Winners!!!

I love announcing winners. Heck, I like bringing all sorts of good news!! So without delay, the three grand prize winners are:

Kayma of http://kaymasabookworm.blogspot.com/

Britt/ Dee dee dee Twitter name @iheartclick5

and Hayley Brooks, an Ambassador of Awesome from Awesomeness Inc.

Not you? Have no fear! I have almost-grand-prize winners too! These winners will get Valentine's Day treats and swag!

Emily Jane Jimenez (I hope she can find herself from this--that's all the info I have)

Melissa, Twitter name @MelBelle1127

KM of http://one-page-reviews.blogspot.com/

Donna Simmonds, Twitter name @DonnaS1

and Leticia Rochelle of http://rockyiswriting.blogspot.com/

If you are a winner PLEASE email me at Aprilynne Pike at Gee Mail dot com with the following info:

Your first and last name
Your address

If you are a grand prize winner, please additionally tell me the name you would like me to write when I sign your book.

Thank you everyone who entered! It was SO incredible awesome to see so many pictures of the cover around the interwebs!!

And if you didn't win an ARC, remember that Late Bloomer Online is still running their contest!!!!!

Thank you again everyone!!!!!!!!!!!


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:D

Ciao!

Spread the Cover Love ARC Giveaway!

I look forward to this day every year! And not just because of the traditional Valentine's Day fare. It's ARC giveaway day!

This year, my favorite book of the whole series so far is coming out and I want everyone to read it so badly that I'm giving away THREE ARCs instead of just one.

So if you want to enter the giveaway, what I would like you guys to do is to help me spread the cover love!

If you have a blog, you can enter by posting the ILLUSIONS countdown widget. If you already had the Widget posted, no worries! You get an entry for that too! If you post the widget or you already have, give me a link to your blog in the comments to be counted.

But wait, there's more!

Anyone with Blogspot, Twitter, Facebook, or LiveJournal can enter by posting the ILLUSIONS cover for your avatar/profile picture.

If you change your Blogspot or LiveJournal avatar, leave a comment on this entry (which appears in both places).

If you change your Twitter avatar, tweet "I can't wait to read #Illusions by @AprilynnePike!" or something like that so I'll see it on my feed.

If you change your Facebook avatar, leave a comment on my Facebook fan page.

And feel free to do them all! You get an extra entry for every venue you use to spread the cover love! (So a widget on your blog, your Twitter avatar, and you Facebook profile picture=three entries!) Just make sure you leave the ILLUSIONS avatar up at least until I announce the winners so I don't accidentally miss your entry! (And, of course, feel free to leave it longer.;))

The rules: I'm afraid this contest is only open to the US and Canada because I always send Valentine's treats and I worry about sending perishables overseas. Apologies!! I will have an international contest when I get my UK copies, I promise! The contest begins as soon as I post this and lasts for one week, closing Tuesday, Feb. 22, at midnight, MST. Void where prohibited, winners will be chosen at random.

For your convenience, here is everything you need to spread the cover love!

A JPEG of the cover sized to (hopefully) fit all your avatar needs:



The code for posting the widget is right here.

Just copy and paste the code, should be super easy.


In addition to the ARCs there will be lots of runners up who will get Valentine's Day goodies and Wings series swag!

So thanks for helping me spread the ILLUSIONS cover around and good luck to everyone!!!

Ciao!

NOM, NOM, NOM, Cookies!!!

Okay, okay, I admit. My new baby is cutting into my blog time a little more than I expected. But hey! Today she's helping me blog!!!!



Sorta. Well, she's keeping me company anyway!:D

She is so fun and she is starting to make the cutest little cooing noises! *lesigh* I love her!

Anyway, couple of things.

The Wings series has officially been voted "The Next Twilight!" in a showdown with Beautiful Creatures that spurred from a close vote between six original contenders. Thanks guys!!! In case you didn't already know, you all rock to the extreme!!!

I've had people asking me where I am touring to this year and I don't know everywhere yet (I will soon!) But what I do know is that I will be participating in Harper's summer group tour that I have been fortunate enough to be included in for the last two years. This year they have renamed it The Dark Days, a title that allows them to tack on "of Summer," or "Of Winter!!!!" Which means, yes!! They are adding a whole new leg to the tour!!! They have a fabulous website set up here with tons of cool stuff. And when the Dark Days of Winter tour is over it will switch over to the Dark Days of Summer and that's where I'll be! The Summer schedule isn't up, but I will let you know that I will be coming to Chicago, Portland, Austin, and Ann Arbor, but even more exciting for me is that the tour will be coming HERE to Phoenix!! I am so excited not only that I get to do a fun event for my Phoenix peeps, but that they will all get to see all these cool authors as well!!! (Very, VERY cool line up to Dark Days!!!) So check out the website now, and the summer stuff will be coming soon!

Okay, last thing before we get on to cookie-ing, I wanted to give you a heads up that I will be doing my annual ARC giveaway starting next week on Valentines Day. But instead of the one ARC that I usually give away, I am doing three. On top of that, my two main fan sites will also be getting an ARC to giveaway, so that is FIVE ARCs up for grabs in the next few weeks! So keep tuned!!

Okay, so this cookie is a conversation between Tamani and Chelsea. One of the very funnest thing about bringing Tamani into Laurel's world in this book is the way he interacts with her friends. Chelsea especially. So here you go! Chelsea and Tam!:D

“Do we get to play twenty questions now?” Chelsea asked.

All eyes turned to her.

“Not you,” Chelsea said, then pointed at Tamani. “Him.”

Tamani stared at her for a long, silent moment. “I’m afraid I don’t know that game.”

“Oh it’s easy,” Chelsea said, “You play it with Laurel all the time, but she never asks you fun questions. Although she did tell me about a bunch of Shakespearean plays being faerie legends. I’ve been waiting for ages to ask you the really good stuff!”

“Um, okay,” Tamani said, not sure what Chelsea considered ‘good stuff.’

“So is it only Shakespeare, or are there more stories that exist in both cultures?”

“Oh!” Tamani said with a laugh. He sank into an armchair close to Chelsea. “There are lots. In Avalon, we love stories. The Summer fae dedicate their lives to telling stories, through dance or music or painting. But humans are endlessly inventive, always coming up with new ways to make the story interesting by telling it wrong. Nonetheless, a lot of your stories have faerie roots.”

Chelsea was undeterred. “Cinderella.”

“No,” said Tamani. “I mean, faeries don’t even wear shoes most of the time. And finding someone based solely on shoe size? That doesn’t make sense for humans or faeries.”

“What about the faerie godmother?” Chelsea asked.

“Unnecessary. We can make pumpkins grow that big without magic. And even a Winter faerie couldn’t turn a mouse into a horse.”

“Beauty and the Beast.”

“Story of a faerie who fell in love with a troll. Scares the wits out of most seedlings. The troll never turns out to be a handsome prince, though.”

“Rapunzel.”

“Growth tonic gone terribly wrong.”

Chelsea squealed. “Thumbelina.”

“That’s just basic anatomy misinterpreted. We are born from flowers, but we’re never that small. Mischievous Sparklers were known to have encouraged tiny-faerie misconceptions, though.”

“Tell me one that would surprise me.”

Tamani thought for a moment. “Do you know the Pied Piper of Hameln?”

Chelsea looked blank for a minute. “You mean Hamelin?”

“That sounds right. That one’s not a story, it’s true,” Tamani said, very seriously. “And it has scarcely been distorted at all. The Piper was a very powerful Spring faerie. Most of us can only Entice one or two animals at a time, but the Piper could Entice a whole city. He was eventually executed for that stunt.”

“What did he do with the children?” Chelsea asked.

“It’s kind of a long story. Ultimately, though, he marched them off a cliff. Killed them all.”

Chelsea and Laurel were both silent, staring at Tamani in horror.

“Perhaps not our happiest story,” Tamani said awkwardly.

LOL! I have to admit, the best part of this scene is the part that comes next!!! (But it's kinda spoilery . . . I'm a terrible tease!!!:D)

Ciao!

Whoa . . .

You see that little count-down widget over there on my sidebar? Over, down, down, down, yes! Right there! It's cute, isn't it? Did you know you can put it on your own blog by just clicking the little Share button and following directions?

*ahem* Um, that wasn't the point.

Point is, look at the count down numbers.

ONE HUNDRED DAYS!!!! Holy cow!!!! I swear Spells came out like two months ago. I do NOT know where 2010 went. For me, it seemed like it lasted a couple months at best. But somehow, it IS 2011, and not only that, but it is almost the end of January. And thus, Illusions comes out in 100 days!

That is awesome!

To celebrate, I'm serving cookies! Well, just one cookie.

So after promising this for ages, here is a taste of Illusions!

“It’s this way,” she said to Tamani.

He paused for a second, then walked over to Laurel’s dad and stuck out his hand, which Laurel noted was temporarily free of pollen, probably courtesy of Tamani’s pocket-lining. “Great to meet you, Mr. Sewell,” he said.

“Absolutely, Tam.” Laurel cringed. It sounded twice as bizarre coming out of her dad’s mouth. “We’ll have to talk more one of these days.”

“Sure,” Tamani said, reaching his other hand up to clasp her dad’s shoulder. “But for now, wow, it’s Saturday—your store must be really busy.”

“Oh, it usually gets busy at about twelve,” he said, pointing to the clock that read just after eleven.

“Sure, but school just started a few weeks ago and people always want books for school, right? I bet they’re really busy down there and could use your help. You should go to the store. Help out. We’ll be fine here.”

It took Laurel about three seconds to realize what was happening.

“You know, you’re right,” her dad said, his voice sounding just a little far away, “I should go help them.”

“Well, it was good to see you for a little while at least. I’m sure I’ll see you again.”

“Yep, that would be great!” Laurel’s dad said, looking a little more like himself. “Well, you two get some good work done, I think I’m going to go down and help Maddie out at the store. It’s a Saturday; I bet it’s busy.” He grabbed his car keys and was out the door.

“Okay,” Laurel said, turning to Tamani, “not cool.”

“What?” Tamani asked, looking genuinely confused. “I got him out of the way.”

“Him? That him is my dad!”

“Enticement doesn’t hurt him at all,” Tamani protested. “Besides, I’ve been living on my own for years—I don’t do well with hovering parents.”

“My house, my rules,” Laurel said sternly. “Don’t do it again.”

*squirms in seat* Oh, man I can't wait to give you the whole context of this scene! Or, yanno, the whole book!

But, hey, in 100 days!!!!!!:D

Ciao!

Winner and Boxes

At long last I have five spare minutes and I am here to announce the winner of the Wondrous Strange series!!!

Congrats to A Rick who said:

"I love fairies because they can be sweet or they could be evil. You never know! That is why I love reading about them, to see what angle the author will take!"

Please email me your full name and address to aprilynne pike at "gee" mail dot com and I will get those right in the mail for you!

Okay, this doesn't have anything to do with writing. But I think it's a fun story. Earlier this summer I was reading something about collections and I was talking to my husband and I said, "I don't collect things. Well, I kind of collect dolls, but I haven't added to that collection in years and really, it just fell into my lap to begin with."

And he said, "What are you talking about? You collect boxes."

And my first thought was Boxes? That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Who collects boxes? And I said, "I do NOT collect boxes."

"Sure you do."

"I do not. Well, I have my Tiffany box, but who wouldn't keep their Tiffany box? And I have my perfume boxes, but they're pretty. And I guess I have that turquoise shoebox I've held onto, and that little blue box . . . Oh my gosh, I collect boxes."

Turns out, I collect boxes. I have tons! And, in support of my newfound hobby, my husband got me two new boxes for Christmas this year. Boxes that encompass BOTH of my collections.:D We have gotten rather obsessed . . . er . . . interested in these amazing porcelain dolls. They are ART. Like, they put them in museums. (*disclaimer* These are amazing art, but . . .um . . . they are anatomically correct and most of them have no clothes on. It showcases their full body porcelain hinges. They are very cool, but you have been warned. Don't follow the link if naked porcelain dolls weird you out.) Anyway, it's called Enchanted Doll and they are gorgeous and I want one some day!! Yanno, some day when I have $16K just laying around (the price her last doll went for on eBay). *sigh* So Kenny did the next best thing. He got me two doll-sized tin boxes with Enchanted Doll figures painted on them! So I have dolls, boxes, and two doll boxes!!! They are my new pride and joy.

With the addition of my new boxes, I figured I would actually decorate the top of my bookshelves (now that I've had them for seven months . . . FAIL.) And I thought I would share!

First, my new boxes (and the blue box in the middle was my very first box, about five years ago. You'd have thought I would get the hint that it was special to me when I lugged it through two moves . . . I'm a little slow.) Anyway, the new ones are the yellow and blue ones on the sides.




And the whole shelves, dolls and boxes.:D



I'm very excited.:D

Okay, a couple of things for the future: I traditionally give away an ARC of my new book for Valentine's Day and I will be doing that again, so stay tuned. Also, I have been working on some short pieces for Harper that take place either between Spells and Illusions or during the first part of Illusions but from another person's point of view. (In fact, one of them is first person point of view from a character you haven't met yet.) I am having a blast with that and should know more about when and where they will be posted soon. And as soon as I know, I will let you know. I will also be doing a few excerpts from Illusions starting next week so you will have something to tide you over.

Also, I counted months last week and Illusions comes out in LESS THAN FOUR MONTHS!!!! WHOO-HOOO!!!!!!

Ahem. Sorry about that.

:D

So yeah, lots to look forward to and hopefully more frequent blogging is one of those things.:D

Ciao!