Win Some Books, Y'All

Beth Revis, New York Times bestselling debut author of the pretty kick-ass ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (read the first chapter, y'all, and be hooked), is hosting a cool contest where you can score five much-talked-about books - hers included. From her blog:

"As you know, I'm a fan of all these books. But here's my super-short reasoning for why you want each one:

• THE ETERNAL ONES by Kiersten Miller is a fast-paced, adventurious love story that involves reincarnation, secret societies, and fire.
• THE REPLACEMENT by Brenna Yovanoff is a hauntingly beautiful book that scares the pants off me.
• NIGHTSHADE by Andrea Cremer is not about werewolves--it's about true wolves that can shapeshift into people written by a brilliant scholar who incorporate history into the tale.
• MATCHED (edit: also a NYT bestseller) by Allie Condie shows us that love can break through any barrier, and the most important thing is to not go gently...
• ACROSS THE UNIVERSE is the book that I wrote and I would really like it if you liked it. Also I think you're pretty and want to be friends with you."

Rules are pretty basic - just visit her site to get the deets and then tell someone about it, like I just did :) Pretty fantastic way to support authors & books and get some page-turners to settle in with. God, I love that settling in :) Good luck!

Snap to, Will Henry!!

You know you want it. Buy it. Now.

The 19th century. We're talking the Gilded Age, New York. Science!! Freezing tenement slums, brightly-lit antechambers, fisticuffs. Drays and hansoms. Puff sleeves for the ladies, frock coats for the men. And that literature. Ohhhh, the literature. Lush. Words so thick they cloister the space like cigar smoke, leather and male pomposity in a Fifth Avenue smoking room.

Now. Add to that Rick Yancey's 12-year-old monstrumologist's assistant, Will Henry. Arcane sciences. Stilted passions. A rising dread, cloying shadows. A khorkhoi. The Victorian sensibility and its delicious, shivery blend of horror. Ohhhh...

In it arises the most gleefully ghoulish depravity. A shambling monster with a lisp. DUDES. IT LISPS. As it tears out your eyes. As its fangs rend the tender flesh of your heart with an exquisite pop. This glorious juxtaposition of the Victorian with the macabre drives, absolutely drives, Rick Yancey's THE CURSE OF THE WENDIGO.

Finished it yesterday. And I put it down with a sigh, mentally licking my fingers as I polished it off. Gorgeous. Universally-themed. With breathtaking writing. A marvelously complicated, aging monstrumologist. "Snap to, Will Henry!" And that achingly lovely, desperately doubting Will Henry himself. If you haven't read the Printz Award-winning THE MONSTRUMOLOGIST, go get it, read it. Now. I'm waiting. Done? Good. Now get THE CURSE OF THE WENDIGO (a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize).

Me? I'm anxiously awaiting Yancey's upcoming THE ISLE OF BLOOD, the next in the series. Awaiting it like a valet awaits your dripping gloves as you peel them off, stamping the dirty snow from your boots. Awaiting it like the butler waits for you to accept a freshly-ironed newspaper and repair to the drawing room. Awaiting it like you wait, frozen in place, head cocked, for that strange sound from the hall to identify itself.

"Jennings?" you murmur, but the butler has disappeared. Your valet has already removed your valise and has vanished up the servant's stair. Behind you, the tufted shadows distort the narrow hall and the house rears up, long and black, around you.

There it is again. That sound. A scratching? No--what is that damnable noise? And where has everyone gone? Taking up the lamp, you peer into the clouded gloom of the stairwell. You square your shoulders, try to ignore the palsied dancing of your nerves, and descend, step by groaning step, into the blackness. "Jennings?" you call again. This time, something answers. With befouled breath, reeking of the grave, into the coarse whiskers of your mutton chops. There is something on the stair. Behind you.

Ahhhhhh.....oh my god. 19th-century horror. YA. With a twist. I love you, Rick Yancey.

Dos Equis: The Man. The Barrel Chest. The Action Figure.

Uh...anyone else see these recently?

Yep. That's All State's "Mayhem," Dos Equis' "Most Interesting Man in the World" and Old Spice's, well, former "Old Spice Guy" (Isaiah's retired his towel, sigh).

Anyway. They're action figures. What the cheese?!??

Hurm. I s'pose I can see the logic for Equis, anyway. I mean, who doesn't like a guy for whom the contents of his tacos refuse to fall out? Who's the life of parties he's never even attended? 

And who cares if that worldly, bearded, tanned Spanish rogue is actually a 72-year-old Jewish guy from the Bronx? Named Jonathan Goldsmith?

And Mayhem is a fitting character for actor Dean Winters, who died for 2.5 minutes in 2009 from a bacterial infection, spent most of the year recuperating and lost two toes and half a thumb from some heinous gangrene along the way. He gives new meaning to the word deadpan.

If Mayhem and Interesting Man aren't enough to send you rushing to order these, consider Old Spice's action figure. Which is anatomically correct. 

Stay thirsty, y'all.

Ooh. I haz award :)

So, here I am vanishing steadily from the blogosophere in my fit o Dem Bad Ol December Doldrums

Oh, you didn't know I was really Marceline?

when into the foul blackness of my personal morass comes a happy bit of LSP-grade smilies.

VB Tremper, you globe-trotting writer you, thanks for thinking of me with a capital T. Or, rather a capital A, for award. Cuz, fo realz, Vicki gave me this:

Thanks, dude! *tips hat* So, per the award rules, I'ma list seven things about me and pass this sucker on to seven bloggers :) Like ta hear it? Hear it go:

1. Every morning when I awake, there's a random-ass song stuck in my head. I mean lodged in there. And did I say it was random-ass? Yeah. Waking up knowing all the words to Michigan J. Frog's Hello My Baby isn't as cool as you'd think it be. As it by rights should be. (...send me a kiss by wire, baby my heart's on fire...if you refuse me honey you'll lose me then you'll be left alone so baybee telephone and tell me I'm your Oown...) *ribbit* 
2.  I can't complain about having teenagers. Getting to point and laugh at them Hanging out and listening to them go through their drama (ohgodtheDRAMMMMA) while watching Discovery Channel stuff about wormholes and dark matter and scarfing tacos can be pretty schweet.
3. I spend way too much time singing to Wampa.

Who wouldn't?

4. Sometimes I think rural Georgia's gonna kill me.

5. I really dig Fringe. One of these days I'm gonna hug John Noble.

6. Just like VB Tremper, I daydream about studying linguistics one day. Theoretical linguistics. Just freakin' cuz.

7. I can't bowl for shit.

Right. Thus illuminated about my...vagaries, we can move on to the seven stylin bloggers! I hereby bequeath the Stylish Blogger Award to:

• Alesa Warcan
• Roland Yeomans
• Hannah Kincaid
• Matthew Rush
• Nicole Ducleroir
• Tamara Narayan
• Alleged Author