Blog Entry: Competition Winners, Good Books, and Good News
Entry posted on December 22, 2009, 12.37 pm
Categories:
ARCs, Competitions, Giveaways, Holidays, Reading
Thanks so much to everyone who entered my ARC giveaway! There were 126 entries, and I really wish I could give an ARC to every single person who entered. Since I couldn't, I used an online random number generator to pick the winner and the two runners up, and this is what it chose:
The two runners up are: @elledisney and Lisa Voisin
and the ARC winner is: Kaylynn of Kay Darling Reviews
Yay Kaylynn, Elle, and Lisa! If you send me your mailing address (using the contact form on my website), I'll put your packages in the mail.
And for everybody else who entered: I've got four more ARCs still waiting in my desk, and I'm planning to give away one a month here on the blog for the next four months. So you will definitely have more chances to win!
***
In other news, I just finished reading Kristin Cashore's Fire, and WOW. It completely blew me away. I'd really, really liked and admired her first book, Graceling, but for me, Fire resonated much more strongly, and I absolutely loved it. It really was one of the best coming-of-age novels I've ever read in any genre, and it immediately became one of my favorite fantasy novels ever (which is saying an awful lot).
I really wish I'd been able to read it as a teen, when I honestly needed a book like that in many ways...but I'm very glad that at least I can read it now. The copy I read belonged to my local library, but I'll definitely be buying my own copy very soon for lots and lots of re-readings. It's one of those books that manages to tackle really difficult, painful subjects, like grief and terrible injustice, and yet still feel like a pure pleasure to read - and that is really impressive.
It's been a good day in lots of ways, actually. In a true Christmas miracle, it actually snowed yesterday (snow! before Christmas! in the UK! is that even allowed?), and even more incredibly, it hasn't melted yet. I'm hoping with all my heart that it will stay for Christmas. Today my computer is being shipped back to me from Apple - knock on wood that it will work this time! And this afternoon I'm off to pick up my new pair of glasses, so I'll actually have a pair that doesn't hang at weird angles off my face. Total decadent luxury! ;)