Angela @ Touch the Night

If you like the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon, and want it in Kindle - this is an EXCELLENT DEAL!!

Books 1 - 24 for just $19.99!! Normally ~$147.82.

(excludes the novellas and Chronicles of Nick - includes everything else)

Includes the following: 

Fantasy Lover

Night Pleasures

Night Embrace

Dance with the Devil

Kiss of the Night

Night Play

Seize the Night

Sins of the Night

Unleash the Night

Dark Side of the Moon

The Dream-Hunter

Devil May Cry

Upon the Midnight Clear

Dream Chaser

Acheron

One Silent Night

Dream Warrior

Bad Moon Rising

No Mercy

Retribution

The Guardian

Time Untime

The Dark-Hunter Companion

Welcome to Week 1!

This week it’s intrigue across the ages as we enter the world of time travel with H.G. Wells in the SYNC Classic spot and the FBI’s WARP (Witness Anonymous Relocation Program) leading the action in the SYNC YA title.

This Week’s Audiobooks:

Download FREE pair here.  

Available May 15 – May 21.

 

WARP: THE RELUCTANT ASSASSIN

By Eoin Colfer Read by Maxwell Caulfield Published by Listening Library

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

THE TIME MACHINE

By H.G. Wells Read by Derek Jacobi

[Available in U.S. and Canada only.]

1.  I will respect your copyright.  

2.  I will legally obtain your book for the agreed upon price. (In some cases, that may be from a used bookstore or library loan).

So, tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day. It's the first Saturday in May every year. 

Check to see where your closest participating comic book store is that's participating!

One of my favorite new band discoveries this year.

Anne Rice's books made a HUGE difference in my life at one point. I can't even begin to overstate the effect that the Vampire Chronicles had on me. I've re-read her books many, many times, getting enjoyment from them each time.

No more.

I will never pick up a book of hers again. Her willful ignorance of subjects, and accusations of bullying against authors, is ridiculous. It's more than obvious that these people (STGRB and Anne) don't know what bullying is. I'm sorry but there's no way that Anne could even be bullied by reviewers. Her power is too great. By definition:

Bullying: (from the US government Stop Bullying website): Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.

(emphasis mine)

The power imbalance goes the other way. She (Anne) is an INTERNATIONALLY BEST SELLING AUTHOR WITH MILLIONS OF FANS. There is no way that any one reviewer, or even several reviewers grouped together (who have NOTHING to do with each other) could come close to having more power than her.

Every time I see something more from Anne on her Facebook, spreading lies, refusing to investigate, refusing to believe counter-evidence, it disgusts me further.

For what it's worth, I still think The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned are some of the best books I've ever read. I'm truly saddened that I can't enjoy them anymore. No. Screw that. I'm pissed I can't enjoy them anymore.

****************************Reblog starts here ******************************************

For those wondering what got deleted, here you go. Screen shots!

I haven't gone through all of the comments, and I assume more has been deleted, but you can get a real sense of what she considers "gangster bullies".   Even Jenny Trout! (WOW!) 

Most of the comments deleted were opposing views about Stopthegrbullies.com (STGRB). Apparently, she simply doesn't care that they use anonymous names, bully authors and reviewers, and play all the dirty tricks she claims to want stopped.

Oddly, there are very few pro comments about STGRB. Why is that? The exception are a few people who have been active in the STGRB all along. So if she can't listen to reason, maybe she should listen to the silence. It speaks loudly. Her fans may support stopping cyber-bullying (as do all of us), but they don't appear to be fans of STGRB either.

Screen shot #1: Full blog post 4/28/2014, early in day - many comments were later deleted

Screen shot #2: Full blog post 4/28/2014, later in day - you can see some of what got deleted

Screen shot #3: Full blog post 4/29/2014 late afternoon

Screen shot #4: Autumn Turner / Misanthropic Bibliophage  thread (1 of 2)  before it got deleted

Screen shot #5: Autumn Turner / Misanthropic Bibliophage (2 of 2)   with final comment (from me!) All deleted.

Screen shot #6: Ole Andreas Imsen comments -- also deleted

Screen shot #7: The now infamous Jenny Trout "Gangster Bully" thread -- also deleted

Screen shot #8: Comments by Elyse Shramm -- also deleted

Screen shot #9: Floras comments to Yvonne before deletion

Screen shot #10: Floras comments have been deleted, Yvonne's still there

And for some fun, do check out Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blog post:

Also: Write back to signify your continuing aliveness or I will give you the hurts.

I love her. <3 <3

If you haven't read this series, my updates are likely to have spoilers for book 1 - I don't know if there's a way around it - so you might want to either avoid my status updates .... or just go start Daughter of Smoke and Bone. ^_^

0%

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil held a wishbone between them.

 

And its snap split the world in two.

I love that these are continued throughout. I need more reading time!!

85%

"War is all we've been taught, but there are other ways to live. We can find them, Akiva. We can invent them. This is the beginning, here."

The hope. Man, this book slays me!!

86%

The blade glinted its descent, and Akiva fell forward on his hands. He was shredded, empty. Love, peace, wonder: gone. Hope, humanity: gone.

 

All that remained was vengeance.

89%

"Never repent of your own goodness, child. To stay true in the face of evil is a feat of strength."

100%

...to be continued.

I was GUTTED when I read this the first time - without being able to go directly onto the second book.

First of all, a huge thank you to everyone that's taken the survey and anyone that's spread the word about it! In just a couple of days there are already 129 responses to it!!!!

I've been skimming through some of the answers, and have been really enjoying myself!

I am definitely going to be posting some of the data when I close the poll and start analyzing it, but thought I'd give some small updates now (and answer some questions that came up in some comments).

To answer some of the questions:

Q:  A good survey always starts with informed consent and some brief indication what it's for. It also does a better job of hiding its biases. I expect you're going to get results so slanted as to be meaningless, but good luck with it!

A:   I likely should have had an informed consent at the beginning of the survey and maybe there is some bias in the questions - simply because they're about romance specifically. And there's probably some bias there that I wasn't able to see and that's something I should work on. I actually expect skewed results more because of the voluntary response, convenience sample than because of any bias in the questions. However, for both of these things - though it doesn't excuse it - I'm going to just say, I didn't know. This year is the first time I've ever created surveys for research and I'm still learning.

Q:  A good question would be if you read romance, how "out:" are you about it?

A:   You're right! What a great question. I wish I had asked it.

Q:   I think for Q10 you needed to specify if you mean know IRL, or just know.

A:   I probably should have specified - I do mean 'know' in general. Real life, online, it's all the same, IMO. My apologies. I'll add a note now about this.

Q:   Why focus on Romance as a genre, these principles apply to any genre?

A:   I'm focusing on the popular romance genre, because if I focused on all genre it would be far too un-focused of a paper. As it is there are too many aspects to simply focus on the genre of popular romance in general so my research paper is going to have a more refined subject and the responses will be used to build to it. I absolutely agree that this can apply to nearly any genre (though it's my impression that thrillers, mystery and even sci-fi/fantasy gets a lot more respect from main-stream media - or at least isn't derided whenever it's brought up). 

Q:   Have you read Janice Radway's Reading the Romance? It's an interesting, if flawed, study of romance readers.

A:   I have :)  It is interesting (and flawed). And I have several other books and research that I'm drawing from as well. Everything from Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan to some of the many, very well researched and discussed, posts on the blog Teach Me Tonight. And a whole range of other sources.

Finally, there were a couple of comments/questions about the sub-genres including m/m or LGBT romances - Again, something I should have been clearer on. It *does* absolutely include it. I am not, nor does the 'official' definition (that I'm using here from RWA), specify the sex/gender of the parties involved in the romance. So, if it's a MMMFFM paranormal romance - then it should absolutely be under 'Paranormal' as a sub-genre. My apologies for any confusion or anything that wasn't clear!

I appreciate all the comments back about the survey so much! It's helping me to learn a better way to craft these (though I'll be honest and say that I hope I don't have to again for a while) :)

You all are the best!

If I could ask for another favor! I've got one more survey - this is for my English final research paper. It shouldn't take too terribly long, but I'd really appreciate if y'all could fill it out and (if you like) share so others can as well.

75%

She had never made love...She thought about it, of course she thought about it. She was of age; her body coursed with urges, just like anyone's, and chimaera weren't puritanical about sex. [She] had just never come to a moment when it had felt right.

I love this. There's no shaming either way. Perfect.

79%

"And you? Did your parents love each other?"

 

"No," he said, and offered no explanation. "But I hope that my children's parents will."

Ohh, be still my heart. *swoons*

"Love is a luxury."

 

"No. Love is an element."

Seriously. Killing me here with the sweetness.

82%

Once upon a time, before chimaera and seraphim, there was the sun and the moons...

 

I have always loved mythologies, but the mythology in these books slays me. I love it. This story is fantastic.

68%

Such a little thing, and brittle, and the sound it made: a sharp, clean snap. 

Oh man! I just want to go hug everyone and make it better!

69%

Once upon a time there were two moons, who were sisters.

 

Nitid was the goddess of tears and life, and the sky was hers.

 

No one worshipped Ellai but secret lovers.

I LOVE these - this is the first non-spoiler one I've been able to post in a while though. LOL

I don't know if it was so obvious the first time I read it, from pretty early on, but I'm trying hard not to spoil anyone of anything if they haven't read the book yet.

And here's another book that proves no matter how much I say I hate a trope, I can love it when it's done right. There's definitely some 'insta-love' in this book...but it also makes perfect sense in this scenario.

51%

"Besides," she argued, "there are more important things than safety. Like... loved ones." 

56%

Here was the impossible, and it was beautiful, and it was terrible, and it flayed open his chest to show that his heart, numb for so long, was still vital and beating...just so it could be ripped out again, after all these years?

 

Was there any fate more bitter than to get what you long for most, when it's too late?

58%

"If you want to see my hands, all you have to do is ask."

I don't even have commentary - the story, the words, the characters. SO good. Even better this second time around, all I can do is read - absolutely enchanted.

43%

This new thing that sprang up between them, it was...astral. It reshaped the air, and it was in her, too--a warming and softening, a pull--and for that moment, her hands in his, Karou felt as powerless as starlight tugged toward the sun in the huge strange warp of space. She fought against it, trying to get away.

Her way with words just slays me.

45%

Everything was between them, everything he'd felt suffuse the air while they faced each other...Being near her was like balancing on a tipping world, trying to keep your footing as the ground wanted to roll you forward, hurl you into a spiral from which there was no recovery, only impact, and it was a longed-for impact, a sweet and beckoning collision.

 

He'd felt this before and never wanted to feel it again.

50%

"What?" she asked. "What exactly don't I know?"

 

"His magic, for one thing," said Akiva. "Your wishes. Do you know what they come from?"

O_O

This song just made my morning instantly better.