Yay, books on the way (aka I love Robin McKinley)

After reading – and absolutely loving – Robin McKinley’s Sunshine that I borrowed from the library, I knew I just had to have my own copy. Books costing what they do over here, I toddled off to the website of The Book Depository (wonderful people who have free international shipping) to order a copy.

I was all set to hit “Order” when I checked my Google Reader and discovered that Calico Reaction (join her June bookclub read of Sunshine) was having a competition to win a signed copy of the book. I hesitated in my shopping and entered the competition instead.

Robin McKinley competitions seem to be the order at the day at the moment, as Ms McKinley herself is having a competition to win an ARC of her new book, Pegasus, due out in November. All you have to do to enter is comment on her forum, Facebook, or Twitter with your favourite line from one of her books.

After a bit of thought, I chose my favourite line from the oh-so-wonderful The Blue Sword which come towards the end when all the villagers accompany Harry back to Corlath:

- including Rilly, who was beside herself with excitement, and her mother, who was beside herself with Rilly -

There were so many excellent entries that I immediately decided I need to do both some McKinley rereading and catch up on any of her books I haven’t read yet. This forces me to admit that Chalice remains on the TBR Shelf and for some reason I didn’t get into Rose Daughter the first time I tried to read it. Both have now been bumped up the to-be-read-list.

I was quite pleased to see that there was only one book I both didn’t own and hadn’t read, which was Deerskin. I know exactly why. At the point the book was published, I wasn’t in the right headspace to read about some of the issues the book addressed (it’s a retelling of the fairy tale Donkeyskin and if you check the link you’ll see what I mean, but I don’t want to be directly responsible for spoiling anyone).

There were so many wonderful lines from Deerskin posted and I’m a different person know, so the book immediately went on to my mental wishlist.

Upon reflection, I also realised that the odds of me winning the copy of Sunshine are pretty small, so I succumbed to temptation and ordered both Sunshine and Deerskin from The Book Depository. Both have now shipped and I’ll be able to start haunting the PO Box in a week to 10 days until they arrive.

If I get lucky and win Calico Reaction’s competition after all, some lucky friend will get a copy of a wonderful book. But it won’t be signed, I’ll be keeping that one for myself.