Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2012

Alright so here's the lowdown. I missed the 2011 challenge by one book. One!

So this year, I am completely determined exact my revenge and have my 20 books in before the holiday season consumes me, as it did last year. Oh yes, I'm still going for the Severe Bookaholism here. 

So, without further ado, here's to a great year full of amazing historical fiction! Happy reading!

Contest for Aspiring YA Writers

This is a rare opportunity to get a renowned author or literary agent's feedback on your unpublished manuscript!


Pick one of the following stories from Book Wish Foundation's new book,What You Wish For, and write an essay of no more than 500 words about how the wishes in the story relate to the Darfuri refugees in eastern Chad. The stories were contributed for free by their authors so we could use the book's proceeds to develop libraries in Darfuri refugee camps. Essays will be judged on style, creativity, understanding of the story, and understanding of the refugees. If you win, either the story's author or the author's literary agent (as indicated below) will provide a one-page critique of the first 50 pages of a middle grade or young adult manuscript of your choosing. You will have six months to submit your manuscript, and the agent or author will have six months from submission to provide the critique.


To Enter:


Essays must be emailed to contest@bookwish.org no later than February 1, 2012, either pasted into the body of the email or attached as a Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, or PDF file. Essays must include the name and email address of the entrant. Book Wish Foundation staff will judge the initial round of the contest and recommend finalists to the agents or authors, who will select the winners. Winners will be notified by email and announced on bookwish.org on or about March 1, 2012. Winners' manuscripts must be received by September 1, 2012. Manuscript critiques will be sent to winners within six months of receipt.

Essays may be published on bookwish.org. By submitting an essay, you grant to Book Wish Foundation the right to edit, publish, copy, display, and otherwise use your essay, and to further use your name, likeness, and biographical information in advertising and promotional materials, without further compensation or permission, except where prohibited by law. The preceding applies to the contest essays, not winners' manuscripts. Winners retain all rights to the manuscripts they submit for critique.

For more information, please see http://bookwish.org/contest.

Giving Thanks for the Things I Treasure

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

First off, I do have to apologize to those readers who are outside the US, as this holiday is decidedly US-centric. But I think the meaning of the holiday is something that everyone can relate to. Bear with me.

We all have things to be thankful for. Here's a short list of the things I am giving thanks for this year, in no particular order:

1. Books. I would literally be lost without them.

2. Authors. You serve as a daily inspiration for me, and for that I am extremely thankful.

3. My Family. You have supported me no matter what the cost. Words can't even express how much I am thankful for you.

4. My Blog Readers. You are the reason for this blog. Thank you so much for your continued support, and for caring so much about this project. I can't thank you enough.

For those of you celebrating Thanksgiving, I hope you have a wonderful day. Heck, I hope everyone has a wonderful day!

What are you thankful for?

NaNoWriMo!

Hello everyone! It's officially November, which means it's time for the National Novel Writing Month!

I decided to join in the fun. Since I have already completed my first novel, I decided that instead of trying to squish in a full novel in 30 days, I am going to use NaNoWriMo to work on all of the other projects I have in mind. I swear, I have at least 5 other story ideas saved on my computer. So, instead of letting them collect dust, I decided they all need a bit of work.

I encourage you to join me on this endeavor! It's completely up to you whether you want to write a whole novel in 30 days, or be like me and work on a variety of projects. In other words, this November, let your creativity run wild!

Check out my NaNoWriMo profile here. It's pretty bare bones right now, but oh well.

Enjoy November, and happy writing!

And the winners are...

Hello everyone! I hope you all are doing well. Today I'd like to announce the winners of my two giveaways: "A Century of Followers" Giveaway & "For the Love of Jane!" Giveaway!

First off, congratulations to Natalie of Mindful Musings for winning my "Century of Followers" Giveaway!

Natalie selected Steel by Carrie Vaughn as her prize off of my to-read list. I can't wait to hear what she thinks!

Next, on to the winners of "For the Love of Jane!"

Congratulations to Malvina for winning a beautiful copy of the Complete Novels of Jane Austen!

...And congratulations to Emily for winning the Favorite Jane Austen Novels set!

Once again, congratulations to all three of the winners! Thank you so much for all of you who entered and participated. I sincerely wish I could give prizes to you all! Your support is priceless!

Pride and Prejudice... On Stage!

After seeing an advert in our local newspaper that Pride and Prejudice was going to be on stage at one of our favorite performing venues, my mother literally leaped to the computer to buy the tickets (she is without a doubt completely obsessed with P&P! I mean it... all the P&P fanfics, continuations... she reads them all!). So last night we headed out to the South Coast Repertory to see Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, as adapted for stage by Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan... and I have to say, we both absolutely loved it!

The play starts out a little differently than expected. At the beginning, we see a 'typical' modern teenager (complete with pink hair and skinny jeans) forced to read Pride and Prejudice. She starts out reading on an e-reader, which glitches and fizzles out. But then a mysterious figure comes along (Elizabeth Bennet) and hands her the real, hard-cover novel of P&P, and that's where the excitement begins.

Throughout the play the teenager remains somewhere on stage, reading, as the story unfolds before her. Though I liked the theme that P&P is so timeless that it even touches today's readers, I could have done without the teenager. She had no speaking part whatsoever, and just kind of hung out in the background throughout the play.

The actors/actresses were all fantastic in their roles. The actress who played Mrs. Bennet was absolutely amazing! She had her down so well, and she was hilarious. The same goes for Mr. Collins! Absolutely side-splitting at times! Elizabeth was really fantastic. I swear, she looked and sounded exactly like Anne Hathaway! It was scary! But she did a wonderful job of portraying Lizzy's vivaciousness and enthusiasm. Mr. Darcy did very well in his role as well (plus he was tall... and handsome!)

The dialogue of the play remained very true to the novel. There were a few changes here and there, a couple of funny quips, but it did not hurt the play whatsoever. For those of you who are "purists," so to speak, I think you will definitely enjoy it.

This play was really fantastic. All the actors played their characters so very well. If you are in the general LA area of California, it is definitely worth your while to go see!

My Rating: 5*****

Tickets and Info Here: http://www.scr.org/calendar/view.aspx?id=4207

Book Blogger Hop (15) + Follow Friday

It's finally the weekend, which means time for another hop! Hosted by the lovely Crazy-For-Books.

In the spirit of the Twitter Friday Follow, the Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love of the written word! This weekly BOOK PARTY is an awesome opportunity for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs to read!

This week's question from Lori:

Many of us primarily read one genre of books, with others sprinkled in. If authors stopped writing that genre, what genre would you start reading? Or would you give up reading completely if you couldn’t read that genre anymore?

Oh my goodness. If authors stopped writing historical fiction, I would definitely take up writing it for myself, I love it that much. But as a back-up, I would probably start reading the classics and maybe some fantasy?? That's the closest genre to historical fiction I can think of.

Have you ever wanted a villain to win at the end of a story?If so, which one??

Oh man, talk about bringing out my dark side! Hmmm... I definitely think I would have wanted Cesare and Sancha of Aragon to have ended up together at the end of The Borgia Bride. They shared such undeniable passion between them! But Cesare's I-seek-world-domination-at-any-cost & if-you-don't-get-out-of-my-way-I'll-kill-you attitude got the better of them. I guess I've just got a bad case of bad boy syndrome... I kept thinking if they ended up together, Sancha could have kept his rage at bay. But I guess it was just too good to be true...

-To join the fun and make new book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:
-(Required) Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Host { Parajunkee.com } and any one else you want to follow on the list
-(Required) Follow our Featured Bloggers - Jennie Elyse & Caught in the Pages
-Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing.
-Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments
-Follow Follow Follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "HI"
-If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love...and the followers
-If you're new to the follow friday hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

Happy Friday!

Unexpected Endings: The Bad Medicine of the Literary World

Hello everyone! I thought today I would mix it up a little bit. Instead of a review or a haul or something of that nature, I thought I would share what's on my mind this week concerning all things literary. Just to keep you all on your toes.

So. This week had me thinking about unexpected endings. You know, when you're reading a book and the ending is completely the opposite from what you had planned out in your head.

I've found that nowadays, I see more and more authors going out of their way to make the endings to their story unexpected, for originality's sake. Just looking at my library now, I can spot quite a few examples of the unexpected ending. For me, this can be a good or bad thing.

Enter bad medicine. I thought this would fit the description of the unexpected ending perfectly. For instance, you read a book you absolutely love and the ending totally bashes your expectations. You rage, you fume, you throw your book at a wall (oops). But after you settle down and think about it, you realize that your unexpected ending was actually the right one. You realize that the ending was fresh and original, and it keeps you on your "literary" toes. Just like bad medicine. You hate the taste of that awful medicine; you gag, you cough, but in the end, it does you good.

But there is a darker side to this tale ladies and gents. There is the time when authors purposely change their ending to make it seem "unique." They'll kill off a main character for no apparent reason, or throw a huge setback in to avoid the cliched "happy ever after." That's when I have a problem.

Anywho, that's what's been turning the cogs upstairs. Your thoughts?