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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Blogiversary! (And Obligatory Giveaway)

I started this blog a year ago tomorrow, with this post on vat-grown meat. I can't believe it's been a year since that post. I can't believe how little we've heard about that story since, though I can kind of believe why it's not on the shelves yet.

I'd like to think I've come a long way since then. I've joined Twitter. I've finished another draft of my WIP. I've made friends, read books, seen movies. I'm more savvy about the publishing world, and more confident in my abilities as a writer.

To celebrate all that, and the beginning of December*, I'm giving away books! Four of them, to be exact, and three of which are pre-read but in good condition.

Vanished, by Kat Richardson - Fourth in the series. Harper Blaine, the Seattle P.I. who can see ghosts after a temporary death, is prompted by the ghost of a dead friend to delve into her family history, but is interrupted by Seattle's top vampire, who wants her to go to London for him. And the cases seem to be connected…. This is the unread book. Sorry for the dark photo. I tried, I really did.

The Better Part of Darkness, by Kelly Gay - First in the series. Charlie Madigan, divorced mom and cop in an Atlanta inhabited by angel-like and demon-like beings as well as humans, must find the distributors of ash before another teen overdoses. And if that wasn't hard enough, she's getting strange nightmares and showing signs of magic she never knew she had.

Dying Bites, by D.D. Barant - First in the series. FBI profiler Jace Valchek is taken to a world where humans are nearly extinct, and more of the population is pire, lycan, or golem. Reason? They've got a crazed human murderer on the loose and no experience with mental illness to help them track him down.  Oh, and he continent hops.

Magic to the Bone, by Devon Monk - First in the series. Allie Beckstom tracks down magical criminals for a living, so when she finds a boy dying from her estranged father's Offloaded magic, she only sees one option. Unfortunately, three things are against her: her father is a high-powered businessman, she loses memories whenever she performs magic, and somebody's trying to kill her.






First prize: Two books of your choice.
Second prize: One of the remaining books.
Third prize: The last book.

To enter, please leave a comment mentioning as much or little of the following as you want. Winners will be determined by the number of points accrued. (You can leave multiple comments, if you want, but they'll be counted together.)
  • Leave a comment(s) - +1
  • Current blog follower (Google FriendConnect, or a feed reader; honor system) - +2
  • Current Twitter follower (provide handle) - +2
  • New blog follower (see above) - +1
  • New Twitter follower (see above) - +1 
  • Tweet or retweet about the contest (be sure to include @AnassaRh so I can track them) - +1 each
  • Mention the contest on your blog (link me) - +2
  • Tell me about the best book you've read this year - +3
  • Tell me your favourite mythological creature - +2
  • Tell me which of my blog posts is your favourite - +4

Contest is open to US and Canada only, because 1) I'm cheap/broke and 2) there's a chance the books will arrive by Christmas this way. Contest closes Tuesday, Dec. 7, at 11:59 pm PST.

* which means I'm allowing myself to turn on carols and put up the tree

19 comments:

Deb said...

Congrats on the year-versary!! :D

Leave a comment, check!
Current blog follower, check!
Twitter?... no. I stay off Twitter for many reasons. But I'd follow you if I was on. :)
So I won't be retweeting this. ;)
Book...

I don't read much, so I probably have only three or four books to choose from this year, but my 'best' is 'No Plot No Problem' by Chris Baty. It's an awesome introduction into writing rough drafts of novels rather quickly. It's very humorous and an easy read.

Favourite mythological creature is rather general - demons. The creepy, purely evil, totally inhuman things that crawl in the shadows and make your skin crawl. xD

My favorite post thus far has been the one where you talked about reading 'bad' writing. It really got me thinking and I still remember it. :)

Good luck with your blog!

-Cori

Anonymous said...

I don't need any of these books, so I'm not entering the contest, but I wanted to comment to tell you how much I love your last three methods for amassing points, particularly the fact that almost all of them are worth more points than the following/signal boosting ones.

Coming up with a favorite mythological creature would be tough for me. It all depends on where I'm encountering them, I suppose. Dragons and werecreatures are always intriguing to me though.

Unknown said...

1. Left comment
2. Followed your blog
3. Tad Williams Shadowplay is the best book so far.
4. I like dragons

Unknown said...

I have shared this on facebook :9

Unknown said...

i would like any of the books except vanished as I've read this one already.

Jami Gold said...

Congrats on your Blogiversary!

Okay, comment, check (+1). Current Twitter follower (@JamiGold), check (+2). New blog follower, check (+1). Tweeted, check (+1).

Best book I've read this year? Holy cow. Um, I have a hard time remembering that far back. :) How about my favorite one that I read recently and can remember? Paranormalcy by Kiersten White. (+3)

Favorite mythological creature... Hmm, I like several. I have vampire, werewolf, dragon, gargoyle, and unicorn stories in my head, waiting for me to write them. I'd say dragon and gargoyles are my favorites of those. I haven't found a faery story with a mythology/world-building I liked, but I have one in my TBR pile to try. (+2)

What's that total? (Math is not my strong suit.) Er, 10 entries, I think...

Hannah said...

I don't really need any more books at the moment (except for Bujold's MEMORY, which I would be starting today but I need to wait to get it at the library, argh!), but I wanted to tell you happy blogiversary! It's a really fun blog, and a couple of the recent writing-y posts have been good to keep me sane that I'm not the only one who bucks the conventional writing wisdom on the Internet. And enjoy getting out your tree…

A.M. Guynes/Annikka Woods said...

Current Twitter follower? Of course! @annikkawoods

New Blog Follower? Yup!

Retweeted contest? Yup!

Best book I've read this year? Uh...probably Gene Doucette's IMMORTAL. That's been my favorite so far.

Favorite mythological creature? Anything cool, which is pretty much every mythological creature I've ever heard of.

And...leaving a comment. LOL Didn't realize you were running the contest or I'd have poked my nose over here sooner. Actually, I'm glad I did. I was able to add you to the blogs I follow. :)

N. R. Wick said...

Leave a comment(s) - +1
DONE! <3 Thanks for such a great contest!
=Current blog follower (Google FriendConnect, or a feed reader; honor system) - +2
Followed with Google
=Current Twitter follower (provide handle) - +2
NRWick
=Tweet or retweet about the contest (be sure to include @AnassaRh so I can track them) - +1 each
Re-tweeted twice, I believe. (+2)
=Tell me about the best book you've read this year - +3
This one is so hard because I've read a lot of good books this year. I would have to say Kelley Armstrong's The Summoning.
=Tell me your favourite mythological creature - +2
MERMAIDS! I love them more than any others! Though, I love most mythological creatures.
Tell me which of my blog posts is your favourite - +4
"Discovering the Story" Was my fav. Had some fantastic info!

Total = 16 (I think)

Unknown said...

Congratulations on your Blogiversary!

+1 Commented
+1 New blog follower (see above) - +1 New Twitter follower @intensewhisper
+3 Three Days to Dead by Meding
+2 Mermaid :)
+4 Reasons for Reading Urban Fantasy

robin [at] intensewhisper [dot] com

Qwill said...

Just stopped by to congratulate you on your Blogversary!!

Don't enter me, I've got all the books. :)

Tanya1224 said...

awesome giveaway! I've been wanting to read all of those ecspecially Kelly Gay.
+1 comment
+1 New GFC follow as Tanyaw1224
+1 tweeted at www.twitter.com/Tanya1224
Best book this year I'd have to say was either Gena Showalter's Darkest lie. Just because I love the LOTU! I'm reading Vampire Empire right now and its pretty darn good too. My favorite mythical creature would probably be dragons or maybe angels, no no faery's. Oh I meant demons...lol. I love all of them ;)
Tanyaw1224(at)yahoo(dot)com

Shannon said...

Okay. Comment, yes, old blog and Twitter follower, best book I've read this year is Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson's Towers of Midnight, favorite mythological creature is pegasus and your favorite blog post of mine is easy, this one cause for once I'm hoping to win something! I think that gives me 14 entries.

And if you want to win some books, I have a contest going on until tomorrow night too! :)

NerdyGirl said...

This is a comment ;)

I have Specnology on my Google Reader.

Nerdygirl_om on Twitter.

I just retweeted.

Best book I've read this year: Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin.

My first instinct is to say dragons, but in my mind the only "real" dragons are the ones from Anne McCaffrey's Pern books, and technically they aren't mythical (in that context). So I'd have to go with the Hippocampus.

Favorite blog post is 'Reasons For Reading Urban Fantasy,' because it annoys me to no end that so many people think UF begins and ends with, "ZOMG I luv teh hawt vampire slayerz girl power foreverz and Oh Em Gee I hope her man is super angsty and HAWT!!!11one." I'm firmly in the camp that wants to smack an author upside the head when they feel the need to tell us how hot and skinny the heroine is. Heaven forbid a woman try to save the world while wearing plus sized jeans. /end unsolicited soapbox rant.

Preternatural Reviews said...

Congrats on the anniversary!! We met the other night going over the latest UFchat, I made the Ensign Redshirt comment ;)

Well, here goes...

Leave a comment(s) - +1

Current blog follower (Google FriendConnect, or a feed reader; honor system) - +2

Current Twitter follower (provide handle) - +2

New Twitter follower (see above) - +1

Tweet or retweet about the contest (be sure to include @AnassaRh so I can track them) - +1 each

Tell me about the best book you've read this year - +3 (I think I can cover that by sending you to my Best of 2010 link that I told you about the other night. It's at http://preternaturalreviews.blogspot.com)

Tell me your favourite mythological creature - +2 (Hippogrif)

That's 12 if I counted correctly. Once again, congratualations, and good luck on the book. Hope to talk to you on Saturday at the chat. Try to stop by my blog and tell me what you think of my list if you get a chance.

Ruth said...

Congrats on your blogiversary! :)

Current Twitter follower @ruthbeingruth & I also tweeted a link to your contest. Also a subscriber via Google Reader.

Best book I read this year...hmm. It's been a great year for books for me. I'd go with either the Sandman or the Miles Vorkosigan series. Sandman because the power of stories just blows one away and the art is amazing. And the Vorkosigan books because they're such wonderful adventure stories & when I read them I feel a connection to my mother.

Mythological creature is almost harder. Guess I can't use something from sci-fi/Lovecraft, so I'll go with dragon. After reading Dragonriders of Pern (just the first two books, though) in my teens, I've had good feelings towards dragons. This would probably make me good dragon-food.

Kristi said...

Excellent giveaway!

I am a new blog follower and new Twitter follower (@booksnyarn).

Wendy Sparrow said...

Oh! Oh! *waves hand around while jumping up and down* Me! Me!

1. current Twitter follower
2. New blog follower
3. retweeted
4. Secretly think you're awesome... just so you know... not because I'm trying to win points.
5. Best books this year... I recently read The Picture of Dorian Gray and it was fascinating and soooo worth reading at some point in everyone's lives.
6. Mythical creature... I like the thought and myth behind changelings... but I don't know if it counts. Also, skinwalkers fascinate me.

=10 points I believe

Naseeb said...

I'm currently following the blog, following you on Twitter (my username is @NasDestiny), retweeted a message, and am currently following your blog.

My best book I've read this year would have to be A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin, fantastic series I just learned about.

Favorite mythological creature... would have to go with a dragon. Something strong about them.