Good Monday morning everyone. What better way to start off the week than with something happy like announcing a winner? Since our Shiver giveaway closed on Friday, it just so happens we have a winner to announce! Funny how that worked out.

The winner of a gorgeous hardcover copy of Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver is:

Kristin

Who says that 40 inces of snow makes her shiver. Ugh. I’d have to agree with that one!

But that has absolutely nothing to do with why she won! Everyone’s comments were equally shiver-worthy. Our winner was selected at random using random.org‘s random number generator.

Thank-you to everyone who entered our giveaway. We plan to give you many more opportunities to win great books so stay tuned, we have another exciting giveaway coming up soon!

Here’s a little sneak-peak…

Well, we finally made it to Friday and my final Read an E-Book Week post. (I promise!) I’m sure it’s no surprise that this week’s Friday Freebie’s come to you via some of the RAEW participants.

One of my favorite Read an E-Book Week giveaways has been the Sherlock Holmes collection from Books on Board. They’re offering The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and The Return of Sherlock Holmes all as free downloads!

Champage Books, an online seller of Romance books is offering two free downloads.  None so Blind by Helen Ravell and Valentine’s Flowers by Kimber Chin.

(Thanks to @ebookweek for the tips.)

Be sure to check out the Read an E-Book Week Store for other great deals and free e-books.

And don’t forget about our Shiver giveaway! Today’s the last day to enter to win this fabulous freebie! (Please pass it on!)

It’s been a while since we’ve posted any book news, but this week I came across a few things that I just couldn’t wait to share with all my fellow book lovers! A lovely combination of technology, future releases, and opinion these three articles all stuck with me. And of course, in honor of Read an E-Book Week, we have some exciting e-book news in there too.

Young Adult Lit Comes of Age: I thought this was a great article on YA literature becoming a hit with adults as well as teens. I know there are plenty of us who love our YA books, and this fantastic article shows that we’re not alone! Read all about this growing trend here.

Introducing the enTourage eDGe – The world’s first Dualbook: I am absolutely smitten with this new device!  The enTourage eDGe functions as an e-reader, netbook, notepad, and audio/video recorder and player in one! This is what I was hoping Apple was going to release instead of the extra-large iPhone iPad.  With both an e-ink screen and an LCD display screen, the eDGe really has the best of both worlds! Add to that a virtual keyboard AND the ability to take notes on screen, and I have to keep reminding myself that my Sony PRS-505 is a wonderful device and absolutely does not need to be replaced. Alas, I will have to covet from afar. But that’s probably better so I won’t get any drool on the shiny Dualbook. Check it out for yourself here.

Harper Teen Pays Seven Figures for Debut YA Trilogy: I know it’s far too early to be excited, but this news has me giddy nonetheless!  It seems Harper Teen has snagged the North American rights to a YA trilogy by debut author Josephine Angelini, which is being described as “a Percy Jackson for teenage girls”. The first book is called Starcrossed, and is expected to come out summer of 2011.  See the full article here.

A couple weeks ago I had a sudden desire to reread a couple of my favorite regency romances. No matter how often I read them, I’m always amazed how much they entertain me. You’d think a story you know by heart wouldn’t still elicit the same chuckles and tears it did as when you first read it. But they do.

The one problem? I got these books from what I like to call my grandmother’s pantry of books – she had what, to a young girl, seemed like shelves and shelves of books from ceiling to floor in her “extra” pantry area – years and years ago. They’ve made each move with me and I’ve read them over and over again. They’re not in the best shape. Most of them are held together by layers of tape along the binding both on the outside and inside the book. Almost all have loose pages here and there (with one or two coming loose with each new reading) not to mention the pages that are actually disintegrating. In one of them only one tiny piece of the last paragraph is still legible. Luckily I’ve read it so much I don’t actually need the page to read the words anymore.

Well, with this last reading, I decided it was time to search down “new” copies of the books before they turned to dust in my hands. I’ve found most of them through various web sites… Only after I ordered physical copies of most of them, I also found two of my favorites in e-book form on Regency Reads! I, like most ardent readers, like having a physical copy of my favorite books. It’s not even about holding it and smelling it and whatever weird fetishes we readers have. For me it’s the smile it brings on my face to look across the room and catch sight of it on my bookshelf. The sense of re-discovery I get every time I pick it up again. There’s nothing that beats that feeling.

BUT. Holding a book that’s falling apart as I read it has also made me realize how good it feels to buy an e-book version of that book and know that I’ve got a pretty reliable backup of my one of my favorites. And, oddly enough, it’s also a way for me to give a little money to an author who has entertained me countless times over the years. Like I said, these books are family hand-me-downs. Yes, the author got money for the book sale at one point, but whatever portion of that $1.75 she got back in the day can’t possibly be enough for the joy I’ve gotten in return.

So, after re-buying new physical copies of the books, I bought copies of the e-book versions too! And more. There’s something about the way Maggie MacKeever tells a Regency story that just clicks for me. I don’t know why I never thought to seek out her other books before now but, man, I’ve been eating them up ever since I found Regency Reads!

And I can’t wait to try some of the other books offered on the site. The great thing is they’ve got the e-books in PDF, MSReader, Mobipocket, ePub, Palm, HTML, Word, RTF, Rocket, and Hiebook. Pretty much any format you might need depending on what eReader you have (or if you’re just reading on your computer). Plus they’ve got two samplers so you can get a little taste of all the various authors who have e-books available on the site. And most of the books themselves have a sample available so you still have a chance to try before you buy. Most are priced at $5 with some only costing $3 (seems to be determined by the length) which is certainly less than I pay for most of the romances I typically buy.

If you’re looking for a place to find good e-book regency romances,
check out Regency Reads!

I finally had a chance to sit down and do some e-book shopping in honor of Read an E-Book Week.  Originally I was planning to buy the next books in both the Silver Dragon series by Katie MacAlister and the Royals series by MaryJanice Davidson, but for some unknown reason, they only had books 1 and 3 of the Royals series available and I needed book 2. (If anyone can make sense of this bizarre phenomenon of only carrying some books in a series that seems to happen with e-book sellers, please fill me in!)

So, after much back and forth with a variety of books, I decided upon books 2 and 3 of the Silver Dragons series, along with book 1 of The Three Sisters Island trilogy by Nora Roberts that Sheila over at BookJourney has finally convinced me to check out. I also got Full Blooded Fantasy, which is a free sampler of a variety of fantasy authors. Hopefully I’ll find some new authors to love in there! Here’s a list of the actual titles with links for those who are interested.

• Up In Smoke by Katie MacAlister
• Me and My Shadow by Katie MacAlister
• Dance Upon the Air by Nora Roberts
• Full-Blooded Fantasy by Various Authors

Have you bought any e-books recently?  Have you read any of the above books? (Any thoughts?) And, what’s on your e-book wish list?

Playing With Fire (Silver Dragons #1)
by Katie MacAllister

You had me at crossover! After finishing Katie MacAllister’s Aisling Grey, Guardian series, I was eager to read her spin-off series about the Silver dragons (who we met in the Guardian stories).

In Playing With Fire we’re introduced to May, who is both a doppelganger and the twin of a Naiad. Not to mention a hired thief. When May is ordered to steal an important dragon treasure for a demon, she must join forces with Aisling and the dragons to ensure that the amulet doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. While tracking down the treasure and avoiding the many forces after both May and the golden treasure, a surprising bond develops between May and one of the dragons.

Playing with Fire is action-packed, populated with lovable and entertaining characters, with a mystery that had me puzzling right up until the end. There are plenty of laughs, and plenty of steamy scenes that are just hot enough to raise your temperature without delving into R-rated content. An unexpected turn of events ends things on a bit of a cliffhanger, leaving me eager to read Up In Smoke to find out what happens to May next. I’m so glad Katie has decided to continue telling stories about the dragons and the magical world they inhabit!

Since we’re all about the e-books this week, I thought this would be a great time to share some excellent e-book recs with fellow readers.  According to the Read an E-Book Week site, one of the best ways to promote e-books is to tell people about the last great e-book you’ve read. So, let’s have an all-digital book chat and talk about some of our favorite e-reads!

The first e-book to capture my heart was oddly enough also the first one that I read. I was lucky to get The Alchemyst – The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #1 as a free download during a promotion for the release of third book in the series, and I really didn’t know much about the book at the time.  It turns out that The Alchemyst was just what I’d been looking for – an epic type of series where good battles evil for the fate of the world. It’s an action packed adventure with magic, intrigue and tons of history! I could go on and on, but instead I’ll just direct you to my review where you can read all about how much I loved it for yourself! Not only is The Alchemyst one of the top e-books I’ve read, it’s one of my favorites of all books I read last year!  I loved it so much that I quickly bought the next two books in the series (proving that these promotions clearly work), and am MOST anxiously awaiting the release of book #4 on May 25.

I also fell in love with the Uglies series in much the same way.  I got the first book for free during a promotion, and then I was downloading the subsequent books in the middle of the night as I raced through the trilogy.  As for stand-alone e-books, Dewey the Small Town Library Cat Who Saved the World was great.

What about you? What are some of your favorite e-books? What e-book are you most looking forward to? If you’ve never read an e-book, would you like to?

As a big fan of the e-book and digital readers, I was very excited to learn that March 7-13, 2010 is Read an E-Book Week! That’s right, a whole week dedicated to the awesomeness of e-reading! Yay!

As I mentioned in a previous post on digital books, I believe e-books are an important way for readers to help our environment by saving trees and avoiding all the harmful pollutants involved with printing and shipping traditional books. Add to that the benefits of having an entire bookstore available at the click of a mouse, and the fact that e-books don’t take up any extra space on a crowded bookshelf and it seems like a winning combination no matter how you look at it.

Even if all that hasn’t won you over, something everybody can get on board with no matter how they feel about the environment, e-ink or a full bookshelf, is saving money and free stuff! And that’s where Read an E-Book Week comes in. For one week (March 7 – 13, 2010) e-book retailers, publishers and authors will join together for this international literary event by offering e-books for free or at deep discounts to encourage book lovers around the globe to give e-reading a try. See the Read an E-Book Week store for a list of participating vendors, publishers and authors.

So, what can you do to help promote e-books this week? First check out the Read an E-Book Week site, then try following some of their great suggestions:

• Talk to your friends about e-books.
• Participate in (or host!) an e-book reading challenge.
• Display a Read an E-Book Week banner on your site. (Choose from a wide variety of banners here.)
• Tweet links to the e-books you read during REBW 2010 using  #ebookweek
• Seek out your favorite authors, and see if they have e-book versions of their novels available.
• Most importantly, support e-books yourself by buying them! Spread the love by gifting e-books to fellow readers.

And of course continue to check back here throughout the week, where we’ll continue to talk e-books and share our Read an E-Book Week finds with you!

Will you be participating in read an e-book week? I definitely will be. Tonight I plan to kick things off by using my gift certificate to the Sony e-book store (Thanks Rae!) to buy some great new e-books. Check in tomorrow to find out what I got.

This week’s Friday Freebie is all about Kelley Armstrong. Anyone who has been reading our site for any length of time is probably aware that I’m a huge Kelley Armstrong fan, so I’m excited to be able to share these awesome free finds with you!

First, as a promotion for the upcoming release of The Reckoning, the final book in the Darkest Powers Trilogy, Harper Collins is offering The Summoning, the first book in the series for free on their website! Read The Summoning here.

I really loved this book, and highly recommend it to all fans of the YA fantasy genre. For more informative gushing, check out my review.

Second, if you’ve already read the first two book s in the Darkest Powers trilogy and (like me) are anxiously awaiting the final installment, you can get a sneak peek at the first ten chapters of The Reckoning here.

And third, for fans of the Women of the Otherworld series, Kelley has written a fantastic graphic novella called Becoming that tells the story of Elena’s “becoming” a werewolf. Check out Becoming here. As you can see from the image on the right, this is a gorgeously illustrated story!

We had a little poll to choose our Book Club Selection for March, and our winner was The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks.

I’ve only read one other Sparks novel (The Choice) but I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I loved the movie version of The Notebook, so here’s hoping this story is just as heart-warming.  Since the movie is out (and hot) right now, hopefully the book is a popular one and we’ll have plenty of readers to join us in the discussion!

Here’s a bit about the book from the author’s website:

Seventeen year-old Veronica “Ronnie” Miller’s life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wilmington, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alienated from her parents, especially her father… until her mother decides it would be in everyone’s best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him. Ronnie’s father, a former concert pianist and teacher, is living a quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that will become the centerpiece of a local church. The tale that unfolds is an unforgettable story about love in its myriad forms – first love, the love between parents and children – that demonstrates, as only a Nicholas Sparks novel can, the many ways that deeply felt relationships can break our hearts… and heal them.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts on the The Last Song. Check back during the last week of March for the discussion post!

*Since we also got some votes for Sundays at Tiffany’s by James Patterson, we’re going to use that one for one of our future selections.