Bookish Rants or Raves: There’s NO Shame is Taking Second Place!

Lover Mine by J.R. Ward

It’s hard to ignore the spotlight and I do love my heroes and heroines. It doesn’t really matter if it’s the sexy Alpha Hero everyone wants to have for their own, or if it’s the no-holds-barred kickass heroines/heroes found in Urban Fantasy, those leading men and women have the difficult job of capturing your heart and making you dedicate a lot of your time in reading their stories.

We count on their stories to take us away from our own worlds and escaping to different realities. However important they may be though, what really makes their adventures and lives real is the people around them. The sidekicks and secondary characters who make the heroes and heroines’ stories even more compelling and real.

The Black Dagger Brotherhood (BDB) series by J.R. Ward, for example. For me, reading the …

Author Interview with Gabi Stevens + Giveaway

We are very happy to welcome Gabi Stevens to BLI today! Gabi is the author of the Time of Transition series: a magical contemporary romance series about fairy godmothers! Book #1 The Wish List was released in May 2010 and Book #2 As You Wish was just released on 26 April 2011.

So please give a warm welcome to Gabi and join us in celebrating the release of As You Wish, a modern Beauty and the Beast story! 

The Latin Lover: Gabi can you please tell us a bit about yourself?

Gabi: Well, I was born in Southern California to Hungarian parents. I went to boarding school for high school, then college, where I spent my junior year in Germany, then moved to Illinois with my husband for grad school. Over the course of years I learned …

Review: As You Wish by Gabi Stevens

Format read: eARCNumber of pages: 320 pages Publisher: Tor BooksFormats available: paperbackRelease Date: 26 April 2011 Series: Book #2 in the Time of Transition seriesPurchasing Info: Goodreads, Author’s Website, Amazon, Book Depository

Blurb:

Born into a magical family, Reggie Scott is content to live out her life as a normal human until the moment she’s informed that she’s a newly appointed fairy godmother. Left struggling to deal with powers the never thought she’d have, Reggie faces a curse, a plot to overthrow the Arcani, and an entirely too enthusiastic mother—all in a matter of days.

Jonathan Bastion is a man of power and wealth—and a dangerous secret. He desperately hopes that Reggie’s new powers will hold the answer to his problem and he isn’t above using her to achieve his goals. What he doesn’t expect is how …

Review: Alien in the Family by Gini Koch

Format read: paperback from the author for reviewNumber of pages: 320 pagesRelease Date: April 5th 2011Publisher: DawFormats available: ebook, paperbackPurchasing Info: Amazon, Goodreads, Author’s Website, Book Depository

Book Blurb:

Super-Being Exterminator Kitty Katt and the Alpha Centaurian she loves, Jeff Martini, should be finalizing their wedding plans. But that was before she discovers Jeff is in line to become Emperor back on his home world. Kitty knows she is everything a royal family wouldn’t approve of, and is bracing herself for the worst. As it turns out, the royal family is just the beginning. Especially when extraterrestrial Amazonian terrorists are determined to start and end Kitty and Jeff’s nuptial festivities with a bang.

My Thoughts: 

Be warned this review is definitely spoiling book 1 and 2. 

Alien in the Family was probably one if the most anticipated books of 2011 …

Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

Well after last week’s bonanza of news – things are pretty quiet this week, but I have some fantastic books/covers to watch out for and a few tidbits that will please a few people.

We have a bit of an update of Trisha Telep and the Wicked Pretty Things anthology.More authors have pulled out , Brenna Yovanoff, Seanan McGuire , along with Karen Mahoney and Lesley Livingston, Lisa Mantchev and Jessica Verdey. While Melissa Marr has announced she does not want her name to be associated with this anthology in any manner to recommend it. But that is not all, authors Ann Aguirre and Saundra Mitchell have also pulled out in a different anthology again edited by Telep. I definitely think now, Wicked Pretty Things anthology wont go ahead with its current form with only 7 of …

Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

Wow this week we have had major news shaking up publishing and ebooks, so it is a bit jam packed issue in today’s news post.
The biggest and most contraversial announcement though has to be HarperCollins’ announcement that their ebooks would be restricted with a 26 borrowed limit. As you can imagine this has ignited the ire of many librarians and their patrons about this because the limit is set at such a low level.

HarperCollins have responded in an open letter to libraries and library users to explain this new measure by saying this would be a way to protect ebook growth and market. Below is an extract of an open letter explaining this and click here for the full statement:

We have serious concerns that our previous e-book policy, selling e-books to libraries in perpetuity, if left unchanged, would undermine …

Review: Seven Souls A Leaping by K. F. Zuzulo, Lisa Pietsch & Heather Long

Format Read: e-Book ARC provided by Author for reviewLength: 271 PagesRelease Date: January 3rd, 2011Publisher: Sapphire Blue PublishingFormats Available: e-BookPurchasing Info: K.F. Zuzulo’s Website, Lisa Pietsch’s Website, Heather Long’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon.com, Publisher’s Website, All Romance Ebooks

Book Blurb:

Seven Souls A Leaping is an anthology of three interconnected tales of love, danger and a war against evil written by Lisa Pietsch, K.F. Zuzulo and Heather Long.

At the New England New Age (NENA) Investigations, no case is too weird. The paranormal detective agency relies on the familial talents of siblings Duncan and Samantha MacDougal and their cousin Tara Conroy. While Duncan and Samantha tend to the field work, Tara mans the office tapping sources in both the physical and spirit world. Fate takes a hand …

Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

After last week’s epic news post and the authors gone HULK, things have been quite subdued this week, with some depressing and sad news of bankruptancy and deaths.

The biggest announcement has to be Borders filing for Chapter 11 insolvency and will be entering administration. Sadly 200 of their 600 megastores will be closing and around 6000 employees will face redundancies. This will also affect publishers which Borderes owes millions of dollars of debt and in turn as this article highlights will affect authors, because the majority of books being sold are via stores like Borders.

Another struggling mega store chain owner REDgroup is also facing bankruptancy, but this time its in Australia. Ironically enough they also own the Australian arm of Borders as well as, Angus and Robertson and Whitcoulls in New Zealand. This shows that traditional brick …

Review: A Blue So Dark by Holly Schindler

Format Read: PaperbackNumber of Pages: 266Release Date: 1 May 2010Publisher: FluxFormats Available: Paperback, EBookPurchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon

Book Blurb:

All I see are murky depths that could swallow me whole.

Mom knew that the mermaids – hand carved from driftwood by the owner of a souvenir shop – were all I wanted to take home from Florida. As she bought them, she looked down at me, her eyes not just glittering but snapping with fire like two Fourth of July sparklers. She ran her finger down the length of my nose, almost like you’d stroke a favourite pet, and said to the salesman, “We’re just alike, me and Aura.”

And you know, back then, the …

Catscapades or Details of a Catfight by Gini Koch + Giveaway

One of the past year’s sensations has been Gini Koch‘s mindblowing debut novel to the the Kitty Katt series: Touched by an Alien. It provoked hyperventilation, incoherent rambling, fanning and sighing over Martini and Christopher, and of course contagious laughter. We Book Lovers all went nuts with our enthusiasm and love for this series, these characters, novels and this extraordinary author, so it went without saying that we absolutely wanted to have Gini over at BLI to introduce her to anyone who might not have yet read her books (seriously are there any of you like that?!) or just brighten your day.

Martini, Kitty and Christopher didn’t get the spotlight this time as the Kitty Brigade usurped it. Read on for more and for your chance to win.

My Fur-Filled Life by Gini Koch

I was supposed to write a …