Snubbr.com Giveaway

Have you heard about Snubbr.com? This new website is like your own expert personal shopper -- only online! All you have to do is ask a question, like "what's the best young adult book" or "what whitening toothpaste is best" and you'll receive an automatic list of recommendations. Instant magic.

To celebrate the opening of this website, I'm hosting a giveaway. Do you like historical fiction? Then this is the contest for you! Here's how to enter:

1. Visit the Best Historical Fiction page and pick a book. Then fill out this form to enter.
2. If you ask a question on snubbr.com, add the link to the form for +3 extra entries.

Please note: The books offered by the site in this giveaway are not necessarily intended for teen/children audiences. Please read the descriptions to decide which title is best suited for you. I personally have not read any of these books, and this contest should not be viewed as a recommendation from me for any of these titles.

Rules:
-Contest open until April 17th at midnight PDT.
-Open to US only.
-Entrants must provide a mailing address to enter.
-Any entries left in the comments of this post, will not count, so make sure you enter by filling out the form.

We have A Button! And a few other updates

Well, as you can see from this post, we now have a button. Yay! Thanks very much to the wonderful and multi-talented Kate from The Neverending Shelf who made this one.

So are you read to spread some battle love? Grab the button here, or using the box in the left sidebar:

<center><a href="http://theshadyglade.blogspot.com/2010/04/introduction-to-ya-bloggers-debut-book.html"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijKbupksWkzU1wcKNjQOoszIZCwYebH8bE7PlbOzNJxCyMvLkgbfU4PRgDcLZsZPznMcuj4MuDiyzwtDVa9LaiAka3Icx3-05RWNN8n9LZUFPgorXWlpF6HbsHwxE7gW4lVBfIvA/s200/button2+sidebar.jpg" /></a></center>

A few other minor updates. Based on the way the brackets work there will probably be 16 titles who will join the battle. If need be, I will be holding a poll to determine the 16 finalists. Books nominated more than once will be automatically entered of course. So make sure your favorite book gets nominated!

In other news, the judging spots are filling up fast. If you haven't already signed up, now's a good time to submit your application.

And last but not least, we now have a Goodreads group! This is the place for those of you who want to stay up to date on the latest news of the battle, but don't remember to come back to check the blog. There's not much going on there now, but feel free to poke around a bit.

That's it for now. Can you feel the building excitement? Ooh, I can't wait!

Books I Read in March

I know we're already a few days into April, but I have fun putting these videos together.

Since I spent the first part of March getting over yet another cold, and the second part of March in a lot of waiting rooms while I dealt with my cat's medical emergency, a lot of the books this month were "comfort" reads. Those tried and true favorites that I've read and reread many times, and yet I never get tired of. But, I also read a few other books in there too, including a book from my "guilty pleasure" series, The Clique. That book, by the way, isn't worth it although I still like reading the series.

As always, comments/suggestions are appreciated! I did have someone ask what music I was using last time, is that something that you would want to know? Or do you even care? Anyway, without any further delay, here's my video for the month of March.



Now, I'm off to go get some reading done, so hopefully next month's video will be a little more interesting!

Judges Application for Book Battle 2010

Okay everyone. Here's where I need your help for the YA Bloggers Debut Book Battle 2010. I can't judge these things myself, so I need your help to act as judges!

Each judge will be required to read the two nominated books in their bracket, pick a winner, and then write an explanation that will be posted on your blog on the designated day (or if a non-blogger then emailed to me to post for you).

Judges do not need to be a blogger to participate, but if you are you will be asked to submit your blog link. Your blog should be somewhat established (older than 2 months) and must contain a reasonable amount of original content. You must also blog about Young Adult books (meaning you can blog about other things too, but you need to have posted about YA lit before).

So, ready to volunteer?

*Applications Now Closed*

If you a non-blogger and would like to participate, you will be asked to provide one or two review samples by email.

If more judges sign up then there are available spots then they will be chosen at random. I would like to have at least two judges for each bracket, so we'll see what we get.

Applications will be taken until April 18th, 2010. I got lots of enthusiasm for this project, so don't you all let me down now by not submitting an application. :)

By the way, have you submitted your nomination yet?

If you have questions, feel free to contact me at shadyglade(AT)mail(DOT)com.

Nominations Open for Book Battle 2010

Welcome to the Nominations Page for the YA Bloggers Debut Book Battle 2010! This is the place where you can nominate the book YOU think should win the battle.

Your nominated book should follow these requirements:
1. It must be a debut book (if the author has written books since, only the FIRST book they wrote is eligible)
2. It must be either Young Adult (or high middle grade)
3. It must have been first published between January 1st, 2009 and March 31st, 2010 (this is the narrow the field as much as possible so our judges have a chance to read the nominations!)

So, have a book you want to nominate?

*Nominations Now Closed*

PLEASE only nominate one or two books. Otherwise the list will be too long!

Nominations will be open until Sunday, April 18th, 2010. At that point we will narrow down the nominations if necessary and post the judging brackets. Then the battle will be on!

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at shadyglade(AT)mail(DOT)com.

Now, nominate away!

And you can volunteer to be a judge too!

Edited to add: DO NOT leave your nominations in the comments! They won't count unless you use the form. Thanks!

An Introduction to the YA Bloggers Debut Book Battle

So what is the YA Bloggers Debut Book Battle?

Well, it started as a crazy idea. An idea that seemed popular (to my surprise) and it kind of took off from there.

The YA Bloggers Debut Book Battle is a bracket-style judging contest to pick the best nominated debut work published in the last year (and a little bit of 2010).

Here's how it will work:

People will have a chance to nominate a book of their choice to take place in the battle. After nominations close, the books will be narrowed down and fit into brackets for our lovely volunteer judges to read. Starting in late April each judge will read two books and choose a winner. One will move on, one will not. It will all come down to two books in a epic book battle to choose the best!

Latest Updates:

9/9 - The wrap-up post has been put up, concluding the 2010 Battle. You can catch up on everything and leave your feedback here.

9/4 - The final winner has been announced! This post has the winner.

7/8 - Round 4 Winners have been announced. Check out the announcement post to see which books have made it to the finals.

6/28 - The Mystery Revived Book is... The Iron King! It will get a second chance to battle during Round 4. Results coming soon!

6/22 - If you haven't been keeping up with the announcements, make sure you check out this post to see all the winners for Round 1, Round 2, and Round 3.

5/10 - Winners from Round 1 have been announced. Check out this post to see which books are coming out on top.

5/9 - Round 2 has started! Winners coming soon!

And they're off! Get the details from the Battle Starting Line.

For those cheering us from the sidelines, find out all the ways you can keep up with all the action.
The brackets are complete! Check out which books will be battling which books here.

The Official Nomination List has been posted, so you can check out the 24 books that will be in the running for the top spot. Make sure you also check out the Battle trailer while you're there.

You can also grab the battle button in the left sidebar, or view our Goodreads group to stay up to date with the latest happenings.

Now, get ready to battle!

Clear Away The Clutter Read-A-Thon

Okay, so I had totally though I had posted this weeks ago, but it turns out I never fished it out of draft form. *forehead smack*

So since it starts TOMORROW, I figured I needed to finish this up quick.

As part of her Clear Away the Clutter Mini Challenge, Kate from The Neverending Shelf is hosting a Clear Away the Clutter Read-A-Thon. Yay! Here's a chance to read some of those books from my Clear Away The Clutter post.

Who can participate
Anyone!

When
Begins: 7am, Monday, April 5th
Ends: 11pm, Sunday, April 11th

You'll need to head over to Kate's post to sign up, but you should join me!

I'm setting really small goals because although this is a week long thing, I don't have Spring Break and I'm really busy with my job. So I don't know how much I'm going to be able to read. My goal is to read at least two hours a day. We'll see what happens...

Starting tomorrow I will be trying to spend my free time reading rather than blogging. I have several scheduled posts that will go up anyway, but if you email me I may be a little longer in responding. Again, we'll just have to see!

As far what I'm going to read, I'm pretty much sticking with my list from my original CATCC post. With these few additions:

Scripture reading (I do this every night, so why not count it?)
Green by Laura Peyton Roberts
The Wish Stealers by Tracy Trivas
Wherever Nina Lies by Lynn Weingarten (I started it weeks ago, I need to finish!)

Need a button

All of you creative graphics people out there, listen up. I'm painfully poor at creating buttons, and I need one for the upcoming YA Bloggers Debut Book Battle. And since I'm so not creative when it comes to button making, this is where you come in.

But wait! There's incentive. :-) I have a copy of Golden by Cameron Dokey, a copy of Never Bite a Boy on the First Date, or a Beautiful Creatures t-shirt that I'll send to the person who makes the button we use. So if more than one person submits one, then the one we use gets it.

So get out there and be creative! I'm open as far as design goes, but I would like it to say "Debut Book Battle" on there somewhere at least. Any other writing is fine too, just go with what you think looks best.

If possible, if you could please have them to me by April 8th that would be great!

Email me at shadyglade(AT)mail(DOT)com with your entries or your questions.

Good luck!

LOL of the Week: Cookies

I know I normally do these on Sunday, but Sunday is going to be pretty busy with the upcoming Book Battle, so I'm posting this today since I don't have anything else planned while I'm busy preparing for that.

So without further of my rambling, here's this week (well, next week's, really) LOL:


If you'd like to learn more about LOLcats, you can check out the website, or read my review of the book.

Have a great week!

Project is a Go!

Well, since I had a lot of positive response, the book battle is on! The official title will be the YA Bloggers Debut Book Battle. Okay, so it's a working title. If you have a better suggestion, please let me know. I'm horrible at names.

Anyway, I will be busy the next few days getting things organized. Nominations will open on Sunday April 4th. That's also when I will be asking for volunteers to judge the rounds. So look for more information then.

Thank you everyone for the response!

And if anyone wants to make a button for this, please let me know. :)

Want to Join Me on a Crazy Idea?

So I've had this thing percolating around inside my head for a couple weeks and I've decided it's time to share. Ever since I heard about both Nerds Heart YA and School Library Journal's Battle of the Books, I've really wanted to try something like this on my own. But I couldn't really figure out a good focus. SLJ focuses on award winning books and bestsellers of the year, while Nerds Heart YA is more about under appreciated YA lit. But yesterday I finally got an idea:

A Battle for the Best Debut Book

So what do you think? Because although this sounds fun to me, it would be a big enough project I couldn't do it on my own. I would need help with a whole bunch of things including:

1. Judging

2. Nominations

3. Promotion

4. and of course Cheering the contenders on!

So, I guess the point of this post is, do you want to join me? If I get enough positive response, I'm going to move forward with this, so if you think it's a good idea, leave me a comment below!

Ahem...

Well, I have an announcement to make. I hadn't decided when I was going to post this, but seeing as my brother spilled the beans in his blog post on Sunday** I guess it's time for me to share the news.

The reason I've been gone so much of the past few weeks is I've been working on a job application. This job application:


That's right. I'm going back to work at Walt Disney World this summer. Readers who have been with this blog since 2008 (and before) now that I started by Disney-related blog, Disney World Girl, to chronicle my adventures during my experiences of The Disney College Program. Well, now I've been invited back to participate in an alumni program from May to August this summer.

So what does this mean for you? Well, this will have a big impact on my blogging schedule, although I don't know how much. Last time I pretty much only did Disney blogging, and that took a lot of time. But I will try to keep up the book blogs this time too, because I did A LOT of reading last time around. So we'll see.

Meanwhile, I'm starting a new feature on that other blog to celebrate the countdown of my departure for Florida. It's called Ask a Cast Member, where you can ask me any Disney-related question you can think of. Head over to the introduction post to learn more, or you can jump straight to the form too.

Anyway, now you know what's going on. More news about this as it comes, although most of it will be on the other blog, so make sure you follow that one if you're interested.

**Incidentally if you visit my brother's blog, make sure you ooh and ah at the header. I made it myself using only Paint and I am very proud of it. :)

Waiting on Wednesday: 3.24.10

I had a hard time picking a book to share today for this, but I finally chose one:

Princess of Glass by Jessica Day George

About the Book (from Amazon.com): "Hoping to escape the troubles in her kingdom, Princess Poppy reluctantly agrees to take part in a royal exchange program, whereby young princes and princesses travel to each other's countries in the name of better political alliances and potential marriages. It's got the makings of a fairy tale until a hapless servant named Eleanor is tricked by a vengeful fairy godmother into competing with Poppy for the eligible prince. Ballgowns, cinders, and enchanted glass slippers fly in this romantic and action-packed happily-ever-after quest from an author with a flair for embroidering tales in her own delightful way."

So why am I waiting on this one? It's a companion to Princess of the Midnight Ball. Do I need another other reason? I kind of like the fact that this one sounds like it has a Cinderella twist to it too. And love the cover. As usual. :)

Princess of Glass will be released on May 25, 2010 and is currently available for pre-order from Amazon.com:

The Dark Divine Nail Polish Giveaway

Now that things are settling down, it's time for another giveaway! I have bottles of wonderful purple nail polish inspired by The Dark Devine to giveaway. Three lucky winners will each get a bottle of this wonderful color, which matches the cover of The Dark Devine by Bree Despain.

All you have to do to enter is comment on this post and answer this question:

What are your feelings about forgiveness?

Open to US residents only (sorry international friends!) and ends March 31st, 2010 at midnight.

So what are you waiting for? Time to enter!

LOL of the Week: Visiting Friends

In light of the vet problems I've been having with my cat lately (he is finally pulling through!), I thought this LOL was appropriate for today:

Yeah, that's pretty much the expression he had on his face. That, and this one:


If you'd like to learn more about LOLcats, you can check out the website, or read my review of the book.

Have a great week!

Food for Thought: The Future of Publishing

Probably many of you have seen this already, but since I'm catching up on things I just discovered it myself and wanted to share.

Thanks to DK Publishing for putting together such a thought-provoking video. Make sure you watch the whole thing, don't stop in the middle:

New Wherever Nina Lies Winner

One winner of the Wherever Nina Lies Giveaway has not yet responded, so it's time to pick another winner. So congrats to:

Aik

Who is our new winner! Please email me your mailing address by Sunday (March 21) or a new winner will be chosen.

A Note For Those Waiting On Prizes

I just wanted to pop in and say I'm really behind on mailing out prizes. If you've won anything for the past few months and haven't gotten it from me yet, it will be on it's way soon. Life has been really crazy since December, but I finally have everything packaged up (I think) to go out.

If you want to double check that your prize is on my To Be Mailed list, you can send me a quick email at shadyglade(AT)mail(DOT)com.

Winners of Wherever Nina Lies

So in the confusion circulating around the last week, I completely forgot to choose winners for the Wherever Nina Lies giveaway. So here they are now. The winners are:

Adriana, ReaganStar/Star Shadow, and misskallie2000
Congrats! Please email me your mailing address within 48 hours to claim your prize. New winners will be chosen on Friday at 5:00 if needed.

Don't forget

As I posted last month, Bookmark Day is today (March 15th). If you're like me and you love bookmarks, you'll want to head over to the The Bibliophilic Book Blog and check out all the neat features, giveaways, and posts going on all day. Including a giveaway from yours truly. ;)

Hurry, since most of these giveaways are only open until tomorrow (Mar 16)!

Thank You

I just wanted to thank everyone for their kind wishes on my blogging hiatus post. You have no idea how much your support has meant to me. I keep going back and reading the comments every time I need a pick-me-up.

For those who are wondering, the cat has stabilized a little, but he isn't getting better yet, so we're still on pins and needles. I will post as I can, but again, I'm not sure when I'll be in exactly.

So again, thank you for bearing with me during this difficult time.

Cover Contest: Voting Round 2

Wow! My cover actually made it to Round 2! Not bad for a first attempt. :)

So head over to Princess Bookie to vote for your favorite cover for Round 2. But hurry, only the first 75 votes count!

Please vote for your favorite, but if you want to vote for me, I'm number 3 this time.

What are you waiting for?

Blogger Hiatus

I did have a different post planned for today, but find that I am not in the mood at the moment to blog.

This may make me sound silly, but my cat is sick and it might be his time. He's really old so I suspect he might not make it this time around. I've had him for 16 years, and he's my baby. The experience has made me too depressed to blog.

So I will be gone for a few days, I don't know how long. Tomorrow's my birthday, so I probably won't be around then whatever happens with Greysen.

Back soon, hopefully.

Time to Vote: Hurry!

Entries are closed and it's now time to vote for your favorite recreated cover in Princess Bookie's contest. The top 20 from this round will move on to round 2. If you'd like to vote for my cover (pictured here) head over to the post and vote for number six (that's mine!).

Or you can vote for one you like better too. :) But hurry! Only the first 100 votes will be counted, and as of this post there are 68 votes.

Recreate a Cover Contest

Cindy from Princess Bookie is having a Contest Craze again, which includes once again a Recreate a Cover contest. Now normally I don't do things like this, because I have absolutely no talent. However, while looking at the other entries I got a really good idea for a cover, and so I bit the bullet, opened up Photoshop and started playing around. I have never, ever used Photoshop (or a similar program) before so this was completely new territory for me.

SEVEN HOURS LATER I have a result. Before I show it to you, head over to Princess Bookie if you want to do your own entry. But hurry, since it's filling up fast! Only the first 50 will count, and I managed to squeak in by number 46.

The rules stated that it has to be a redesign of a 2010 release, and I chose the upcoming addition to the Once Upon a Time Series out in June called The World Above by Cameron Dokey. Here's the original cover on the left:

The series got a make over last year with these new photographic covers. They're slowly redoing the old ones, but the four newest books in the series have this new style instead of the beautiful old Kinuko Craft covers each book used to have.

Although I like the new covers, I really miss the Kinuko Craft ones. So I had the brilliant idea to recreate one of the 2010 releases for the series with a Kinuko Craft cover. Here's an example of one of the older covers (on the right) so you get an idea of the model I was attempting to immitate.


S
C
R
O
L
L

D
O
W
N

to see the result...


Ta-Da!

My Redesigned Cover

So obviously it's not as good as the real Kinuko Craft covers. Not even close, actually. But considering this was my very first attempt at doing anything at all in Photoshop, I'm pretty proud of myself. There's a lot more detail for the actual covers, but considering I'm a beginner and I don't have endless hours to waste doing things like this, I really like the result. The hardest part was adding the texture, which took me a #@*%!#$%$*! long time to figure out.

I'm not very happy with the middle either (where the title is) but I kind of ran out of time to play with it and had to use what I could. Oh well.

It took me ages to find the right artwork to use. As far as I can tell, The World Above is a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk, and I wanted to mimic the peasant-type look of the dress in the actual cover. But most of Kinuko Craft's paintings are about royalty and were wayyyyy too pretty to work for this. But I finally found this painting of Joan of Arc to use and I think it turned out okay.

So what do you think? Did I do okay for a first attempt?

Waiting on Wednesday: 3.10.10

It's been awhile since I've had time to do one of these! But since I have a few extra minutes today, here's what I'm waiting for this week:

Toads and Diamonds by Heather Tomlinson

Book Description (from Amazon.com): "Diribani has come to the village well to get water for her family's scant meal of curry and rice. She never expected to meet a goddess there. Yet she is granted a remarkable gift: Flowers and precious jewels drop from her lips whenever she speaks.

It seems only right to Tana that the goddess judged her kind, lovely stepsister worthy of such riches. And when she encounters the goddess, she is not surprised to find herself speaking snakes and toads as a reward.

Blessings and curses are never so clear as they might seem, however. Diribani’s newfound wealth brings her a prince—and an attempt on her life. Tana is chased out of the village because the province's governor fears snakes, yet thousands are dying of a plague spread by rats. As the sisters' fates hang in the balance, each struggles to understand her gift. Will it bring her wisdom, good fortune, love . . . or death?"

You know me, can't resist a fairy tale book. I'm really intrigued with how this one will be shaped to match the setting in India. I love the cover too! I've enjoyed one of Tomlinson's other books, Aurelie: A Faerie Tale, so I'm hoping this will also turn out to be a good read.

Toads and Diamonds will be released on March 30th, 2009. So I won't have to wait too long to read it! It's also currently available for pre-order on Amazon.com:

Cover Evolution

So one of the things I love about talking about books is also talking about book covers. I know you're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover, but pretty much I always have.

Today will be the first of a few posts I have planned talking about book covers. Specifically about how they change/relate to each other. I know this is almost over-done on a few blogs, but I really enjoy this type of thing, so you'll have to bear with me.

So onto today's discussion

Thanks to The Story Siren's latest release post, I came across the fact that Hyperion is re-releasing the first three Daughters of the Moon by Lynne Ewing books in an omnibus. I really like it when my favorite books get reissued so that new readers can find them. And then I saw the cover of this new edition:

Excuse me? These books are full of action, mythology, magic, and pure evil, but does that cover look like it to you? I think if I saw that on the shelf I would just walk right by.

Now compare that with the original covers for those three books:

I love these covers. Granted, the covers for this series did get a lot better than these starting with Book 7, but I'll still take them over that bland black cover. So why (why!) did they go with that cover? Even what they did for the last book in the series (recycling the last 6 books covers into one giant college) would be better:

I don't know, maybe I'm just a color person. But although some might like the new cover for it's simplicity, I don't think it conveys to urban/fantasy feel that the old covers do. But maybe that's just me.

So, what do you think?

By the way, if you enjoyed this post, let me know. I have a lot of these in my head, but they won't get posted if no one wants to read them. I can just discuss to myself in that case. :)

And now, even though I have tons of other books to read, I think I want to go re-read these. They were some of my all-time favorites in high school, and I could use a comfort read right now...

LOL of the Week: Nature

It's getting to be springtime a little bit around here. Which means it's once again time to get out of the house and commune with nature:

Or something like that anyway. :)

If you'd like to learn more about LOLcats, you can check out the website, or read my review of the book.

Have a great week!

Clear Away the Clutter Challenge

I've been meaning to post this for awhile now, but I've been busy with work. I've also been spending my free time trying to finish a project I'm working on rather than reading/blogging/writing reviews, but there you go. Plus, I've been waiting on new about a job... but more about that at another time.

This post is my sign up for the Clear Away the Clutter Challenge, hosted by Kate from The Neverending Shelf. Which is how my TBR stack feels right now (neverending I mean).

Anyway, you can check out all the details at the sign-up post, but the idea is that from March 1st to May 31st you read a stack of books you've designated to be "cleaned-out".

I am going for the Organizer level, which is to clean out and read at least 15 books. So here's my list for the challenge:

serafina67 *urgently requires life* by Susie Day
Pish Posh by Ellen Potter
They Never Came Back by Caroline B. Cooney
Emily the Strange: The Lost Days
The Great Race by Gary Blackwood
Three Good Deeds by Vivian Vande Velde
Click!: The Girl's Guide to Knowing What You Want and Making It Happen
The Debs by Susan McBride
Love, Lies and Texas Dips by Susan McBride
Dayan's Birthday
Both Side of Time by Caroline B. Cooney
Blackthorn Winter by Kathryn Reiss
The Humming of Numbers by Jodi Sensel
Letters From Rapunzel by Sara Lewis Holmes
Avalon Web of Magic: Cricles in the Stream
The Robe of Skulls by Vivian French

(Eh, too lazy to put up Amazon links right now. Will do it sometime later I think.)

So if you want to join me, head over to the challenge post to sign up. Now, I'm off to get reading!

Books Read in February

Well my experiment in doing retrospect videos for each month seemed to be popular last month, so I decided to try it again. So here's the video for books I read in February.

I did things a little differently this time, so please let me know if you like it. If you don't feel like leaving a comment, you can use the poll I've added after the video to vote instead. Also, there's a spot in the poll to choose if you couldn't get the video to work. I've had the odd comment saying they couldn't get these videos to load so I would like to know how widespread that problem is. I may need to switch from the Blogger video host if that problem continues.

Anyway, here's the video, and don't forget to vote in the poll too. If you are a feed subscriber you will probably need to visit the original post to see both poll and video:






The music I chose for this month is a bit of a tribute to the now closed Olympics. This song was the music chosen by American Ice Dance skaters Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates. I fell in love with the music during their program, and so decided to use it to accompany the video this month. In case you missed it (or want to see it again) you can view their free skate here.

And while you're at it, you should watch Davis and White too. Their free skate was also amazing (and it got them a silver medal!).

Contest Roundup: March 1

Hey everyone! It's Monday, and you know what that means *insert trumpet fanfare here* It's time for the weekly Contest Roundup!

First of all, don't forget you have a chance to win 3 copies of Wherever Nina Lies right here at The Shady Glade. Ends on my birthday (Mar 13) so you still have plenty of time to win. Also, I've extended February's comment contest for The Reluctant Heiress to the end of March (since I didn't blog much in Feb). So comment away if you'd still like to win that.

I will make sure I update the sidebar this time around, so make sure you check that out for other contests still going on as well.

And now, moving on to other chances to win:


Velvet from vvb32 Reads has a lot of great contests going on from her recent Mr. Knightley's Picnic event, including this one for Wicked Lovely: Desert Tales. Ends March 27th.


We've got some great books coming up in March, one of which is Hex Hall. The author is celebrating the release of her first book by hosting a contest for the book (and some t-shirts) at her blog. How cool! I'm really, really, really excited for this one, and I can't wait to read it.


Another book I've been eagerly anticipating for release this month is Brightly Woven. And it's almost here! Alexandra Bracken is also having a contest to celebrate her release date, so check this one out as well.


In Which a Girl Reads has reached 400 followers and is celebrating with an international giveaway for a book of your choice. Congrats on the followers! Ends March 6th, so hurry and enter!



There's another great contest going on at Fantastic Book Reivew, this time for an ARC of Forget-Her-Nots. This is another release I'm eagerly anticipating. :) Ends March 11th.


And speaking of followers, Bloody Bookaholic has reached 700 followers and is having a massive contest to celebrate. She's giving away 20 books (maybe more) including Jekyl Loves Hyde, Hearts at Stake, Harry Potter, and more. Don't want to miss this one. Ends April 18th.

Dark Faerie Tales is having another huge contest, this time to celebrate 500 followers. The winner will pick from a long list of books including The Body Finder, The Line, Voices of Dragons and more. Ends March 21st.


Misty from The Book Rat is celebrating her birthday (happy birthday Misty!) with a contest. She's giving away 5 books with a twist. Check out her post for all the details. Ends April 1st.


And last but certainly not least, here is a great giveaway from the Fire and Ice blog (check out the blog too, by the way, they've got some great stuff!). This giveaway is for a postcard and two bookmarks and they are GORGEOUS! On second thought, don't enter this contest, since that way I'll have a greater chance of winning. LOL :) Ends March 14th, which will be easy for me to remember since it's the day after my birthday.

And that's it for me this roundup. Don't forget to check the covers in the right sidebar for the latest!

LOL of the Week: Raised by Penguins

Finally feeling a little better, although I still got a nasty cough. Back tomorrow with the regularly scheduled contest roundup, but for now, here's an LOL to start the week off right:




Enjoy your week!

Update for Giveaway

Thanks to the comments left letting me know that I mislinked the form to enter the Wherever Nina Lies contest. That's what happens when you type up posts while in a cold-induced haze. :P

Anyway, the problem has now been fixed. If you tried to enter previously, you can now go enter. And if you haven't tried to enter yet, now's the perfect time to try.

Onward and upwards...

Win a Copy of Wherever Nina Lies

So you know how I've been hinting at a big giveaway for a few weeks now. Well here it is! I'm giving away three (3) copies of Wherever Nina Lies by Lynn Weingarten to celebrate it's new paperback release.

BOOK OVERVIEW
Nina was beautiful, wild, and adored by her younger sister, Ellie. But, one day, Nina disappeared. Two years later, everyone has given up home that Nina will return, but Ellie knows her sister is out there. If only Ellie had a clue where to look. Then she gets one, in the form of a mysterious drawing. Determined to find Nina, Ellie takes off on a crazy, sexy, cross-country road trip with the only person who believes she’s got a chance—her hot, adventurous new crush. Along the way, Ellie finds a few things she wasn’t planning on. Like love. Lies. And the most shocking thing of all: the truth.

I'm in the middle of this one now and it's actually pretty good. Review coming soon, I promise! And, you can also read the first chapter of the book here and see for yourself. So are you excited? Want to win? Here's the details:

Open to US residents only (sorry international friends!) unless you have someone in the US who can receive your prize for you.

The contest will end on March 13th (my birthday) at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time. Winners will be announced the next day and will have three days to send me their address before a new winner will be chosen.

Use this form to enter.

Good luck to everyone!

AUTHOR BIO
Lynn Weingarten spends a lot of time writing in coffee shops while occasionally reading strangers’ laptops over their shoulders. In the past she has been a book editor, a barista, a counter girl at a bakery in Ireland, a waitress at a bar, and a seller of tiny homemade clay animals. She lives in New York City. Wherever Nina Lies was her first novel. Please visit her online at www.lynnweingarten.com.

Bookmark Day is March 15th!

Still sick (although doing better) but I just found something that I have to share.

The Bibliophilic Book Blog is hosting a Bookmark Day on March 15th (two days after my birthday...).

Want the details? Here they are copied from the announcement:

"Bookmark day will be an ode to the bookmark...I will showcase bookmark creators, different kinds of bookmarks and offer sales on bookmarks in addition to an amazing assortment of bookmarks you can win...Oh yes, I know how you love prizes! :) There will also be some book giveaways as well...and maybe a nice signed set of books."

I'm so excited, I can't wait. I love bookmarks, so this is a perfect celebration for me. Make sure you check out all the details here, and check out the blog too.

Oh, and if you're lucky, you might just win a handmade bookmark from me. But you'll have to check out the event on March 15th to find out.

Grab My Button!

Well, there is one good thing about being sick. I've (finally) gotten around to getting my button boxes created. So now you can grab your very own Shady Glade button. You can grab either one below, or by looking in the left sidebar.

Now, I'm off to go get some more rest...

<center><a href="http://theshadyglade.blogspot.com/"><img style="WIDTH: 188px; HEIGHT: 156px; CURSOR: hand" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgriiLc12lqvFjNTd21FkCgco3IrfLqF3wIZSR9wxqA0KkxuppGWhCw-fwpWmu6e5CITA87jUvYGjYF0PmvE1tkgPMhZ_P0besmSSUOKxXuCI7JMOo5qX92zstLB4dmKYEr7JFIxA/s200/shadyglade3.jpg" /></a></center>

<center><a href="http://theshadyglade.blogspot.com/"><img style="WIDTH: 188px; HEIGHT: 156px; CURSOR: hand" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRc9VoyuIbW7YBgVF0gkpfD2ed1ge4Up9X_mUV_cphRDicSxLOk1Y5ndUVGx02-RH_So-2fkRstcjvMDdASnviBKUchJ8eI59EtUkGvFy-aM5tEO3KiL8u1008pBAklhsQr_aKZA/s200/shadyglade1.png" /></a></center>

LOL of the Week: Sick

Ugh. I'm sick again. I have another really bad cold. You know the kind of cold where you are majorly tired all day so you can't really do anything, but every time you try to sleep you can't because you're hacking this horrible phlegmy cough the whole time, which makes your head throb like someone's hitting it with a hammer and your ears are so blocked that you haven't been able to hear anything straight for three days, which really doesn't matter since no one's really talking to you anyway because of the copious amounts of green slime you're blowing out of your nose on a regular basis, so really all you can do is lay on the couch like a slug and watch TV programs you'd never in your right mind watch because you don't have the strength to find the remote to change the channel?

Yeah, I have one of those. *sigh*

Anyway, I managed to drag my sorry butt over to my computer to post this LOL. So considering my condition, I thought this was appropriate this week:



Hope you got a laugh out of that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a date with a nasal decongestant and some cough syrup.

Contest Monday Winner: Valentine's Edition

Time to announce the winners of my Valentine's Day edition of Contest Monday as promised. So without any further delay, the two winners are:

Lisa Richards

and

MJ

Congrats you two. Please contact me ASAP with your mailing addresses (within a week) so I can mail out your prizes to you. Also let me know if you want to change you book choice.

The rest of you, make sure you look in the right sidebar for all sort of other contests you can win, and be sure to come back next week for another chance here too.

Contest Roundup: Feb 16th

Time for another fun-filled Contest Roundup! As always, don't forget leaving a comment here during the entire month of February gets you in the running to win a copy of The Reluctant Heiress right here at The Shady Glade. Also, look for a new contest coming up here in the next few days. And now, moving on.


There's another great contest going on a Tales of the Ravenous Reader. This time she's got a February contest going on where you can win six singed books including Beautiful Creatures. Head over the to enter, and ends March 7th.


Next up is a contest over at The Undercover Book Lover (Not Really). This time you can win 12 books, including Brightly Woven. Open internationally and ends March 10th.


Here's one I'm super excited about. Rebecca is giving away a copy of Anastasia's Secret, one of my Waiting on Wednesday picks from way back. Ends Feb 25th.


Kelsy from The Book Scout is giving away a hardcover of Darklight. If you liked Wondrous Strange you won't want to miss this sequel. Ends March 3rd.


And last for today is a new Aussie blog I've come across called Story Wings. She's having a huge followers contest. The more followers she gets, the more prizes she adds, so definitely check this one out. She's got some great books up for grabs including Fallen if you haven't had a chance to get to it yet. Open internationally, ends Mar 19th (Australia time, so really more like the 18th if you're in the US like me).

That's it for me this time. Now, go enter some contests!

A President's Day Diversion

So there won't be a contest roundup today. I'm putting it off tomorrow since today is President's Day (for those of us in the United States) and I expect to be away from my computer a lot today.
So in honor of this holiday, I'm re-posting a video I did back in July about Abraham Lincoln. This went up when I was having major internet problems so I don't think a lot of people got to see it. And since Lincoln's birthday was Friday (Feb 12) I thought it was fitting. Besides, it give you something to do while waiting for that roundup doesn't it?

So come back tomorrow for the contest roundup, the winner of the Valentine's contest, and maybe something else. We'll see what happens. But without further ado, here's the video:

(feed readers will need to visit the actual post to see this).

I'd love to hear what you think. This was my first video attempt, so keep that in mind in your comments. :)

LOL of the Week: Valentine's Day Edition

Don't worry guys. If you really messed up and forgot today was Valentine's Day, here's how you can fix it:


Nothing else says "I'm sorry" enough. :)

If you'd like to learn more about LOLcats, you can check out the website, or read my review of the book.

Have a great week!

I'm On Hold...

*Please note: This is a future-dated post so it will remain at the top of the blog for a few days. Scroll down for new content*

I've tried to keep up with the blog this week, but have failed miserably. Why, you ask? Well, it's the Olympics. I love watching the Olympics and due to the fact that I missed the 2008 games and this is the first chance I've had to watch a lot of the events (thanks to the miracle of DVR), I'm spending a lot of my time catching up on that. Which means I'm not blogging.

So I may be scarce these next few days until the games are done. In the meantime, you should go watch them too!

I'd like to leave you with this quote from the CEO John Furlong’s speech at opening ceremonies:

The Olympic Flame has touched many millions and prompted spontaneous, peaceful celebration. Reminding us all that those values that unite and inspire the best in us we must never abandon. As the Olympic Cauldron is lit, the unique magic of the Olympic Games will be released upon us.

Magic so rare that it cannot be controlled by borders. The kind of magic that invades the human heart touching people of all cultures and beliefs. Magic that calls for the best that human beings have to offer. Magic that causes the athletes of the world to soar and the rest of us to dream. (Emphasis mine)