Review: The Sweetest Spell by Suzanne Selfors

Format Read: print ARC from the author
Number of Pages: 416 pages
Release Date: August 21, 2012
Publisher: Walker & Company
Genre: Fantasy, Fairy Tale, Young Adult
Formats Available: Hardcover, ebook
Purchasing Info: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Book Depository US | Book Depository (UK) | Author’s website | Publisher’s website | Goodreads

Book Blurb:

Emmeline Thistle, a dirt-scratcher’s daughter, has escaped death twice-first, on the night she was born, and second, on the day her entire village was swept away by flood. Left with nothing and no one, Emmeline discovers her rare and mysterious ability-she can churn milk into chocolate, a delicacy more precious than gold.

Suddenly, the most unwanted girl in Anglund finds herself desired by all. But Emmeline only wants one-Owen Oak, a dairyman’s son, whose slow smiles and lingering glances …

Guest post by Suzanne Selfors + Giveaway

Today we are very excited to welcome Suzanne Selfors to Book Lovers Inc! Of course we’re excited, we’re all hyped up on lots of yummy chocolate after reading her delightfully delicious chocolate-covered fairy tale, The Sweetest Spell (review later today). But before the review, Suzanne is here to share with us how her desperate search for a midnight chocolate fix (can’t we all relate?) led to this scrumptious story.

And if you’re craving a little chocolate fairy tale of your own, just answer Suzanne’s question for a chance at to win your very own copy of The Sweetest Spell!

Love + Chocolate = The Sweetest Spell

By Suzanne Selfors

How to take the fairy-tale formula of peasant girl meets prince and make it even more romantic? In my opinion, you add chocolate.

There are few things in life that stir such passion as a square of dark chocolate. I crave it. I LOVE it.

I’d …

Bookish Rant: The Buying and Selling of Book Reviews

I wish I had a dollar for every person who sent me a link to the New York Times article about paying for book reviews. You know the one, “The Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy” from August 25. There’s a slight irony in the NYT publishing it, since no one really knows exactly how they compile their bestseller list, but I digress.

The things that keep circling in my mind about the whole “paying for reviews” thing go like this:
1.       It feels like there are more books out there than ever
2.       It is definitely harder to get people’s attention for anything than it used to be
3.       Most people pick the next book they are going to read because they’ve already read that author (96% based on the Goodreads May Newsletter) so how does a newbie author get on readers’ radar?
4.       Book Blogging is a labor of love, …

Review: Blind Traveler’s Blues by Robert P. Bennett

Format Read: ebook provided by the author
Number of Pages: 218 pages
Release Date: October 21, 2011
Publisher: Echelon Press
Genre: Mystery
Series: Douglas Abledan #2
Formats Available: ebook
Purchasing Info: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Book Depository US | Book Depository (UK) | Author’s Website | Goodreads | Publisher’s Website

Book Blurb:

The year is 2021. Natural forces have changed our world. As the Earth’s magnetic poles have shifted, pressure on the planet’s mantle layer is building. The bottom line…earthquakes now wreak havoc in areas they have never occurred before.

In Mexico, members of an archaeological team investigate the remains of an ancient village uncovered by a quake; racing to prove their theories about the civilization that once lived there. But, disaster strikes when the accidental destruction of an artifact …

Bookish Rant: Apple, Amazon, Anti-Trust and the DOJ

I was at Dragon*Con over Labor Day weekend. For those either not in the U.S., or who aren’t familiar with Science Fiction Fandom, two explanations are in order. Labor Day weekend is the first weekend in September.

Dragon*Con is a huge regional science fiction convention in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. When I say huge, I mean attendance that numbers well over 30,000. Downtown Atlanta looks like it’s been overrun by aliens.

30,000 plus people talk about a LOT of stuff. Some of it frivolous, but a lot of it book-related. I listened to/met/shook hands with some of my favorite authors.

On Sunday morning, among about a dozen other panels, two lawyers and an author tackled the seriously bookish topic of the “Apple eBooks Lawsuit”. The room was packed to the rafters.

If you are looking for a basic but excellent primer on the entire price fixing lawsuit that the U.S. Department …

The Devil You Know by Victoria Vane

Format Read: ebook provided by the author
Number of Pages: 127 pages
Release Date: July 27, 2012
Publisher: Breathless Press
Series: The Devil DeVere #3
Genre: Historical romance
Formats Available: ebook
Purchasing Info:  Goodreads | Author’s Website | Publisher’s Website | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Book Depository US | Book Depository (UK)

Book Blurb:

When dealing with the devil it’s easy to be burned… especially when passion ignites the flames.
Who can find a virtuous woman… Beautiful, respectable, and dutiful, Lady Diana Palmerston-Wriothesley has long resigned herself to her decade-long loveless and childless marriage to a feckless husband…until his gambling pushes them to the brink of financial ruin.
Sometimes the devil is in disguise…as a gentleman… Viscount Ludovic, “The Devil DeVere”, is a man accustomed to taking what he wants according to his whim and …

Interview with Author Susan Wiggs + Giveaway

Please join us in welcoming Susan Wiggs to BLI today. Susan is here as part of her blog tour celebrating the release of Return to Willow Lake, the latest book in her Lakeshore Chronicles contemporary romance series. Return is an appropriate title, because this is Susan’s first trip back to the world of the Lakeshore Chronicles in two years. I’m sure that she has a lot of fans who have been itching for a return to this marvelous little town in the Catskills and the people that they have become familiar with (and probably quite fond of) during the course of this series.

BLI: Susan, tell us a bit about yourself- perhaps something no one would expect from you?

Susan: Hmmm. I’m not very mysterious so I don’t know if I can tell you anything unexpected. Maybe it’s unexpected that I’m a newlywed, seeing how I’m older than dirt. And my …

Interview with Author Gina L. Maxwell + Giveaway

Today, we’re absolutely thrilled to have Gina L. Maxwell as our guest at Book Lovers Inc. She’s here today to discuss her latest book from the new Entangled Brazen imprint, Seducing Cinderella (see our dual review later this week). 

Stella: Hi Gina, welcome to Book Lovers Inc! Can you please tell us a bit about yourself?

Gina: Hi, ladies, thanks for inviting me over! I’m a hopeless romantic, a wife and mother with an unhealthy addiction to Keurig coffee and dark chocolate. I’ve also been told my super power is Sonic Perkiness. 

Marlene: Describe a typical day of writing? Are you a planner or pantser?

Gina: I’m not a rigid schedule person, though I give it the old college try at the beginning of every week, only to resign myself to the crazy ways I’m most comfortable with. I try to write Mon-Fri in the afternoons as much as possible. Sometimes that happens, …

Review: Of Thieves and Elves:A Supernovella by A.P. Stephens

Format Read: ebook provided by the author
Number of Pages: 252 pages
Release Date: April 8, 2012
Publisher: Fanda Books
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Formats Available: Hardcover, ebook
Purchasing Info: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Book Depository US | Book Depository (UK) | Goodreads | Author’s Website 

Book Blurb:

A monumental tragedy has befallen the Clan of Ionor, an ancient brotherhood of elven warriors. Concerned when their Master does not reach his secretive business in a distant kingdom, the Elders learn that Tryn, their beloved leader, has been captured by a cutthroat gang of bandits known as the Steel Claw. Yet this is not the darkest of their tidings. The relic under the clan’s safekeeping, a weapon of terrible power that was forged by the gods themselves, is also missing. The …

Review: The Marrying Kind by Ken O’Neill

Format Read: ebook from the author
Number of Pages: 264 pages
Release Date: May 30, 2012
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Genre: Contemporary M/M Romance
Formats Available: Mass Market Paperback, ebooks
Purchasing Info: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Book Depository US | Book Depository (UK)  | Author’s Website | Publisher’s Website | Goodreads | 

Book Blurb:

Wedding planner Adam More has an epiphany: He has devoted all his life’s energy to creating events that he and his partner Steven are forbidden by federal law for having for themselves. So Adam decides to make a change. Organizing a boycott of the wedding industry, Steven and Adam call on gay organists, hairdressers, cater-waiters, priests, and hairdressers everywhere to get out of the business and to stop going to weddings, too. In this screwball, romantic comedy both the movement they’ve begun …