Stop by my contest post or The Thrillionth Page by 10 am CST, December 6, to vote for the Softest Kitteh Evah on Our Street! Oh, dear, the taunting has begun. Can escalation be far behind?
Um, that would be no. π
Smart Bitches, Trashy Books is giving away a Sony Pocket Digital Reader if you leave an appropriately tagged quote over at the Sony Style Words Move Me page. Contest closes midnight EST, 12/3.
Smexy Books is giving away an ebook copy of Penny Watson’s new romance, Sweet Inspiration, which is about Santa’s sexy sons looking for love, plus a box of Williams-Sonoma hot chocolate mix. Contest runs through 12/3.
SciFiGuy’s giving away a copy of Lili(th) Saintcrow’s new young adult urban fantasy, Betrayals. Contest closes midnight EST, 12/4.
Literary Escapism is giving away a signed copy of Kelly Meding’s intriguing new urban fantasy, Three Days to Dead. Contest closes midnight, 12/8. SciFiGuy’s giving away three copies of the same book (not signed), plus a copy of Kelly Gay’s new urban fantasy, The Better Part of Darkness. This contest closes at midnight EST, 12/8.
Book Junkie’s celebrating her birthday month by giving away 35 books. Read the directions and fill out the form – she’ll choose a winner on 1/1.
Check out the list of December 1 paranormal and urban fantasy releases over at Fantasy Dreamer and her links to contests and free reads. SciFiGuy’s weekend urban fantasy report always has a staggering amount of information. Heh, looks like Jackie at Literary Escapism got sucked into the whole “how evil is my blog?” thing while doing her weekend update. (Don’t miss her December edition of the Escapist Newsletter.)
TeddyPig reports that AllRomanceEbooks is giving away three free first-in-series ebooks from Loose Id, including the first Dark Elves book by Jet Mykles.
Free holiday m/m romance by T.A. Chase featuring the guys from the Love of Sports – grab it over at the Samhellion blog.
This list of DRM-free ebook publishers is a good reference.
Oh, dear, looks like Barnes & Noble is having problems getting the Nook out there. It’s hurting their stock, too.
Speaking of which, TeleRead has a list of reasons why it might be better to wait on getting an ebook reader if you don’t already have one. Check out their ebook reader predictions for 2010, too.
Awful Library Books manages to amuse and horrify me nearly every day.
Package delivery company secrets revealed in this amusing “training manual”. *snort*
The Washington Post on the Twilight craze (via Mary Lou), which inspired me to look back at these posts from Smart Bitches and Lilith Saintcrow about some of the less obvious messages in Twilight.
Hmm. Maybe this is part of my problem with the whole dating thing…
And here I thought Chaos had patented that glare as a kitten.
O noes! Flee, flee, before the evil horde swarms across the land.
What if Hewlett-Packard built R2-D2?
Reading Update
Blood Vice: Nightfall Syndicate, Book 1 by Keith Melton. ebook. Very good, very intense paranormal romance about a vampire who does mob hits because he doesn’t want to kill innocents. Things are complicated a bit by an ancient enemy and a mob leader’s daughter. This one just came out in print, too. Recommended.
The Ultimate Kink (Quinn Security, Book 2) by Cameron Dane. ebook. Brace yourselves – this was an m/f romance ebook! π The first Quinn Security book was an m/m romance and I enjoyed it quite a bit more than I enjoyed this one, for what it’s worth. But this was ok. And I’m guessing that the next Quinn Security will be m/m.
Aussie Rules by Jill Shalvis. Ok contemporary romance. Mel’s barely holding her struggling aviation business together when Australian Bo shows up after ten years, raising all sorts of uncomfortable questions about Mel’s missing mentor and her possible role in Bo’s father’s death.
Snow on the Mountain by P.D. Singer. ebook. Very good m/m romance. After an exciting summer in Fire on the Mountain, Jake and Kurt are working at a ski resort for the winter and, of course, there are complications. Maybe it’s just me, but this cover sort of freaks me out. (Of course, after I finished reading this, I had to go back and reread Fire on the Mountain.)
Forgotten Song by Ally Blue. ebook. Ok m/m romance. Can a singer with a tortured past escape it to trust and love again? (Another sort of weird cover, although this is more in a 1970s sort of way.)
Diving in Deep by K.A. Mitchell. ebook. Very good m/m romance about getting a second chance with that guy you had a crush on as a teenager, who’s grown into an emotionally unavailable adult. I definitely got sniffly on this one. (This is also the precursor to Mitchell’s book Collision Course.)
Regularly Scheduled Life by K.A. Mitchell. ebook. Another really good m/m romance by Mitchell that had me crying pretty hard more than once. After becoming famous after being wounded during a school shooting, will Sean be able to return to his regular life with his partner of six years, Kyle? Recommended, but keep the tissues handy. (And does this cover have it going on or what?!)
Between Friends by Sean Michael. ebook. This m/m romance never really grabbed me, although it’s well rated and obviously enjoyed by others.
Win and Lose by T.C. Blue. ebook. The title of this pretty good m/m romance is a play on the nicknames of the two main characters: Winston and Lucien. Win’s a tattoo artist in the middle of nowhere and Luz’s the lead singer of a band who is lost in a snowstorm in the middle nowhere.
Spilled Ink by Rob Knight. ebook. Hmm. Musta been tattoo parlor week. Shortish but enjoyable m/m romance about a cop who goes to get a tattoo to commemorate his slain partner and ends up falling for the tattoo artist.
Take Me Out by Gabrina Garza. ebook. Meh m/m romance about two baseball players on a minor-league team.
Doggy Style by Ashely Ladd. ebook. Minds out of the gutter – it’s the name of a store that sells fashions for dogs. Of course, that’s not necessarily so clear when “Doggy Style” is emblazoned across the baseball team’s jerseys as the team sponsor. So, while the name was clever, that was the only clever bit about this m/m romance. I was laughing out loud about how hokey it was, plus I kept paging back to see if I’d skipped paragraphs or chapters. This wasn’t something that a few transitions could’ve fixed. Probably would’ve been a DNF, except I kept going to find out if the whole story was a disjointed dream sequence or something. (It wasn’t, more’s the pity.)
Love in an Elevator by Sean Michael. ebook. Ok m/m romance about a photographer and a high-powered businessman. Hmm. Not sure an elevator phobia was really enough to carry the story and balance all the steam. And oh, this book had a doozy of an editing miss – a completely random name switched in once for one of the characters at an inopportune moment. (“Samuel?! Who the *blip* is Samuel?!”)
Bad Case of Loving You by Laney Cairo. ebook. Very good, very steamy m/m romance about a resident and the doctor supervising him at the hospital. They just can’t seem to keep their hands off each other…
Undercover Blues by Laney Cairo. ebook. Hmm. Whose bright idea was it to send the allegedly straight cop undercover to hook up with the crime lord’s brother? Nicely done, even if I had to guess what some of the Aussie slang meant. π
Another Fine Mess, edited by Syd McGynley. ebook. I picked up this m/m romance collection primarily to read the story by Laney Cairo, which was related to Undercover Blues. Some of the other stories were fine, although I definitely skipped two or three.
I Can’t Drive 55 by Jade Falconer. ebook. Pretty sure that this method of getting out of a ticket should not be attempted outside of a fictional setting!
This Time for Keeps by Christiane France. ebook. Ok paranormal m/m romance about a man whose partner dies… so why do the pillows still smell like his shower gel? And who keeps changing the tv channel?
Interlude by Vivien Dean. ebook. Ok m/m romance about piano players with a dueling pianos gig in Nevada.
Off the Beaten Path by Katrina Strauss. ebook. Good m/m romance about a jock and an environmentalist who are sure they have nothing in common until they end up sharing a tent while working on a trail project.
“Come to the black kitty side. We have cookies. Unless the big kitty ate them.” -Mayhem
LOL, a “French girl and her priest”. Uh huh. Because we all had one growing up.
So, I have to wonder if straight men could possibly be as buff as the men depicted on the m/m covers. *sigh*
Impressive booklist with a good taste for M/M romances. I’m definitely gonna look up Γ’β¬ΕRegularly Scheduled LifeΓ’β¬Β, sounds like a great read. And the hot cover is certainly a nice bonus π
Thanks for the links too!
I would take a black kitty with cookies over a boyfriend any day π
Yeah, that is kind of a weird cover (Forgotten Song), although I like the beater. I’m a sucker for a muscular man in a beater, what can I say (but it should at least have a mustard stain *somewhere* on the front of it).
I am still chuckling over that Oh, Canada entry on ALB. *snort*
Oooh- the competition is heating up! I still say my Kitten Chow is the softest ever!
That is a lot of links π
Might save them for tomorrow.
I see Mayhem is trying to bribe us π
Oh, definitely escalating…
Wasn’t there a deaf man in Forgotten Song? I thought that was a bit weird, and couldn’t decide if I wanted to read it… : )
What kind of cookies, because if they are peanut butter I could resist, but raisin oatmeal I’m your slave.
OMG, that is so funny!
Oblio drools! Nooooo! Oblio is working on his taunt now!!
Actually, Oblio was a very bad kitty last night and kept us up by playing wildly at 2 am.
That is one scary tat! And remind us again how you getting all your reading in. You know, between kittie photography, knitting etc. π
I hope that’s your back, Chris! LOL
soofffffft kitty π
I think you had better find a neutral 3rd party to decide this contest before blood is drawn. No, I don’t volunteer because we both know that May is the softer of the two.
OMG… Chris you freaking rock honey!!! The links are wonderful, but the covers are drool worthy. You just made my list get that much longer!!
And I love the tatts on that the guy!!!
You got this in the cat nip bag May honey!! Throw that tiara on!!!!
Hope you are having a great day Chris!
Those are some covers!
I’ll gladly join the black kitty side. Even withoug cookies (but don’t tell Chaos, just in case he hasn’t eaten all of them yet).
I love those LOLcats. Especially the basement cat one. Too fun.
Snickerdoodles??
Great escalation!
What is the probability that Big Kitty would leave any cookies?
I am still not sorry I bought my Kindle (it’s looking particularly snappy lately with the new “skin” I bought) – but I noticed that Amazon is starting to recycle their free book offerings…
Try to ignore the pine tree in his nose on the Snow on the Mountain cover; we’ll all be happier. There’s a Christmas short, too. (I already have it, nya nya)
Eeeek!
Nibbles skeerd me.
/running away
Love the R2D2 comic. My Star Wars nerd husband will love it!
HOW could Mayhem not be softer than Oblio? How HOW????
Great round up! Got a good laugh at your possible problem to dating. LMAO on that picture. But hey, if they can’t handle the babes that came first, that’s their personal probs. π
We were discussing on Goodreads how vamps were the perfect hit men. They get the job done quick with hardly a mess or a drop of blood left anywhere.
Thanks for the mention!!
Clyde wants you to know that he’s the softest ferret evah.
I wondered if Chaos and Nibbles were related. π The R2D2 comic is just so appropriate.
The Snow on the Mountain cover is kind of creepy to me. It’s one of those that I don’t want to look at but I can’t stop looking at.
Another vote for oatmeal raisin cookies.
I still love this Gizmodo link: http://gizmodo.com/5413989/star-wars-facebook/gallery/1
Love the basement cat!!
wow – some of these books look great…I’ll have to read some…after my slump. lol