Congrats to Juliana, who won Chase in Shadow by Amy Lane! Chase in Shadow is being released today by Dreamspinner Press.

Contests

• ReadReactReview is giving away a copy of The Hunger Games and Philosophy. Make sure you read the directions before you comment! Contest closes 11:59 pm EST, February 25.

• Badass Book Reviews is giving away winner’s choice from Jordan Castillo Price’s PsyCop series. Contest closes midnight CST, February 25.

• RJ Scott’s giving away a $30 Silver Publishing voucher to celebrate some recent milestones. Make sure you read the directions for the contest! Contest closes noon GMT, February 26.

• Bronwyn Green’s giving away a copy of A Taste for a Mate by Carrie Ryan. Contest closes 7 pm EST, February 27.

• Blodeuedd’s giving away a copy of The Crown by Nancy Bilyeau. Contest closes February 29. US only.

• Joder’s giving away an ebook copy of Supernaturally Kissed by Stacey Kennedy. Contest closes 11:59 pm CST, March 1.

Bookity

• New releases and more: Literary Escapism (UF/PNR), AAR (romance audiobooks), and Book Lovers Inc (a little of everything).

• Elisa Rolle’s looking for reader/judges for the 2012 Rainbow Awards.

• Bookity linkity from ReadReactReview – including some thoughts on Pinterest and copyright.

• There are mental health benefits to reading books more than once.

• A mind-boggling tale of plagiarism.

• Neil Gaiman’s list “How to Write a Novel.”

• Better book titles for children’s books.

• Longarm cover snark from Smart Bitches.

• Bookshelves made from phone booths.

• Sh*t Book Reviewers Say.

• Typewriter waffle maker! (Thanks, Nicole!)

• An author’s guide to sockpuppetry.

Ebookity

• You’ll notice I read a lot of free online fiction this week. I actually read the stories as ebooks. Sometimes I create my own ebooks from the online stories, using Word (rtf) and Calibre. Sometimes, if the story has a lot of sections, it’s just easier to have Story Master do the compilation and conversion for me. (Thanks to the GRs friends who told me about Story Master!)

• Nebula Award nominees that you can read for free.

• How do people figure out what to read in the digital age?

• Piracy as a service problem.

Think, Do, Make, Learn

• The scientist who discovered Hepatitis C has also discovered a vaccine for it.

• Scientists discovered a 298-million year old forest under a coal mine in China.

• Pack more efficiently by imagining you’re playing a game of Tetris.

• Tour the Trojan condom manufacturing plant. (Probably NSFW.)

• There’s now an FDA-approved home sperm count test available.

• IKEA’s starting to make video assembly instructions.

• How to remove your Google search history before Google’s new privacy policy takes place on March 1.

• How to stop companies from tracking you as you browse the web, whether you use Firefox or Chrome. Some info is also provided for IE, Safari, Opera, and mobile browsing.

• How to avoid spoilers online. Worth checking out just for the comic!

Cookity

• Make your own Nutella.

• Dark chocolate and hazelnut skillet blondies.

• Flaming baked Alaska cupcakes. (via The Kitchn)

• Clusterf*cks and penis For the Cure cookies. 🙂

• 20 classic American recipes.

• How to use almond flour.

• The original Hurricane – to celebrate Mardi Gras, of course!

Crafty

• Make kitty shoes. (via CRAFT)

• Crochet a mobius cowl.

Cool

• AT-AT made from a VW Bus.

• Star Wars rubber duckies.

• Stacking Tetris lamp.

• Dalek cross stitch rings. (via The Mary Sue)

• Amazing snow art.

• One of this year’s LEGO Architecture sets will be the Sydney Opera House.

Wha…?

• Can you think of a use for this stock photo?! Please, let no m/m authors find inspiration here.

• They’re making a musical version of the movie Valley Girl?! (I loved that movie – the soundtrack was amazing.)

• Tentacle shower head.

• Creepy knitted anatomy masks.

• Who knew a toothbrush could be so dangerous?!

• Cooking disaster ring.

• That fashion thing again.

• Pepper spray iPhone case. Or maybe you’d prefer a furry iPhone case?

LOL

• Apparently this commercial reminds people of Chaos… (Thanks, Brigitte!)

• Is Mary Poppins a timelord?

• See the constellation Orion as you’ve never seen it before!

• Good cop, Dadaist cop…

• Cat ladies: perception versus reality.

• May does this.

• The scariest story ever!

• A very good question.

• Poor Basement Cat!

• Basement kittens!

Teh Cute

• Kitten! Baby red pandas! Baby otters! Baby maned wolves! Dwarf leopard! Kitten and ferret! Baby tiger! Tiger! Black kitty! Not Mayhem! Not Chaos! Black kitten! Baby tigers! Black kitten! Kitten!

Reading Update
Protection by SA Reid. ebook. Excellent historical m/m romance set in a British prison in the late 1930s. This isn’t going to be for everyone – it’s gritty and violent, as befits the setting… and that violence includes rape. But if you can get past that, you’ll find a powerful story that had me in tears at the end.
WMSmoker Seeks Seclusion by PirateGrrl. free online. Very good m/m romance about Clyde, an incredibly defensive and intentionally unpleasant guy who’s really only nice to his dog. He’s knocked for a loop when a guy who works in the same building persists in talking to him and asking him out… and finally wears him down. Being inside Clyde’s head felt like living inside of a non-stop anxiety attack!
The Pirate’s Gamble (2nd ed) by Eden Winters. ebook short. Very good short time travel m/m romance about an archeologist who travels back in time and rescues artifacts that are about to be lost forever, then returns home to the man he loves… but who keeps him a secret.
Drunk Text by seventhswan. free online. Very good m/m romance about a straight college student who wakes up hungover one morning covered in finger paint with a text on his phone that suggests he had sex with a guy the night before…
The Morning After by Magalina. free online. Good m/m romance about a guy who wakes up hungover (hmm, this is starting to look like a reading theme this week) next to one of his friends – the friend he’s been in love with for years. This one had a twist to it. 🙂
The Side Effects of Forgetting by seventhswan. free online. Good m/m romance about a college student who wakes up in the hospital with amnesia – everything that makes him himself is missing). He basically has to rediscover himself, including his sexual orientation. This is a story that actually needed an epilogue or an additional chapter.
Plastic Jesus by Poppy Z. Brite. ebook. Good short story about a band modeled on the Beatles, only the two main singer/songwriters are gay and together.
Accidental Love by Shae Connor. ebook short. Good short m/m romance about two college roommates, one who’s sworn off sex and the other who spends his weekends having anonymous sex with guys he picks up at clubs… and then he realizes how attractive his roommate is.
A Rare Thing by Alex Douglas. ebook short. Good short m/m romance about a guy who’s gone back to college and needs to sell some of his grandmother’s old jewelry to make ends meet. It doesn’t hurt that the guy at the counter of the antique store is so attractive…
First Time, Forever by KC Burn. ebook arc. Good m/m romance about a couple in a long-term relationship who, after seeing their son off to college, hope to reconnect with each other, but… they don’t talk to each other about it, both too afraid that they’re losing the other. Sometimes I’m frustrated by stories in which the major conflict could be solved by a simple conversation, but with this one, I could see myself behaving exactly as did the main characters, so it felt realistic to me.
Safe Harbor by Derek Adams. ebook. Good m/m romance about a single dad who works at a marina, where he runs into the only guy he’d ever been attracted to. This would’ve been rated higher, but between the characters using each other’s names in conversation way more than was realistic and some rather silly euphemisms…
The Principal Cause of Death (Tom & Scott #4) by Mark Richard Zubro. Good gay mystery in which Tom has an altercation with a student and accused of murder.
An Echo of Death (Tom & Scott #5) by Mark Richard Zubro. Good gay mystery in which an old friend of Scott’s shows up, bringing trouble along with him.
Rust on the Razor (Tom & Scott #6) by Mark Richard Zubro. Good gay mystery in which Tom and Scott go to rural Georgia after Scott’s dad has a heart attack. They are not at all prepared for the bigotry and hatred they encounter.
Are You Nuts? (Tom & Scott #7) by Mark Richard Zubro. Good gay mystery in which a conservative running for union rep is found bludgeoned in the school library and one of Tom’s friends is the top suspect.
Lone Wolf by Shelley Munro. ebook. Ok paranormal m/m romance about a rebellious young artist who attends a getting in touch with your werewolf camp in Yellowstone and falls for one of the instructors. When he has to return to LA at the end of the course, his father tries to force him to become an architect. This had a number of loose ends, which will perhaps be tied up in the obviously planned sequel… Or perhaps not. I don’t plan to read it.
Starting Over (1 Night Stand #27) by Starla Kaye. ebook short. So-so short m/m romance about a divorced guy who knows he’s gay, but isn’t exactly sure how to hook up with another man so decides to go through the 1 Night Stand dating service. Apparently unclear pronoun references are a constant with this publisher.

“Just loafin’ around…” -Chaos