will be posted.

Reading Reality began on April 4, 2011, under the name “Escape Reality, Read Fiction”, which is also the reason the ratings are “Escape Ratings” and “Reality Ratings”. This blog, and all of the other reading/writing/reviewing activities that have grown up around it over the past fourteen years have turned into both my longest and my absolute favorite job. At least in part because I created it out of things that I wanted to do, and can do the work at whatever time feels right to me.

Meaning that I do a lot of my reading late at night – although not generally as late as I used to. More often 1:00AM and less likely 3:00AM – not that I don’t see that time on the clock when the book is so excellent that I can’t make myself stop reading!

This week, this Blogo-Birthday Celebration, is a Hobbit Birthday. In The Lord of the Rings, at the very beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, we learn that when hobbits celebrate their birthdays, its an occasion for giving presents to others – not receiving presents for oneself. In that spirit, there will be giveaways every day this week, whether gift cards or books or the winner’s choice between the two.

It’s my way of saying thanks to each and every single one of you who read my reviews, comment on my posts, participate in the giveaways – and admire the pictures of the cats. I’m grateful to you all for being a part of my journey!

Therefore, in thanks and appreciation to YOU, on this second day of my Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week I have a giveaway, just as I did yesterday and will every day the rest of the week. Today’s giveaway is for a $25 (US) Gift Card for Amazon or to a bookstore of your choice if you have a local that sells gift cards over the interwebs. (If you live outside the US and have a local Amazon, the gift card will be the equivalent of $25 US from your country’s Amazon.)

I also have one $25 Barnes and Noble Gift Card to give away as well. This is a physical card that I’ll mail to the lucky recipient. It’s a lucky find from one of my desk drawers, but it’s unused and doesn’t expire so someone will get the benefit of it this year.

As always, from the bottom of my bookish and cat-loving heart, my heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you who has been part of this adventure. There’s more to come!

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The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 3-30-25 + Giveaway!

Today marks the start of Reading Reality’s FOURTEENTH! Annual Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week. Which means that today starts an entire week of giveaways. YAY! I’ll get more into the whole Hobbit Birthday thing of this week’s celebration in tomorrow’s post, which will include one of the big giveaways, but today is just a bit of a kickoff to start the festivities. Please come back every day this week to get in on ALL the prizes!

In the meantime, this week just finished was still a regular week of blogging and reading and reviewing – and it was a good one. First, I get to give one more shoutout to the marvelous historical mystery, The Railway Conspiracy by John Shen Yen Nee and SJ Rozan. It just so happens that this was the title I highlighted for this week in last Sunday’s Post, and now it’s the Book of the Week because it got this week’s highest rating. It was an absolutely excellent read/listen and I can’t recommend this one highly enough – although I do certainly keep trying!

It’s not a Sunday Post without a cat picture so here’s today’s poster cat. Hecate is dozing in the sun on one of her favorite perches, making the world go away as only a napping kitty can.

Current Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book PLUS EVENT-WIDE AMAZON/PAYPAL PRIZE in the Spring, March Madness, Earth Month and Mother’s Day Giveaway Event!
$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Spring 2025 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

Blog Recap:

B #BookReview: The Cat Who Saved the Library by Sosuke Natsukawa, translated by Louise Heal Kawai
B #BookReview: Luminous by Silvia Park
Grade A #AudioBookReview: The Railway Conspiracy by John Shen Yen Nee and SJ Rozan
B #BookReview: The Undermining of Twyla and Frank by Megan Bannen
A- #BookReview: Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler
Stacking the Shelves (646)

Coming This Week:

Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week Begins! + Giveaway!
Honey Bunny Giveaway Hop
Direct Descendant by Tanya Huff (#BookReview + Giveaway)
The Three Locks by Bonnie MacBird (#BookReview + Giveaway)
Blogo-Birthday Celebration + Giveaway!

 

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Welcome to the very first giveaway of this year’s Blogo-Birthday Celebration! As I write this on Friday, the weather this weekend in the ATL is expected to be a glorious spring day on Saturday and a nasty thunderstorm on Sunday. Which sounds like a perfect spring weekend to me – a day to go out in the sun AND a day to stay in and read. Spring might not even have sprung yet where you are, but it will eventually, so what’s your favorite thing to do on a beautiful spring day? Answer in the rafflecopter for your chance at one of Reading Reality’s usual prizes, the winner’s choice of a $10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 in Books.

And don’t forgot to come back tomorrow for another giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Spring 2025 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop

 

Welcome to the Spring 2025 Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop, hosted by It Starts At Midnight and Versatileer!

Once upon a time, this was the Month of Books Giveaway Hop, now it’s the Seasons of Books Giveaway Hop, with the hops starting on the days the seasons change. Today, March 20, is the first official day of SPRING for the 2025 season, meaning that the hop starts TODAY! YAY!

Spring is VERY definitely sprung here in the Atlanta area. Which means that the weather is a bit capricious. Yesterday, while I was prepping this post, it was a balmy 79°F and the sun was shining so brightly that the cats had their choice of sunbeam. Today’s weather is expected to top out at 58° with a marked dearth of any sunbeams at all. From there on out, it’s up, then it’s down, it’s wet, then it’s dry, it’s bright, then it’s gloomy – and sometimes all in the same day!

Looking at  the books in the graphic for this season’s hop, it’s yet another season where  not a one of them are on my personal TBR pile for the season – not that I’m not always looking forward to more than a few books EVERY season. Here are a few that have risen to the top of my list for this  spring of 2025:

Direct Descendant by Tanya Huff
Down in the Sea of Angels by Khan Wong
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
A Fashionably French Murder by Colleen Cambridge
Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
It Takes a Psychic by Jayne Castle
Knave of Diamonds by Laurie R. King
The Page Turner by Viola Shipman
The Railway Conspiracy by John Shen Yen Nee and SJ Rozan
Shadow of the Solstice by Anne Hillerman
Six Wild Crowns by Holly Race
Who Will Remember by C.S. Harris

What about you? What books are you most looking forward to this season? Answer in the rafflecopter for your choice of either a $10 Amazon Gift Card or $10 in books so you can get one or two of the books on your list!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For more lovely bookish prizes, be sure to visit the other stops on this hop!

Spring, March Madness, Earth Month & Mother’s Day Giveaway Event!

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Welcome To The $100 Amazon eGift Card or PayPal Cash Giveaway!

Giveaway: 1 lucky winner a $100 Amazon eGift Card or PayPal Cash. The event is running from March 13th to May 11th. Giveaway open Worldwide everywhere PayPal is negotiable & age 18+.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS

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Prize:

$100 Amazon eGift Card or PayPal Cash

One Lucky Winner Will Receive choice of: $100 Amazon eGift Card or PayPal Cash


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WEBSITE ~ FACEBOOK ~ TWITTER/”X” ~ PINTEREST ~ INSTAGRAM ~ YOUTUBE

Check out Versatileer’s other giveaways!

Co-Hosted By:

DELICIOUSLY SAVVY ~ OTTAWA MOMMY CLUB ~ BABUSHKA’S BAILE ~ THE FRUGAL GRANDMOM ~ SAVING K ~ THE CRAZY PET LADY ~ DAIRY FREE GLUTEN FREE LIFE ~ COTTAGECORE LIFESTYLE ~ JESTER AND THE QUEEN

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Rules: Use The Rafflecopter Form To Enter Daily. The giveaway ends 05/11/25 at 11:59 PM (PST), and is open Worldwide. Entrants must be 18 years old to enter. The winner will be notified via email.

Now To The……

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Good Luck! Enter Below

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This giveaway/sweepstakes is in no way endorsed, affiliated, or associated with Facebook, Twitter or any other Social Media Networking Site. This event is not sponsored or endorsed by Amazon or PayPal Company. The winner will have 48 hours to email their information back to Versatileer at gmail dot com or a new winner will be drawn, you may want to put this email address as safe as it could go to spam. The giveaway is not valid where prohibited! Once a winner is drawn and confirmed, the name will be announced on the Rafflecopter form. Versatileer will be responsible for sending the winners their prizes. By entering you are authorizing us to collect the information on the form below, this information is used only to contact the winner! No purchase necessary, Void where prohibited by law, and the number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Winners are chosen randomly by Rafflecopter through the use of Random-dot-org. Twitter and Facebook dummy/fake accounts are ineligible for entry and will be blocked. Authentic accounts only are eligible to win. Next seasonal giveaway starts 3 hours before this giveaway ends, and the two giveaways will overlap for the three hour period. More giveaway terms and conditions are listed: HERE. No blog associated with this contest are responsible for prize fulfillment. If you would like to become a sponsor in a giveaway like this please email Jerry Marquardt at versatileer at gmail dot com or you can use the Contact Form. If you take an entry you must stay following for the entire contest or you will be disqualified.

Are You A Blogger? See the latest Blogger Opps HERE. Use the Contact Form to get a FREE Link added to One Of Our Giveaways. Just post and report!

If you are a brand/company or author and would like to work with Versatileer, or have any questions please use the Contact Form HERE or email Jerry at versatileer at gmail dot com.

Thank You For Visiting Today…Come Back Daily!

That’s a LOT to celebrate in one giveaway event, even one as big as this one! And here’s one more giveaway JUST at Reading Reality!

a Rafflecopter giveaway