Teaser Tuesday #27: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• Make sure you do not include spoilers
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Teaser Tuesday #27: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

'What's that?' he yelped.
'Don't worry,' said Ford. 'they haven't started yet.'
'Thank God for that,' said Arthur and relaxed.
'It's probably just your house being knocked down,' said Ford, downing his last pint.
'What?' shouted Arthur.

I've just started this classic, but I have to say it's pretty awesome. Quite confusing, but I like the humour. Looking forward to read more!

If your blogger works, feel free to leave a comment below (;

Giveaway: Accidental Abduction

This giveaway is part of a massive Giveaway Blitz, hosted by The Bookish Snob Promotions. Click here to find more blogs participating.

Accidental Abduction

Eve Langlais

Sci Fi Romance

Abducted by a space pirate, she fights the temptation to let him plunder her goods.

A boyfriend’s attempted murder leaves Megan floundering in the ocean. Sinking without hope, the bright light she sees in the night sky isn’t her doorway to heaven, but rather the beginning of her accidental abduction by a space pirate. While thankful of his rescue, Megan stays true to form and just can’t keep her mouth shut, even when he keeps threatening to kill her--or auction her off to the highest bidder. Even odder, despite her decision to not get involved with her wickedly hot captor, she can’t help craving his touch.

Tren retired from his job as a mercenary so he could enjoy life, but he never counted on the boredom of normalcy. The acquisition of rare items has somewhat filled the void, but his accidental abduction of an outspoken earthling, who doesn’t know when to shut up, turns his life upside. Her fiery spirit draws him while at the same time drives him insane. Struggling with his urges, he must decide-- throttle her barbarian neck or ravish her delectably lush body?

Despite what his heart tries to tell him, he’s determined to sell her to the highest bidder even as he seduces her body. However, despite his best intentions, he discovers he can’t let her go. And when a foe from his past thinks to steal her, he’ll do anything to get her back.

Author Bio

So you want to know a little about me? Well, I'm in my mid thirties, married 11 years to a wonderful supportive man--yes, he's a hunk-- who gave me three beautiful--noisy-- children aged ten, seven and four. I work as a webmistress/customer service rep from home and in my spare time--of which there is tragically too little-- I write, read or Wii.

I was born in British Columbia, but being a military brat lived a little bit everywhere--Quebec, New Brunswick, Labrador, Virginia (USA) and finally Ontario. My family and I currently reside in the historic town of Bowmanville, about an hour or so out of Toronto.

Wow was that ever boring!!! Now for the fun stuff.

I'm writing fantasy the way I like it--hot with a touch of magic. I enjoy reading and writing stories that push the envelope of what we consider normal, and I love to cross the line into fantasy. I tend to have alot of sexual tension in my tales as I think all torrid love affairs start with a tingle in our tummies. My heroes are very male, you could even say border line chest thumping at times. So if you want a truly sensitive man, I am not for you. But that said, my men will do almost anything for the one they love. Even babysit.

I'd love to tell you more, but judging from the sounds in the living room the children are at it again, which means I'll need a mop and loads of patience. What I really need is a robot maid like Jane Jetson! Thanks for checking me out and hope to see you again soon.

Giveaway of one ebook copy of Accidental Abduction

Fill in the form to enter!
This giveaway will run until June 6th.

Sunday Stew #7

Around the Web:

I haven't been on the web at all last few weeks, as I was trying hard to get through my finals, and I'm proud to tell you all that I have survived! So today I will be sharing one of my favourite songs by the amazing band Midgar:






Around Me:

• Blog Tour: Daughter of Deception by Kara Thorpe (Giveaway!)
• Review: Shine by Lauren Myracle
• The New Internet Pirates: Ebook Downloading
• Books I Love: Crime Noir
• Review: Need by Carrie Jones
• Blog Tour: Hedgeland by Ann Nyland (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Blog Tour: Hedgeland by Ann Nyland (Book Excerpt & Giveaway!)

Today I would like to welcome Ann Nyland on my blog! Ann is the writer of the urban fantasy time travel book Hedgeland. She is sharing an excerpt of the book and has been so incredibly kind to give one of her books away for one lucky reader! This blog tour is part of The Bookish Snob Promotions. Click the banner to find more blogs participating in this tour!

Chapter 18. Caridwen.

A thousand thunderclaps all at once. That's what it sounded like, a deafening roar, a wild explosion. The noise was terrifying. I was flung out of bed onto the floor, hard. The wall to my garden fell down; I was at once covered with crystal dust. The floor buckled like a wave was going under it. The air was thick with the noise of people screaming. I struggled to my feet and ran out the door - or where the door had been. Perhaps I ran through the hole in the wall; it was all a blur.

Cian wasn't there. In public Cian and I studiously avoided contact, but every night, Cian did easily scale the wall from Dewi's garden to mine, and he was able to stay most nights. Dewi never said a word to me about Cian, but occasionally winked at me in a conspiratorial fashion. I don't know if the Hierophant ever found out or suspected. The Initiates certainly didn't.

As I ran I tried to reach Cian on my X-Comm. Dead. Adrenaline kicked in and I ran for the Anaktoron. People passed me running the other way. They were screaming and crying. It was early morning, but the sky was black. I coughed in the black ash; it was hard to catch my breath with the dust and the weirdly smelling fumes. Cracks, some narrow, some wider and deeper, opened up in the ground in front of me; I jumped over them all. Some parts of the pavement were higher than others. It was like running on a moving surface; I was running on a moving surface. The ground was buckling, and bucking like a wild horse. Water was bubbling up through the pavement making mini whirlpools. The earth felt alive beneath my feet.

Official Book Blurb

Hedgeland, an urban fantasy of time travel. Dr April Neuland, a Professor of Ancient Languages turned non-fiction writer, has been plagued by dreams all her life, dreams of her past life in the Otherworld. Meanwhile, in a parallel dimension of April's past and Caridwen's future, Worthing, a Future History Professor, has allied with the Military to access Future Internet communications and use new technology to influence April to write an ebook novel revealing where she, in her past life as Caridwen, hid the Kiste, a device to travel through time and space. Hedgeland weaves all three time/space frames: Caridwen, Worthing, and April. Hedgeland is the first in the Hedgecraft Sequence, but is a fully self contained novel with no cliff hangers.

Buy This Book

• Smashwords
• Amazon (Paperback)
• Amazon (Kindle)
• Barnes & Noble (Paperback)
• Barnes & Noble (Nook)

Author Bio

Author Dr Ann Nyland was on Faculty at the University of New England, Australia. She is a grammar pedant, ancient languages translator, and best selling non-fiction author of such books as The Complete Books of Enoch; Angels, Archangels and Angel Categories: What the Ancients Said; The Book of Jubilees; A Devil of a Job to Find Satan in the Bible, among others. Hedgeland is her first novel.




Ever wanted to be a character in a book? Don't forget to follow the Hedgeland Blog Tour and enter for your chance at Ann Nyland's site!

Giveaway of one ebook copy of Hedgeland

• This giveaway is INTERNATIONAL
• Being a follower of Nyx Book Reviews is not required but certainly appreciated
• To enter, just leave a comment with a way to contact you
• This giveaway runs until June 4th at midnight
• The winner will be announced June 5th
• Only one entry per person please

Visit the next stop: Ann Nyland's Author Site

See full tour schedule

Review: Need by Carrie Jones

Need by Carrie Jones
(Need #1)

4 out of 5 stars

Published by Bloomsbury USA Children's Books

When I started reading this book, I was impressed. The story begins with main character Zara travelling to stay with her grandmother in a small Maine village. Her stepfather has just passed away and she is so overcome with grief she has become numb. I really enjoyed the first part of the book, where Zara slowly, with help of her grandmother and new friends in Maine, returns to her old self. There was a lot of emphasis on her feelings, and these scenes were very well written.

But not everything in Maine is sweet happiness. Zara is stalked by a freaky guy that does nothing but point at her. Her stalker actually kind of freaked me out. I enjoyed the mystery and was eager to find out who he was and why he is following her.

However, the closer I came to solving the mystery, the less interesting this book became. Zara's personality seemed to be subordinate to the action and the suspense. We just flit in and out scenes but nothing really stands out. Her personal thoughts are about gone, except for a few scenes with her love interest (that has a big secret of his own) that were al right.

You can't tell from the blurb, but this is actually a paranormal themed book. There are bloodthirsty pixies and weres with a hero-complex. The lore seems pretty interesting, at least it's nothing I have ever read before, so I would have loved to know more about where these creatures came from etcetera. I hope this will be explained more detailed in the next book of the series.

Even though the book kind of fell flat for me halfway through, I still enjoyed reading it. Mrs. Jones has a certain ease in her writing that makes the book really pleasant to read. I'm very curious to see if the next book in this series is better. If you're looking for a cute paranormal romance for young-adults, you could try Need.

Blurb

Zara White suspects there's a freaky guy semi-stalking her. She's also obsessed with phobias. And it's true, she hasn't exactly been herself since her stepfather died. But exiling her to shivery Maine to live with her grandmother? That seems a bit extreme. The move is supposed to help her stay sane...but Zara's pretty sure her mom just can't deal with her right now.

She couldn't be more wrong. Turns out the semi-stalker is not a figment of Zara's overactive imagination. In fact, he's still following her, leaving behind an eerie trail of gold dust. There's something not right - not human - in this sleepy Maine town, and all signs point to Zara.

In this creepy, compelling breakout novel, Carrie Jones delivers romance, suspense, and a creature you never thought you'd have to fear.

Books I Love: Crime Noir

Books I Love is a weekly feature hosted by Nyx Book Reviews where a guest blogger can gush about his or her favourite genre of choice. 

This week's Books I Love guest blogger:

Troy about Crime Noir!

“Do you ever notice you talk a lot, but never get to the point?” – Karen DiCilia, Gold Coast

Language spoken in crime noir is different than other novels. They have a rough cadence when they speak, rarely from the good district of town, and fewer still have had the opportunity to better themselves in any way possible rather than by the end of the gun. Crime noir is an alternative to detective/murder mysteries. Crime noir keeps to its roots as a base level of humanity, edgier in its style because the good guy has to fight to win and may never do so.

The way Elmore Leonard’s characters speak is remarkable because it keeps the education level at where you would guess a criminal would be at. That doesn’t mean all criminals are idiots, but few talk with the proper grammar that an academic would care for. Jim Thompson does everyone writing crime noir one better by making his characters depraved to the point of no return. He ended up taking a wide turn right when everyone else decided to go left.

In the 1950s, Thompson wrote several crime noir books, some in less than a month with little rewriting. That appeared to add to his style. His characters spoke in forms, cut off half way through sentences, and never with the proper inflection to their tone. Deputy Lou Ford who narrates The Killer Inside Me (1952) speaks in clichés, and talks of his addiction to “the sickness.” These types of characters showcase a base that society is typically unwilling to acknowledge but must admit is out there. Thompson continued this streak of character and language on in the 1957 book The Getaway. It is where no one person in the story is innocent, nor incapable of doing harm to another person for the benefit of greed.

When I select a book to read, I look for the honesty of the writer. Thompson and Leonard possess that honesty that their characters are as real as it gets. Most are mill workers or people without means. Those are the people I know. And few, if any of them, speak proper grammar. Mostly, they speak as themselves, which is the best type of writing, and character. Hopefully, Karen DiCilia would be relieved that I got to the point in this article.

Troy Kirby is a writer in the Pacific Northwest, author of the crime novel “Crunk” and horror novella “The Deity.” His blog www.troykirby.com touches on random topics, from writing, to the world in general.

I would like to thank Troy for his interesting choice!

(don't forget to leave him a comment and to visit his blog)

Read more about Books I Love

The New Internet Pirates: Ebook Downloading

Yesterday in an article on The High Low, there has been stated that "One in every three people who download e-books on their digital readers do so illegally". Even though this statement at first seems shocking, I personally can't see this problem so black and white as a lot of authors and publishers do.

Don't throw rocks at me just yet. Downloading ebooks is illegal. You shouldn't do it. However, is this as much as a problem as this article implies? And why do so many people turn to illegal downloading?

I investigated the sources of this article a little further, coming to an article on the Telegraph site, which states: "One in eight women over 35 who own such devices admit to having downloaded an unlicensed e-book". Let's think about that. That means that 12,5% of females over 35 that own a ereader admit that they have downloaded at least one illegal ebook. There is absolutely no proof or further investigation about the behaviour of those who pirate. Do they just download one? Or all of them? If you take, for example, that they might have given in to downloading a book, maybe 3 times now on average. On estimate, I think about every owner of an ereader has about 100 books on it. Legal books. So, now 3% of those books are illegal, spread over 12,5% of ladies out there, we come to this conclusion: about 0,375% of all ebooks owned by women over 35 are illegal.

Look at that number again. Seems a lot less intimidating than it was on first sight.

In an age where music piracy is the order of the day, the pirating of books seems an impending thread to the publishing world. It doesn't feel like "stealing" on the internet. I will admit that I download songs. I actually never feel sorry for that, because if I wouldn't download them, I would listen them on Youtube, which is free but perfectly legal.

I think that one of the reasons that ebooks are getting pirated, and will continue to be so, is that the price of many ebooks is still too high. You just don't want to pay the same price for a few pixels, as you will for a beautiful hardback edition you can actually hold. Not trying to defend anyone here, I try to understand their motives.

It's too harsh to simply state: "That's ONE-THIRD of our sales flying out the window" (as said by a lovely lady on Twitter). There is no proof at all for being it 33% of all sales. I understand it's hard for authors to see their hard work being used without them getting any reward for it. However, the side of me that always thinks the cup is half-full wants them to look at it this way: if they're pirating it, it's worth pirating. There are people who want to read it. Readers are interested in your book. And if they really enjoyed it, they will buy a real copy, because you're awesome and they want to support you.

It might be naive to suggest that every pirateer will buy your book after downloading it, but I think this does happen. The problem is, you can't stop internet piracy. The music industry tried this and see what happened to them. After countless lawsuits The Pirate Bay is still up and running and probably doing better than ever.

Will ebook piracy become a problem? Definitely. Should we all start a massive witch-hunt for those who have downloaded one book in their lifetime? Please don't. There will always be enough book lovers to actually buy the book. I know I will.

I'm curious to see what you guys all think about this subject! Leave a comment below (: