Pretty, pretty

Look what I got in the mail today:

Many thanks Theresa at Fantasy and Sci-Fi Lovin’ Blog for a wonderful giveaway and being willing to pay the awful postage to send it to New Zealand.

I’m looking forward to reading it – and I’ve got at least one friend I think will probably read it too – so thank you very much.

Discover the Liaden Universe® – a competition!

Sharon Lee & Steve Miller are the author team behind the classic and ever-popular Liaden Universe®. This series of “adventurous romantic space opera” holds cross-over appeal for both romance and science fiction readers.

To celebrate the release of MOUSE AND DRAGON, Lee and Miller’s thirteenth Liaden novel, the authors are hosting a contest. It’s open to anyone and everyone who has yet to sample a Liaden Universe® novel. They're giving away 36 digital copies of THE DRAGON VARIATION omnibus, which includes CONFLICT OF HONORS, LOCAL CUSTOM, and SCOUT’S PROGRESS.

Not only that, but if you’re a blogger who wants to help spread the word about it, you’ll be entered for a chance to win a $36.00 gift card from Barnes and Noble! And if you’re a blogger new to the Liaden novels of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, you can enter both tiers of the contest.

Here is an excerpt from the official announcement at Sharon Lee’s blog:

In celebration of the publication of Mouse and Dragon, the thirteenth novel set in their Liaden Universe®, authors Sharon Lee and Steve Miller are holding an Expanding Universe Contest! Yes! No less than thirty-six electronic copies of The Dragon Variation will be given away.

The Dragon Variation is an omnibus edition of three Liaden Universe® novels — Conflict of Honors, one of the first modern SFRomances; Local Custom, second place winner of the Prism Award for best Futuristic of 2002; and Scout’s Progress, the first place winner of the Prism Award for best Futuristic of 2002, Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice for Best SF Novel of its year, and the prequel to Mouse and Dragon.

That's three complete novels under one cover. No prior knowledge of the Liaden Universe® required. Electronic! In Baen Books’ DRM-free, multiplatform style. This omnibus can be read on your Kindle, your phone, your iPad, your desktop, or other ereader.

To enter the contest, visit the Expanding Universe post at Sharon Lee’s blog and follow the instructions you see there (it’s easy). The contest ends at "midnight Eastern Daylight Time (4:00 a.m. GMT) Friday, July 16". Winners will be announced on Saturday, July 17, 2010.

I love these books and just started to reread the series. I highly recommend them and this is the perfect way to try them out.

Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore

I don’t remember where I first saw this book mentioned, but it’s been on my “books to remember for 2010” list for a while now. I’ve just discovered that the author is having a promotional contest now the book has an official book trailer. So I thought I’d share it, both because I think it looks like a good book and because hey, who doesn’t like to try to win a prize.

(Sorry the video goes over the edge of the blog template. If you can’t see it all, pop over the You Tube to watch it there.)

Want to win a hardcover of MAGIC UNDER GLASS by Jaclyn Dolamore plus more prizes? See http://fabulousfrock.livejournal.com for details!

Nimira is a foreign music-hall girl forced to dance for mere pennies. When wealthy sorcerer Hollin Parry hires her to sing with a piano-playing automaton, Nimira believes it is the start of a new and better life. In Parry's world, however, buried secrets are beginning to stir. Unsettling below-stairs rumors swirl about ghosts, a madwoman roaming the halls, and Parry's involvement with a league of sorcerers who torture fairies for sport. Then Nimira discovers the spirit of a fairy gentleman named Erris is trapped inside the clockwork automaton, waiting for someone to break his curse. The two fall into a love that seems hopeless, and breaking the curse becomes a race against time, as not just their love, but the fate of the entire magical world may be in peril.

I won a book!

Author Ann Aguirre (whose Grimspace I loved and Wanderlust I liked very much) has just run a competition over on her blog. After being totally blown away by Pauline Almada's novel, The Eye of Night, she offered to give away 10 copies and run a book club for the book once everyone has received their books (and anyone else who wants to join in has had a chance to snag themselves a copy).

The book sounded excellent (romantic, epic fantasy was how Ann described it, which sounded perfect), so I added my name to the comments.

And I won!

I now have the book sitting on my laptop and just have to transfer it to my PDA. (An ecopy seemed the way to go, both for me and to save Ann the postage to New Zealand.) I'm really looking foward to reading it, but I shall reign in my temptation until I know people getting paper copies have started reading it. I don't want to be finished too soon and not able to remember things once people start discussing the book.

This is a case where I don't mind that the TBR list has just gone up by one again.

Thank you, Ann.