Book Bites' hiatus

Hello my lovelies! Gosh I miss you! And blogging! And ebooks! And everything about the internet that I can't do over my phone!

I need to apologise! Three months and no word from me! :o I was on holiday and had planned to be away for a mere month or so, but when I returned to Sydney, my computer died and I have been without the internet ever since. Regular readers will know that I quit my job to pursue other interests (including blogging and writing - kinda need a computer for those!) and while I am looking for a part time job (so I can do part time archaeology as well), I have a very stunted cash flow. Basically that means I can't afford to fix my computer at the moment, or any time soon *kicks motherboard* I was planning on buying a small netbook with my tax return, but I used it to buy flights to volunteer at an archaeology convention in my home town. Totally worth it, but... Well I really miss having a computer *sigh* I'm an internet addict, so this has been driving me insane.

I am currently at a library using their computers, however I usually get to the library on closing and the computers are busy. Today was pure luck! So, here I am. Explaining. And gosh I miss Book Bites! Oh, I suppose this is the perfect opportunity to say welcome to all the new faces!! :D I know quite a number of you from twitter and your own blogs, but I shall say welcome all the same! And apologise that I haven't been able to say welcome before today.

So, what have I been up to in the last three months? Well I went home to Toowoomba for a month or so - I had a blast! And had some ideas for a dystopian story clobber me over the head. I'm using them for NaNoWriMo this year, which is handy.  I'm going absolutely crazy not being able to read any book I want to, and being limited to the library's collection and my own bookshelves is hard. I can't charge my ereader, and I can't upload new books to it without my computer anyway, so that avenue has also been closed to me. So yes, I have also been seriously searching for a new job - something which is also hard without a computer LOL I've also been attending some readers and writers events in the last few months and I'll be blogging about Paula Roe's talk at the Burwood library in a few days.

So, where do I go from here? I will be attempting to upload some posts from my Android Blogger app, but I am not sure how good the formatting will be. I would like to say sorry in advance if there are any issues with typos, images, alignment, quotes, italics, bold font, and anything else that can go wrong and probably will go wrong... Murphy's Law and all that... I had some giveaways planned, and some guest bloggers lined up, but I'll be leaving those until I have my computer up and running again. And no, I have no idea when that will be. It might be in 2012, unless a nice cushy job falls in my lap today *looks up expectedly* Nope, nothing happened... So, basically I have no idea when I can get my computer fixed. I have some techy friends of friends, but I can't afford to pay them, and I don't expect them to work for free. So it may be a while before Book Bites can power forward again.

I hope you are all well, that your TBR pile is nice and beefy and that life is providing you with the time to read them!

Maria V. Snyder giveaway winner announced

The winner of the Maria V Snyder giveaway was entrant 14!
Congratulations: 

Pretty Lady!

Your prize will be posted to you shortly!

The giveaway was drawn by assigning numbers 1-38 to the 38 entrants based on the order they entered. 38 was then entered into the random.org number generator and the result was 14. The screen shots of the process are below.

Maria V Snyder is about to start a book tour of Australia. You can find out more on the publisher's facebook: http://www.facebook.com/harlequinteenaus

Ashfield Library's World Café Readers’ Evening 2011

What a brilliant night I had on Thursday! Ashfield Library had a World Café Readers’ Evening, highlighting the various special interest areas of the library. I had two friends speaking, Vassiliki the tweeting librarian, who  spoke about the romance genre and Sofia the book girl from Galaxy Bookshop who spoke about speculative fiction. It was the first time I have been to the new Ashfield library as they have spent considerable time and design dollars moving to a level of the new council building (I also lost my library card – I avoid libraries when I can’t borrow books). I was really impressed with the new layout. They have gone for a more approachable bookshop style layout, rather than the Dewey Decimal System. They have split the genres like speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror), romance, crime from the fiction shelves and put them in little cosy alcoves. The library is very spacious, has a lot of conversational space, meeting rooms, arm chairs and the layout and furnishings are dynamic. I’ll be looking for my library card and visiting more often!

The event started with a wine and cheese meet and greet, with platters of delightful food being passed around. I say delightful because if I had less manners I would have fallen upon those platters with glee! There were tandoori chicken sticks, Vietnamese spring rolls and a variety of sushi. Delicious! The entertainment was provided by Terry Serio and the strains of guitar threaded its way throughout the evening.

The sections of the evening that really stood out for me were “Planet Earth” by Melissa Sellen, “Romance” by Vassiliki and “Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror” by Sofia. This, however, may be because I have an interest in each of these topics.

Melissa is in the environmental services and knew her topic inside and out. I was talking to her before the evening started and was impressed with both her passion and knowledge. As a self-avowed greenie, I found this admirable, especially as she spoke about educating the children about how valuable and intrinsic the environment is for human beings. She was greeted with humour and agreement when she recommended The Lorax by Dr Seuss as essential reading for children.

Vassiliki has gained a bit of a name for herself as the tweeting librarian in Sydney circles. She has a special interest in the romance genre and many of us in the Twitter community count her as a good source of recommendations in the genre. She filled her speech with anecdotes from her own life and of being a reader of romance. My favourite is still the one where her parents used to watch wedding processions drive past to their local church and referring to them as funeral processions heading off to watch a hanging. It is such a droll story and perfectly illuminates the fact that readers of romance are readers of fiction. We do not think life is about happily ever afters, but about living in the real world - we just want a bit of happily ever after to lubricate its ups and downs. One of the recommendations Vassiliki gave that I will be looking up is a romantic suspense author, Suzanne Brockmann.

Sofia works for Galaxy, a specialist store for science fiction, fantasy and horror and has such knowledge and animated passion for the genre. She is my go to girl for new authors, and as far as I am concerned, she never gets it wrong (I may be biased as she is my friend LOL). She had such a dynamic presentation that the night ended on a high. She bought her lightsaber to play with when she was talking about science fiction, her Hufflepuff cloak when she was talking about fantasy, and a torch and wore her hood up to add suspense when she was talking about horror. I cannot comment on her recommendations as I have only read Terry Pratchett (read him if you haven’t - he is brilliant), but she did mention a book Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips which she has recommended to me in the past. I sat down and read the first chapter while she was talking with some other attendees and I will be reading it. It is very entertaining! Like I said, she never gets it wrong!

Sofia and I stayed back until late (she was my ride home) talking with various people and had many interesting conversations. The two that stand out are probably Sarah Barry, a psychic who spoke about the Mind and Body section earlier and Vanessa who was resident photographer of the night - both these conversations involved antics with the lightsaber! Over all, the night was a great success, and I was very impressed with the new design of the Ashfield library. I was sad to see they no longer have any Charles de Lint on the shelves, and while I think this is a great misjustice, I understand they have limited space. I also have to mention that they have an alcove for graphic novels and comics, as I plan to spend some time here in the future. I will be searching for my library card in the near future, so I can max out my card on speculative fiction, romance and graphic novels a regular basis. If you are local to the Ashfield library, I recommend you visit and check out the new location and design! If you just like libraries, are in the library industry or interior design industry, I suggest you visit just to see what a different and dynamic direction they have taken!

Why it is worth entering competitions....

The moral of the story is enter any and every competition you would like to win the books for, because you may just win them. I know, it is strange to put 'the moral of the story' at the beginning rather than the end, but I am sometimes unconventional. I had a streak a few years ago where I won a competition every day for two weeks. It wasn’t because I was entering competitions daily, but because competitions I had been entering on and off for months all happened to be drawn consecutively. I recently won 2 books in two days, and it has reminded me that I will have no income in two weeks and those books at the top of my auto buy list will have to be put on the back burner. I’ll be borrowing from the library more often, and obtaining review copies (that is right, I’ll be posting regular reviews on Book Bites!) but some times you luck out with competitions and win something you wouldn’t normally choose for yourself. The best example of this is the time I won an ARC of Peter V Brett’s The Painted Man. I was no longer actively perusing epic fantasy (I had just come off a ten year glut) and would have been unlikely to have bought the book for myself. I loved it! It was such a refreshing take on the genre, my favourite read of the year and the author became one of my favourites over night. That would never have happened if I hadn’t won a competition that I entered on a whim. So yes, the moral of the story is to enter every competition you feel a flicker of interest in. You may end up striking gold! And if you read the book and it doesn’t give you enjoyment, you can either make a gift of it to a friend, swap it on a site like book mooch, give it away as a prize on a blog (of course, stating that it has been read) or donate it to charity. I have to admit, I usually like the books and keep them ;-p

So enter competitions, and the best of luck to you!

I have to admit, I decided to write this because I won another two competitions last week, however, now would be the perfect time to plug a competition run here on Book Bites LOL So, go enter the Maria V Snyder giveaway! It is a YA dystopian series you may end up liking!

Teaser Tuesday: Phoenix Rising by Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris

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 (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teaser:

Standing at the entrance to Bethlehem Royal Hospital, commonly known as Bedlam, she found her feet unwilling to carry her any farther. Looking up, the ornate gate could have been mistaken for some grand country estate -- if you could ignore the writhing figures of madness above the ironwork.

Page 64 of Phoenix Rising by Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris

Don't forget you can win a Maria V Snyder prizepack at Book Bites!

Aus & NZ only, ends 31st July

Maria V. Snyder book giveaway!

With the creation of the new Harlequin Teen Australia fanpage on Facebook and on the occasion of Maria V. Snyder touring Australia, Harlequin Teen Australia has kindly donated some prizes to Book Bites! One lucky reader will win two books from her new Insider series, and an autographed poster! All you have to do to be in the winning is to enter your details in the form below. This giveaway is open to Australians and New Zealanders and closes on the 31st of July.

The Prize:

The blurbs from Goodreads:

Inside Out
Keep Your Head Down.
Don't Get Noticed.
Or Else.

I'm Trella. I'm a scrub. A nobody. One of thousands who work the lower levels, keeping Inside clean for the Uppers. I've got one friend, do my job and try to avoid the Pop Cops. So what if I occasionally use the pipes to sneak around the Upper levels? The only neck at risk is my own…until I accidentally start a rebellion and become the go-to girl to lead a revolution.

Outside In
Me? A Leader? Okay, I did prove that there's more to Inside than we knew. That a whole world exists beyond this cube we live in. And finding that led to a major rebellion - between worker scrubs like me and the snobby uppers who rule our world. Make that ruled. Because of me, we're free. I thought that meant I was off the hook, and could go off on my own again - while still touching base with Riley, of course. He's the one upper I think I can trust. But then we learned that there's outside and then there is Outside. And something from Outside wants In.

Terms and Conditions of the giveaway:

All prizes have been donated by Harlequin Teen Australia.
The winner wins two Maria V Snyder novels and a signed poster.
The competition closes on the 31st of July 2011 at 12pm, Australian Eastern Standard Time.
This giveaway is open to people residing in Australia and New Zealand only.
The winner will be chosen at random using random.org.
You do not need to be a facebook fan, a follower of Book Bites or my twitter to enter (although much love if you do).


This giveaway is now closed!


Good luck everyone!

If the winner would like to review the books for Book Bites, please let me know :-p

Review: Stranded With Her Ex by Jill Sorenson

Stranded With Her Ex by Jill Sorenson

Blurb from Goodreads:

An exotic wildlife preserve is a dream come true for conservation biologist Daniela Flores. Until she finds out her ex-husband is leading the research team. World-famous shark expert Sean Carmichael has only grown more ruggedly appealing in the time they were apart…the passion between them more intense than ever. But how could Daniela forgive Sean for betraying her when she needed him most?

Sean had come to the remote Farallon Islands to study killer sharks. Now a real killer is on the loose, threatening the woman he's never stopped loving. And this time, he knows he can't walk away. Marooned together during a deadly storm, Sean vows to go to hell and back to save Daniela…and for the chance to begin again.

The review:

I don't usually expect much from category romance apart from an entertaining story. Stranded With Her Ex bucked the trend! I hate that I must subconsciously believe the negative press that the romance genre receives, but somehow I still feel surprised when I come across a romance novel that rates high on all the levels of novel appreciation, especially if it is a category romance. I am not a literature snob, far from it, but I seem to have soaked up some of those assumptions.

From the second Daniela sets foot on the stark island, the suspense and drama sets in. The landscape is foreboding, but even the sharks are viewed with a sense of wonder. All the wildlife are viewed as wild and dangerous, even the birds, and the scientific merit of the project, environmental cause and scientific passion comes through loud and clear. The characters are well written and believable, and the tensions and relationships of the team are real and add to the high drama and suspense. Apart from the main protagonists, everyone has reason to be suspect to the reader. Those same main protagonists are dealing with real and serious issues like anxiety, emotional breakdowns and grief.

I enjoyed reading this novel immensely and recommend it to both romance and thriller readers. I'll be buying Jill Sorenson's novels again in the future, and if my second book is as near as good as this one, Sorenson will have made it onto my autobuy list of authors.

The only part of this book I disliked was the need for a Mills & Boon descriptive title, rather than a meaningful one. However, I understand their marketing strategy and this is not a complaint but an observation. I really loved this book! Five stars! I'm off to read it again...