The Monthly Giveaway is over and I have to apologise for not posting the results sooner! I didn't forget! I just didn't have time! Finally my holidays have started and I hope I will be able to find time to read and relax! Let's hope I have some time left to blog about it!
Anyway, every month here on Amberkatze's Book Blog there is a Monthly Giveaway and you all have the chance to win a copy of the winning book!
What is the Monthly Giveaway?
You have the chance to vote for which book you want to win from my five favourite reads from last month!
I pick five of my favourite reads from the last month (sorry no ARCs are included unless they have already been released!) then you guys go to the poll and vote for the book you want to win or the one you think deserves to win! Remember! You may not actually win the book you voted for.
Here are the results from the poll! Keep reading to find out which book won and who has won a copy!
And the winner this month with nearly 40% of the votes is Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions by Various! This is a great anthology and I am really happy that you all wanted to win a copy! If you check the widget below you can see if you won or not!
Did you win? The Rafflecopter widget below should be showing the name of the lucky winner!
Are you the winner? Contact me to claim your prize.
Didn't win this time? There is a new Monthly Giveaway every month. Also check the sidebar for the latest author contests.
Have you entered the Monthly Giveaway yet? Make sure you check out the details and then make sure you vote, be sure you have your name entered & hopefully you will win!
What is the Monthly Giveaway?
You have the chance to vote for which book you want to win from my five favourite reads from last month!
I pick five of my favourite reads from the last month (sorry no ARCs are included unless they have already been released!) then you guys go to the poll and vote for the book you want to win or the one you think deserves to win! Remember! You may not actually win the book you voted for.
Here is a little info about each book on offer this month. Just click on the book title and author to see my review :
Well in the sidebar ---> there is this poll. You vote for the book you would most like to win. Then enter the Monthly Giveaway via the Rafflecopter widget below. When the giveaway is over the winner gets book with the most votes. So you may not even win the book you voted for!
Newsletter subscribers! If you have not confirmed your email address then you will not be added to the draw!!!
The poll will stay open for votes until Monday 21st of July 2013 4pm (all times are in Central European Time). The winner will be announced within days of the contest closing.
Use the Bookdepository or Amazon links/banners to keep the prizes coming!
Oh and advertise Amberkatze's Book Blog wherever you can ;)
Marla, bored in her forced exile in Hawaii, goes looking for trouble (and finds it).
My Thoughts :
After listening to some Marla Mason over the last couple of weeks, I decided to give one of the many short stories a try. I am not sure exactly where this book fits into the series but while reading it I had the feeling I was missing something. So I expect I have now ruined the surprise!
It was a nicely written story but I didn't think too much of it. It was actually too short for my taste. It also lacked a lot of the Marla Mason spirit that I am used too. The plot wasn't spectacular and as I already mnetioned, it was too short.
Maybe I will pick up some of the other short stories but I am not in a rush to get them. I definitely prefer a long length novel about Marla where she can be enjoyed in all her glory.
July is here and I am looking forward to my much earned holiday! I hope I will get to lie on a beach with some great books because I need to get some more reading done. I am a little behind with my reading and June wasn't a very good month for me because real work got in the way.
However I hope at least one of the books I have on offer for you all this month is worth your vote. It wasn't easy to pick five this time around because there wasn't much to offer and quite a few weren't paranormal. I promise next month there will be a better selection!
So who wants to win a copy of one of my favourite reads in June? Keep reading and find out more!
Every month here on Amberkatze's Book Blog there is a Monthly Giveaway!
What is the Monthly Giveaway?
You have the chance to vote for which book you want to win from my five favourite reads from last month!
I pick five of my favourite reads from the last month (sorry no ARCs are included unless they have already been released!) then you guys go to the poll and vote for the book you want to win or the one you think deserves to win! Remember! You may not actually win the book you voted for.
Here is a little info about each book on offer this month. Just click on the book title and author to see my review :
Well in the sidebar ---> there is this poll. You vote for the book you would most like to win. Then enter the Monthly Giveaway via the Rafflecopter widget below. When the giveaway is over the winner gets book with the most votes. So you may not even win the book you voted for!
Newsletter subscribers! If you have not confirmed your email address then you will not be added to the draw!!!
The poll will stay open for votes until Monday 21st of July 2013 4pm (all times are in Central European Time). The winner will be announced within days of the contest closing.
Use the Bookdepository or Amazon links/banners to keep the prizes coming!
Oh and advertise Amberkatze's Book Blog wherever you can ;)
The adventures of Marla Mason, chief sorcerer and protector of the city of Felport, have been chronicled in novels including "Blood Engines," "Poison Sleep," "Dead Reign," "Spell Games," "Broken Mirrors," and "Grim Tides."
Now, for the first time, her origins are revealed. Bone Shop chronicles Marla's early days in the city, her rise to power, and the terrible tragedies that shaped her extraordinary life. This is a story of questions answered and shadows forecast. This is the story of Marla Mason.
My Thoughts :
I haven't visited this series for a long time but I always admired Marla Mason when I read about her adventures. When I saw this book on audible I decided to give it a go for a couple of reasons. The main one being that this book has been on my Kindle for a while and I still hadn't gotten around to reading it. I knew I would get to it via audiobook.
What I didn't realise about this book is that it is actually a prequel to the series. That threw me for a few minutes but once I understood where the book was coming from I had no problems settling into it. If anything it made me more eager to listen to it. Finding out how Marla came to be who she is and learning about everything she went through to get there is a very interesting and exciting story. I found myself hooked within a few chapters and couldn't believe my luck at finding out more about Marla and of course her magic.
The story had a lot of action in it and it was, at times, quite dramatic. However the characters, including, Marla didn't follow the drama of the situation but always kept calm and kept on. It came across as very unfeeling at times but the story of course wasn't about feelings and to be honest it was quite refreshing to have a story lacking emotion. This meant that the story always stayed on track and didn't wander off into Marla's head and what she was thinking. She got things done and boy did she have a rough time of it.
Only one thing was a little off putting about this prequel and that was the jumps of time. The story begins when Marla is a teenager and jumps dramatically at points. This made me a little dizzy and it always left me slightly confused. Spending a considerable amount of time with a Marla of a certain age and then suddenly skipping six years wasn't easy to keep straight. I know why the author did it and it wouldn't have worked any other way but it still irked me.
I really enjoyed this prequel and it was nice to get to know another side of Marla. If you are reading this review and have read any of the books then you will definitely want to get this one. If you haven't come across this series before then maybe you should think about trying it. It is quite magical and strange with some weird and wonderful angles and concepts. Artifacts and magical abilities make up the underground world of Felport where Marla makes her home. It is a very special story.
Now I hope to get through some of the other Marla stories I have found on Amazon. The majority of them are novellas but I believe one of them that I am missing is a full length story. I wonder where this strong woman ends up at the end of it all.
It is 'Those Who Fight Monsters' month here on Amberkatze's Book Blog and author T.A. Pratt was my first guest from the anthology. I hope you all enjoyed the interview and enjoy the Marla Mason story in the collection of the Tales of Occult Detectives.
To celebrate the release I was giving away a copy of Those Who Fight Monsters to one lucky person! So who won? Congrats to :
Cynthya!!!
Well done to the winner! Keep reading to find out how to claim your prize!
Didn't win this time? A new contest is coming up!
----------------------
How to claim your prize!
Please contact me via email - Amberkatzes_book_blog at gmx dot eu within the next 7 days to claim your prize. Your claim will go quicker if you send me your address. If you won a contest where you can choose your prize, then please make sure you state in your email which book you would like. This will help things go alot quicker!
If you email me and don't get a reply within 48 hours please post on the blog letting me know. Some email gets eaten by my spam filter. However please don't send me more than one email unless you really don't get an answer within 3 days. I am not online 24/7 ;) Sometimes it takes a little longer to reply.
If a prize isn't claimed after 7 days I will, if the author agrees, pick another winner.
Please also note that I can not be held responsible for prizes that come direct from authors. I will check with them for you if you haven't received your prize but I can not hunt down your mail! Any prizes that come from myself could come from a 3rd party eg. Amazon or Bookdepository. If I am sending a prize myself please be aware that it could take a few weeks to reach you as it is coming from Europe.
Never miss out on a new Author Event, Contest or Book Review! Subscribe Now!
Use the Bookdepository or Amazon links/banners to keep the prizes coming! Oh and advertise Amberkatze's Book Blog wherever you can ;)
The Monthly Giveaway comes to an end tomorrow! Have you voted? Have you entered? Make sure you check out the choice of books up for grabs and subscribe to the newsletter for your chance to win. I can't say I am surprised at the results of the poll so far ;)
It is 'Those Who Fight Monsters' month here on Amberkatze's Book Blog! Every one of the four authors who will be visiting me this month have a story inside the anthology 'Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives'. If you haven't already gotten yourself a copy then make sure you do. I usually hate anthologies but this one gets a big thumbs up from me!
So who is my first guest? Well it is the author who starts off the anthology with his story about Marla Mason. T.A. Pratt has been a guest here before and I hope you will enjoy reading his interview.
Amber - Welcome back to Amberkatze's Book Blog! It is great to have you here as a guest! Could you start things off by telling my readers a little about your Marla Mason Series?
T.A - Marla Mason is the heroine of an urban fantasy series I started publishing in 2007 with Blood Engines. That and the next three books (Poison Sleep, Dead Reign, and Spell Games) were published by Bantam Spectra. My publisher dropped the series after that, but since Spell Games ended on a cliffhanger, I felt bad -- and my fans complained -- so I self-published the fifth book, Broken Mirrors, online and in e-book format in 2010. (There's a small press print edition from Merry Blacksmith Press too.) There's also a short prequel novel, Bone Shop, available as an e-book, and assorted short stories.
Marla's a sorcerer, and a sort of combination crime boss/superhero, who protects the city of Felport from nightmare kings, crazed religious zealots, various gods, her own messed-up family members -- and even a dark doppelganger of herself.
Amber - What has Marla been up to recently? I caught sight of her in Those Who Fight Monsters but otherwise nothing in print.
T.A - There's a story called "Mommy Issues of the Dead," set early in Marla's career, in the anthology The Way of the Wizard, which came out late last year. A story called "Shark's Teeth," set after the events of Broken Mirrors, is due out from Daily Science Fiction sometime this year. So she's still keeping herself busy.
Amber - Marla fans will be pleased with the short story in the anthology Those Who Fight Monsters. What was it like working on the book? Did you meet up with the other authors involved? Have wild parties? Or is it all emails?
T.A - Ha. No, generally for an anthology like this, the editor just invites you to submit, and you send them the story by e-mail, and work with them on it. No overarching collaboration, usually, and all done from the comfort of our respective offices.
Amber - Is it hard writing a short story? Do you have limits set to you by the publisher or do you just write a story that you think is long or short enough?
T. A - Some stories are hard, and some are easy! (This one was pretty easy, as I'd had the idea for Marla to fight the Beast of Felport for years -- I even alluded to the battle in one of the novels, long before I wrote the actual story.) There are often word limits, but I'm pretty good at telling how much space a story will need -- some stories feel like shorts, or novelettes, or novellas. I'm fairly adept at estimating word counts, despite a tendency to write long.
Amber - Marla has seen a lot of action so far. How do you decide what to throw at her in each book/story?
T. A - I read a lot, and anything that catches my interest goes into the mental compost heap, and eventually, it turns into stories. I've written Marla stories about mythical underworlds, sleep disorders, Aztec mythology, mirror universes, con artists, shark gods, and evil twins. All stuff that fascinates me.
Amber - Have you read Those Who Fight Monsters? Which stories did you like in the collection?
T. A - I haven't, yet! I will when I get a contributor copy.
Amber - What comes next? More Marla? More anthologies? Any other projects?
T. A - Oh, lots of things. Let's see. I have a standalone fantasy novel called Briarpatch coming out this August or September from ChiZine Publications. I'm doing a couple of roleplaying game tie-in novels, one for Wizards of the Coast and one for Paizo publishing, which will be out sometime, probably in 2012 or 2013, I imagine. And while I'd intended Broken Mirrors to be an end point for the Marla novel series, it was so successful that I'm thinking about doing a sixth book as an online serial next year.
And there are always short stories coming out. With my friends Greg van Eekhout and Jenn Reese, and my wife Heather Shaw, I wrote a series of 26 short-short stories we're publishing at Daily Science Fiction, one story per week, as The Alphabet Quartet. You can read those as
they're published here: http://dailysciencefiction.com/genre/alphabet-quartet
Amber - How do you pick the names of your characters? Are they just names you like, people you know or do they have some other meaning?
T. A - I get names from the credits of movies, from phone books, from census data, from lists of baby names, from mythology -- all sorts of places. (But I rarely use the names of people I know.) It's a very intuitive process -- I can usually tell when I have the "right" name, though sometimes it takes a while.
Amber - I am sure that being an author has its ups and downs. What experiences have you had so far?
T. A - Well, having my series dropped by my publisher was a definite "down." The series sold okay, but not great, and when my editor was laid off and my imprint reorganized completely, that was the end of the road for me and Random House. But I got to do 5 books total with Random House, which was great, and between small-press passion projects and fun work-for-hire books, I'm keeping myself gainfully employed and entertained. And my short story writing career is going marvelously.
Amber - A lot of authors are writing now in both adult and YA genres. Have you considered writing a YA book?
T. A - I wrote a middle grade science fantasy adventure called The Nex, which went around to publishers, but no one wanted to buy it. I still liked it, though, so I self-published it as an e-book and serialized it online. I recently wrote another middle grade book which is -- maybe -- more commercial, and my agent will be sending it out soon. So we'll see.
Amber - What are you listening and watching lately? Is there any music or other media that influences your writing?
T. A - For the Marla books I listened to a lot of Cake and Rilo Kiley. For my first novel, The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, I listened to a lot of alt-country and cowpunk music. Every book gradually evolves its own soundtrack as I find music that sets the mood.
And everything influences my writing. I've written whole stories inspired by one or two lines in songs! Everything I read, watch, and listen to goes into the mental compost heap, where magic happens and stories grow.
I'm reading a lot of comics lately. I like Robert Kirkman's Invincible(and his The Walking Dead), and Joe Hill's Locke and Key is marvelous.
Amber - If you could be any paranormal creature, what would you be and why?
T. A - I recently read a bit of folklore about a kind of vampire who transforms into a werewolf when you kill it. That works for me -- the best of both worlds!
Amber - Thanks for visiting Amberkatze's Book Blog again!
---------------------------------
Contest Time
One lucky person will win a copy of the anthology 'Those Who Fights Monsters'.
How To Enter
Which Occult Detective from the anthology 'Those Who Fights Monsters' is the one you want to read about the most? (see list below)
No answer = No Entry
*****
Who are Those Who Fight Monsters?
Danny Hendrickson - from Laura Anne Gilman's Cosa Nostradamus series.
Kate Connor - from Julie Kenner’s Demon Hunting Soccer Mom series.
John Taylor - from Simon R. Green’s Nightside series.
Jill Kismet - from Lilith Saintcrow’s Jill Kismet series.
Jessi Hardin - from Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville series.
Quincey Morris - from Justin Gustainis’ Morris/Chastain Investigations series.
Marla Mason - from T. A. Pratt's Marla Mason series.
Tony Foster - from Tanya Huff’s Smoke and Shadows series.
Dawn Madison - from Chris Marie Green’s Vampire Babylon series.
Pete Caldecott - from Caitlin Kittredge’s Black London series.
Tony Giodone - from C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp’s Tales of the Sazi series.
Jezebel - from Jackie Kessler’s Hell on Earth series.
Piers Knight - from C. J. Henderson’s Brooklyn Knight series.
Cassiel - from Rachel Caine’s Outcast Season series.
****
Earn more entries for each link you place about this contest on the net. You can post on Facebook, Twitter & MySpace but make sure you add links here for me to confirm your entries! However please do not make individual postings for each entry. Please post all your entries in one post.
Advertise Amberkatze's Book Blog on your site and get an extra entry for this and every other contest!
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.
Make sure you post your links here so I can confirm your entries.
Keep the contests going by using the Bookdepository.com and Amazon.com links/Banners below and around the site!
The contest will stay open until Sunday 13th of March 2011 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.
A collection of Occult (a.k.a supernatural) Detective stories assembled by Justin Gustainis and featuring new stories by:
Tanya Huff
C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp
Simon R. Green
T. A. Pratt
Chris Marie Green
Lilith Saintcrow
Rachel Caine
Jacqueline Kessler
Carrie L. Vaughn
Julie Kenner
C.J. Henderson
Laura Anne Gilman
Justin Gustainis
Caitlin Kittredge
My Review -
I did promise to post my full review when author Justin Gustainis visits Amberkatze's Book Blog in March. However I liked this one so much that I am going to post my thoughts on this book now because it is due for release before his visit.
So anyone who visits Amberkatze's Book Blog on a regular basis will know that I rarely give anthologies a good review and usually moan about how I should stop torturing myself by reading them. Once again I took the bait. So many cool authors in one book. How could I resist? Would I get hurt again?
Well this time around I am happy to announce that this anthology could actually be the best I have read, ever! Did you see the line up? A Demon Soccer Mom Hunting story was inside as well as one of my favourite Succubi, Jezebel! An amazing Carrie Vaughn story which I hope is the start of a new series because I would totally love to read more. The best Laura Anne Gilman story I think I have ever read and of course T.A. Pratt! How I have missed you!!! And not forgetting the wonderful editor of this collection, Justin Gustianis. It has been way too long since we saw Quincy and I can't wait for more.
Worth buying! Awesome author selection with stories bursting with paranormal goodness. There are some real treasures in this one and next to no duds. Oh and to top it off the cover is pretty cool as well ;)
There are only a few more days left before the April Monthly giveaway comes to an end. The prize this month is a copy of Keri Arthur's new Riley Jenson book called Deadly Desire. If you haven't already entered then check out the sidebar for more details.
Next week my author guest will be M.R. Sellars. I love his Rowan Gant series and I can't wait to share the interview with you all. There will also be a contest so make sure you don't miss it.
Also make sure you enter this weeks contests! Marla Mason is giving away a book and Eric and Tabitha are also giving away a book plus a T-shirt.
You can find all the info for those contests on the sidebar!
