Dual Review: Head Rush by Carolyn Crane

Format Read: Audiobook
Length: Novel
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Audible Frontiers
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Release Date: Oct 25th (Audiobook), Dec 6th, 2011 (ebook)
Series: The Disillusionists Trilogy #3
Formats Available: Audiobook, eBook (in Dec)
Purchasing Info: Samhain Publishing, Audible, Author’s Website, Goodreads

Book Blurb:

JUSTINE JONES FACES HER ULTIMATE ENEMY: HERSELF!

In an attempt to put her unhappy past behind her, Justine Jones throws herself into nursing school and planning her wedding to Otto Sanchez, the man of her dreams. But something is off. Random details aren’t adding up…and is it her imagination, or are her friends and fiancé keeping secrets from her? And what’s with this strange sense of unease, and her odd new headaches?

Justine tries to stay upbeat as Midcity cowers under martial law, sleepwalking cannibals, and a mysterious rash of paranormal copycat violence, but her search for answers leads her into the …

The International Giveaways Café (16) + Giveaway!!!

It
Welcome back to another Saturday morning get-together, where we have the chance to discuss book giveaways, link up our own giveaways, and enter all the others.

It been a busy week around here at Book Lovers Inc.; a virtual party for days! And as you can see below, the party continues here at the café. There’s an even better reason to share your giveaway link,  so make sure you read all the way down to the bottom 🙂

What does your weekend in store? Have you won anything recently that you’ll get the chance to read now? The Book Lovers would love to hear!

At Book Lovers Inc., it’s our pleasure to share the bookish love!  Good luck to everyone and hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend 🙂

As always, here’s the fine print for entering your link:Guidelines:

If you have a …

Genres 101: Today’s Lesson – The Adventure Novel

I turned on the TV one day and found the film The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus was playing. Unfortunately, it was more than halfway through already but as I was discussing The Night Circus with Mel at He Followed Me Home, I was mentioning that the premise of the book reminded me of the movie. When I started looking in Adventure literature, the subgenre of Imaginary Voyage, set today’s post in motion.

While adventure novels could be included in SciFi or Paranormal or many other genres with their content, they have a certain aspect that defines them in this category: action. For me, when I think adventure, I think pirates and the high seas. But this is only one type of adventure novel among a few variations. Let’s take a look:The Epic adventure …

Genres 101: "It was a dark and stormy night…" (Today’s Lesson: Mystery)

As far back as I can remember, I have been a huge fan of mysteries. I mean, I always wanted to learn the rest of that story Snoopy wrote with the first line, “It was a dark and stormy night…” You just knew things were going to get good from there, right? From comics to novels, I quickly moved on in reading material but each year I still buy at least one book (ok, I’m grossly under estimating) that would be considered “Mystery”.

It’s easy to limit the category to that one title but mystery has many facets and seems to be growing in content as our world is changing. Examples of this type of novel appear in the early 1800’s but it is the master himself, the most familiar name, worldwide, that helped to …

Romance and Me: The Curse or the Blessing of the Romance Covers

Hey Everyone!

As BLI familiars you must know our own Susi and Caro’s feature: The Good, The Bad and The Are-You-Kidding-Me, where every second Monday they take a look at book covers and share their thoughts (*cough* rants and gushing rather *cough*) about the beautiful and the ugly, and mostly about the ridiculous.Today I would like to ask the age-old question regarding your thoughts on romance novel covers.

As a teenager I didn’t read romance novels partly because of my upbringing (I come from a bookishly snob family, we only read books which had “some literary value”, I know, I know *eyeroll*) but also because of the embarassing and ridiculous covers of these books, I never would have been caught dead reading these in public:

or even this:

(I can so picture the old ladies around 70-80 years old who upon sitting next to me/in front of me …

Interview with Author Dianne Sylvan + Giveaway

Today we have the intriguing Dianne Sylvan joining us on BLI. Dianne is the author of The Shadow World Series as well as two non-fiction Wiccan based books The Circle Within: Creating a Wiccan Spiritual Tradition and The Body Sacred. Her latest release is Shadowflame the second book in The Shadow World series. At the end of Dianne’s interview you could win a copy of Shadowflame for yourself! Take it away Dianne!

BLI: Hi Dianne, can you please tell us a bit about yourself?

Dianne: I’m a writer, a baker, a vegetarian, a Scorpio, and a relentless Twitterer. I was born and raised in Texas and I’ve lived in Austin for 14 years. Austin is the only place in the state I could stand to live – I’m far too much of a liberal hippie for most of …

Genres 101: Today’s Lesson – Say WHAT?

We’ve covered a lot of the popular genres in these posts, so I thought it was time to take a look at something a little different: weird genres or, more correctly weird genre names. As  I browse the net looking for source material and inspiration, I often come across literary “styles” that I’ve never heard of and, quite frankly, question the actual existence of. Here are some the genres that have made me ask, “Say what?!” (I’m going to link the source page at each unusual name)

Creepy Kids – “Creepy kids horror is defined by its name. Horror mavens have said that children are mysterious strangers coming into the world–and this subgenre takes that unspoken worry and runs with it. Stephen King’s short story and film Children of the Corn are straightforward examples. Many others, such as Richard Donner’s film The Omen, involve a child who …

The International Giveaways Café (2)

Last week, we introduced our latest grand scheme to bring the book blogging world into a cozier community by sharing links to International giveaways in one central location: here, at The International Giveaways Café! (You can check back to the original post to see our sentiments behind this idea.)

The housekeeping has been done, so each contest listed below should still be in action. Now’s the time to sit back, grab your fave beverage (personally, I’m a big fan of the café latté), and maybe even a pastry too, and start perusing the currents links or add your own.  Bon appétit!

Here’s a reiteration of the guidelines:

If you have a giveaway you would like to share with our other readers, the rules are simple:
1. The giveaway MUST be available to international addresses (Book Depository does count)
2. Add your link below, in the format shown.
3. Remove your link when the giveaway …

Genres 101: Today’s Lesson Religious Fiction

I’m not a religious person, to say the least, but this has never stopped me from reading any type of book, regardless of its designation. In fact, it often surprises me as I’m reading a new author to find a religious element within the story. The thing within my own mind, though, is the stereotype I often associate with this type of literature: the preachiness of it all. Thankfully, this is very rarely the case when we’re talking about fiction. The ‘lessons’ seem to come in a more subtle form, with the ‘human condition’ as the whole point of a story, and the associated moralities displayed through the action and characters.

So, off I went to my first stop for research (and by now, I should really know better): Wiki. This time, I found  Wiki’s …

Interview Author Lorelei James + Giveaway

Portraiture by Russell LLoyd Jensen/Sage Studios

We are very happy to welcome Lorelei James here at Book Lovers Inc today. I discovered her contemporary cowboy stories a month ago and I fell in love ASAP. Her novel are wild and fun and definitely on the steamy side. They showed me the appeal of cowboys so I’m extremely happy to have Lorelei here today, talking about her cowboys. Her newest book, Chasin’ Eight is out this week and she will tell us what makes her cowboys special. 
An extra thanks this week goes to Claudia, who helped me with the interview questions – thanks a bunch sweety. 
Stay tuned till the end for your chance to win. 

BLI: Lorelei can you please tell us a bit about yourself?

Lorelei: Hard hitting questions right off, huh? I’m a forty-something happily married mother of three daughters …