New From Stephenie Meyer!

This is a novella about Bree! I think the title pretty much says it all. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner is an Eclipse novella about Bree, the newborn vampire.

Stephenie has a really great explanation of the story on her official website.

It was originally going to be in The Guide but she realized it was too long so it became a novella!

One of the best parts is that $1 of every book sold will go to The American Red Cross.

It will also be available online for a period of time. From noon June 7th until July 5th. Personally, I'd love to add this to my set and I think the cover is awesome!

Amazon has it for pre-order at 45% off the list price. It goes on sale June 5th 2010!

The Iron Daughter Cover!

The Iron Daughter, the sequel to The Iron King, has a cover! Julie Kagawa posted today that The Iron Daughter is appearing on NetGalley. Of course, I had to check this out. And I am thrilled to see a cover!

It looks awesome as far as I can tell! It's too small to post here so click the NetGalley link about and it's the second one! Woo hoo!

Almost Unrelated!

Okay, this is almost completely unrelated to anything I do here. I haven't been very constant with my Sunday Series meme and it makes me sad! So maybe this will make up for it in my mind. It's kind of like SS. And they are also books. So it sort of relates to my blog.

I was looking at Nicholas Sparks books turned movies and I noticed something when I saw the "collection". Okay. Are you ready?

At first I just thought, They all look the same! But really, that's true for most romance movies. I mean look at Amelia and Love Happens (both below) They came out around the same time. They not only match each other but the films above. Wow. Can't we get a new "pose"?

So. After uploading the Nicholas Sparks Film Collection image, I realized that, not only are they similar, but the top two have the same-ish pose and the bottom two have the same-ish pose. AND!! The color schemes are the same. Nights in Rodanthe and The Notebook are primarily blue and white. One person holding the other's face and almost kissing. While Message in a Bottle and A Walk to Remember are warm colors. They are pinks and have golden tones. Man=holding the woman and smiles all around! I just think that's craziness.

And on a final note, I think they layout is adorable! The post cards and having the film covers as polaroids and the titles written on top like people would write when a picture was taken or where. I just think that's SO cute. :)

I watched A Walk to Remember for my film studies paper. Woohoo! Papers. Oh what fun! (Actually, watching a movie isn't such horrible homework.)

Beautiful Darkness Cover!

Some secrets are life-altering.... others are life-ENDING.

Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena's family of powerful supernaturals for generations.

And now that Ethan's eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there's no going back.

That little summary came from beautifulcreaturesthebook.com. I find it incredibly disappointing because all it does is summarize the first one, Beautiful Creatures. It tells me nothing about Beautiful Darkness. I'm hoping we get something new and more revealing soon!

I love this cover! It looks great with Beautiful Creatures! I'm so excited!

Beautiful Darkness is set for release on October 26th 2010!

The Scorch Trials Cover!

I am in love with this cover! I am so excited for the release of this book. The Maze Runner quickly became one of my favorite books and I am eagerly awaiting this companion. Thoughts on the cover?

It looks great with The Maze Runner (below) although I like the Greek cover better. and the UK cover is just so completely different than this one!

The Scorch Trials is set for release on October 12th 2010!

Kisses from Hell Cover!

Did I do a post about this already? I couldn't find one... So there is officially a cover for Kisses From Hell! I'm so excited!

Thoughts?

Torment Cover!

Lauren Kate revealed the cover of Torment today on her blog!

I'm so excited! I absolutely love this cover and it will look fantastic next to Fallen!

Torment is set to hit stores in 172 days! (September 2nd)

Kiss Me Deadly Anthology

I was reading Sarah Rees Brennan's blog sarahtales (she's the author of The Demon's Lexicon, which I love) and it turns out she has a story in an upcoming anthology among other authors. Kiss Me Deadly is an anthology of 13 paranormal love stories! I am so excited!

Turns out it's a follow-up to The Eternal Kiss which I have not read, but I will be reading soon. I hope. AP Lit has my reading pretty much limited to the books for the class. (We're starting A Clockwork Orange. It's full of made-up words I don't understand. I think I like it!)

Anyone who has read my reviews knows that I love short stories. They also might be able to infer that I love paranormal love stories. This is definitely made for me. (And anyone like me. But I feel like they have me in mind. :P)

Now, my question is: how did I not know about this sooner? Especially because Maggie Stiefvater is featured in it and she's my favorite author. Why didn't I know? I read her blog and I would think I would remember her posting about this...I'm assuming this means she hasn't. And that makes me wonder why? But, that's not the issue here anyway. Unless this is one of her secret projects! OH! Maybe...maybe not. I'm pretty sure she said the secret project was a novel. Maybe not.

So, the authors that will be featured in the seemingly fantastical anthology are as follows:

Becca Fitzpatrick (Hush, Hush)

Caitlin Kittredge (Night Life) her story is Behind the Red Door

Karen Mahoney (The Iron Witch)

Justine Musk (Blood Angel)

Diana Peterfreund (Rampant) her story is Errant

Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon's Lexicon) her story is The Spy Who Never Grew Up

Michelle Rowen (Demon Princess)

Carrie Ryan (The Forest of Hands and Teeth)

Maggie Stiefvater (Shiver)

Rachel Vincent (My Soul to Save)

Daniel Waters (Generation Dead)

[EDIT] Maggie Stiefvater has posted a blog post (redundant?) about Kiss Me Deadly and has named the two missing authors! Daniel Marks and Michelle Zink (Prophecy of the Two Sisters)

Everywhere I've looked I've only come up with eleven authors...maybe two authors are writing more than one? I don't know.

I have to admit that I haven't read anything by most of them. Actually, I've only read books by Maggie Stiefvater and Sarah Rees Brennan. I've heard of some of the others! And some are on my Goodreads list! I recently bought Hush, Hush and I can't wait to read it! I've just become suddenly busy with schoolwork and can't read as much (or as quickly) as usual. Oh, summer break, how I long for thee!

Theatre Illuminata Contest!

Author Lisa Mantchev is hosting an amazing contest on her blog! It ends tonight so hurry up and enter! Sorry for not posting sooner. You can read about the contest on her post here.

You can pre-order Perchance to Dream here on IndieBound.org

Perchance to Dream will be released May 25th!

If you don't know what Perchance to Dream is, it's the sequel to Lisa Mantchev's Eyes Like Stars which is fantastic! Read about it here!

And so! In this contest, you choose a three word quote from Shakespeare to call the third book in the Theatre Illuminata series!

I have decided on my three word title. And it is...

Soul of Wit

This quote is from Hamlet Act II Scene II.

Maggie Stiefvater's New Book Deals!

Maggie posted earlier on her blog, Words on Words, about her new book deal(s)! This is so exciting!

Scholastic has made a deal for Forever, the third installment in the Wolves of Mercy Falls (Shiver) series and three new stand-alone novels.

She can't tell us what the novel after Forever will be; she said she's very excited about it though. I can't wait to find out! I absolutely loved Shiver, Lament, and Ballad so I'm very excited for what she has in store. Read the original post on her livejournal here or her blogspot here.

Commas!

I'm really not sure where I first saw this, but either way it's fantastic.

Sunday Series [3]

This week I'm comparing the covers of Sarah Dessen's novels. There are several covers for her books and I'm going to be looking at the newest of the US covers.

Lock and Key has a different cover for hardcover and paperback. I'll show them both. And I believe that the paperback cover for Along for the Ride will look the same. Before it came out in hardcover, Sarah did a vlog where she read a bit from the book and it was the paperback version (or maybe an ARC) with the hardcover cover. And it "matches" the rest of the books. I can't see why they would change the cover.

So without further ado...

I've decided not to talk about the books individually. There are nine of them. So! I love Sarah Dessen's books. And I think that the covers are really great representations of the books. From the cover you can tell that these books are about girls. Let's face it! You can tell that they aren't paranormal or action/adventure books. Because they aren't! To me they look exactly like they are: coming of age stories of the modern girl (and boy. there are always boys and sometimes they grow up too)

I'm really glad that you can see the cover of any of the books and tell it's a Sarah Dessen book even without looking at her name.

Speaking of her name, it's always preceded by "New York Times Best-Selling Author" in smaller print and her name is always in the same font and size and it's raised up from the rest of the book. Oh yeah! And on all nine books, her name is at the top. It's little things like that, that make me happy. They are cohesive. There's that word again that I love so much.

The pictures change, but that's good because no two stories are the same. They're different stories with different people. But often the same setting which is so freaking awesome!

Sarah Dessen sometimes mentions characters from previous books in newer ones. In Just Listen Owen makes Annabel listen to music and one of the bands is Truth Squad from This Lullaby. And some places are the same too. I think that's really cool because it makes it COHESIVE! :D The lives are sort of intertwined and that's awesome. I think the covers reflect that as a whole. They're all connected, but no two are the same. All of the girls have their own stories to tell.

The hardcover version of Lock and Key. (above) I remember seeing it and the key inside the lock is behind the cover and the key hole is actually an opening. I LOVE that! I really did like the hardcover version, but all of my Sarah Dessen books are in paperback and I couldn't bring myself to have mis-matched books. I just couldn't do it.

I don't know why they did that. They changed the cover for the paperback version, which is good. It goes better with the rest. But they cover for Along for the Ride is similar to the other ones. This one just stands out like a sore thumb. It's not similar. Except for Sarah's name.

I wonder why they made this cover...

I know why publishers change covers. To sell more. Some covers sell better than others. It's true. But I'm not really sure why they went this way for the Lock and Key cover. I love it, don't get me wrong. It's great. I just don't know why they made the hardcover look this way when they went back to the "old" way with the paperback. They made the paperback one look like all the others. I just don't understand

Either way, I love Sarah Dessen's books. I can't wait for her next one!

So which cover is your favorite? Do you have a favorite book? What do you think about the change in covers for Lock and Key? Do you think they'll keep the Along for the Ride cover when they make it in paperback?

Sea Givaway

Author Heidi R. Kling is doing an awesome giveaway on her blog here in honor of 1,000+ followers on Twitter! She is giving away two, yes TWO! signed ARCs of her novel, Sea.

Check out her post here.

Her official website is http://heidirkling.com/

You can pre-order Sea from Amazon here or IndieBound here.

So, what is Sea about you ask? Well...

Haunted by recurring nightmares since her mother's accidental disappearance over the Indian ocean three years before, fifteen year old California girl Sienna "Sea" Jones reluctantly travels with her father's volunteer team to six months post-tsunami Indonesia. During her stay at the orphanage, she meets scarred and soulful Deni who is more like Sea than anyone she has ever met.

She knows they can't be together, so why can't she stay away from him? And what about her old-best-friend-turned-suddenly-hot Spider who may or may not be waiting for her back home? And why is her psychiatrist father so secretive about her mother's plane crash? The farther she gets from home, the closer she comes to the truth. And Sea's real adventure begins.

Is it good? Well, I don't know...but these people think so! And I have a feeling I will, too! I love sea people-type creatures :D

SEA is a richly woven story as turbulent and beautiful as the sea itself, plunging us headlong into the depths of loss, devastation, compassion, and hope. A touching and romantic debut about the redemptive power of altruism and the heart's capacity for love." Sarah Ockler, author of TWENTY BOY SUMMER

"I was enchanted from the first sentence. At once heartbreaking and hopeful, Heidi R. Kling’s debut novel follows a California teenager who, mourning the death of her mother, travels to Indonesia to help tsunami survivors. While the setting is unique, the story of love and loss is utterly relatable. Sienna’s relationship with the beautiful, complicated Deni is compelling, romantic and real."
---Courtney Sheinmel, author of POSITIVELY and MY SO-CALLED FAMILY

"Heartbreaking but always hopeful; achingly romantic but never sappy-- SEA is simply luminous. What a remarkable debut!" -- Jennifer Laughran, "Not Your Mother's Book Club" Books Inc., San Francisco

So, what do you have to do? Well, there are several. I have copied&pasted it straight from her blog!

YOU MUST BECOME SEA PEOPLE.

How does one become a SEA PERSON? Naturally you grow gills and a mermaid tail. Or you simply...

1. Change your Twitter user pic and/or Facebook to SEA cover image. (One entry per change. Maximize your chances and change both!)

2. BLOG about it (paste the SEA post at the bottom of the page), choose THREE of your favorite blurbs to add, and put the link in comments.

3. TWEET about it and @heidirkling so I'll know. And you know, I pay attention to Twitter.

4. ADD SEA on GOODREADS and VOTE for SEA on the many lists it's on, 2010 Debuts, BOOKS WITH THE BLUES, KISS MY COVER etc. The more times you VOTE (or have voted in the past) the more ENTRIES you get! Link in comments please!

5. COVER YOUR BODY IN BLUE BODY PAINT AND DANCE IN THE STREET SCREAMING I LOVE SEA*

*Okay, You don't have to do that last one, but if you take your picture wearing blue and holding up a SEA sign I'll enter you THREE times into the contest. If you make a VLOG talking about why you want to read SEA you will be entered FOUR more times into the contest.

This is definitely a worthwhile contest. I am so excited for Sea which hits stores June 10th 2010!