Guest Blog & Contest with Kelly Meding

My first author guest of 2010 is Kelly Meding. Her debut book 'Three Days To Dead' is definitely on my list of highly recommended reads from 2009. I am looking forward to her next release and her future contribution to the Paranormal Urban Fantasy genre.

Kelly was nice enough to send me a guest post to start of the year. Her post talks about her non Paranormal Urban Fantasy reads. So enjoy the post and make sure you enter the contest at the end. I am looking forward, as always, to reading your entries ;)



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With 2009 behind me and 2010 looming brightly on the horizon, I took a look back at the things I read this year. I had set a goal for myself a year ago—read 100 novels/novellas in 2009. Thanks to the sage advice of my crit partner (who informed me that yes, my own books counted and so did the book I beta-read for her), I ended 2009 with 103 novels/novellas read. I'm very excited about this number, considering I also managed to write quite a bit, shepherd my debut novel through its release, and still work a part-time day job.

Reading is essential for a writer; reading widely even more so. With that in mind, I made a conscious effort this past year to expand my reading habits into other genres. The bulk of my reading these last few years was in urban fantasy and paranormal romance. Okay, so almost all of it. Branching out became very necessary, and I am so glad I did. I dabbled into historical romance for the first time, read a couple of biographies, and read YA for the first time in a long time. And many of these books were very, very good.

So here are my top 5 Non-UF/PNR Reads for 2009, in no particular order.

GOING TOO FAR, by Jennifer Echols. (YA) This is a contemporary YA about a troubled teenage girl and the unlikely (and unwanted) friendship she develops with a young police officer. The protagonist is sassy and snarky, without being unbearable, and I just wanted to take the hero home and cuddle him. This is a book that I thought about for days afterward. The characters were realistic and their problems not glossed over.

NEVER LET ME GO, by Kazuo Ishiguro. (Literary) Literary fantasy is the best I can do to describe this lovely and haunting tale of a very unusual boarding school. I saw a good review posted online and discovered it was being made into a movie, so I grabbed a copy. I couldn't put it down. From the lovely prose to the "what the hell is going on?" mystery, to the incredible use of flashbacks, it's a book I'm very glad to have read.

LUCKY, by Alice Sebold. (Memoir) To be fair, I started reading this in the summer of 2008. I don't know why I put it down for over a year, but I did. I suppose it was Sebold's frank and vivid depiction of her rape and its aftermath—she spared nothing and in retrospect, I'm grateful for that. I finally picked it up again in August '09 and read the last 2/3 in about a day. It's a rare book that makes me sob, but this one did. It was a good kind of sobbing, and I'm grateful Sebold had the strength to share such a heart-wrenching part of her life.

ONE WEEK AS LOVERS, by Victoria Dahl. (Historical Romance) It wasn't the first HR I read, but of the half-dozen so far, it's by and large my favorite. I like Alpha heroes, but I truly adore the Beta hero of this book and his interactions with the heroine. The story didn't get bogged down in lengthy descriptions of places or customs or how things were done "back then." Dahl tells a simple, exquisite tale of two childhood friends whose circumstances throw them together and the love that develops between them.

REGULARLY SCHEDULED LIFE, by K.A. Mitchell. (M/M) I stumbled onto Mitchell's work after reading a review for one of her other e-books, and the description of this one caught my eye. It's about the aftermath of a school shooting that leaves a student and the principal dead, and one heroic teacher wounded—a d a local hero for trying to stop the shooter. The twist—the wounded teacher, Sean, is gay, which thrusts him deeper into the media spotlight and makes the entire shooting about more than just school violence. Sean is also in a committed, six-year relationship with Kyle, and it's this relationship that's tested throughout the novel—by the media, by bigotry and hatred, and by his and Kyle's own methods of dealing with Sean's injury. Or not dealing with it. This tastefully and emotionally written tear-jerker made me an instant fan of Ms. Mitchell.

So that's my list. It was a great year for discovering new authors and new genres, and I can't wait to discover even more in 2010.

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Contest Time!

A huge thank you to Kelly who said she will send the winner of this weeks contest a signed copy of "Three Days to Dead" as well as a pair of fun book-related buttons!

All you have to do to enter is tell us about some of your favourite Non-UF/PNR Reads in 2009

No favourite = No entry!

Earn another entry for each place you link this contest on the net. You can post of Facebook, Twitter & MySpace but make sure you add links here for me to confirm your entries!

You can also earn extra entries by emailing your friends about the contest. Just make sure you send a copy of your email or receipt to me at Amberkatzes_book_blog at gmx dot net.

Keep the contests going by using the Amazon links below and around the site!

The contest will stay open until Sunday 10th of January 2010 4pm CET and the winner will be picked by a randomizer. Entrants should check back to see if they have won. I do not hunt down winners and will pick new winners for any prizes not claimed within 7 days.

Good Luck!