Ruined Winners!

Congratulations on winning Ruined by Paula Morris! Thank you to everyone who entered.

I did the random integer thing again and in no particular order, winners are:

Debbie (Debbie's world of books)

Shalonda (Shalonda's book blog)

Paradox

Kate (Neverending shelf)

Lauren (Lauren's crammed bookshelf)


I sent you all an email this morning, so just email me back in the next few days with your addresses and we'll get your books sent out soon!

Contest Ends Today!

Just a reminder that the contest to win Ruined by Paula Morris ends tonight! Winners will be announced tomorrow morning. Enter now, before it's too late! Post entries here.

Q&A From Paula Morris, Author of Ruined.

Quick Q & A with Paula Morris, author of Ruined! Just thought I'd share!

What inspired you to write Ruined?

I’ve been living in New Orleans for five years. Lots of people come to visit, so I get to play tour guide on a regular basis. I’ve also taught some classes on the history of Mardi Gras, and on the city’s literary past. New Orleans is such a unique city, with such a rich and complex history. The more I found out about it, the more I wanted to write about it myself.

After Hurricane Katrina, when the city felt turned upside down, I went to see a tarot card reader in a French Quarter voodoo shop. He told me that the storm and the flood had fractured time, and displaced hundreds of ghosts. He said he kept seeing ghosts everywhere. I hadn’t really thought about the ghosts of the city, but after that conversation, pieces of the story started taking shape in my mind.

You capture New Orleans beautifully in the book. What are your favorite spots in New Orleans? Is there particular local lore or history that appeals to you?

I drive through the Garden District — and past Lafayette Cemetery — a lot, especially when I’m taking visitors on a literary tour. It has tremendous physical beauty and character. But there are interesting stories on every corner in New Orleans. I also like taking people through Tremé, around the Bywater, and into Holy Cross in the Lower Ninth Ward. There are two stunning “Steamboat houses” right by the Mississippi river levee there.

What kind of research did you have to do for Ruined? How did you manage to describe the Mardi Gras floats so accurately? Have you ever been on such a float yourself?

I did a ton of research for the novel — reading books, talking to people, taking a cemetery tour — though obviously a lot is made up. For example, the Mardi Gras krewe called Septimus is imaginary, and any local can tell you that no krewe would be permitted to end their parades back in the Garden District!

Carnival season is a great time of year in New Orleans, and I’ve been to dozens and dozens of parades, watching various krewes ride. I know a number of people who belong to different krewes, both in the city and the suburbs, and they’ve told me lots of stories. I’ve never been on a float — just on the receiving end of beads.

Ruined is coming out around the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Can you talk a little bit about the effects the Hurricane had on the city, and how they influenced Ruined?

The storm, and the flood that followed, had a profound and ongoing impact on the city. Our population is much smaller than it used to be. Many neighborhoods were washed away, and have yet to recover. Some of the older parts of the city, like the French Quarter and the Garden District, lie on high ground, close to the river levee, so they had no flood damage. Tourists visiting the city and just spending their time in those neighborhoods would have no idea of the extent of the devastation — eighty percent of the city was underwater. I was conscious, writing Ruined, that it was set largely in an unflooded neighborhood. But the psychic scars of the flood — and the city’s evacuation, ruin, and slow recovery — exist everywhere, as Rebecca, the protagonist, finds out.

You’ve also written books for adults. Can you tell us how your experience writing for teens differs from writing for adults?

I got some very good advice from my teenage niece when I was working on the book. She told me it needed a lot of mystery and a little romance. I hope I managed both.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer? How did you get your start as an author?

When I was a child, I wrote stories all the time, but as an adult real life took over — in the form of work, and travel, and building a new life in various places. (I’ve lived in eight different cities, in three different countries.) Writing is a vocation, I think, but you don’t always discover it right away. When I was living in New York, about ten years ago, I started going to creative writing night-classes at the West Side YMCA, and began writing stories again. My first adult novel, Queen of Beauty, was written while I was pursuing a creative writing degree in Wellington, New Zealand; I wrote a lot of my second novel, Hibiscus Coast, while studying at the famous Iowa Writers’ Workshop. I have to say, I think keeping going is harder than starting, in some ways.

What are some of your favorite books/favorite authors?

So many! For short stories: William Trevor, Alice Munro, Deborah Eisenberg. For novels: Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Ian McEwan, Lloyd Jones (a New Zealand writer). Favorite authors from childhood: Eleanor Estes, Edward Eager, and Helen Clare. I’m also an expert — read: bore — on the Chalet School series by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer, and the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I’ve been to all the Little House sites — in seven different states!

Win Ruined!

I'm returning to blogging after an unexpected hiatus with a great contest for you guys! Sign up to win one of Five copies of Ruined by Paula Morris . This time, the publisher will be sending out your prizes, so I won't be addressing them upside down again. (I'm still so embarrassed!)







Anyway, here all are the details you need to enter:

-Simply leave a comment this time. 1 comment = 1 entry. No duplicates please!
-The Ruined book promotion is open to participants with a United States mailing address only (international readers can enter if you have a friend in the States who can accept your prizes by mail!). Entrants under age 13 must have parent or guardian permission to enter.
-Contest ends on September 24th, 2009!

About Ruined:
When Rebecca Brown goes to New Orleans to stay with her voodoo-obsessed aunt, she finds the beautiful city haunted by the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Rebecca is also startled to discover a haunting of a different kind: near a graveyard one night, amid the Spanish moss and beneath the moonlight, she meets a ghost girl named Lisette, who has been dead for 150 years. Lisette helps Rebecca unearth an ancient mystery in her aunt’s house, along with some troubling historical truths. Meanwhile, Rebecca must juggle adjusting to her snooty new prep school, developing a serious crush on a handsome boy, and dealing with an elite group of popular girls who may be linked to the ghostly mystery themselves.

See the Book Trailer:




About Paula Morris:
Paula Morris has published a short story collection and several novels for adults in her native New Zealand. She's lived in a number of cities around the world, moving to New Orleans the year before Hurricane Katrina. She teaches creative writing at Tulane University.

Update/Robbery

Just a quick update to let everyone know that I'm still here! We had a robbery at work last Friday and things have been a little off kilter all week (police reports and meetings, etc etc) and so I have been a little off kilter myself. Hoping to resume posting as usual this coming Sunday.

I haven't peeked at my email yet, so if you have sent me anything lately I will be getting back to you this weekend.

Thanks!

In My Mailbox (13)

In My Mailbox is a weekly feature brought to you by Kristi of The Story Siren, who was inspired by Alea of Pop Culture Junkie.


For Review:

Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan

Fifteen-year-old Blake has a girlfriend and a friend who’s a girl. One of them loves him; the other one needs him.

When he snapped a picture of a street person for his photography homework, Blake never dreamed that the woman in the photo was his friend Marissa’s long-lost meth addicted mom. Blake’s participation in the ensuing drama opens up a world of trouble, both for him and for Marissa. He spends the next few months trying to reconcile the conflicting roles of Boyfriend and Friend. His experiences range from the comic (surviving his dad’s birth control talk) to the tragic (a harrowing after-hours visit to the morgue).

In a tangle of life and death, love and loyalty, Blake will emerge with a more sharply defined snapshot of himself.

Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick (October 13, 2009)
For Nora Grey, romance was not part of the plan. She's never been particularly attracted to the boys at her school, no matter how much her best friend, Vee, pushes them at her. Not until Patch came along.

With his easy smile and eyes that seem to see inside her, Nora is drawn to him against her better judgment.

But after a series of terrifying encounters, Nora's not sure who to trust. Patch seems to be everywhere she is, and to know more about her than her closest friends. She can't decide whether she should fall into his arms or run and hide. And when she tries to seek some answers, she finds herself near a truth that is way more unsettling than anything Patch makes her feel.

For Nora is right in the middle of an ancient battle between the immortal and those that have fallen - and, when it comes to choosing sides, the wrong choice will cost her life.



Thoughts: *Squee!*


The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan (August 25, 2009)

1915. The dawn of the hydroelectric power era in Niagara Falls. Seventeen-year-old Bess Heath has led a sheltered existence as the youngest daughter of the director of the Niagara Power Company. After graduation day at her boarding school, she is impatient to return to her picturesque family home near Niagara Falls. But when she arrives, nothing is as she had left it. Her father has lost his job at the power company, her mother is reduced to taking in sewing from the society ladies she once entertained, and Isabel, her vivacious older sister, is a shadow of her former self. She has shut herself in her bedroom, barely eating--and harboring a secret.

The night of her return, Bess meets Tom Cole by chance on a trolley platform. She finds herself inexplicably drawn to him--against her family's strong objections. He is not from their world. Rough-hewn and fearless, he lives off what the river provides and has an uncanny ability to predict the whims of the falls. His daring river rescues render him a local hero and cast him as a threat to the power companies that seek to harness the power of the falls for themselves. As their lives become more fully entwined, Bess is forced to make a painful choice between what she wants and what is best for her family and her future.

The Rapture by Liz Jensen (August 11, 2009)

It is a June unlike any other before, with temperatures soaring to asphyxiating heights. All across the world, freak weather patterns—and the life-shattering catastrophes they entail—have become the norm. The twenty-first century has entered a new phase. But Gabrielle Fox’s main concern is a personal one: to rebuild her life after a devastating car accident that has left her disconnected from the world, a prisoner of her own guilt and grief. Determined to make a fresh start, and shake off memories of her wrecked past, she leaves London for a temporary posting as an art therapist at Oxsmith Adolescent Secure Psychiatric Hospital, home to one hundred of the most dangerous children in the country. Among them: the teenage killer Bethany Krall. Despite two years of therapy, Bethany is in no way rehabilitated and remains militantly nonchalant about the bloody, brutal death she inflicted on her mother. Raised in evangelistic hellfire, the teenager is violent, caustic, unruly, and cruelly intuitive. She is also insistent that her electroshock treatments enable her to foresee natural disasters—a claim which Gabrielle interprets as a symptom of doomsday delusion. But as Gabrielle delves further into Bethany’s psyche, she begins to note alarming parallels between her patient’s paranoid disaster fantasies and actual incidents of geological and meteorological upheaval—coincidences her professionalism tells her to ignore but that her heart cannot. When a brilliant physicist enters the equation, the disruptive tension mounts—and the stakes multiply. Is the self-proclaimed Nostradamus of the psych ward the ultimate manipulator or a harbinger of global disaster on a scale never seen before? Where does science end and faith begin? And what can love mean in “interesting times”?


Luv Ya Bunches by Lauren Myracle (October 1, 2009)


What do Katie-Rose, Yasaman, Milla, and Violet all have in common? Other than being named after flowers, practically nothing. Katie-Rose is a film director in training. Yasaman is a computer whiz. Milla is third in command of the A list. And Violet is the new girl in school. They’re fab girls, all of them, but they sure aren’t friends. And if evil queen bee Medusa— ’scuse me, Modessa—has her way, they never will be. But this is the beginning of a new school year, when anything can happen and social worlds can collide . . .

Told in Lauren Myracle’s inventive narrative style—here a fresh mix of instant messages, blog posts, screenplay, and straight narrative—Luv Ya Bunches, the first in a four-book series, is a funny, honest depiction of the shifting alliances and rivalries that shape school days, and of the lasting friendships that blossom from the skirmishes.

Purchased:


Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains." So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read.



Strange Brew by Charlaine Harris, Jim Butcher, Patricia Briggs, PN Elrod, Rachel Caine, Karen Chance, Faith Hunter, Caitlin Kittredge, & Jenna Maclaine.

In Charlaine Harris’ “Bacon,” a beautiful vampire joins forces with a witch from an ancient line to find out who killed her beloved husband. In “Seeing Eye” by Patricia Briggs, a blind witch helps sexy werewolf Tom Franklin find his missing brother—and helps him in more ways than either of them ever suspected. And in Jim Butcher’s “Last Call,” wizard Harry Dresden takes on the darkest of dark powers—the ones who dare to mess with this favorite beer.

For anyone who’s ever wondered what lies beyond the limits of reality, who’s imagined the secret spaces where witches wield fearsome magic, come and drink deep. Let yourself fall under the spell of this bewitching collection!

Wings by Aprilynne Pike

Laurel was mesmerized, staring at the pale things with wide eyes. They were terrifyingly beautiful—too beautiful for words.

Laurel turned to the mirror again, her eyes on the hovering petals that floated beside her head. They looked almost like wings.

In this extraordinary tale of magic and intrigue, romance and danger, everything you thought you knew about faeries will be changed forever.

Thoughts: This is the second time I featured Wings. I bought it, and promptly lost it. So now, I've bought it again!


Swapped/Mooched:



The Dreaming by Queenie Chan (Manga) When twin sisters Amber and Jeanie are accepted into an exclusive Australian boarding school, their future looks bright. But the school's halls harbor a terrible secret: students have been known to wander into the surrounding bushlands and vanish...without a trace! No one knows where they went--or why. But as Amber and Jeanie are about to learn, the key to the school's dark past may lie in the world of their dreams...


Thoughts: Spooky!



If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where's My Prince? by Melissa Kantor

Wicked stepmother? Check . Evil stepsisters? Check . Miserable life? Check . Lucy Norton's life has all the makings of a Cinderella story. Her dad's always away on business, leaving Lucy with her cruel stepmother and bratty stepsisters. She's burdened with chores, and has a hard time fitting in at her new school. So when she sees Connor Pearson, the star player on the varsity basketball team, Lucy hopes her destiny has finally changed. With everything else going on in her life, doesn't she at least deserve to get the handsome prince? Melissa Kantor's enchanting novel proves that sometimes the happy ending isn't quite the one you'd expect. Lucy's about to discover the truth about finding her real Prince Charming. And finding herself.

Thoughts: I have never read Melissa Kantor. I am very excited to though, and figured this was a great place to start!


From the Library:


Burger Wuss by M.T. Anderson


Anthony has never been able to stand up for himself —- that is, not until his girlfriend is in someone else’s arms. Then Anthony vows revenge and devises the Plan. It begins with getting a job at the fast-food restaurant where his nemesis happens to be a star employee. But when the Plan is finally in place, will Anthony’s hunger for revenge be satisfied? Will he prove he’s not a wuss?



Thoughts: I wasn't a big fan of M.T. Anderson's other book Thirsty. I liked the writing, but I just couldn't get into it. I hope Burger Wuss makes me a fan. I want to like this author!




Crazy in Love by Dandi Daley Mackall

High school senior Mary Jane Ettermeyer has been the good girl for a long time. To date, she’s proud to say she’s been able to keep her pledge of abstinence (not that anyone has challenged it). But when the cutest guy in school starts flirting with her, she suddenly finds herself crazy in love, even though her inner Plain Jane tells her he can’t possibly think she’s cute, while her inner Sexy M. J. is questioning her vow to keep herself pure until marriage. Not to mention that hot Jackson House shouldn’t even be talking to her, because he already has a girlfriend! There are a ton of good reasons why she should never speak to Jackson again, except that every time she sees him, all of her resistance seems to melt away. . . .
Thoughts: I haven't read anything by this author yet, but Crazy in Love looked really good! The cover is really cute: In person, it does look like someone spilled nail polish all over it.


That's it for me! What did you get in your mailbox this week?

BBC Book Meme

A couple of months ago, the BBC speculated that the average person has only read 6 of the 100 books on their Big Read list. Someone out there has since started a meme listing the top 100 books. Read the list and (X) anything you may have read. Easy!

(Note: I put a (/) through the books that I had started and never finished as there seemed to be A LOT of them. )

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (/)


2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (/)

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (/)

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (X)

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee(x)

6 The Bible () (pieces?)

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (/)

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell()

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ()

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens ()

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott ()

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy ()

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller ()

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare ()

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier()

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien ()

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ()

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger()

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (X)

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot ()

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (X)

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald()

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens ()

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy ()

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (X)

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky ()

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck()

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (X)

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame(X)

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (X)

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ()

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis(X)

34 Emma-Jane Austen ()

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen ()

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (Um, this one was already counted)

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein ()

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ()

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (X)

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne(X)

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell ()

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown ()

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving ()

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ()

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (X)

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy ()

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood ()

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding ()

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan ()

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel ()

52 Dune - Frank Herbert()

53 Cold Comfort Farm ()

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (X)

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ()

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ()

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens()

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley ()

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon (X)

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (X)

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (/)

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (/)

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt (X)

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold ()

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac()

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ()

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (X)

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie ()

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville(/)

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens(/)

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker (X)

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (X)

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ()

75 Ulysses - James Joyce (/)

76 The Inferno – Dante ()

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ()

78 Germinal - Emile Zola ()

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (X)

80 Possession - AS Byatt ()

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (X)

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ()

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker (/)

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro ()

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (/)

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ()

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (X)

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom ()

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle(/)

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ()

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad ()

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery()

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ()

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute (/)

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas ()

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (/)

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (X)

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo(/)


So I've read 25 of the 100 books on the list. Not bad considering (if I live to be 100) that is basically 1/4 of the books in 1/4 of my life.


If you do this, let me know in the comments. I'd love to see what you come up with!