Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Splash Into Summer Giveaway Hop


It's Armchair BEA week and in addition it's time for the Splash Into Summer Giveaway Hop sponsored by I Am a Reader, Not a Writer and Page Turners.  So what is up for grabs today?  A book of your choice valued under $10 from the Book Depository.  If Book Depository ships to your country then this giveaway is open to you!  Runs from 5/25-5/31.  I will announce the winner on 6/1!  Simply fill out the form below.






Armchair BEA Day #2: Best of and Giveaway #2 (international)

Welcome to Day #2 of Armchair BEA and I am already having a blast.  I loved all the comments yesterday and getting to know all of you a little bit.  I also enjoyed the blogs I visited and plan on visiting more today - so many great blogs that I did not know about. 

Day #2 is about Giveaways and Best of 2011.  First let's talk about some of my favorite books in 2011, this was very hard to narrow down, I have read 72 books so far this year, but I made myself do the best 9 books I have read this year (not necessarily published this year):
  • Night Road by Kristin Hannah - general fiction
  • Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd (one of my husband's favorites as well) - literary suspense
  • Fatal Judgment by Irene Hannon - romantic suspense
  • Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal by Conor Grennan - nonfiction
  • These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf - suspense, general fiction
  • Between Shades of Gray by Ruth Sepetys  - young adult, historical
  • Love You More by Lisa Gardner - suspense
  • Exposure by Therese Fowler - general fiction
  • Secret Daughter by Shilipi Somaya Gowda - general fiction, foreign locale
So my giveaway is simple and open internationally (if you live where the Book Depository ships).  To enter comment and tell me your favorite book you have read this year.  The winner will receive the book of their choice $15 or less value from the Book Depository!  Giveaway ends 5/30/11.

Check out this link for other giveaways.
Check out this link for other Best of posts.



Guest Post: This or That with C. Lee McKenzie (The Princess of Las Pulgas)




Today I welcome C. Lee Mckenzie, author of The Princess of Las Pulgas to My Reading Room. She'll be answering my This or That questions.  Stay tuned on June 8th for my review of the The Princess of Las Pulgas.

Pop tarts or cereal?
Bad choices. Neither. 

Vampires or Werewolves?
Werewolves. They're warm. 

Flats or Heels?
Flats 

Skirts or Jeans?

Jeans 

Shopping or Reading?
Reading. . . hands down. 

English or Math?
Ah! 1+1=3. I'll stick with English. 

Dogs or Cats?
Cats. They always look like they've just invested their money wisely. 

Tragedies or Comedies?
Comedies 

Twitter or Facebook?
Twitter 

Paperback/Hardback or Ebook?

Hardback 

Bracelets or Necklaces?
Bracelets 

Middle School teacher or High School teacher?

High School teacher 

Movie in theater or in your own home?
Home 

Sports Car or Sedan?
Sports Car

About The Princess of Las Pulgas
The Princess of Las Pulgas After her father's slow death from cancer, Carlie thought things couldn't get worse. But now, she is forced to confront the fact that her family in dire financial straits. To stay afloat, her mom has had to sell their cherished oceanfront home and move Carlie and her younger brother Keith to the other side of the tracks to dreaded Las Pulgas, or "the fleas" in Spanish. They must now attend a tough urban high school instead of their former elite school, and on Carlie's first day of school, she runs afoul of edgy K.T., the Latina tattoo girl who's always ready for a fight, even on crutches. Carlie fends off the attention of Latino and African American teen boys, and one, a handsome seventeen-year-old named Juan, nicknames her Princess when he detects her aloof attitude towards her new classmates. What they don't know is that Carlie isn't really aloof; she's just in mourning for her father and almost everything else that mattered to her. Mr. Smith, the revered English teacher who engages all his students, suggests she'll like her new classmates if she just gives them a chance; he cajoles her into taking over the role of Desdemona in the junior class production of Othello, opposite Juan, after K.T. gets sidelined. Keith, who becomes angrier and more sullen by the day, spray paints insults all over the gym as he acts out his anger over the family's situation and reduced circumstances. Even their cat Quicken goes missing, sending Carlie and Keith on a search into the orchard next to their seedy garden apartment complex. They're met by a cowboy toting a rifle who ejects them at gunpoint from his property. But when Carlie finds him amiably having coffee with their mom the next day -- when he's returned her cat -- she begins to realize that nothing is what it seems in Las Pulgas.