Four Exquisite Nights: Night One | Sneak Peek + Giveaway of Exquisite Captive by Heather Demetrios!!

Tonight begins a four stop/four night blog tour celebrating the 10/7 audiobook release of EXQUISITE CAPTIVE by Heather Demetrios! Beginning tonight (9/29) and ending this Thursday (10/2), you’ll be able to listen to the first four chapters (one per day) of EXQUSITE CAPTIVE in their entirety and enter for a chance to win a digital download of the entire audiobook, performed by Erin Mallon! I’m so super excited to be kicking things off tonight by offering the prologue! 



Enter for your chance to win the full length EXQUSITE CAPTIVE audiobook by tweeting about the blog tour using the hashtag #exquisitenights and the url http://bit.ly/1xtgTWf. One winner will be randomly chosen from all who tweet and will be announced right here on Monday, 10/6 at 9:00 pm EST.
Be sure to tune in tomorrow at 9:00 pm EST to www.FallingForYA.com in which chapter one of EXQUISITE CAPTIVE will be offered! To see the complete list of tour stops, visit http://www.heatherdemetrios.com/blog/view/Four-Exquisite-Nights-2014-09-26

And trust me, you will want to go on to chapter one. . . and chapter two, and chapter three, and . . .
I am listening to this audiobook right now, and I am loving it. The narration is gorgeous and perfectly captures Heather's exquisite writing.
(You see what I did there. Eh? Exquisite. Eh?)

****GIVEAWAY****
The awesome folks at HarperAudio want to share this excellent audio adaptation of Heather Demetrios' upcoming Exquisite Captive, so they've offered up an exclusive giveaway of the audiobook for each of the four nights of the Four Exquisite Nights campaign! To enter, fill out the Rafflecopter, which includes a Twitter message entry; feel free to change the wording if you'd like, so long as your tweet still contains the hashtag #exquisitenights and the url http://bit.ly/1xtgTWf. This giveaway is INTERNATIONAL, and the winners of all 4 giveaways will be announced on the respective blogs on Monday, October 6th at 9pm EST.

Make sure to check out the next three chapters of the book, happening at 9pm EST for the next three nights on Falling for YA, Alexa Loves Books and Mostly YA Book Obsessed!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


More about Scheherazade and the Arabian Nights, from Heather Demetrios:

We all know that stories can save lives, but this is literally true in the case of One Thousand and One Nights,the collection of ancient stories that inspired Exquisite Captive.The narrator of the story is Scheherazade, a Persian queen who manages to save her life through weaving a story that keeps her husband from killing her. Here's the deal: Scheherazade volunteers to marry a seriously insane king who kills all of his wives after spending just one night with them. That's right: he marries a virgin and the very next day has her beheaded. Then he marries another virgin...and so on. But Scheherazade comes up with a brilliant plan--one she is so confident will work that she volunteers to marry the king, hoping to spare the lives of the city's virgins. On her wedding night, she asks the king if she can tell her sister a bedtime story and he agrees, staying in the room to hear the tale. So begins The Arabian Nights,sensual tales that bring to life the world of the jinn, of thieves and princesses, and magic lamps. At dawn, when the king would normally be getting ready to have his new wife beheaded, Scheherazade does what every good storyteller decides to do when she wants to keep her audience: she stops in the middle of the story--a good old-fashioned cliffhanger. The king, who was entranced by her story, spares her life in order to hear the end of the story the next night. Scheherazade does this night after night for--you guessed it---1,001 nights. By then, the king had fallen in love with her and he made her his queen. Not only did the stories save Scheherazade's life, but that of all the women in her kingdom who would have been the king's victims.

Exquisite Captive comes out Tuesday, October 7th. Pre-order your copy today and receive a signed bookplate, pin, and bookmark. Pre-order here.

Not an audiobook fan, or don't have twitter for the main entry? Don't worry — I'll be giving away a hardcover copy of Exquisite Captive in November for the official Blogger Caravan Tour!!

Good luck everyone!

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Exquisite Captive by Heather Demetrios
Get It | Add It
Fantasy, 480 pages
Expected publication: October 7th 2014 by Balzer+Bray

Forced to obey her master.
Compelled to help her enemy.
Determined to free herself.

Nalia is a jinni of tremendous ancient power, the only survivor of a coup that killed nearly everyone she loved. Stuffed into a bottle and sold by a slave trader, she’s now in hiding on the dark caravan, the lucrative jinni slave trade between Arjinna and Earth, where jinn are forced to grant wishes and obey their human masters’ every command. She’d give almost anything to be free of the golden shackles that bind her to Malek, her handsome, cruel master, and his lavish Hollywood lifestyle.

Enter Raif, the enigmatic leader of Arjinna’s revolution and Nalia’s sworn enemy. He promises to free Nalia from her master so that she can return to her ravaged homeland and free her imprisoned brother—all for an unbearably high price. Nalia’s not sure she can trust him, but Raif’s her only hope of escape. With her enemies on the hunt, Earth has become more perilous than ever for Nalia. There’s just one catch: for Raif’s unbinding magic to work, Nalia must gain possession of her bottle…and convince the dangerously persuasive Malek that she truly loves him. Battling a dark past and harboring a terrible secret, Nalia soon realizes her freedom may come at a price too terrible to pay: but how far is she willing to go for it?

Inspired by Arabian Nights, EXQUISITE CAPTIVE brings to life a deliciously seductive world where a wish can be a curse and shadows are sometimes safer than the light.

The Rise of Aurora West Review + Exclusive Artwork! | blog tour

You'll see The Rise of Aurora West cropping up here and there in the upcoming Graphic Novel Week I'm planning, but today we're going to go a bit more in depth with my thoughts on it, as part of the Aurora West blog tour!

Now, by all rights, you should have already heard me talking about this one, as it was covered in my August Rewind...which never made it to the light of day. Yeah. So sorry to not already have been pushing this one on ya, 'cause I gotta say, I really enjoyed it. It's part of the award-winning Battling Boy storyline, and as I haven't actually read Battling Boy, I was a little hesitant that I was going to feel like I was missing things or not getting the full picture, and that the story would feel incomplete as a result. And though I have no doubt that there would have been things that maybe would have been more meaningful to me had I read BB, things that would have added another dimension, I have to say, I kind of liked that I wasn't going in with any biases or expectations of the story and where it would go. I liked seeing it with fresh eyes, and learning this world solely through Aurora (whom I love).  And I certainly would have had biases and preconceptions, as Aurora West is a prequel to Battling Boy, which means I'd definitely know where the story was going, as it had already gone.

The only other thing I was a little hesitant on was the art, which, though it was fabulous and detailed, was VERY detailed (and small) in black & white, which was making my head feel a little chaotic in the beginning. I like to absorb as much as I can in each panel, and for the first few pages of this, I felt like I was losing things in the grayscale. Maybe it just took some adjusting though, or maybe I just learned to be a little patient and take a littke more time with each page, because it didn't bother me a bit after those few pages. (I'm not entirely sure it was the patience thing, though, because I found myself tearing through this.)

So, setting aside those hesitations that ended up being pointless, I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this, to the point of actually, physically saying aloud, "What? No!' when it ended and I realized I had to begin the long wait for book 2. Aurora is exactly what I like in a heroine, competent, intelligent, a little bit fearless but also a little bit afraid, and a whole lot ready to dig in. I loved the glimpses of her backstory and the anticipation of where it seems she's headed. I liked the monsters and the sort of "BANG! POW!" style of the story that is tweaked just enough to turn some tropes on their heads... And I love (LOVE) that the good guys are called "science heroes." SCIENCE. HEROES.
That tickles me to no end.

But mostly I judge a graphic novel (or any story, really) on how it's able to emotionally engage me — how much I care about the characters if they're in peril, say, or whether I choose favorites or root for storylines. Aurora West affected me more than I was anticipating, and I definitely did find myself rooting for certain things to happen, appreciating character dynamics and quirks, and truly, honestly worried in one particular scene that had me very prepared to be sad (and I won't tell you whether or not my sadness was warranted. Spoilers!)

Art c/o David  Rubin & FirstSecond Books, 2014

I do wish (very much wish) that Aurora West was in color, especially as Battling Boy was in color (and bigger!); I try not to read into things too much, but it's a bit of a bummer that the "girl" story didn't get quite the same treatment as the "boy" story. But if it's a choice of black and white or not at all, I'll gladly take the grayscale, because I loved Aurora's story and world, and can't wait for more.

And now I leave you with an exclusive sneak peek of illustrator David Rubín's original art for what may be my favorite character (aside from Aurora...and maybe Grately): COIL.
Check it out, let me know what you think of The Rise of Aurora West if you end up reading it (preorders of this book are so cheap you guys, oh my gosh!), and if you'd like to share thoughts on some of your favorite graphic novels for Graphic Novel Week, please email me!

And don't forget to check out the other stops on the Aurora West blog tour!

Wednesday, September 24^th – Bunbury in the Stacks http://bunburyinthestacks.com/

Thursday, September 25^th – Green Bean Teen Queen http://www.greenbeanteenqueen.com/

Friday, September 26^th – The Book Rat http://www.thebookrat.com/ - Hey! You are here!

Saturday, September 27^th – The Book Wars http://thebookwars.wordpress.com/

Sunday, September 28^th – Fly to Fiction http://flytofiction.blogspot.com/

Monday, September 29^th – Panel Patter http://www.panelpatter.com/

Tuesday, September 30^th – Finding Wonderland http://writingya.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, October 1^st – Fleen http://fleen.com/

Thursday, October 2^nd – Beth Fish Reads http://www.bethfishreads.com/

Friday, October 3^rd – Supernatural Snark http://supernaturalsnark.blogspot.com/

Saturday, October 4^th – Book Sake http://booksake.com/

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Get It | Add It
Paperback, 160 pages
Expected publication: September 30th 2014 by First Second

The extraordinary world introduced in Paul Pope's Battling Boy is rife with monsters and short on heroes... but in this action-driven extension of the Battling Boy universe, we see it through a new pair of eyes: Aurora West, daughter of Arcopolis's last great hero, Haggard West. A prequel to Battling Boy, The Rise of Aurora West follows the young hero as she seeks to uncover the mystery of her mother's death, and to find her place in a world overrun with supernatural monsters and all-too-human corruption. With a taut, fast-paced script from Paul Pope and JT Petty and gorgeous, kinetic art from David Rubin, The Rise of Aurora West (the first of two volumes) is a tour de force in comics storytelling.

Some things UPCOMING + I need YOU!

I've been a bit MIA, but I have some plans in the works, and changes a-comin', so yay for that! Until then, I need YOUR help on a few things.
Thing 1: Graphic Novel Week!
If you're into graphic novels,I'd love to have you involved. If you'd like to be part of the collab blog/vlog, send me either a paragraph or a short (good quality) video pushing the ONE graphic novel you think everyone should read!
If you'd like to do something more in depth, like a guest blog/vlog, please email me! And make sure to include your screenname/channel/blog name/however you want to be listed, all that jazz.

Thing 2: Q & A!
If you have Qs, I've (maybe) got answers. Leave me your questions (whatever they may be), here in the comments, on twitter, in a DM/PM, or anonymously on tumblr, and I will do my best to answer them. =D

VOTE for October's #WednesdayYA book club pick!

Our twitter chat for September's bookclub read, Seraphina, is taking place in just a few hours (tonight on twitter, 8:30 EST, using hashtag #WednesdayYA), and I do hope you can join us as we discuss this PHENOMENAL book.
But it's also time to pick our bookclub read for October, and Liz and I are feeling the seasonally appropriate atmospheric and dark reads this time 'round. Liz has picked two, I've picked two, but it's up to YOU which one we end up reading!
Voting will be open until next Tuesday, and the winner will be announced on Wednesday, when we invite you to join in in reading it with us!

Can't wait to see what you pick!

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

AUSTEN IN AUGUST WINNERS!

Click the button or HERE to return to the Austen in August main page!

I am terribly sorry, Austen-friends, that I completely forgot to pull the winners for our Austen in August giveaways! I mean, who does that? THERE IS AUSTEN TO BE HAD, DAMMIT.

Anywho, sorry for the wait, but here is our list of AIA winners, so YAY AND CONGRATS to all of them! But before we get into it, I just want to say another BIG THANK YOU to everyone who contributed to Austen in August, either by their lovely guest posts, interviews, excerpts & giveaways, or by just showing up in the comments and engaging in Austen discussions. You all rock, and I am sending you a mental Janeite hug right now.

Now, onto what you came here for:

REMEMBER THE PAST by Maria Grace

Heidi M. R. 

JANE AND THE SOUTHERN BELLE b.o.c. from vvb32 reads

Juju

$25 gift cards from Katie

Winner 1: Julie H.

Winner 2: Lúthien84

A LOVE FOR THE PAGES by Joy Penny

Alisha S.

THE MADNESS OF MR DARCY by Alexa Adams paperback

Colleen L.

THE MADNESS OF MR DARCY by Alexa Adams ebook

Mary P.

TWO TEENS IN THE TIME OF AUSTEN by Kelly McDonald

Jessica B.

MR DARCY’S PLEDGE by Monica Fairview

Gabriela S.

MY AUSTEN WATERCOLORS GIVEAWAY:

I’m gonna be honest - I kinda wanna send everyone who entered one. And I may. Slowly but surely, you guys may find yourselves getting an email from me... But for now, we’re going to start with these people:

Sophia Rose

Cassandra G.

Marina

Liz G.

Deborah F.

Now, of course, the usual disclaimer:

• Some of you have the same name! I tried to give last initials in places where I thought this may be the case, but if you're unsure if it's you listed, please email me and I will clarify!
• Winners have been emailed! As said in all of the giveaways, winners will have 24 hours to confirm they want their prize and provide a mailing address, if needed, or a new winner will be chosen. 
• Sometimes things happen, ya know? There is always the chance that your prize will be lost or damaged in the mail. If that happens, I'm very sorry, but, you know... blame the mail gods, or karma, or your neighbors, or something. But not the lovely authors who have sent you their baby, out of their own pockets. 

That's all for now. Congratulations everyone and THANKS AGAIN, and until next year:

WOULD YOU RATHER... [TAG]

I couldn't pass this one up...
Thanks to Priscilla for tagging me, and RayKayBooks for creating the tag!

Oh, and ignore the weirdly yellow cast this video has (and a few more that are to come) - I forgot I had the daylight filter on in my camera settings... (oops!)

Now, onto the tag!

THE QUESTIONS:
Would you rather
1. Read only trilogies or stand alones?
2. Read only female or male authors?
3. Shop at Barnes & Noble or Amazon?
4. All books become movies or t.v. shows?
5. Read 5 pages per day or 5 books per week?
6. Be a professional reviewer or author?
7. Only read your top 20 favorite books over and over or always read new ones that you haven't read before?
8. Be a librarian or book seller?
9. Only read your favorite genre, or every genre except your favorite?
10. Only read physical books or eBooks?

And in case you're interested, here's the Book Chat on series/stand-alones I mentioned. =)

Excerpt of BELZHAR by Meg Wolitzer | #FallIntoBelzhar

I'm pleased to announce that I'm part of the a really cool campaign with Penguin Teen (and so many cool, creative bloggers & vloggers!), called Fall Into Belzhar! The campaign centers around these little red notebooks that are featured in the story; each of us has been given our own LRN, and all throughout September, we will be sharing bits from our notebooks, posting picks and getting creative across all platforms of social media, and it basically sounds like it's gonna be kinda kickass. (I love a good creative campaign, and one that encourages creativity in others is EVEN BETTER!)
It all kicks off today, so I thought I'd share an excerpt of the book to get us started!
Let me know your thoughts, what you'd put in YOUR LRN, and of course, thanks for watching!

About BELZHAR by Meg Wolitzer
Get It | Add It
Contemporary/Magical Realism, 264 pages
Expected publication: September 30th 2014 by Dutton Juvenile

If life were fair, Jam Gallahue would still be at home in New Jersey with her sweet British boyfriend, Reeve Maxfield. She’d be watching old comedy sketches with him. She’d be kissing him in the library stacks.

She certainly wouldn’t be at The Wooden Barn, a therapeutic boarding school in rural Vermont, living with a weird roommate, and signed up for an exclusive, mysterious class called Special Topics in English.

But life isn’t fair, and Reeve Maxfield is dead.

Until a journal-writing assignment leads Jam to Belzhar, where the untainted past is restored, and Jam can feel Reeve’s arms around her once again. But there are hidden truths on Jam’s path to reclaim her loss.

From New York Times bestselling author Meg Wolitzer comes a breathtaking and surprising story about first love, deep sorrow, and the power of acceptance.

MORE ABOUT BELZHAR:
http://www.penguin.com/book/belzhar-by-meg-wolitzer/9780525423058

And keep an eye out throughout September for cool Belzhar posts from all of these awesome people!
Alexa Loves Books | The Book Rat (hey, that's me!)| Bookables | Bookish | Bloggers Heart Books | Elizziebooks | Girls in the Stacks | Good Books and Good Wine | I Am A Reader | Icey Books | Jessie the Reader | Katie’s Book Blog | Me, My Shelf and I | Mundie Moms | Novel Thoughts | The Perpetual Page Turner | Price is Wong | Reading Teen | Writer of Wrongs 

#WednesdayYA September Book Club Pick...

It's the first Wednesday of a new month, which can mean only one thing — it's time to announce our #WednesdayYA book club read for the month!
Liz and I debated back and forth quite a bit on this one, because on the one hand, we probably should have waited to choose this book, and on the other...it's a damn good book, and we're impatient. So, instead of waiting until it's nearly time for the sequel to come out, which would be the sensible thing to do, we've decided that September will be the month that we read . . .

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

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Fantasy, 512 pages

Published July 10th 2012 by Random House Books for Young Readers

In her New York Times bestselling and Morris Award-winning debut, Rachel Hartman introduces mathematical dragons in an alternative-medieval world to fantasy and science-fiction readers of all ages. Eragon-author Christopher Paolini calls them, "Some of the most interesting dragons I've read in fantasy."

Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.

Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered—in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen's Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life.

That's right, it's Seraphina time! You guys probably already know how I feel about this book, 'cause after I read it, I pushed it. A lot. And have been pushing it even since. So it didn't take much arm twisting from Liz to get me to agree to reread it when she said she was interested.
I know there are quite a few of you out there who've read and loved this, and a bunch of you who've been MEANING to read this, so I sincerely hope you'll come chat with Liz and I about it through out the month, but especially at our Twitter Chat on the last Wednesday of the month, September 24th, at 8:30 pm EST.
Hope to see you there!

AUGUST 2014 BOOK HAUL

...in which no one will say Hi to the internet.

This video has actually been recorded and ready to upload for at least a week now, but...I forgot. It was the middle of Austen in August, what can I say!?
Anyway, I was hardcore procrastinating that day, so I have a whole little pile of vlogs recorded for you guys. Here's to hoping I don't forget them, too. ;)

THE BOOKS:
Between the Spark & the Burn |  April Genevieve Tucholke
Belzhar + Belzhar notebook! (Thanks Penguin Teen!) | Meg Wolitzer
Isla & the Happily Ever After (and swag! Thanks Brilliant Books!) | Stephanie Perkins
The Green Teen Cookbook | Laurane Marchive & Pam McElroy
Sticky Fingers DIY Duct Tape Projects | Sophie Maletsky

ALSO MENTIONED:
Sara @ The Hiding Spot
Liz @ Consumed By Books

Giveaway: Hand-painted Darcy & Lizzy watercolors!

Sorry to be flooding your feeds with videos*, but here's the last Austen in August vlog for the year, and it's a giveaway!
[Also, sorry this is going up so late. I had ENDLESS trouble with youtube and Charter (of course) on the last day of AIA (of. course.).]

Rules and Reg are below; good luck and thanks for sharing the Austen love with me!

*But, uh... get used to it, 'cause now I need to play catch up, and will be uploading almost daily this week.
OY WITH THE POODLES ALREADY. =D

Fun fact: I was trying to teach my mom to watercolor, but we spent much of the day discussing random non-sequiturs like the one in the video... But anyway, on to what you came here for:

****GIVEVAWAY****
Enter on the Google Doc below to win a hand-painted Darcy & Lizzy (or a Jane silhouette, if you'd prefer - please note that in the doc, if so) + any goodies I might decide to throw in. I haven't decided how many winners there will be, but more than one, so YAY! Because this is international and every country has its own postal laws, please make sure that you are legally allowed to receive this, and that you have parental permission if you are a minor. And of course, the general disclaimer of: sometimes things happen, post gets lost in the mail, etc., etc., and if it does occur, blame the gods — neither myself, blogger, Jane Austen's descendants, Colin Firth and/or his wet shirt, etc., are responsible for prizes lost or damaged during shipping. Basically, sh*t happens.
Giveaway ends September 6th, 2014 at midnight EST.

Click the button or HERE to return to the Austen in August main page!