Giveaway: My Name is Will by Jess Winfield

I have to thank Valerie at Hachette Books for letting me host yet another great giveaway!

This time it's for My Name Is Will by Jess Winfield.



Description:
A Tale of two Shakespeares...

Struggling UC Santa Cruz grad student Willie Shakespeare Greenberg is trying to write his thesis about the Bard. Kind of...

Cut off by his father for laziness, and desperate for dough, Willie agrees to deliver a single giant, psychedelic mushroom to a mysterious collector, making himself an unwitting target in Ronald Reagan's War on Drugs.

Meanwhile, would-be playwright (and oppressed Catholic) William Shakespeare is eighteen years old and stuck teaching Latin in the boondocks of Stratford-upon-Avon. The future Bard's life is turned upside down when a stranger entrusts him with a sacred relic from Rome... This, at a time when adherents of the "Old Faith" are being hanged, drawn, and quartered as traitors.

Seemingly separated in time and place, the lives of Willie and William begin to intersect in curious ways, from harrowing encounters with the law (and a few ex-girlfriends) to dubious experiments with mind-altering substances. Their misadventures could be dismissed as youthful folly. But wise or foolish, the bold choices they make will shape not only the 'Shakespeare' each is destined to come... but the very course of history itself.

Now for the Giveaway:

I will be giving away 5 copies of this one.

Giveaway will end 8/14/09 at 11:59 pm.

To enter simply leave a comment with your email address.

Get an extra entry for following my blog. Let me know in your comment that you're following.

Tweet, blog, or link to this giveaway for another entry! Just let me know where I can find it.

As usual Only US and Canada please, and no PO Boxes.

Winners

Ok, I have to post winners for two giveaways that I've done.

The first is for One Scream Away by Kate Brady.


The 5 Winners are:
1. Sue Wanda
2. Jane
3. MJ
4. Marie
5. Brooke

I will be sending out emails to get your address tonight.

The second giveaway is for Off Season by Anne Rivers Siddon

The 5 Winners Are:
1. Debs Desk heatherzilla
2. Sue Emma Sammie
3. Mike Draper
4. Marjorie
5. DarcyO Anita Yancey

Thank you to all the entrants, and I appologize that it took me so long to get around to drawing the winners.

I used Random.org random sequence generator to draw the winners.

If winners have not responded to my emails by Tuesday August 11th at 11:59pm I will draw new winners.

Review: Ravens by George Dawes Green

First off let me thank Miriam at Hachette for letting me read this one. I also need to apologize that the review was late.



This one was a page turner. I was so hooked right from the word go with this one.

The story was narrated by a few different characters. It jumped back and forth, but it didn't seem choppy. The story just goes on, but from a different perspective. It wasn't like it would switch to a new character and rehash what the last character just told us.

The writing was good. There was only one thing that bothered me, when a character is talking the author would use Said Shaw instead of Shaw Said. But that was really the only thing I didn't like.

I liked the beginning, it gave us enough info about the characters to pull me into the story, without giving so much detail that it became mundane. It follows the Boatwright family and then friends Shaw and Romeo. The Boatwrights win the lottery and that's when Shaw and Romeo really enter the picture.

The suspense in this novel doesn't come from not knowing what's going on. Quite the opposite, we know what's going on right from the word go. The suspense comes from hoping that someone will slip and everyone else will know what is going on. I would say it's more psychological that physical suspense.

The ending threw me for a loop. And while the last passage confused me a little it still was a great ending.

Overall good writing and a great story.

For more info on Ravens please visit Hachette Book Group's website.

Also you can join the Ravens fan group on Facebook

Review: Duma Key by Stephen King

Let me thank my mom for buying me this one. I hope you finish it soon!



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I think this book was brilliant. King writes from Edgar Freemantle's point of view. We get to go through his rehabilitation with him. In the begining I had a hard time understanding what Edgar was trying to say, but as the book goes on and Edgar learns to speak again, and I got used to how he talked I didn't notice the speech problems.

The story took me a VERY LONG time to read. I think I bought this one back in March and I just finished it, so just shy of 6 months. Part of this was because I was reading other books and part of it was because the beginning was kind of slow. But once I got about halfway through and was really connected to the story it only took me a few days to finish it.

As the story got going, and I started to figure out what was going on, I couldn't stop reading it. I had a few sleepless nights with this one.

As usual King's writing takes you on a trip along with the characters. I could see what was going on clear as day. There was very little that I couldn't picture. Even the weird stuff was described so well I could see exactly what King was describing.

This was a great book, and I'm glad I stuck it out. 700 pages seemed pretty daunting, but there was so much that made the story that had it been cut to make the book shorter I know I wouldn't have liked this one. If you like Stephen King and haven't read this one go get it, it's well worth it. If you've never read King and think 700 pages is too much just take my word, you won't be disappointed. Just promise you'll read through at least halfway before you decide if you want to finish it or not.

To find out more about Duma Key please visit Stephen King's website.

Back from vacation and LOTS to catch up on.

I have so much to post. So I'll apologize in advanced for the thousands of posts I'm going to make today.

I was in Florida and didn't want to take over my grandpa's computer with trying to keep up on the blog while I was down there. Unfortunately that means I have A TON to catch up on.

So I have some reviews to post, some new giveaways to post and some giveaway winners to post. So please bear with me and we'll all make it through this unscathed, hopefully :-P

Let me also take this time to thank all of my followers and readers for being great. I'm inching closer and closer to 100 followers and 100 posts. I think I may have to do something special for those two event. But I'll cross that hurdle when I get there. For now know that you all have my gratitude and I hope that you enjoy my blog!

And now the onslaught of blog posts is about to begin!

-Jennifer