Around the Bookish World: Week-In-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post! This week have news that could shake up DRM in the future with legislation that could allow unlocking in the US, Candace Bushnell’s latest book leaked online due to her email account being hacked into and more news and tidbits.

This is really interesting to note that there is an amendement in Congress right now for the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright ACT) that proposes  users to unlock devices and software from DRM restrictions for their personal use.  This could potentially affect the future of DRM especially for ebooks and with Tor and a few other major publishers starting to lean towards to offer non DRM books for certain imprints. I suspect this is the beginning of the end of DRM for ebooks which hasn’t really affected the state of piracy and Tor recently announced that their move to non DRM ebooks hasn’t caused a spike …

Review: What Happens in Scotland by Jennifer McQuiston

Format read: ebook
Series: N/A
Genre: Historical Romance
Release Date: Feb. 26, 2013
Number of pages: 384 pages
Publisher: Avon
Formats available: ebook, paperback
Purchasing Info: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Book Depository US | Book Depository (UK)

Lady Georgette Thorold has always been wary of marriage, so when she wakes up next to an attractive Scotsman with a wedding ring on her finger, it’s easy to understand why she panics and flees. Convinced that Georgette is a thief, her may-be husband, James McKenzie, searches for her. As both try to recall what happened that fateful night, they begin to realize that their attraction and desire for each other is undeniable. But is it enough?

Fans of Sarah MacLean and Mary Balogh will enjoy this utterly charming historical romance from award-winning author Jennifer McQuiston that features unforgettable characters and a satisfying …

Character Interview by Elle James + Giveaway

Please give a warm welcome to Elle James, who is back to Book Lovers Inc. to celebrate the release of Voodoo for Two, the second novel in her Cajun Magic series! And she has brought you a special treat: a character interview with the heroine, Lucie Lebieu! So read on to learn more about Lucie and don’t forget to enter the giveaway at the end.  

Interview with Lucie LeBieu
by Elle James

At the Raccoon Saloon, Lucie is working as a waitress in a bar full of rowdy Cajuns.

Male Reporter: Do you have time to answer a few questions, Ms. LeBieu?

Lucie: (settling onto a bar stool) If you make it fast and not too personal.

Reporter: As the granddaughter of the infamous Madam LeBieu, how much hands-on experience do you have with the art of Voodoo?

Lucie: Gran LeBieu has been after me to learn the trade, …

Review: Plus One by Brighton Walsh

Format read: ebook copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley
Release Date: 6 May 2013
Number of pages: 68 pages
Publisher: Carina Press
Formats available: ebook
Purchasing Info: Goodreads, Author’s Website, Amazon, Carina Press, B&N, iBookstore, Kobo, Read an excerpt

Blurb:

Olivia hates the singles scene, so when her best guy friend, Ian, offers to be her plus one to a series of weddings she has to attend, she agrees. Although she doesn’t want to complicate their lifelong friendship, she can’t pass up the chance to have a steady date without the dating drama. What she doesn’t expect is to now find Ian so incredibly sexy.

When Ian sees his old friend Olivia dolled up for wedding #1, the boyhood crush he once nurtured transforms into smoldering attraction. It doesn’t take long for their no-strings arrangement to turn physical. But as Olivia’s desire to stay “just friends” becomes …

Review: Hitched by Erin Nicholas

Format read: ebook copy provided by the author for review
Series: Book #4 in the Promise Harbor Wedding series
Release Date: 30 April 2013
Number of pages: 352 pages
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Formats available: ebook
Purchasing Info: Goodreads, Author’s Website, Amazon, Samhain, B&N, Read an excerpt

Blurb:

The Promise Harbor Wedding, Book 4

And she thought the bridesmaids dresses were her biggest problem…

Allison Ralston would rather be anywhere other than this wedding. Even if the wedding is hers Especially since the wedding is hers.

But Allie’s determined to restore her family’s happiness, and if tying the knot with longtime family friend, Josh Brewster, is the way to do it, then she’ll walk down that aisle, toss that bouquet and drink that champagne. Oh, she’ll definitely drink the champagne.

There’s only one thing that could get Gavin Montgomery back to Promise Harbor. And she’s about to say I do to another man. Now he’s back to …

Guest post by Ros Baxter + Giveaway

We are happy to welcome to Book Lovers Inc. Ros Baxter, author of Fish Out of Water, a mermaid story unlike any other you know! So join us as Ros tells us about her fascination with mermaids and how HER kind of mermaid is nothing like Ariel Ros, take it away!

The best thing about children…

…is that they haven’t yet been told there is stuff they can’t do.

At least mine haven’t.

So when I asked my daughter (4) the other day what she wanted to be when she grew up, she told me with that trademark don’t-you-remember look on her face: “A pirate, of course.” Ah, of course. Silly me.

Pirate

And when I asked my son (7), he shot me an almost identical look (genes are scary) and said: ”Rock star, remember?”

Image courtesy of MR LIGHTMAN/freedigitalphotos.net

For me, it was always a mermaid.

What was …

Bookish Rant or Raves: Negative Review or Personality Disorder?

I fervently adore negative reviews.  A negative review provides the perfect framework to fully interact with a book. That pissed off reviewer hates things about a book that I loved, is outraged by something I completely missed, or shares in the absurdity of the so-called worldbuilding the author alleges to have undertaken.

DRACARYS!

On any given day, I have to listen to an abusive oil lineman convince a Judge that the wife cut the brakes in her own car, or a Napoleonic landlord claim it was a violation of the lease for a family to light a fire in the fireplace in Alaska in the winter.

I want to read something cathartic; wherein the assholes get what’s coming to them. Alternately, I’m interested in something that gives me hope for the human condition. Either/Or. When I don’t get that…..

I. Am. Pissed.

But I fly right passed …

Dual Review: Take What You Want by Jeanette Grey

Format read: ebook copy provided by the author for review
Release Date: 12 March 2013
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Number of pages: 113 pages
Formats available: ebook
Purchasing Info: Goodreads, Author’s Website, Amazon, Samhain, B&N, Read an excerpt

Blurb:

She needs an escape…and he’s exactly what she had in mind.

College senior Ellen Price spends every spare minute studying to get into medical school. Until spring break yawns before her, as empty as her wallet.

With no money to hit the beach, she fills her empty to-do list with a plan: for just one week, she will become the kind of take-no-prisoners woman she secretly wishes to be, starting with the hot guy at the bar. It’s a no-risk situation: at the end of break, he’ll head back to his campus, and she’ll go back to hers. No muss, no fuss.

At first, Josh Markley isn’t sure what to think when the quiet, intense …

Review: The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway

Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Genre: Science Fiction
Release Date: Apr. 23, 2013
Number of pages: 464 pages
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Formats available: ebook, hardcover
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website | Publisher’s Website | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Book Depository US | Book Depository (UK)

“You are now a member of the Guild. There is no return.” Two hundred years after he was about to die on a Napoleonic battlefield, Nick Falcott, soldier and aristocrat, wakes up in a hospital bed in modern London. The Guild, an entity that controls time travel, showers him with life’s advantages. But Nick yearns for home and for one brown-eyed girl, lost now down the centuries. Then the Guild asks him to break its own rule. It needs Nick to go back to 1815 to fight the Guild’s enemies …

New Releases: May 6-12, 2013

Title: Dead Ever After
Author: Charlaine Harris
Series: Sookie Stackhouse, #13
Genre: urban fantasy
Release date: May 7, 2013 by Ace

Description:

Sookie Stackhouse has one last adventure in store.

Life has taken her from a waitress in Merlotte’s Bar, Bon Temps, to part owner; from social outcast to the heart of her community; from a vampire’s girlfriend to the wife of one of the most powerful vampires in the state. She has survived earthquakes, revolutions and attempts on her life. Sookie has endured betrayal, heartbreak and grief . . . and she has emerged a little stronger, and little wiser, every time.

But with life comes new trials . . .

The question is, in the end: who will love, who will live, and who will be dead ever after?

Sookie finds it easy to turn down the request of former barmaid Arlene when she wants her job back at Merlotte’s. After all, …