Aussie Author Month: Fantastic Ebooks I Have Been Reading

This is what Aussie Author Month is all about for me. This is my recent reads on my Kindle App. Next to my bed are books by Melina Marchetta, Helene Young, Anna Campbell, John Marsden, Lara Morgan, Victor Kelleher and Isobelle Carmody, just to name a few.

Pictured here are:

• Dragonfly by Erica Hayes
• A Basic Renovation by Sandra Antonelli (you can win this here)
• Guilty as Sin by Denise Rossetti
• Tail Spin by Denise Rossetti 
• The Final Wish by Tracey O'Hara

These authors are all fabulous fun! 

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 Aussie Author Month is a terrific initiative shining a light on Australian authors whilst raising funds for the Indigenous Literacy Project.

You can win a copy of Sandra Antonelli's new novel A Basic Renovation (here}.

You can find out more {here} about guest posting during Aussie Author Month. Let's share the love for our fabulous Australian authors!

Australian Author Recommendations From My Book Club

My monthly book club met tonight, and while we were missing half our members, I thought it would be fun to ask what Australian authors they could recommend*. We all come from a fantasy, romance and paranormal romance background, which really shows in these recommendations. This is what they came up with:

• Anna Campbell
• Catherine Jink
• David McRobbie 
• Denise Rossetti
• Erica Hayes 
• Ian Irvine
• Isobelle Carmody
• John Marsden
• Karen Miller / KE Mills
• Kate Forsyth
• Keri Arthur
• Kylie Chan
• Marianne de Pierres
• Melina Marchetta
• Sean Kennedy
• Tracey O'Hara

*They really wanted me to add Nalini Singh, but she is a Kiwi, and while we appropriate them as our own and she has attended our book club a few times... Well, she still isn't an Aussie author. Maybe someone should host a Kiwi Author Month... Let me know if there is one, and I'll join. I have a couple of Kiwi authors I love too. 

---

 Aussie Author Month is a terrific initiative shining a light on Australian authors whilst raising funds for the Indigenous Literacy Project.

You can win a copy of Sandra Antonelli's new novel A Basic Renovation (here}.

You can find out more {here} about guest posting during Aussie Author Month. Let's share the love for our fabulous Australian authors!

The Silence

I have some bit things happening in my personal life at the moment, and haven’t had time or attention to focus on reading or blogging. Sorry for the lull. I hope to make up for it with Supanova occurring next weekend.

Don’t forget, Erica Hayes, Tracey O’Hara and Nicole Murphy will have a stall in the artist alley – pop along and say hi! They’ll be representing the urban fantasy authors in Australia!

Aurealis Awards wrapup (finally!), Supanova, Flickr and Facebook

I am sorry I have been so slack with my blogging. I've been under the weather, and had stuff going on in my personal and professional life that have prevented me from writing more than a few garbled sentences at a time. I never finish or refine these drafts and thus they never see light of day.

Aurealis Awards

This wrap up is VERY late in coming, and I do apologise! Rather than give a blow by blow of who won what awards, I’ll list the winners (which I am sure you have seen around the Aussie

book blogging world by now) and then a quick summary of my highlights of the night.

2010 AUREALIS AWARD WINNERS:
CHILDREN’S FICTION (told primarily through words)

• The Keepers, Lian Tanner, Allen & Unwin

CHILDREN’S FICTION (told primarily through pictures)

• The Boy and the Toy, Sonya Hartnett (writer) & Lucia Masciullo (illustrator), Penguin Viking

YOUNG ADULT SHORT STORY

• A Thousand Flowers, Margo Lanagan, Zombies and Unicorns, Allen & Unwin

YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

• Guardian of the Dead, Karen Healey, Allen & Unwin

ILLUSTRATED BOOK/ GRAPHIC NOVEL

• Changing Ways Book 1, Justin Randall, Gestalt Publishing

COLLECTION

• The Girl With No Hands, Angela Slatter, Ticonderoga Publications

ANTHOLOGY

• Wings of Fire, edited by Jonathan Strahan and Marianne S. Jablon, Night Shade Books

HORROR SHORT STORY

• The Fear, Richard Harland, Macabre: A Journey Through Australia’s Darkest Fears, Brimstone Press

HORROR NOVEL

• Madigan Mine, Kirstyn McDermott, Pan Macmillan

FANTASY SHORT STORY (joint winners)

• The February Dragon, LL Hannett & Angela Slatter, Scary Kisses, Ticonderoga Publications
• Yowie, Thoraiya Dyer, Sprawl, Twelfth Planet Press

FANTASY NOVEL

• Power and Majesty, Tansy Rayner Roberts, HarperVoyager (HarperCollins)

SCIENCE FICTION SHORT STORY

• The Heart of a Mouse, K.J. Bishop, Subterranean Online (Winter 2010)

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

• Transformation Space, Marianne de Pierres, Orbit (Hachette)

KRIS HEMBURY ENCOURAGEMENT AWARD

• Jodi Cleghorn (Go Jodi!)

PETER MCNAMARA CONVENORS’ AWARD

• Helen Merrick

My highlights of the night:

• Tracey O’Hara came to greet me at the door before we had even registered! O.O I was shocked, because despite talking to her on Twitter from time to time, I have only met her two or three times. She not only recognised me but knew me. It is a shock to me when someone I admire remembers me :D I was a bit star struck LOL
• Hanging out with the lovely Nyssa from ASFFA and delightful Mark from Galaxy, with the gorgeous Elle and suave Nick from my writing group (Spiders represent!), and damn, ALLLLLLLLLL my twitter friends, including authors, editors and other book industry people. Unexpectedly I knew more than the four people I walked into the room to greet.
• Because I went to the Aurealis Awards with Nyssa, she introduced me around to some of her “people”, be they friends or industry contacts. I admit to being starstruck at times.
• I was talking to Tracey O’Hara and she introduced me to Nicole Murphy, another author I talk to on twitter quite a bit. You know how you don’t recognise someone, but the second someone points it out you feel like facepalming yourself? Well, it was like that.
• At the after party I sat with Nyssa, Mark, Tracey O’Hara, Nicole Murphy and a few others and drank an overpriced bourbon. We had to catch a midnight train, so I went to find people to say adios to (actually, hello, as I said I would meet them there), and talking to @Rowena_SW realised that I should have spent more time in the other corner, because a lot of other people I enjoy tweeting with were present, including @BothersomeWords and @nickystrickland. After a quick chat and photo, Nyssa and I had to run, but it was lovely to put faces to aliases!

There were other highlights, like seeing authors I have admired for years, and all the pretty clothes (I could have worn my corset! Dammit!), and while it was over a week ago now, I have fond, if fuzzy, memories. I’ll definitely be returning to the next awards. I was not expecting to get much out of the Aurealis Awards aside from some silent fangirl squees, but somehow I found myself fitting in. Maybe it is because the literati type parties I have attended in the past were general fiction, not speculative fiction, but I was expecting to be bored while awed. Instead I found myself fascinated with every conversation I took part in, to the point I wish I had more time for each person I met. I also feel kind of bad because I didn’t drag Elle and Nick around with me so they could meet some complete strangers. Or at least offer too. I think I was high on the atmosphere. And I really wasn’t expecting to know anyone except my friends. I guess I am still kind of in shock. I am not the sort of person people remember. Well, I haven’t been in the past. But it seems the more I tweet, and the more I participate in the community, the more people are becoming to know me as part of that community.

Facebook

That’s right, I have a facebook page now! You can “fan” Book Bites at www.facebook.com/bookbites - I will be microblogging when I am attending events (e.g. the Aurealis Awards last weekend) and sharing links and such. It is also another way to keep up to date with blog posts if you do not check your Feed Reader constantly (I am guilty of that myself!).

Flickr

I've uploaded some more photos to my Flickr page. I found some old photos on my hard drive of signings at Galaxy that were not previously uploaded and I have added some photos from the Aurealis Awards, Sir Terry Pratchett at the Sydney Opera House and various prizes and autographs.

Here are some photos from the Aurealis Awards:



Master of Ceremonies, Garth Nix, hidding in the shadows while Susan Wardle and Nathan Burrage co-convene.


I was able to spend time chatting with some of my favourite ladies, Tracey O'Hara and Nicole Murphy.


Catching up with twitter friends at the Aurealis Awards after party.


One from the guest bag, one prize, a friend's prize, and the last because someone already had a copy.

Supanova

Supanova is on in a few weeks. I am going, my friends are going, even some of my book club ladies are going (let’s face it, they are friends too, we just happened to have met through book club LOL) and Supanova will be AWESOME! I am excited to meet JAMES MARSTERS!!! Seriously, his name belongs in caps. I may swoon. Yes, swoon. I am also meeting Sean Maher (another hottie playing one of my favourite characters, nice!), Moreena Baccarin, and Gareth David-Lloyd. And, the bit that is actually relevant to my readers? Tracey O’Hara, Erica Hayes and Nicole Murphy will all be at Supanova! They aren’t listed as guests, but they will have an Urban Fantasy stall in the Artist’s Alley :D We plan to go glomp! So, if you read urban fantasy and will be at Supanova, you should go say hi! They are all wonderful women who write terrific books! They are totally glomp-worthy! :D So do it. I am using my Jedi mind powers on you and telling you you should glomp them at Supanova. Of course, that would be more effective if I was actually a Jedi. The thing is, I’d probably be a Sith or smuggler like Han and Chewy LOL Anyway, Supanova, FTW, mid June, best geek fest in Australia!

The next three days: Sydney meet up and the Australian Romance Readers Conference

I have a lovely few days planned, and it all starts tonight! Tonight is the meet up we have organised for the online book community! I get to meet some lovely people I've been talking too online, some times for years. I've met people in the real world through book clubs, signings and writing groups, but that isn’t quite the same as 30 odd bookish people chatting over cocktails at a bar LOL There is an impromptu book swap, so if you have any books you wish to offload, please feel free to bring them along! I was distracted by the internet last night and forgot that I was going to do a cull around the edges of my collection *blushes* Anyway, if you plan on coming, you will need to RSVP, and if you wish to watch for updates, please follow me on twitter on @obsidiantears83. I should be turning up some time between 6pm and 6:30pm, so I shall see you there! If in doubt, look for the people with books! (It takes a special breed to take a book or three into a bar LOL)

This weekend is ARRC, or the Australian Romance Readers Convention. I couldn’t afford to go for the entire weekend (it kicks off with drinks tomorrow night) but I will be attending for the Awards Dinner on Saturday night and the Sunday sessions. For all the goss, follow me on twitter, or follow the #ARRC2011 hashtag!

I really wanted to attend the morning session on Saturday. Lexxie Couper, Nalini Singh, Maggie Nash and Rhian Cahill talk about Paranormal Romance and why it is “so damn seductive”. It would have been interesting. Instead, I decided to attend the Sunday sessions (I could only afford the one day) and am really looking forward to the session with reader Kate Cuthbert (@katydidinoz) and writers Nalini Singh, Keri Arthur, Denise Rossetti, Erica Hayes and Karen Simpson Nikakis. It is entitled Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Futuristic Romance: Our world, otherworlds – romance in the realms of the imagination. Looks interesting!

I do have the problem of where to sit for the dinner. You get to choose your tables Saturday morning, but I won’t be there until the Awards Dinner later that night. I am at a friend’s Divorce High Tea (definitely worth celebrating!) most of the day, voting in the morning (why is the election the same weekend as ARRC?!), and live too far away to pop in to write my name on the seating plan *sigh* We talking about having a twitter table (two actually) but I am not sure if we are going ahead with that. My friend Maria is attending for the first time too, but she only knows our book club members attending There are four of us, so Maria and I wanted to sit together. I know a number of people in the community now, and will know more after tonight’s drinks, but that isn’t the same as a close friend to hang with. If we don’t have a twitter table, I am thinking of asking one of my other friends to pencil us down for the same table. But at the same time, I like the idea of bonding over books with a random set of people I would not have normally talked to. I don’t know. I guess I’ll bring it up at the meet up tonight.

Have you attended readers or writers conventions before? I don’t mean cons like Supernova or Dragon*Con, but more serious affairs where the focus is on the books, the authors and the writing rather than cosplay and actors? I haven’t! This should be interesting!!

If you are attending either our meet up tonight, or ARRC this weekend, I hope to see there. Come and introduce yourself if we haven’t already met! I’ll be the one wearing a lot of black and with a pink* stripe in my hair LOL






*Oh yes, the pink! The red faded, the lovely metallic magenta faded, and now it is a rose colour… I hate pink! But I guess this colour isn’t too bad LOL

Book signing today: Keri Arthur & Tracey O'Hara

The last time I met Tracy O'Hara

I am very excited! My best friend Lillian has a work conference in Sydney, so she is currently driving to Brisbane and jumping on a plane. We are catching up for one night only and it will be terrific to see her. I never get to spend any time with my Queenslander friends or family any more, as I can’t afford time off to visit. That is hard because when I was a university student, I would spend 2-3 months a year with them all, before heading back to JCU. I see people maybe a handful of days a year, which is bloody difficult. So when I can snatch little visits like this, I do. We are meeting up at Galaxy (so she can max out her credit card and add to my store reward points), and then meeting authors Tracey O’Hara and Keri Arthur. I have met Tracey before, but as she has only one PnR novel published I don’t have anything else to get signed. I had a chap book she gave me, but it is in my stack of “filing” somewhere (N.B. “filing” is another name for a desk I can no longer see through all the papers, books and cds. I really need to buy a filing cabinet – I should do my tax return so I can afford one LOL). I've also just read the first of Keri Arthur's Riley books – I had read a sea dragon one previously which I wasn’t wowed by, but I really liked what I have seen of the Riley series so far. So I have read Full Moon Rising and a short story she shared a link to on twitter. I love it that there are Australian authors in a genre that appears to be saturated by Americans. I especially love how the Riley series is actually set in Australia! After Galaxy (shhhh there will be cake!) Lillian and I are going to this awesome Japanese restaurant in the city. It looks so authentic. It has bamboo partitions, low seating in sunken floors, and the best damn beef hot pot I've ever had. I even like their sake!

I have been writing this intermittently during the day (some days I like call waiting LOL) and it is now time to dash into the city. If you will be at the signing tell one of the staff you read Zja’s blog and I will say hi ;D

Manic Monday: Full Moon Rising by Keri Arthur

Each Monday (or the closest I can get to Monday) I will be posting a Past/Present/Future Reading Post called Manic Monday. Don't hate me if I post it on a Tuesday - it just indicates how "manic" my Monday really was! If you want to see more of what I have been reading, I try and update my Goodreads account with each book I am reading.


What I just finished reading
Slave by Cheryl Brooks
Stars: 3/5

Blurb from Goodreads:
He may be the last of a species whose sexual talents were the envy of the galaxy. Cat is an enslaved warrior from a race with a feline gene that gives him awesome beauty, fearsome strength, and sensuality and sexual prowess unmatched by any other males in the universe. Even filthy, chained, and beaten, he gives off an aura of power and virility. Jacinth is an intergalactic trader on a rescue mission. She has spent years pursuing her kidnapped sister from planet to planet. Now her quest leads her to a place where all the women are slaves. "Jack" needs a slave of her own-one who can masquerade as her master. Enmeshed in a tangle of deception, lust and love, they must elude a race of violent killers out to destroy Cat, and together forge a bond stronger than any chains.

Why I picked it up: I asked Dan Dan for something light and trashy, after reading something slow and heavy. She delivered!
Why I finished it: The story was so bad it was nearly a satire! It makes me laugh because it is so blatantly trashy! I will never look at noses the same way ever again. In fact, I was watching Fröken Sverige on SBS the other night - a serious movie about a messed up girl. There was this sweet moment where one of her guys was talking about the wings of her nose, and I couldn't stop laughing.
I'd give it to: Anyone who is bored and likes trashy space romances. Basically anyone who wants to waste some hours they will never get back. The dialogue gets worse and worse the further the book goes along.

What I am reading now
Full Moon Rising by Keri Arthur

Blurb from Goodreads:
In this exciting debut, author Keri Arthur explodes onto the supernatural scene with a sexy, sensuous tale of intrigue and suspense set in a world whe...more In this exciting debut, author Keri Arthur explodes onto the supernatural scene with a sexy, sensuous tale of intrigue and suspense set in a world where legends walk and the shady paths of the underworld are far more sinister than anyone envisioned.

A rare hybrid of vampire and werewolf, Riley Jenson and her twin brother, Rhoan, work for Melbourne’s Directorate of Other Races, an organization created to police the supernatural races–and protect humans from their depredations. While Rhoan is an exalted guardian, a.k.a. assassin, Riley is merely an office worker–until her brother goes missing on one of his missions. The timing couldn’t be worse. More werewolf than vampire, Riley is vulnerable to the moon heat, the weeklong period before the full moon, when her need to mate becomes all-consuming.…

Luckily Riley has two willing partners to satisfy her every need. But she will have to control her urges if she’s going to find her brother….Easier said than done as the city pulses with frenzied desire, and Riley is confronted with a very powerful–and delectably naked–vamp who raises her temperature like never before.

In matters carnal, Riley has met her match. But in matters criminal, she must follow her instincts not only to find her brother but to stop an unholy harvest. For someone is doing some shifty cloning in an attempt to produce the ultimate warrior–by tapping into the genome of nonhumans Rhoan. Now Riley knows just how dangerous the world is for her kind–and just how much it needs her like .
^I am meeting Keri Arthur at Galaxy with Tracey O'Hara tomorrow, so I thought I should try her Riley series.

What I am reading next
I need to get my butt into gear and read On The Road for the Sutherland book club my friend has organised. This is like being back at uni. I am currently cramming two books LOL



P.S. - Who do you think the best Paranormal Romance authors are?

Meeting some authors tomorrow - if I wake up!

I'm meeting Erica Hayes and Tracey O'Hara tomorrow!! I love Sofia, she knows the most interesting people! Tracey O'Hara came to our book club last year - such an awesome lady! I love her book, and I can't wait to read more! I haven't read Erica Hayes yet, but she has been on my TBR list for a while... I guess I am buying one of her books tomorrow LOL Downloading the prequel to her story now :) I will be taking the chap book that Tracey gave to me about six months ago to be signed as well. I just need to find it..=. I wish I could have gone to the ARRA Awards tonight, there were so many authors *dazes off into space* And the dessert was lovely according to the texts and tweets I received! Apparently I will be roped in for next year :) I can then compete in the Bling off.. I'm still not sure who won, but someone said that no one could beat Nalini Singh? She is such a classy lady that I can totally believe it! LOL

Nalini Sign Signing!! Yeay!

Nalini Singh will be at my Paranormal Romance Bookclub tonight! I swear the best thing I ever did was move to Sydney! Just got all the shenanigans involving Galaxy LOL So far I met Sherrilyn Kenyon (I swear I was ready to swoon.. hehe I got a hug! and she loved my jewellery and the fact that our outfits matched LOL) and Rachel Caine and Tracey O'Hara, and now, the first signing for the new year is Nalini Singh! I've read her Psy series, and dragged Lillian and Linda to bookclub the week we discussed her work, and got Lill hooked. ;-p I think it’s fantastic that authors from down under (New Zealand is still "down under" as far as I am concerned) like Nalini Singh and Tracey O’Hara are doing it big overseas – Australians & New Zealanders appear to mostly get recognition on their own soil. Anyway, I'm getting my copy of Branded by Fire signed! It was hard choosing which book, and - this is so bizarre - Lill sent down a book to see if I can get Nalini to sign it for her - out of all the books, guess which one she chose? You got it... Branded by Fire :D

Anyways all very excited!!

I also got my rewards voucher in the mail yesterday... so I have to find $100 worth of books to purchase... shudder to thing how much money I spent to get such a big reward! But I love it, so it’s worth it!!! *happy dance* I'm not sure what I am buying yet... I have Christine Feehan's Street Game on hold, and I think I am tempted to get Charles de Lint's Mystery of Grace... However, its in hardcover and $50, and the paperback is due out in a few months *le sigh* This is going to be HARD!! I have too many books I want, and I KNOW I will get to the store and not be able to choose any to buy. Oh, actually... I just got into Lilith Saintcrow, so I want to pick up a few of those. It will still be difficult to spend $100 - I know I will be either one book too short or too many!! :D joy!!!!!!!!!

I'll blog after I meet Nalini tonight!! *squeee*

Book Signings of 2009

Sherrilyn Kenyon

I met Sherrilyn Kenyon!!! Author of one of my favourite series.. She bases her series very heavily in ancient mythology..

This was one of my two highlights of 2009 - meeing Sherrilyn and seeing Opeth live...

And she loved my earrings!! They are skeletal hands, i bought from my favourite goth shop, Le Cabinet des Curiosities .. she also loved my lace tunic and my demon necklace - we raved about our favourite haunts in our cities (I have to check out that gothic shop if i get to New Orleans LOL) anway, i got a chat with a fav author, a hug, 2 photos, and she spelt my name correctly when she signed my copy of Acheron!!! I couldn't read it, but one of the girls at my bookclub said it was in ancient greek LOL


Richelle Mead

Richelle Mead, author of the Dark Swan, Vampire Academy and Georgina Kincaid Series.



Tracey O'Hara

I met Tracey O'Hara at the Paranormal Romance bookclub at Galaxy. She signed my book and gave me a self-printed copy of the prequel short story (available on her website). She stuck around for the bookclub, and I discovered she is into a lot of the same things I am...