Z = Zombies vs. Unicorns

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

I swore when this book came out I would never read it based on the title. But A-Z will make you do some crazy things. So Zombies vs. Unicorns was supposed to be the first anthology I reviewed on P-52. However, something else will have to be as I'm not inclined to finisht this one. The back and forth from Team Zombie to Team Unicorn between the authors is cute and humorous, but some of the stories are kind of out there (and I love paranormal romance). I just never really got into it.

I FINISHED THIS YEAR'S CHALLENGE, SO TAKE THAT!!!!!

Y = Yamaguchi

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

 I recently picked up my daughter's(who may or may not be here when you're reading this) first autographed book at a Kristi Yamaguchi signing.  You can read all about it here.

X = Xombies

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.


Confession: As killer zombie virus strands are not my thing, I have NOT read this book. That's right, this is not a Beth's pick, but IT DOES start with X. So you should check out the goodreads reviews here.


Love,
Beth

W = Wolves of Mercy Falls

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.


The Wolves of  Mercy Falls, which I've also seen referred to as The Shiver Trilogy is my W pick. I loved Shiver because of the poetic writing, the mood and tone (review here). And wow, have my reviews changed since then. I really liked Linger too, though I felt the mood changed (review here).

V = Vampire Academy

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

Find my review of Vampire Academy here.

U = Unearthly

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

This was a fun book. It's not one of my all time favorites, but I can honestly say it's my favorite "U" book. You can find my review here.

T = Twilight

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

I LOVE THE TWILIGHT SAGA!!!! I LOVE EDWARD CULLEN!!!

Ironically, I've never reviewed any of these books, but every book I read for the first P-52 was in vain hopes of replacing Twilight and if you've read my E post you know that Eclipse is my all time favorite book!  I was able to write my first manuscript after reading The Twilight Saga, and even now when I get writer's block these are my go to books. You can find my plot analysis of Twilight here.

S = Simone Elkeles

First of all, blogger you suck! Of my last six scheduled posts, you've posted 1. Why am I taking the time to schedule them???

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

Okay, so if you were around for my P & R series, you already know what I think of Simone's writing. But I had the chance to see her at a conference her voice in life is just as interesting as on paper, maybe more so. (This is admirable to me, because in person I'm shy and awkward but on paper I have a big voice). But if you're a writer, even if you don't write YA, if you EVER get the chance to go to a Simone Elkeles workshop you should do it. She talked to my group about marketing, and she's good at it.

SIMONE MADE HERSELF A BEST SELLER. It's not secret that best sellers are made not written (although, in this case I think it was both).  But when her publisher didn't give her the marketing funds she needed to make her book a best seller and didn't give her the advance she hoped for, she took out a home equity line of credit on her house, hired a PR firm and did it herself. She created a trailer and got it on You-tube. She made sure 100 bloggers had copies of her book. She created a street team that pushed her book in bookstores. The book store bit was probably easier for her, because she was with a big press, but most of these are things we can do if we're self published, or publish through a small press. And the way she was able to take control of her career is inspiring! Talk to us again, Simone!!!!

R = Rules of Attraction

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.


Rules of Attraction is book two in The Perfect Chemistry series and just as great. You can find my review here.

Ahh--Help!!

Help me please! I signed up for a YA novel writing class thinking it included a session on brainstorming. (The sample syllabus did). But it does not. Now I need a fully developed idea for a YA novel by Monday night.

I'm throwing one idea around about a demon slaying girl in love with the devil whom she unfortunately has to kill. He's also in love with her but needs to kill her and is way more powerful than her. I have no beginning and a slight idea of the end. I have no major plot points. Just a concept.

I was hoping to write a contemp romance, because on plot point Tuesdays when I break novels down it just seems easier to do with contemps. However, I have no idea for a contemp.

Any ideas? Any brainstorming techniques? Help please!

Q = (The) Queen & I

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

Okay, so with the "The" in front of it this one is kind of cheating, but come on it's Q.

The Queen and I was the first book I reviewed for the first P-52. It's a political satire and kind of comical. After P-52 I'd found what I loved so in honesty this isn't really my kind of book, but it was interesting. You can find my review here.

P = Perfect Chemistry

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

Simone Elkeles' Perfect Chemistry is an amazing book and a lesson on POV. The way she wrote that first chapter from two different perspectives and made each protag someone the reader could both relate to and sympathize with was genius. You can find my review here.

O = On Writing

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

Stephen King's On Writing was the first craft book I read and the only one I've been able to finish. It's a simply written short read perfect for a beginning writer. I used lots of his advice when writing my second manuscript, Phantom Fires, which is my all time favorite. If you're starting out grab a copy of this.

M = Maggie & Me

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

Somehow this got scheduled for 4/14/13, so it never actually posted this weekend. If you're looking for N it's below this, because I decided to go ahead and post it. I worked hard on getting all these letters in. LOL

Maggie Stiefvater's Linger kick-off tour was my first book signing, unless you count the Salman Rushdie in law school for free food which I don't. This signing was a huge move for me. I felt totally out of place because I was overdressed and the only book blogger in the room without a bookmark for my blog. But I met Michelle from Window Pane Memoirs who sent me a bookmark template that matched my blog! I met some of the girls from Girls in the Stacks and a Mundie Mom. And of course, I met Maggie. It was so encouraging to meet so many bloggers. Some wrote. Some didn't. And for a beginner, Maggie gave great advice. You can see all the fun from that night here.

N = Nelson Literary Agency

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

I have to say, I'm not represented by NLA, but if I ever query a novel again, agent Kristin Nelson will be among my top picks. Her blog pubrants is helpful to writers, and not just on writing advice. In lots of instances, pubrants has made me aware of things going on in the industry that I would have missed even being an active member of several writing organizations. Granted, I'm unpublished so it may not be that pertinent to me, but if I were on submission to Dorchester, I'd want to know. Not to mention, she represents the brilliant Simone Elkeles, which means she has good taste. I admire the way she's fought for her clients rights even on works she didn't represent and I liked the way she was willing to represent a client who chose to self publish. Now her agency has a whole self publishing model which AAR has asked them to share. Yep, this is a Beth's pick.

L = Lament

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

This was a fun book. It was fast paced with lots of evil fey chasing teen agers and a beautiful love story all rolled into one. You can find my review here.

K = Kagawa, Julie

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

Seriously, Julie Kagawa is one of my all time favorite writers. Not just because of the work she did with the Iron Fey series(check out my I post for all the reviews) and releasing the free novellas, but she was also one of my first blog interviews. She gave thoughtful, insightful answers to my questions and took the time to interview on a blog that at that time only had 82 followers. (I realize when you're reading this it might seem I don't have many more now, but that's because google recently ate my followers). But I really appreciated her taking the time to do that, and she even wished me luck with my writing on another post.

So if you're published, even if you're selling well, remember sometimes if you just take the time to talk to someone, you can make a fan for life. You can find my  part interview with Julie Kagawa here.

J = Julie & Julia

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.


Confession: I've never actually read this book. New confession: I don't really regret that. 


So how did it make to a Beth's pick? Well, I watched the movie and while I never got particularly engrossed in the story line it did inspire blog, kind of. I actually already had a blog. It was horrible.

I started blogging to improve my writing. I thought that writing everyday would help. (It does). The problem was I had a boring life and a job I hated. I did nothing interesting and divided my time equally between organizing evidence and complaining about organizing evidence. Those first few blog posts were painful. They were hard to write and even harder to read. Fortunately only a week or two into my new year's resolution of blogging I saw this movie, and I knew I needed a project so I would have something to write about.

I don't have a lot of talents. The project had to be something I could do, and I was not about to cook fattening French food for a year. I decided to do 52 book reviews in a year. I got the hang of blogging and start mixing writing posts with my book reviews, then author interviews. I learned how to blog! So while I've never read the book, and probably won't, Julie & Julia is a Beth pick. It inspired the first P-52 and the fun I had that year inspired this P-52 (which I'm totally behind on so wish me luck).

I = The Iron Fey

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

My I pick is The Iron Fey series. It's an awesome combination of romance, a twist on fairy lore, and a good chunk fantasy with plenty of action/suspense scenes. You can find my review of The Iron King here, The Iron Daughter here, and The Iron Queen here. And I didn't review because with the way I had to read it I didn't think I could give it a thorough review, but The Iron Knight was my favorite.

Contest Winners Announced

The winners of the Book Depository contest are:
1) Sharon K. Mayhew
2)Beverly Stowe Mcclure

Sorry, it took so long to post. Life has been crazy, but my daughter's nursery is finally ready!

And now for a random vent: Blogger has not posted the last two posts I've had scheduled though I can see they should have posted. Arrg! Saturday's I caught in time. Today's I didn't. Geez.

H = Hunger Games

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

My H pick is The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. You can find my review of The Hunger Games here, Catching Fire here, and Mockingjay here.

Vampire Academy Book 8

First of all I will announce the contest winners sometime before Monday(so yes, sometime on Easter Sunday). I apologize for the delay; I just haven't  had time to tally entries and do random.org. As some people suggested, my next contest will be rafflecopter.


Okay, so the Vampire Academy...I loved the rich description of the Vampire Academy campus and the Moroi royalty/traditions. There were a lot of things about this book that were interesting and unique, but I found one major element of the premise unbelievable. Dhampir (vampire human hybrids) will train and spend their life protecting Moroi(living vampires) because they cannot procreate with humans or other dhampirs, just Moroi. Except Moroi women will never marry a dhampir and Moroi men probably won't marry a dhampir but they don't mind creating babies with them out of wedlock. Those babies either end up raised by the Vampire Academy to guard the Moroi or living in a colony of single dhampir women referred to as blood whore communes because the Moroi father has nothing to do to them. I found it hard to believe that dhampirs would be so concerned about furthering their species they were willing to endure this kind of second class citizenship just to reproduce. And the second class citizenship isn't really discussed in the book.
Also, I thought this was a paranormal romance. When the MC, Rose, met another dhampir who was both hot and interesting at the beginning of the book I expected the book to be about the two of them, especially with the blurb about forbidden love. The book is more about Rose's need to protect Lissa and how hard it is to do it. Lissa has her own forbidden love story going on that we watch through Rose and Lissa's "bond" which allows Rose into Lissa's head. But for me, neither romance was really developed enough.
This was a plot driven book that stayed interesting pretty much from the inciting incident all the way through to the end, but for me I would have liked more romance. I also found the back of the book and some of the blurbs misleading. All in all I would say this is a 3 star read, but not for me.

G = Grace

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

Grace is the main character from The Dark Divine series and I love her and I love the series. She's stronger than a lot of female MCs and while she is altruistic it's believable in her world and it's balanced. Grace does care about people and isn't in the least bit self-centered, but every now and then you get a glimpse that she would like to be. That doing the right thing is right, but not always fun. It makes her a realistic character. She's strong enough to fight for what she wants/needs and the people she cares about, and I like the way she's true to her beliefs. What I love about the series is the mixture of paranormal and religion because from my perspective if magic exists God is why. It's also an interesting twist on the YA wolf books ;).

F= Face on the Milk Carton

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

I read this book as a 13 year old with no interest in reading. My English grades were very high. My teachers were after me to write and my comprehension was at a collegiate level. But every book I'd ever read had been assigned, about old people, or when I could choose boring, but not as boring as the others. Then I read The Face on the Milk Carton. The girl in the book was convinced her parents were not her real parents, a feeling I often had. Except she was right. It turned out her mom had kidnapped her from a nice family and her grandparents raised her, because they didn't know. She had boyfriend that loved her so much he broke up with her, because he realized finding her birth parents had taken over her life, and he would never be the most important thing to her. But she needed him so they reconciled. It was the perfect combination of romance and suspense. I was sold and fortunately it was the first in a series. Unfortunately, my library never ordered the others and in a town with no book store in a time before the internet that left no options. So I didn't start really reading until after I dropped out of law school and worked for the government. Then my husband got me Twilight, and well, you know me today ;).

E = Eclipse

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

OMG! Stephanie Meyer's Eclipse is my all time favorite book, but I've never reviewed any of the Twilight books, because I started the first P-52 searching for a good replacement.

D = Doctor Seuss & IWSG

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

My D pick is Dr. Seuss. I didn't learn how to read with Dr. Seuss, but Dr. Seuss books were some of my favorites as a young child, and now that Emily is coming shortly it's what I'm building her library with. My absolute favorite: 

Not reading makes for an insecure kid, but millions of kids have learned to read from Dr. Seuss books. Too much reading leads to writing and there is no cure for the insecure writer, so all we can do is vent about it the first Wed. of every month. The Insecure Writers Support Group is hosted by Alex. 

And because there weren't enough images in this post:

 

C = Cold Kiss

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

My C pick is Amy Garvey's Cold Kiss.  I loved this book so much it was my first theme week. You can find my review here and my two part interview with author Amy Garvey here and here.

B = Born Wicked

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

Born WIcked by Jessica Spotswood book was so much fun! Here's my review.

A = Anna & The French Kiss plus Arise

The A-Z blogging challenge is being hosted by Tossing It Out. My A-Z selections are a Beth's Pick unless otherwise noted.

And my A pick is Anna and The French Kiss, an amazing sweet romance. You can find my review here and my plot analysis here.


And today I also like Arise which can't technically be a Beth's pick, because I haven't read it yet, but I loved Hereafter the first in the series, and you can find my review of that here.