So here's the deal... News & Winners

2011 is going to be the year that I get really organized with the blog, and try not to have these absences of more than 3 days where I don't post anything. Unfortunately, I'm getting a slow start to 2011.

I try to pre-schedule posts when I can. Last week, I had a couple of posts that I had pre-scheduled during the weekend, and they went up. But, I struggled with blogger to upload pictures, and getting my posts to go live immediately, which resulted in some very frustrated hours, and a lack of reviews in the past 10 days. Clearly, the pre-scheduling is the way to go. This is something I am going to address during Bloggiesta, which I am taking part in this coming weekend.

But also, I haven't been taking care of the blog because I have been reading. Many books. I'm already up to about 13 books read since January 1st. Anyone who is Good Reads friends with me, can see my progress there. I have challenged myself to read 200 books in 2011. I'm a little slow on adding books that I read in a very short amount of time, so I think my list is missing 4-5 books.

This week, I decided to plunge into the world of MacKayla Lane, the star of the Fever books series by Karen Marie Moning. Many of the bloggers that I follow, as well as people in my Twitter feed have been raving about this series. Since the newest book, Shadowfever comes out TOMORROW (!), I thought I'd try to read the previous four before that. I'm making excellent progress. I've read the first three, and plan to finish the fourth, Dreamfever before the release tomorrow.

For anyone who hasn't read the books, or who has thought of reading the books, I say, give them a try. For me, the first two are a little slow. I have plenty of patience when I read. I've never wanted to throw a book at a wall, or DNF something that I don't engage in right away. I'm really glad that I stuck with the Fever series. The story line itself is really interesting, if you like grown-up fae stories. The monsters can be utterly beautiful, the good guys might not be pure, but they're better than the other choice, and deception is a way of life.

I took a while to connect with the female MC, Mac. She started out almost like a higher maintenance version of Sookie Stackhouse. But, there is a payoff in the third book, where I realized that I kind of liked her personality. Faefever is also where I started to find Barrons, the male MC, to be more attractive as a person. Yes, he's a bad boy, and I do love them! But, I thought he was missing something. I thought their relationship was missing something. (These thoughts will probably show up in my reviews; I plan to post them next month.)






So, before I close this post, I guess I should mention the winners. Some of you might have scrolled right down to this paragraph to see them! As always, I assign a number to each entry (including the extras, if I have 'em) then use random.org to find me a winning number.

A finished copy of Out for Blood by Alyxandra Harvey:
Alex Bennett!

Congrats, Alex. Please use my Contact Me form to email me your address, so that I can pass it along to Bloomsbury. Your prize will be mailed directly from the publisher.



Grave Witch by Kalayna Price, As Lie the Dead by Kelly Meding and Born to Bite by Lindsay Sands:
Theresa Cole!

Congrats, Theresa! I have your address from your entry form, and will mail out your prize within 10 days.


Happy reading to all!