The International Giveaways Café (48)

Good morning all! How is the weather in you part of the world for this weekend? We’ve just hit the official summer months here in the north and things are looking pretty good 🙂

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. (Please use the URL for the contest post, not a general blog URL; you don’t want to make it tricky for others trying to enter)
3. …

Around the Bookish World: Week-in-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post! With the news of Microsoft entering the tablet market and more book news and publishing development!

The biggest news this week was the announcement by Microsoft who launched their own tablet device called the Surface, which will be released with the upcoming Windows 8 OS. The Surface also comes with an attached light keyboard and stand and the specs are pretty impressive and it looks like its entry is going to make a splash in the crowded tablet and ultrabook market. For more information although details pretty sketchy in terms of price  click here.

Penguin has allowed their e-books for online digital library downloads for a pilot scheme in New York. It is only for two city branches and each ebook is licensed for only one year which will then have to be renewed for the following year. I really hope they expand this scheme because …

Bookish Rants and Raves: Book Gifting!

“Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Give a man a book and he’ll teach himself how to fish.”

…isn’t that how the saying goes? No? Oh, well. Close enough.

You’ve recommended books to friends and book buddies before, right? Being a bookish lot, we are all likely to partake in gushing about beloved books and ranting about reads that didn’t resonate. Heck, it’s sort of what the book blogging community is all about.

Buying books for other people, however, seems to be a whole other ballgame. I must admit that I absolutely love giving books (or even magazine subscriptions) as presents; if I even suspect you’re a casual reader, I’m getting you a book for a birthday/Christmas/random day present. This means my friends and family members that like to read are some of my favorite people to gift shop for. It’s so fun getting to contribute to something …

Elements in Lit 201: The End

It’s been a while since I’ve posted one of these “lessons” and it will probably be the last one for quite a while to come, so it seemed fitting that we talk about endings.

With so many resources online these days and easier access to the authors, for the most part, us readers know ahead of time if a book will be a stand-alone or if it will be X part of a series, right? But what about when you read something and you feel that there’s no resolution, yet you know there will be no more? Or, probably worse than that is if a book that was mostly just okay to begin with ends on a cliff hanger? What do you do?!

I’ve come across both of these situations over the last couple of years. In the first scenario, I was reading Lisa McMann’s Wake trilogy. They were quick, …

Author Interview with Aleah Barley + Giveaway

Today I’m happy to introduce you to the author of another one of Entangled Publishing’s new releases: Aleah Barley, whose novel Too Hot to Handle featuring a sexy car-thief heroine and an irresistible police detective was released just a couple of weeks ago. I got to interview Aleah and besides learning a lot about her and the novel I enjoyed her quirky sense of humour, read on, I hope you’ll do too! Please give Aleah a warm welcome and if you answer her questions you could even win a copy of her book!

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

Aleah: Sure, I can’t go into much detail because I’m currently being licked to death by a giant fluffy cat. Makes it hard to type. I’m a humorous (I hope) romance writer living in Detroit, Michigan, and wishing …

New Releases: June 18 – 24, 2012

Wicked Business (Lizzy & Diesel #2) by Janet Evanovich

Lizzy Tucker’s once normal life as a pastry chef in Salem, Massachusetts, turns upside down as she battles both sinister forces and an inconvenient attraction to her unnaturally talented but off-limits partner, Diesel.

When Harvard University English professor and dyed-in-the-wool romantic Gilbert Reedy is mysteriously murdered and thrown off his fourth-floor balcony, Lizzy and Diesel take up his twenty-year quest for the Luxuria Stone, an ancient relic believed by some to be infused with the power of lust. Following clues contained in a cryptic nineteenth-century book of sonnets, Lizzy and Diesel tear through Boston catacombs, government buildings, and multimillion-dollar residences. On their way they’ll leave behind a trail of robbed graves, public disturbances, and general mayhem.

. . .

A Bad Day for Mercy (Stella Hardesty, #4) by Sophie Littlefield
A Few Good …

Explore This! Rome, Italy

Thanks to Stella, our awesome Latin Lover, we have today’s travel inspiration. She’s read a few gladiator romances recently and thought maybe we needed to have some visual aid for this beautiful, ancient city. And I totally agree!

The first thing most of us probably think of when we here about Rome are the Colosseum and the Parthenon, right? But there has to be much more to this city, so lets check it out and see what it has to offer:

The Colosseum.

The Acropolis.

Lovely azaleas at the Spanish Steps.

The Trevi Fountain.

The Tiber River with the Vatican as a backdrop.

We can break from the sites to enjoy a little shopping:

Then off to see more of Rome’s wonders:

Inside the Basilica of San Clemente.

The obligatory night shot. So pretty!

And if …

Guest post: Second Chances by Rita Oberlies + Giveaway

Today we double the pleasure by welcoming another Entangled Publishing author to Book Lovers Inc, Rita Oberlies, whose latest novel Second Chances was released in their Indulgence line in May. We invited Rita to tell us about her novel Second Chances and what is her take on second chance romances, please give her a warm welcome and read on, you could even win a copy of her book!

Years ago I was on a business trip to Colorado that was slated to be a five-day visit. A large storm rolled in just as I was packing my belongings to head home. That Friday afternoon I sat in the local airport in Colorado Springs praying that the snow would stop long enough for my flight to get off the ground. It didn’t happen. I was stuck for two more days at a beautiful Embassy …

Interview with Jus Accardo + Giveaway

Happy Monday, ladies and gents! We here at BLI are ready to start this new week off right with a visit from Jus Accardo, author of YA paranormal romance and urban fantasy.

We’re fortunate that Jus was gracious enough to answer our barrage of questions about her writerly life and her acclaimed YA series, Denizen.  Oh yeah, and some about her love of gaming and comic lore (which by itself already makes her freakin’ badass, in our book.) Please give her a warm welcome (and don’t forget to check out the end of the interview, for more giveaway goodness)!

——-

Amanda: Jus can you please tell us a bit about yourself?

Jus: I’m a World of Warcraft addict that drinks entirely too much coffee and spends 90% of her time hanging with people who don’t exist.

Amanda: Describe a typical day of writing? Are …

Sunday Cravings

Hello Book Lovers all around the world! Hope you are having a wonderful time and make up for my own crappy time while traveling just to vote at our elections. Yeah,  you get it right, I’d rather spend my weekend at a beach rather than deciding who among all our crappy politicians would be the best choice.

Anyway, we’re here for another week, to highlight the releases that we crave and not do some political analysis, so let’s start doing exactly that 🙂

 
Marlene: Wicked Business by Janet Evanovich

Whether it’s monkey business, funny business, or getting down to business, Janet Evanovich’s Lizzy and Diesel series proves that there’s no business like Wicked Business.

Lizzy Tucker’s once normal life as a pastry chef in Salem, Massachusetts, turns upside down as she battles both sinister forces and an inconvenient attraction to her unnaturally talented but off-limits partner, Diesel.

When Harvard University English professor …