Bits And A Post

Do you mind when things are all piled together as long as they are concerning the same topic and then you just go through and sort out what you like?

I hope not, because today’s post is all about bits of this and that, along with an unplanned post that I just had to share.

First up, Danielle and Beth from Sourcebooks past long a promotion that is currently going on with some of their titles. The following three e-books will be free until Sunday. They include:
LYDIA BENNET’S STORY by Jane Odiwe. Jane’s new release MR. DARCY’S SECRET just came out on Feb. 1.
 
LOVE AT FIRST FLIGHT by Marie Force. You’ll remember Marie’s new release EVERYONE LOVES A HERO also just came out on Feb. 1.

THE GREATEST KIGHT by Elizabeth Chadwick. Elizabeth’s highly anticipated release, TO DEFY A KING, will be released March 1. 

Click on the titles to get all the information. While you’re at the Sourcebook site, you can also sign up for their eBook Deal Newsletter so you can know about all of their on going promotions. To sign up, just fill out your name and e-mail on the upper right hand corner of their web page. 

Next up I have a giveaway to announce. Thanks to Anna and the good folks at Hachette Book Group, I have 2 copies of MR. FUNNY PANTS (ISBN: 9780446542104) by Michael Showalter to giveaway. Here’s a brief blurb about the book:

I was at my wit's end. I'd had enough of this job, this life, and my relationship had broken up. Should I eat chocolate, or go to India, or fall in love? Then I had a revelation: Why not do all three, in that order? And so it was that I embarked on a journey that was segmented into three parts and was then made into a major motion picture. Later, I woke up on an airplane with a hole in my face and a really bad hangover. I was ushered brusquely off the plane by my parents who took me to a rehab where I tested positive for coke, classic coke, special k (the drug), Special K (the cereal), mushrooms, pepperoni, and Restless Leg Syndrome. It was there that I first began painting with my feet.

But rewind...the year was 1914. I was just a young German soldier serving in the trenches while simultaneously trying to destroy an evil ring with some help from an elf, a troll, and a giant sorcerer, all while cooking every recipe out of a Julia Child cookbook. What I'm trying to say is that there was a secret code hidden in a painting and I was looking for it with this girl who had a tattoo of a dragon! Let me clarify, it was the 1930s and a bunch of us were migrating out of Oklahoma, and I was this teenage wizard/CIA operative, okay? And, um then I floated off into the meta-verse as a ball of invisible energy that had no outer edge...
 
Ugh, okay. None of this is true. I'm just kind of a normal guy from New Jersey who moved to New York, got into comedy, wrote this book about trying to write this book, and then moved to Alaska, became the mayor of a small town, spent $30,000 on underwear, and now I'm going to rule the world!!!
Learn more about Michael Showalter here: http://www.michaelshowalter.net/

Now the giveaway guidelines. To enter this giveaway, send me an e-mail (mcbookshelf@gmail.com). Your subject line should read, “Win Mr. Funny Pants.” Your message should include your name and mailing address. The contest is open to residents of the U.S. and Canada only and no post office box addresses can be accepted. In addition, Hachette is advising winners that they will be subject to the one copy per household rule, which means that if they win the same title in two or more contests, they will receive only one copy of the title (or one set in the case of grouped giveaways) in the mail. (Winners here have always be great about letting me know if they have already won the book somewhere else so another winner can be selected. However, this announcement is something that has to be passed along from Hachette). And, just so you know, I don’t share the mailing information or use it for any other purpose. The deadline to enter this giveaway for a chance at one of the 2 copies of MR. FUNNY PANTS (hardcover, 288 pages) will be 8 p.m. (EST) on Wednesday, Feb. 23.

Before we go onto to the unexpected post, I just want to make mention that Lee from Tossing It Out is getting underway for the A to Z Blogging Challenge for April. This year he has some help with the event and is hoping to reach 300 participants by April 1 when the challenge begins. If you haven’t already sign up, drop by and check it out. I’d love to participate, but I’ve already got several days booked that won’t work in the challenge’s schedule. So I’ll be on the sidelines cheering everyone on. Now as soon as you finish reading here, GO SIGN UP!!!

Now I received this unexpected post this week from Molly Harper, author of the NICE GIRLS series, as well as the upcoming HOW TO FLIRT WITH A NAKED WEREWOLF. I couldn’t resist sharing it during these cold and snowy days. You’ll understand why.
An ice storm. Stranded in a strange, isolated place without power. Children with an unsettling ability to win staring contests. This is how horror movies start.
 
Watching the news coverage as cities across the Midwest are pelted by the much-touted historic blizzard, I’m having strange sympathy pangs. In January 2009, an ice storm ripped through Kentucky, taking out power and phone lines for thousands of homes, including mine. The first night I spent camped out in my in-laws’ darkened living room with my two young children, I was sure this was just a temporary blip. It was going to be a funny story we could tell the next winter. As in, “Remember that night we had to sleep on an air mattress in front of Grandma’s fireplace and cook on a gas grill in the garage?”
 
By the sixth night, I was no longer amused.
 
Over the next week, Kentuckians were cold, cranky and progressively ill-groomed. I returned to my dark, cold house to forage for supplies one afternoon, only to find my neighbor shaving his head in his driveway. I sincerely hoped that was related to the lack of electricity and not just a personality quirk I'd never noticed before. Neighborhood block parties have been stilted and awkward since.
 
But I managed to channel my cabin fever, before going the full fire-ax-through-bedroom-door and elevator-full-of-blood route. I started writing. Having recently published the Nice Girls books, a vampire romance series about an undead librarian in small-town Kentucky, I’d already decided that I wanted to write a werewolf story. And being isolated, in the dark, in an increasingly crowded, enclosed space, I decided to set the story in the frozen regions of Alaska.
 
While we waited for the power to come back on, I wrote about twenty pages of notes by candlelight. What emerged was the story of Mo Wenstein, a woman who moves across the country to escape her intrusive hippie parents and make a life for herself in the remote town of Grundy, Alaska. Cantankerous neighbor Cooper has been giving Mo a hard time about her place in her new community since day one. But when Cooper stumbles onto her porch, naked, with a bear trap clamped around his ankle, she realizes there’s more to him than a surly- though attractive- surface. A series of werewolf attacks, for which Cooper may or may not be responsible, dysfunctional werewolf clan drama, and romantic hijinks ensue.
 
The manuscript grew over the next few months and became HOW TO FLIRT WITH A NAKED WEREWOLF, which is due to be released by Pocket Books on Feb. 22, wherever books are sold. The sequel, THE ART OF SEDUCING A NAKED WEREWOLF, will follow on March 29.
 
So, while the encroaching claustrophobia is frustrating, make the best of your snow days. Use the milk, eggs and bread you hoarded to make French toast. Plow through the To-Be-Read pile of paperbacks on your nightstand. Write journal entries about the sights, sounds and emotions you’re experiencing as a blizzard survivor.
 
You never know. You could turn this experience into your first manuscript.

Molly, thanks for the encouraging tips to keep us sane during this crazy winter weather we seem to be having all over the U.S. You can learn more about Molly and her writing at  her website. See why I had to share Molly's post today? Now for those of you snowed in, are you writing or reading or both?