Explore This!: Nantucket, Massachusetts

Today, we’re taking a trip to the island of Nantucket in Massachusetts. I started my search at Stella’s request, who wanted to see what this area looked like after reading Barbara Wallace’s Weekend Agreement. Once I had found a few pictures though, it began to feel familiar to me, so I went in search of more info.

I went looking for movies that were filmed there, but it turns out the ones I thought were filmed in Nantucket were filmed elsewhere. I did discover it to be the setting for the ’90’s TV series Wings.

Then I looked for other books set in Nantucket. I couldn’t find a large list of those either, though I did find one reference to Elin Hilderbrand as “Queen of the Beach [or Summer] Novel” and that her books are (almost) all set on Nantucket Island.

Nantucket is close, geographically speaking, to other well known …

The International Giveaways Café (38)

Hello all and welcome back for another week of great giveaways! It’s been a weird week around here with temperatures fluctuating wildly. They even mentioned snow again! Ugh! What that means here at the café is we’re never quite sure if it’ll be iced coffees all around or a nice hot cup of java…

One thing is consistent though: our love of books! So check out the giveaways below or enter your own info and let the winning begin 🙂 (A refresher for our café idealogy can be found here: Week 1)

Remember to let us know if you’ve won anything recently; the Book Lovers would love to hear! At Book Lovers Inc., it’s our pleasure to share the bookish love! Good luck to everyone and hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Here’s the fine print for entering your link:
Guidelines:
If you have a giveaway you would …

Guest Post: Why I Love an Evil Vampire by James R. Tuck

Today, we’re happy to welcome James R. Tuck to the blog. James is author of the recent release, Blood and Bullets, as well as a short story in the same world, That Thing at the Zoo. Despite his profile pic and his kick-ass main character, we won’t let this author fool you; he’s a super sweet guy with an interesting take on the creatures of the night. Remember to check out the giveaway below and help us give a warm Booklovers welcome to James! Take it away….

WHY I LOVE AN EVIL VAMPIRE
by James R. Tuck

Okay, this is not my public profession of love for a wicked bloodsucker who has stolen my heart, and I am NOT calling the Missus a vampire. I am talking about why I love evil vampires as monsters.

I have loved vampires for a long time. Even back in grade school I would …

The International Giveaways Café (37)

Hello all and welcome back for another week of great giveaways! I thought I would link back to the original post once more, for those of you that are new to the café, to better understand why we do this every week: Week 1. (Or, to summarize it in a few words: we love to share!) Are you caught up now? 😉 Just add your own giveaways below, for greater exposure. It’s a total win/win, right?

Remember to let us know if you’ve won anything recently; the Book Lovers would love to hear! At Book Lovers Inc., it’s our pleasure to share the bookish love! Good luck to everyone and hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Here’s the fine print for entering your link:
Guidelines:
If you have a giveaway you would like to share with our other readers, the rules are simple:
1. The giveaway MUST be available …

Elements in Lit 201: Victorian Era, Gothic, and Steampunk

We’ve covered a little bit of all three items mentioned in the title in previous Genre and Elements posts, but as I’m reading Wicked as They Come by Delilah S. Dawson, the main character makes a statement about “[being] transformed into a curvy Victorian bombshell. Or a Gothic bombshell…” She continues on to describe the Gothic as “decidedly dark and sexy…” It got me thinking about the subtle differences between these styles of dress. Moreover, the book has a definite Steampunk overtones, with each ‘Bludman’ or ‘Pinkie’ having a clockwork animal in their charge. What better way to experience the differences (or similarities) than with pictures!

Click on the image if you would like to check out the store website.

So, let’s start the comparison: The Victorian Era coincides with “Queen Victoria’s reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901” (source: Wiki) …

Explore This!: Newburgh, New York

I’ve been reading The Marriage Bargain by Jennifer Probst recently. Her book takes place in Newburgh, New York, which I had never heard of until picking this book up. Of course, I had to take a look and see.

According to the all-mighty Wiki, Newburgh is “located in Orange County, New York, United States, 60 miles (97 km) north of New York City, and 90 miles (140 km) south of Albany, on the Hudson River”. In researching this post, I found lots of information about Newburgh’s restoration attempts which is featured prominently in Probst’s book too. A nice little tie in, I think. So let’s take a tour and check out this quaint area:

The male lead is an architect, so it's only natural that we take a look at the great buildings in the area.

Dutch Reformed Church.

The Westshore train …

The International Giveaways Café (36)

Welcome back to the café! Well, there’s going to be a lot of the giveaways dropping of the list this week, but hopefully a lot of you out there will be getting the congratulations e-mail for winning the the closed ones. What this also means, is that we’d love more (new) giveaways listed below, to share with the world at large!

And remember to let us know if you’ve won anything recently; the Book Lovers would love to hear! At Book Lovers Inc., it’s our pleasure to share the bookish love! Good luck to everyone and hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Here’s the fine print for entering your link:
Guidelines:
If you have a giveaway you would like to share with our other readers, the rules are simple:
1. The giveaway MUST be available to international addresses (Book Depository does count)
2. Add your link below, in the format shown. …

Review: Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

Format read: ebook
Series: Book #1 in the Fifty Shades series
Genre: Erotic, Romance, BDSM
Release Date: 26 May 2011
Number of pages: 356 pages
Publisher: The Writer’s Coffee Shop Publishing House
Formats available: ebook, paperback
Purchasing Info: Goodreads, Author’s Website, Amazon

Book Blurb:

When literature student Anastasia Steele is drafted to interview the successful young entrepreneur Christian Grey for her campus magazine, she finds him attractive, enigmatic and intimidating. Convinced their meeting went badly, she tries to put Grey out of her mind – until he happens to turn up at the out-of-town hardware store where she works part-time.

The unworldly, innocent Ana is shocked to realize she wants this man, and when he warns her to keep her distance it only makes her more desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana’s quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her – but on his own terms.

Shocked yet thrilled by Grey’s singular erotic tastes, Ana …

The International Giveaways Café (35)

Welcome back to the café! This week marks the beginning of March break for the kids around here, and I don’t know about you guys, but having the kids home from school increases my desire for quiet time to read… and maybe drink more strong coffee! At least it’s only a week though, unlike Summer vacations…but let’s not think about that just yet :p

Moving on…Have you seen the great list of giveaways below?! Holy Mackerel! Of course, there’s always room for more! And remember to let us know if you’ve won anything recently; the Book Lovers would love to hear! At Book Lovers Inc., it’s our pleasure to share the bookish love! Good luck to everyone and hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Here’s the fine print for entering your link:
Guidelines:
If you have a giveaway you would like to share with our other readers, the rules …

Elements in Lit 201: Voices, Accents, and Languages

While Stella is off jet-setting this week, her next Romance and Me post will be delayed, which means you get me two weeks in a row 🙂 After last week’s post about killing zombies, I’m not sure whether to run screaming from you readers or to embrace you all as kindred spirits, lol. I loved the comments on that post and will go with the hugging option.

Today, though, I think we’ll head in another direction altogether. A few of the books I’ve been reading or listening to recently have had me thinking about languages. Being an international blog, we still publish here in English though it isn’t necessarily all of our native tongues. I know that some of us Book Lovers still prefer to read/listen in English anyway, despite this.

But even within the English language, there are such variations which can really affect the way a …