Contest - Concluded! And the winner is...

Out of our 43 entrants (oh my stars and garters!) by 2pm today, I have used random.org to generate me a number between 1 and 43.

It gave me the number: 27

When I counted down from the first entry to the 27th entry this was what was there:

As someone else has mentioned, I also don't read many books that fall into the popcorn category. The only one on my bookshelf at current that qualifies is Brothers and Sisters by Bebe Moore Campbell. I had to read it for a class - I remember having no problem picking it up to read so it must have been more enjoyable than ones average school assigned text, but I barely recall what it was really about. Popcorn. (Marvelous book ratings, there, btw.)

Kat

glenin at gmail

Therefore we have our winner!  Yay!  Congratulations to Kat whom I will email and alert to her prizes and also send over an email to the lovely Ms. Carey to let her know the results of the contest.  Thank you to everyone who entered and hopefully you all might stick around for a bit and see a little of the blog aside from the contest.

Contest! Win a signed copy of Saints Astray!

I have been given an incredible opportunity by one of my favorite authors of all time and I am sharing it here with all of you!  However many that might be.  That's not what's important!

The important thing is that Jacqueline Carey, author of the Kushiel's Legacy series, has another series in the works right now.  The first book of which, Santa Olivia, I have read.  Now, while the original book didn't quite tickle me pink I did find it to be relatively enjoyable and many of my problems with it are fixed by it being the beginning of a series rather than a stand-alone.  All of the plot that I felt didn't get address is obviously just waiting for the rest of the series to see it bloom to fruition and that is perfectly alright in my book.  Many of my all-time favorite series have a first book that, on it's own, leaves too many holes for my little OCD soul to accept.

So, when I found out that Ms. Carey was writing Saints Astray, I was very excited.  Then I saw on Facebook that she was going to offer signed copies on a first-come-first-served basis to bloggers so that we could give them away to our readers.

I think I exploded in a joy-gasm at that moment.  Not only am I going to get a continuation of this story that intrigued me but I could share it with other people - which, let's be fair, is obviously one of my favorite parts of good books or I wouldn't blog about them.  So now I need a contest to go with the give away and I am going to use it to find more books that I might enjoy.  Because, you know, that way I can trick people into giving me reading recommendations and I'm currently out of books to read.

The contest is as follows: In the comments of this post, tell me what your favorite popcorn book is.  One entry per person.  I'll run the contest for one week from today - therefore, it will end on Wednesday, November 16th.  We'll say at 2p EST.  At that time I'll total up all the entries and (because I'm a geek) roll a dice to determine the winner.  It's that simple!

Good luck and if you haven't read Santa Olivia, then go to your local library or bookstore and pick up a copy.

Review: Dreams Made Flesh

Dreams Made Flesh by Anne Bishop
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I actually got more into these short stories than I did the main books of this series - the author has really stepped up the game a bit and made me really involved in the characters and what's happening to them in this book. I hope that it bodes well for what is to come.

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Review: Princeps' Fury

Princeps' Fury by Jim Butcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Concession Stand: Soda

I can only hear these books on audiobook now since Kate Redding's voice is irrevocably attached to the characters in my psyche. There were some lovely twists and turns in this book, even if it did feel like the majority of it was exposition for the next novel in the series. The development of the characters is one of Butcher's strong points and the fact that you desperately want the characters to succeed makes the entire story richer than would otherwise be the case.

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Review: Queen of the Darkness

Queen of the Darkness by Anne Bishop
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Concession Stand: Soft Pretzel

The end of this trilogy finally started to pick up a bit, but the ending still felt very abrupt. The author did a good enough job of making me like the characters so that at the end of the book there were a few heartstrings being pulled. Yet I still wish that the writing could have supported the concept more fully.

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Book Ratings and Concession Stand Food

I have been posting quite a few book reviews up here lately and - although they have this nifty little star rating system and my incessant babbling all contained in the post - I still find myself falling back on my old stand-by rating system for books.This system is based on concession stand food.

Don't ask me why.  It was unintentional, but once I started using the term "popcorn books", the rest just seemed to follow suit.  So, here's the Concession Stand Book Rating System, broken down.  I'll be using it in my book reviews from now on (and will go back and re-rate the ones that are already in the blog to reflect their status on the scale).

Review: Heir to the Shadows

Heir to the Shadows by Anne Bishop
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Concession Stand: Soft Pretzel
The disjointed storytelling techniques that Anne Bishop employs are overshadowed by the way she makes you truly feel for her characters. The story seems to jerk forward in leaps and bounds and there are long stretches that feel unaccounted for as they thrust a girl-child into womanhood before the reader is ready for that progression. The detailing of one character's madness is intriguing and yet at the same time you almost wish that she would move that particular character forward as they seem stuck in this endless loop - not growing, not changing, just a static placeholder while the other characters catch up.

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Review: Torn

Torn by Julie Kenner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Concession Stand: Popcorn

I'm still not sure how I feel about these books. The writing is sub-par, but the concepts are fascinating to me. I'll go ahead and read the third book (since I have it) but I still am stuck firmly on the fence.

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Review: Tainted

Tainted by Julie Kenner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Concession Stand: Popcorn

This is the second book I've read by this author and I'm glad that I have at least a slightly better review this time. Again, the concepts that Ms. Kenner comes up with are intriguing and engaging but their execution falls a bit flat. At least this time I didn't have to slog through a product placement every five seconds.

Her characters are not believable and their reactions are nonsensical. Her settings are stale and flat. Her romance is all "forbidden heat" and no actual romance. Luckily for Ms. Kenner, she can apparently come up with a concept decent enough to forgive all of that... up to a point.

I plan to read the rest of the series to see where the stories goes, but I may end up having to put it down if there isn't some decent writing to bolster and support the amazing concepts.

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Review: Ghost Story

Ghost Story by Jim Butcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Concession Stand: Soda

I absolutely love this series and Ghost Story lived up to pretty much all my expectations. It answered questions that I had from Changes, it offered believable character growth, there were plenty of sarcastic one-liners and insights as well as some extremely poignant scenes that tugged on the heart strings enough that I felt myself actually tearing up.

I burned through this book very quickly because I couldn't wait to get to the end, and now I can't wait to see what comes next. Definitely something I would recommend to anyone - and I do, to anyone I know who enjoys reading at all.

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Review: Daughter of the Blood

Warning: All spoilers will be denoted as such: THIS IS A SPOILER MARKING
Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Concession Stand: Soft Pretzel

I'm torn for my review of this book. On the one hand the story, and the characters, are engaging enough that I feel a desperate need to get my hands on the second on in the series. Not to mention the cliff-hanger ending. But the world and the writing style didn't thrill me.

Review: Carpe Demon

Carpe Demon by Julie Kenner
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Concession Stand: Nacho Chips with Cheese

Unfortunately, this book did not live up to it's dust jacket - or it's potential.  The concept was amusing and the synopsis drew me in, but the rampant product placement and overall juvenile writing really detracted from the story. The "twist" at the end was so painfully obvious that I found myself actually hoping that it was a red herring. The stay-at-home mom's life might be what television thinks things are like, but having been a stay-at-home mom I can tell you that most of what I saw in these pages was pure drivel. There was also the problem of continuity - the author would tell you that the main character was doing something and then seem to forget about it a few paragraphs later. In one scene Kate (the main character) is rifling through boxes filled with odds-and-ends at what would be break-neck speed if she were doing it in real life and then it's almost as if some pages get lost because she's then leaving the area. What, did she just dump all the boxes out on the floor and leave them that way? No, of course she put them back exactly where they were because a few pages later she's back there and in them again. It's just not believable.

And, honestly, I don't give a rat's red ass that she shops at Wal-mart, buys swiffers (both a wet and dry version!) or has a 7-11 on her corner. But the way the author was shoving these things down our throats you would think that they had some serious plot significance - or that she was being paid by the name-drop. One of the two.

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