More Treats for the evening ahead

Check out All Things Urban Fantasy for a great short story from Tyger Tyger (see my review here) author Kersten Hamilton called Vee Williams on "Dracula".  It's a great vampire/ghost story for Halloween.

Happy Halloween! A treat for your bag tonight, interview with the author of The Mourning Emporium and The Undrowned Child- Michelle Lovric!

As previously promised, and as a special "Treat" on this day of Trick or Treats, I present my interview with the lovely Michelle Lovric, author of The Undrowned Child (see my review here) and The Mourning Emporium (see my review here).  If you haven't read them, you're missing out greatly!!

You recently did a “City-Pick Venice” evening with a number of authors (including one of my favorites Sarah Dunant), which was advertised as containing “Revelations, surprises or intimate confessions”. Can you share any that came out during your interview with Maxim Jakubowski?


-Actually I am yet to have my moment in the spotlight – it is on December 6th, at the Italian Cultural Institute in London. Just how intimate will those revelations be? Depends on whether my husband attends or not.


Would be lovely to see some Diary-of-a-Bookworm London followers at the event. It’s free, but booking is essential on rsvp.icilondon@esteri.it


Baiamonte Tiepolo- the source of infinite evil in the Undrowned Child series- is based on an actual man and historical events surrounding him. Was he a starting point for the story, or just a natural pick for a villain of Venice?

-There’s no point in a baddie who’s bad just for the sake of it. The more visceral the motive, the more terrifying his depredations. For The Undrowned Child, I needed a man with a motive to truly hate Venice. He had to hate Venice as much as Teo and Renzo, my child characters, adore her. Now Venice being lovely Venice, it was very hard to find a Venetian who abhorred his city. So I had to look all the way back to 1310 to find Bajamonte, but I could never have dream up such a perfect set of reasons for a vendetta as his. His plan to kill the Doge and seize power was sabotaged first by a storm, then by the cupidity of his own men, also by a sneak and finally by an old lady in a nightie, who threw a mortar at the head of his standard-bearer. In the consequent shower of blood and guts, Bajamonte’s men turned tail and ran. Just to complete his degradation – Bajamonte’s house was razed to the ground, his crest deleted all over the city, his name associated with the devil, and he was sent into exile, the worst thing you can do to a Venetian. Oh, and finally the Venetians sent the secret police to murder him. So … in The Undrowned Child, Bajamonte’s ghost spends six hundred years marinating in his hatred deep in the waters of the lagoon before bursting forth to take revenge on the city that brought him so low. As you might expect, he doesn’t want Venice to die slowly, or simply.

Your books are steeped in many rich aspects of History. Has History always been a great love of yours? Or does your life in Venice and London spark you interest in history because they are both so rich in it themselves?

-As long as I can remember, I’ve loved big, fat, old history books. I love what’s inside them, their covers, their smells. (In fact there’s a character who slightly resembles me in my latest adult novel, The Book of Human Skin). Like the Bookworm, I read like a tornado. There’s almost nothing I won’t try. I love the research stage of my books. I always have an idea and a voice in my head, but research delivers so many wonderful gifts and opens up so many possibilities. Research gave me, for example, Butcher Biaisio, the 16th century Venetian child-eater. It gave me Syrian cats in Venice. It gave me Signor Rioba, the redoubtable statue who has traditionally shared his gruff opinions with the Venetians. For The Mourning Emporium, I enjoyed burying myself in books about the Victorian funeral industry. The plight of London’s homeless children is also heartbreakingly well documented.


Part of the novelty and fun in the Undrowned Child series comes from the many varying and unusual speech patterns. i.e. the mermaids who learned English from pirates and sailors or the circus master Signor Sargano Alicamoussa who is Venetian but then visited Australia and has a very hybrid vocabulary.
After reading an Abba blog article of yours on howlers (I was laughing so hard I was in tears!) it occurred to me language is obviously as intriguing to you as history. Where did that come from? Did you meet resistance from publishers or editors over using it the way you do in a children’s book?

-A very perceptive question! Yes, I absolutely love strangulated language. I adore the distortions of dialect, insults, proverbs, howlers. I love mistranslations. I am attracted to speech that goes for a delirious dance in the dark of the imagination before it staggers out of the mouth. In another book, I have explained my theory that foreigners sometimes speak the most perfect English, because they get more out of it than is intended in the dictionary or the grammar books, which serve only to limit or define.


I also find an endearing vulnerability in those who try hard to speak well and get it wrong.


The language of insult is very dynamic, like anything powered by raw anger. I’ve compiled books of Latin and international insults – again, these have served me well.


The mermaids were pure joy to write – I’d done a non-fiction book on sailors’ slang and superstitions, so I had all the language at my fingertips. Signor Rioba’s insults have a different period feel again: he’s a Morean transplanted to Venice in the 12th century. And, in The Mourning Emporium, Turtledove speaks the street slang of working (or thieving) class 19th-century London. So do the children who work at the Mansion Dolorous mourning emporium – though two children are from Glasgow and are rather stroppy, so I had enormous fun writing their dialect. I also have Scottish slang research archived – from writing an Edinburgh quack doctor and his Glaswegian assistant in my third novel, The Remedy.

After reading your blog on the Madonna’s and cats (sigh, I would buy that book), seeing pictures of your cats of the month on your site, pictures of your own beautiful cat, not to mention all your wonderful cat characters in the two books, I’m going to assume you are a consummate cat lover. Can you tell me about your cat? What in particular do you love about cats in general?

-Rose La Touche, currently sitting on the back of my chair, thanks you kindly for mentioning how beautiful she is. She wouldn’t mind if you did so again. Yes, I love cats. I love their pompousness, their beauty and the feel and smell of them. (Rose smells slightly of vanilla. I have known other cats who smelled of custard or jasmine.) But of course it is rude to be species-ist and generalize about cats – they are as individual as we are. Possibly more so. Because each cat has several personalities. You can never put your finger on who a feline truly is – they are so changeable. Rose will bite me for the same caress that made her purr the day before.


If anything, it is we humans who are alike in our ailurophilia. Look at the success of LOL Cats and many viral feline videos on You-Tube. Strangers from around the world are instantly united if one of them mentions their cat. Then they quickly cluster together and go off into a magical place I call “Cat World”, where everyone can talk about their cats without the least embarrassment or reserve.


Rose always checks out your Feline Fridays by the way, and wonders if you might consider a feature on her some time? She’s no mere cat. She’s a tea-rustling acrobatic dare-devil who is currently working on a fine-art installation in the medium of table-leg, varnish and sawdust. But she doesn’t do dressing up, I am afraid. Or, if she did, I’d have to send you the pictures from hospital.


Your rat gun (a kids toy that lights up and makes a racket) greatly amuses me, I can just picture you wiping it out of your purse on a lovely evening out in Venice. However did you come up with the idea of using this toy to scare off rats? And do the people of Venice mock your toy gun, or does everyone have some eccentric way of scaring off the rats?

-Well, the problem is that there’s one rat for every person in Venice. I have three or four personal ones, just for me. And if they know I’m alone, they wait for me outside my door at night. Yes, you might well ask why. It is very sinister.


I’m a vegetarian and don’t wish to kill rats, so I needed a weapon of minimal destruction. First of all I hand-made a kind of rattle, with tin toys inside. Then I found this souped-up Cadillac of a toy gun – red and white with bulbous bits and a silver trim. It emits a long-distance red laser dot as well as a terrible cacophony. If the noise doesn’t disconcert the rats, then the red dot annoys them, and they go away. As for pulling it out of my handbag, I consider it a perfectly elegant fashion accessory – I have some earrings that are almost as large and a lot more bizarre.


I read that your dad used to say “it was just as well that breathing was an involuntary activity as otherwise I would have died”, but then I read that you like to leave your home at 6 or 7 am in the morning and go to a coffee shop to write! Is this true? Because somehow this seems the opposite of lazy.


-My father also said that I couldn’t go to Europe when I was little because I was too lazy to cross the road. The sad thing is – he’s right. I am quite productive if you look at my word-counts, but I take only involuntary exercise, usually by accident, accompanied by a lot of lamenting. My new office at the Courtauld Institute of Art (where I am the new Royal Literary Fund Fellow) is up 98 winding steps in the west wing of a beautiful Georgian building. I am sure it is very good for me, but that’s not what I’m thinking as I walk up them.

What is an average writing day for you like?

-An actual day just to write – a longed-for, treasured rarity! Around writing a book, one spends at least as much time doing events, preparing events, designing websites, dealing with website-designers, answering fan-letters. … I have to get up very early to do any writing, before the actual working day begins. Evenings are for family. But weekends don’t exist. Saturdays and Sundays are just possible writing days to be snatched, if possible, from the jaws of other commitments.


If I ever do have the amazing luxury of a whole day to do nothing else but write, then I am FIERCE. I can write up to 10,000 words in one long sitting. Sadly, that does not mean 10,000 brilliant words. I spend at least as much time unpicking and refining as I do writing. So it’s probably just as well I don’t get to write all the time. A tsunami of words would engulf the world.


But every day is a thinking-about-writing day. Every day, more little notes go into the spiral-bound notebook. More fragments of dialogue. More tiny twists for the tail of the plot. Once I am into a book, everything is grist to its mill. Every traghetto ride across the Grand Canal; every bus trip in London. Every overheard conversation. Every stab of annoyance or laugh.

From what I’ve read you seem to have many similarities to Teodora: photographic memory, long love affair with Venice, bookishness, and a great vocabulary. Would you say there’s a little bit of you in all your characters? And do you have a favorite?

-Yes, Teo is a lot like me. You were polite enough to leave out the bad bits of Teo’s (and my) character: clumsiness, a sense of outsiderhood, impatience and a tendency to use insults that could cut a steel cable. When I’m writing, I’m method-writing – I’m inside my characters’ heads as long as I’m speaking with their tongues. So far, I’ve never had an editor protest “But X would NEVER do that!” I think that’s because the characters are fully formed for me. This is why they so easily travel across my books. Cecilia Cornaro, heroine of my first novel Carnevale, is still making guest appearances in The Book of Human Skin ten years later. Signor Alicamoussa – a star of The Mourning Emporium – is my particular favourite in my children’s books. I hope I will be allowed to write more of him. In my top drawer is a novel in which he plays the romantic lead in an art, archaeology and murder mystery set in London, Venice and the Fayum delta around the time of the Jack-the-Ripper murders. By the way, speaking of lovely words, in Italian, Jack is known as Giacomo lo Squartatore (literally, “the chopper-into-four-bits”) and I believe there’s a nightclub named after him somewhere on the mainland.

The books show you’ve done an obvious and spectacular amount of research. Did you have to research specifically for the books or are you more of a history fiend always collecting interesting facts and information?

-Each storyline sends me off in a different research direction. I love that. I’ve had adventures in libraries all over the world – Paris, New York and even Buffalo – but I also like to touch and feel and smell the places I write about. So in the last few years, I’ve been in convents in Peru and medical museums for The Book of Human Skin. I’ve been aboard ships, handled old drug packaging at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, sought out funerary antiques at fairs, and explored London’s Museum in the Docklands for The Mourning Emporium. I’m now reading about wolf and hyena anatomy, climbing towers, eating excessively rich French food, investigating hairiness and trying to involve myself emotionally in land-rights for my third children’s book.

Can you give us any hints or ideas what The Undrowned Child and The Studious Son will be getting into trouble over next?

-In fact, the third book goes deeper into the past. So it tells of a time before Bajamonte Tiepolo raised his ugly, ghostly head. But there was still baddened magic back in 1846, when Teo’s grandmother was a little girl. Talina is the most impudent girl in Venice, and has some unusual talents that bring down unusual troubles on her head. A beastly cohort claims an ancient right to Venice, and it will take Thaumaturgic tea towels, the denizens of a whole cat sanctuary and a potion called ‘If in doubt’ to put things to rights again.

Author Bio-

Michelle Lovric is the author of four novels for adults and two for children, all set in Venice.

The Remedy, her third adult novel,was long-listed for the Orange Prize. 

Her first novel for 9–12-year-olds, The Undrowned Child tells what happens when science meets baddened magic in Venice. Its sequel, The Mourning Emporium, was published on October 28^th.

Her fourth adult novel, The Book of Human Skin, set in Venice and Peru, was published by Bloomsbury in April.  

She delivered the 2010 Venice in Peril summer lecture, about Baiamonte Tiepolo, the villain of her children’s books, and his hidden column of infamy; and reviews for various publications and runs writing workshops. She is currently Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Born in Sydney, Michelle Lovric now divides her time between Venice and London blogging regularly on the Scattered Authors’ Society website An Awfully Big Blog Adventure and the English Writers in Italy website. Her own wonderfully interesting website is http://www.michellelovric.com/.

Beautiful Malice, By Rebecca James- Review

About this time last year you may remember a crazy amount of hoopla about debut author Rebecca James.  After a large quantity of rejection letters from agents, her manuscript was pulled from a unsolicited slush pile and started a crazy world wide bidding war for the publishing rights.

While on one of my google hunts for new info, I typed in J.K. Rowling and ended up looking at a bevy of articles about the pandemonium surrounding Ms James, many of which were questioning if she would be the next J.K. Rowling, the author of the last books to have created such a phenomena.  I immediately started following her blog, spending several months reading back posts and waiting to hear more about the Y.A. thriller she'd sold.

Like J.K. Rowling she was bordering on bankruptcy when the book finally took off, she had children (four sons) and she'd written the book on her off time.   Her blog was amusing and down to earth,  I was totally intrigued and dying to get my hands on her book after it had caused so much excitement.  Shortly after the news went wide though, she dropped her blog and had an under construction website that no matter when I clicked on it, seemed to go nowhere.  I eventually stopped checking up on what the progress was and forgot her name, only to be reminded about her while flipping through the confirmed guest list for the IFOA (international festival of authors in Toronto) in early October.  I was thrilled she was coming and surprised her book, Beautiful Malice, had been released (at long last) in July.  Why hadn't I caught this sooner?  I quickly ordered my copy through Amazon, and decided to head down to her reading and interview this past Friday morning.

The synopsis going around was roughly this:  Katherine and her family have moved and started a new life after a devastating tragedy, leading her to befriend Alice, a seemingly perfect start to a new life.  Except friendship with Alice is not what it seems, and could quite possibly have lead her into a whole new web of danger.

Beautiful Malice was a very quick read, but completely unimpressive.  I absolutely cannot imagine what caused all the excitement in the first place!  The first person, present tense, narrative is awkward and lead me to my first ever instance of noticing the narrative while reading.  Normally I'm so caught up that unless I'm asked (the hubby generally loathes first person, so it comes up) I don't tend to take note of the type of narrative at all. Jarring and unpolished sounding, Beautiful Malice's narrative is immediately noticeable, which took me out of the thread of the story repeatedly.

The story jumps back and forth from two years in the past, gradually revealing what exactly has happened to her sister, to present time with Alice, to five years in the future.  Each told in present tense.  I'm supposing this is meant to create the tension of the story, each component only revealing tiny little bits at any given time, so you find yourself deep into the book before much is revealed.  But so many of the characters are unlikable or participating in situations I find unbelievable that it kills a lot of the tension for me.  Especially the main thriller component, Alice.  Why any of the other characters are supposed to like her, the charisma she is supposed to exude, it's all lost on me.  She's odd, unlikable, and so obviously psychotic, the idea Katherine is supposed to be so enamored of her makes me quickly dislike Katherine too.

Totally beyond all of these issues is the fact this book so often strays into totally adult material and in such a way I feel like the publishers are trying to purposefully make it a cross over book.  Neither totally Adult nor totally Y.A., but some weird middle ground.  Maybe if they'd focused on one, they could have weeded out some of the problems and come out with a well written book, because lets face it, the only books that appeal to adults and kids/teens alike are the well written ones.  I was repeatedly reminded of that terrible movie Wild Things, not a flattering comparison.

In the end I was badly disappointed, and I'm not even remotely interested in the supposed "sexy, psychological thriller series"  Her publishers envisage her carrying on with.  Needless to say I didn't go to her interview, no need trying to pretend interest when I was so under-impressed by the book.

Beautiful Malice, By Rebecca James
Published by Faber and Faber, July 2010

Feline Friday Fiesta- Giving me the Creeps October

So I thought I'd have a little Mexican Fiesta for the final Giving me the Creeps October Feline Friday.

Dude.  Am I wearing a poncho?? Can I eat the pom pom's??

Baxter chilin' in the sombrero and poncho.

Ariba, Ariba!

Cheddar diggin' the more serious Mexican look.

Thurman takes a mexican Siesta.

Dilly is not impressed, even with her very own pink sombrero.

Her grumpy Mexican't pose.

Happy Friday!!

The Mourning Emporium, By Michelle Lovric- Review for Release Day!

Back in June, you may remember, I read and reviewed the first book in Michelle Lovric's whimsical and wholly engrossing series, The Undrowned Child.  Well I'm sure you can imagine my absolute delight when part two, The Mourning Emporium was sent to me last Wednesday by the wonderful Ms Douglas at Orion books.

Just as pretty as the first book, with stunning cover art, gorgeous end pages, and beautiful scrolled headings at the start of each chapter, The Mourning Emporium and the The Undrowned Child are the two prettiest books I own, but their contents are just as enchanting!

Part two is set in Venice and London two years after the first book, between Christmas Day and mid-February.  It follows Teodora (The Undrowned Child) and Renzo (The Studious Son) on their latest harrowing adventures as Venice is very nearly destroyed by flooding and Ice on Christmas Day, and quickly find themselves aboard the Scilla, a floating boys Orphanage under the "care" of a beautiful yet deadly woman, Miss Uish.  Their nemesis Bajamonte Tiepolo is back, planning the destruction of London with a whole host of new evil cohorts, and it's up to the children to come to the cities rescue.

Without reading the stories it's hard to convey just how whimsical and wonderful they are.  Historically imbued with so many interesting true tidbits, filled with unique and charming characters, and told in the most enjoyably unusual language, these books are like nothing I've ever read before.  They are at once the quintessential children's adventure story while being told in such an intelligent way that I can easily see them becoming great classics.

The Mourning Emporium has a great new cast.  While holding on to the beloved Venetian Mermaids, Ms Lovric has also added London's own, less rough and tumble, mermaids, as well as a fantastic gang of street children cared for by an english bulldog by the name of Turtledove, not to mention the wonderful cat of the Scilla Sofonisba and her entourage of orphaned Venetian boys.   But not to worry!  She hasn't neglected to add a new host of evil doers as well.  Ms Uish, the Pretender to the British throne, sheep obsessed convicts from Australia and some vampire squids make for some deliciously awful villains for our children to come up against.

Told in such a way to be engrossing for both children and adults alike these books are so packed full of intriguingly true history and wonderful vocabulary I'm guessing virtually every kind of reader also comes away having learned something too.  Though you pick it up in such an enjoyable way it hardly seems like you could have learned something, isn't learning supposed to be endlessly boring??  

Finally both books are supplemented by the most amazing websites, filled with pictures, links to youtube videos and packed full of information about Ms. Lovric as well as the actual history she has written about.  And not a spoiler to be found! So read away! The Undrowned Child site, and The Mourning Emporium site will keep the story going hours after you've regretfully turned the last page to book two, and alas will have to hold us all until the as yet unnamed book three comes out.  Already I can hardly wait!

The Mourning Emporium releases today, and The Undrowned Child is now in paperback (there were at least a half dozen copies at my small Chapter last time I was up there), so don't waste any time jumping into these books because in the very near future Michelle Lovric herself will be joining us to answer some of my burning questions!  And you don't want to miss out on all the greatness one way or another, trust me!

The Mourning Emporium, By Michelle Lovric

Published by Orion Children's Books, October 28th 2010

The Strangers Outside,  a short kindle thriller was kindly emailed to me recently by the author Vanessa Morgan.  It starts out with two sisters on vacation during off season, on the border of a small town in a fairly isolated cabin. So already you know these girls are in for it, I mean bad choice for a vacation location when you live in a horror story. 

Anybody leading out a Boy Scouts camping trip soon?  Because this would make for a wicked campfire story. The creepy factor was big and once the action started there weren't any lull's, it just raced to the end.  For such a short story I thought there was nice development between the sisters and a reasonable amount of background given.   My only beef about The Strangers Outside is really about short stories in general, the ending was so open.  Now I'm never going to know the why's of this story!!

Short stories are always a great kind of aperitif between larger stories, I don't read them often, but good ones are always satisfying.  And since this one had me thinking about the ending for a couple of days after, then I think it qualifies.

The Strangers Outside, By Vanessa Morgan

Kindle Short Story, Published 2010

Spooktacular Giveaway‏- Giving me the Creeps October Grand finale Contest!

Hey folks, so I'm participating in the very very large, magnificent Spooktacular Giveaway this week as the Grand wrap up to Giving me the Creeps October.    Running until Midnight on October 31st and Open Internationally you can win one of 3 Prizes.
First place winner will recieve- One signed copy of Jeff Lindsay's Darkly Dreaming Dexter, the first book in the series!  A copy of a TBA YA thriller and swag (bookmarks and postcards etc.)
Second Place winner will receive a copy of Vanessa Morgan's Drowned Sorrow
Third Place winner will receive a PDF copy of Vanessa Morgan's Kindle short story The Strangers Outside.

This is a biggie so make sure to get your entries in, open internationally!  And make sure to stop by all the other participating blogs to enter their spooktacular giveaways as well!!

Contest Closed!

Random Magic, by Sasha Soren- Review, Blog Hop and re-cap of guest post!

Of late the thump of books coming through my mail slot has become a very frequent and delightful sound. I love three things above all else as worldly pleasures, cats, books and food, so naturally surprise packages of books (who doesn't love real mail after all?) are the highlight of my afternoons.

So imagine my surprise when one of these packages opened up to this! This was not just a book delivery but an experience. As I unwound wrapping paper and iridescent tinsel I have to say I was strongly reminded of the packages I used to send and receive with my good university friends when I was back home in Saskatoon and they were spread about in Ontario. It came complete with a fun letter, tea, chocolate, a rubber ducky a book mark and as I started to read a feather stuck between the pages. Each piece was tied into the story in some way, and it felt like part of the pleasure was discovering what each things purpose was.

The package, of course, contained Sasha Soren's Random Magic. And the minute I finished the never ending Tommyknockers I pulled it off my shelf and sunk my teeth into it.

I've posted the description a couple of times, but roughly it's the story of Henry, who goes on a quest to find Alice (as in from Wonderland) after she is accidentally shifted from her story. Henry meets Winnie, a beginners witch and they set off on a mammoth adventure in which they have a very great deal of bad luck and meet the most astounding number of folks, whatwolves, vampires, muses, witches and more.

I was immediately sucked in and have to admit that the first day I read half of the book and barely put it down. It has a whimsy reminiscent of Terry Gilliam and Diana Wynn Jones mixed together, and a voice quite a bit unlike any I've heard before. Henry and Winnie were both very love able and the various characters they run into interesting and enjoyable. It has a rapid pace, with lots of break points which makes for a really smooth read, and gives you ample places for pee breaks from the tea you're quite inevitably going to find yourself drinking. If only because everyone in the story so frequently are.

An enchanting read, I highly recommend it for your next reading sit in (rainy afternoons anyone? snowy ones coming soon!).

Random Magic, By Sasha Soren
Published by Beach Books, LLC, January 2010

Now if you haven't already checked it out, have a look at Sasha Soren's guest post for Giving me the Creeps October, Crafty Dames: Famous Witches.  Also make sure to check out the song hop and the daily posts until November 2nd for the Random Magic Blog Hop!

Tour organization: Lyrika Publicis

Tour prizes coordinator: @LaFemmeReaders
Contact the tour: @RandomMagicTour
Win something wicked:
Gift-wrapped first edition, Random Magic
Cute wicked witch rag doll (Mme. Alexander collectible)

Song Hop, October 24th
Well-Read Reviews
http://twitter.com/wellreadreviews

Elbit Blog
http://twitter.com/merigreenleaf
Cerebrate’s Contemplations
http://twitter.com/cerebrate

A Reader’s Adventure
Twitter: n/a

 La Femme Readers
Twitter@LaFemmeReaders
StoryWings
mailto:http://twitter.com/storywings
What Book Is That?
http://twitter.com/heynocupcake
Daily Blog features from now until November!
Oct. 26
Daisy Chain Book Reviews
http://twitter.com/daisychainbooks
Feature (incl. excerpt): ‘Haunting Places: Ireland’s Spookiest Castles’

Oct. 27
Escape Between the Pages
http://twitter.com/LoriAtEBTP
Review
Feature (incl. excerpt): ‘Bell, Book and Candle: A Modern Witch’s Toolkit’

Oct. 28
La Femme Readers
http://twitter.com/lafemmereaders
Feature (incl. pix gallery): ‘Casting Random Magic’
Tour treasures: Win something wicked!
Gift-wrapped first edition,Random Magic or Cute wicked witch rag doll (Mme. Alexander collectible)
Oct. 29
Spellbound by Books
http://twitter.com/Meeka_21
Review
Related event: Spellbound by Books’ Spookfest  (‘Here Be Vampires,’ incl. excerpt)
Related event: WORD for Teens’ Book Spooks (http://tinyurl.com/2flkayp) (‘Haunted Places,’ incl. excerpt)

Oct. 30
Bewitched Bookworms
http://twitter.com/BwitchedBkworms
Review (dual review): 'Chatting Over The Cauldron: Random Magic
Oct. 31
StoryWings
http://twitter.com/storywings
Review
Feature: A love spell!
Related event: vvb32’s Trix-‘n’Treatz
(‘Vamps!,’ incl. excerpt, feature film)

Nov. 2 (All Souls’ Day)
Electrifying Reviews
http://twitter.com/ABennettBooks
Review (vlog)
Feature: November's Unearthly Rites: Day of the Dead
Related content: Electrifying Reviews' video channel

Meeting Dexter's creator, Jeff Lindsay!

On Friday night, my good friend in reading Jenna, and I trundled on down to the Harbourfront Center to partake in one of the many events for the International Festival of Authors.  The timing couldn't be better, smack in the middle of my Giving me the Creeps October and what was the focus of this years festival?

IFOA Noir- In Response to the millions of readers who can't get enough crime fiction, thrillers and mystery novels, IFOA higlights these nail-biting genres as part of this years IFOA Noir programming focus.  Join us... more than 20 authors present their latest suspense-inducing works.

One of the two Authors part of Friday nights reading and interview? Jeff Lindsay, the extraordinary creator and writer of the Dexter books!  Now I ask you, how perfect is that??!

Mary Hynes (CBC, Globe and Mail, and TVO personality) was the interviewer and R.J. Ellory was the other featured author.  Although I wasn't familiar with his work (apparently he's huge so aren't I a dummy?) I sure wanted to pick it up by the end of the night.

Jeff had a cold, but it didn't stop him from being the consummate comedian and the banter between him and Roger Ellory was often hysterical (they are long time friends apparently).  Mary Hynes asked some great questions and a lot of what the two of them had to say was fascinating.  Here are some of the highlights:

R.J. Ellroy-

• Had over 600 rejection letters before being published and had written 22 novels (still unpublished)
• He writes 2-3 books a year, but his publisher only wants one, meaning he has an additional 1-2 books a year adding to his original 22 unpublished works.  As Jeff pointed out there would be some very lucky folks inheriting his estate.  To which Roger responded that his wife had threatened selling the books on ebay (if they ever ran short on money) so that she could buy more shoes!
• On Classics and what he considered was a classic.  To Kill a Mockingjay and Rebecca (I loved that book growing up! I have got to re-read it!!).  Both him and Jeff agreed that a classic was a book that you couldn't put down but at the same time you kept wanting to slow down your reading off so it wouldn't end so soon.  Beautifully written but a page turner.
• Currently reading (and re-reading for the fourth time) Winters Bane

Jeff Lindsay-

• Deliciously Dexter, Available at fine bookstores everywhere and some crappy ones too.  Make sure you buy a copy!
• Hillary Hemingway, his wife, is the niece of Ernest Hemingway.  He was referred to as Mr. Hemingway for many years, until the Dexter series launched, at which point his wife and him became Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay.
• The character of Deborah Morgan is based on a real life Miami Dade Sgt., of course female.
• He really likes the show, but isn't so sure about this season so far, might be too melodramatic.  But at any rate it is only 2 episodes in and he'll have to see.
• He loves Michael Hall, but when he was originally told they'd cast him he wasn't impressed.  What? the short, dark haired gay one? (in reference to his character on six feet under).  But the first line out of his mouth as Dexter, on the first day of shooting (Refrigerated Trucks) won Jeff over.  He now things he embodies Dexter perfectly.
• Jeff does not find it difficult to write the series while the T.V. show is airing and moving in a very different direction.  He says it's liberating.  And even though the story line for the show is different they steal his one liners all the time.  He doesn't remember them, but his wife does!
• He made a cameo appearance in season 3, and says that he envisions the final scene in the T.V. series as him as a cop, shooing people away from a dead Dexter at his feet saying "move along people, nothing to see here."
• During Dexter in the Dark he wanted to "Bash Dexter's head in with a brick, throw him into the ocean, and let Cody take over the family business.".  He has since gotten over it, and feels he should continue writing Dexter because people want to read it so much. He laughed and called it a Public Service.  But he would like to write something else and would especially like to write a couple of plays that have been simmering away on the back burner.
• He is on nephew number two for building a website (a lack of I've bemoaned since I started reading his books)  the name will be Dark Dexter.com, and hopefully once it's up and running you'll be able to buy the apron's Jeff's wife had made up " Dexter is Delicious, Little girls are for eating not hearing".  

For some more info on Jeff Lindsay and the Dexter books please check out the following:

Toronto Star Interview during his IFOA visit

Globe and Mail video about his one of his favorite movies, also during his IFOA visit

and the Globe and Mail print interview

and of course my reviews!

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Dearly Devoted Dexter

Dexter by Design

Dexter in the Dark

Deliciously Dexter

Random Magic- Musical Halloween Blog Hop starting today!!

In honor of Halloween, Random Magic Author, Sasha Soren has created a Musical Halloween Blog Hop (that of course ties in with her fab book... Random Magic! you guessed it!).  Each Blog will feature a musical piece, a blurb from the book and other extras and prizes.

The Hop starts over at Well Read Reviews today, and heads over here tomorrow for my review of Random Magic, an encore performance of Crafty Dames: Witches.  Don't forget to enter for your chance to win you're very own gift wrapped copy (truly awesome!) of Random Magic as well as the chance for a Ragged Witch Madame Alexandra Doll!

Music is a strong theme in Random Magic-- so strong, in fact, that one of the celestial characters Winnie and Henry meet is Efterpe, the Muse of music.

In celebration of music, Halloween and all things spooky, here’s a fun blog hop to check out. You’ll find tidbits about creepy characters from the book -- and some great music picks.

Come enjoy a musical Halloween blog hop with us, we’ve got tunes for ghouls…

You are here: #7 of 8 (Diary of a Bookworm)

Songs for: Spiders

Spider Sings – Bourbon Princess

Random Magic excerpt:

“Henry sank down onto the only chair in the room.

   She looked at him sharply. “You’d better ask permission, first. Wouldn’t sit there, otherwise.”

   “Oh. Sorry, do you mind if I--”

   “Not me,” she snapped. “The chair.”

   The chair? What a strange girl. Why on earth would he--

   “Ow!” he squeaked, train of thought completely gone. The chair’s long furry legs had come up and slapped him in the face. In a flash, the spider chair tossed him onto the floor and scuttled away through a window.

   “Eu-yech,” Henry said. “Yech. Euw. Yech.” 

Check out music stop #8 of 8: Take me there (link) 

 (If you enjoy a particular music pick, please consider buying the track to help support the person or group that created it for everyone’s enjoyment. Across The Sky is the unofficial soundtrack for the Random Magic Halloween Tour (2010). Happy listening – and Happy Halloween!)

BELATED Feline Friday for Giving me the Creeps October (3rd installment)

So it's a day late, but hopefully it's worth it...I blame the awesome Jeff Lindsay (update tomorrow about that!)

So without further ado....welcome to Ryan and Rhiannon's Dairy Farm!

Of the costumes to-date, cow is not Baxters favorite.  Maybe he's just sensitive about his weight.

Cow Tipping

Hey look at the cute tail mom, I dig being a cow

Mooo

Cows?

Where??

Dilly is initially not impressed

And then decides if she wanders off I'll leave her alone.

She's decided to pick a book and ignore me completely.  Obviously this was way less offensive then the Pumpkin outfit.

Happy Saturday!

Hopin' and bopin' and followin' this friday

I'm Super Duper excited this week to share all my news for all the hoppers and followers this week!  And since I just can't wait I'm going to get to all of it before my weekly answers.

First off the first of two great Giving me the Creeps contests was announced earlier this week.  Open INTERNATIONALLY, stop by my contests link to enter to win either a copy of Vanessa Morgan's creepy novella Drowned Sorrow or a pdf of her Kindle short story, The Strangers Outside (tune in for my review tomorrow).

Second, Monday brings two exciting events.  Join me as I host the second stop on Sasha Soren's blog tour for Random Magic, with my review and an encore of her Crafty Dames: Famous Witches guest post.  Then later that day tune in for my Spooktacular giveaway announcement, part of the large series of giveaways being announced in honor of this spooky time of year, I'm going to be hosting one of my biggest giveaway's yet! (I'm seeing Jeff Lindsay read tonight, and have my fingers crossed I can add something from him to the list of stuff!)

Later today, stop by for my fourth installment of Giving me the Creeps Feline Fridays- ohhh what could they be dressed up as this week???!

And finally, don't forget to get your links up on the Giving me the Creeps October Link page for all your scary contests, reviews, interviews or guest posts.  There's two more weeks to share the scary, so make sure to drop your link and stop by the others to share in the spooktacular fun!

So... without further ado, the answers to this weeks questions!

For the Hop- "Where is your favorite place to read? Curled up on the sofa, in bed, in the garden?"

This one is so is too easy!  My chaise lounge.  I bought it last September as my first serious furniture purchase, it's IKEA but still, it cost more than my couch!  It sits in my sunny front window in my living room and is generally covered in cats whom I have to compete with to get a spot on it.  But it's the lap of luxury (albeit a bit furry usually), warm even on cold days and even has a small table for my tea or coffee and a fuzzy knitted throw for cold days.  It's heaven, and since last September I've spent a lot of time on it. 

For Follow Friday-

What are you currently reading?- from what book is that?- whatbookisthat.com

I have to say, in the past two weeks books have been spilling through the mailbox slot in fantastically exciting droves.  I've received 9 books!  but good lord, I can't keep up!  So I'm currently reading like a mad woman and am finishing up Random Magic, by Sasha Soren (review Monday, but I have to tell you, it is sooo much fun!) and then paging over to The Mourning Emporium, by Michelle Lovric (book two after the Undrowned child which was spectacular, check out my review).  She'll be stopping by to answer some of my burning questions around the start of November in honor the release of The Mourning Emporium.

So there you have it folks!

Clockwork Prince- Teaser for Thursday!

Cassandra Clare has published a small excerpt from the highly anticipated Clockwork prince, coming out next fall (argh!).

Will looked at Jem. His eyes were bluer than blue, his cheeks flushed. He said, “Then you have wasted your time.”

Jem stared back at him. “G*d d*mn you,” he said, and hit Will across the face, sending him spinning. He didn’t lose his footing, but fetched up against the side of the carriage, his hand to his cheek. His mouth was bleeding. He looked at Jem with total astonishment.

“Get him into the carriage,” Jem said to Tessa, and turned and went back through the red door — to pay for whatever Will had taken, Tessa thought. Will was still staring after him.

“James?” he said.

At long last!! Tommyknockers, by Stephen King- Review!!

After a long and tortuous decision making process, the hubby finally settled on Tommyknockers as my Stephen King book for Giving me the Creeps. I was interested in Salems Lot but apparently that was going to be "too many vampires" when I was hoping to get to the strain as well.


He prefaced handing me the book with "the first 67 pages or so are really dry, but once you get past that it's good". Unfortunately it was more like the first 150-190 pages, sooo the equivalent of a novella worth of mind numbing boredom. Leaving me once again contemplating why oh why no editor has ever sat Stephen King down and said - look dude, you're obviously a good writer, but we've got to curb some of you more diarrhetic verbiage, because nobody needs to wade through rambling thoughts from characters that don't have anything to do with the story for 150 pages.

Now I've read the entire Dark Tower series, The Stand, and his On Writing book, so Tommyknockers wasn't my intro to Stephen King or his verbose writing style. But it did take belated Thanksgiving dinner last weekend with 14 others to remind me the book was actually written during his obscene substance abuse years. Several people mentioned they thought he had said he couldn't remember writing it (because he was so high the whole time), and I did later read on wikipedia that he thought this novel was a metaphor for his addiction.

Bobbi Anderson, a writer of popular western novels, lives in the outskirts of the small town of Haven, with her beagle Peter, in a small house left to her by her uncle Frank many years before. While walking in the woods behind her place one afternoon, she stumbles on a piece of metal buried in the ground which captures her interest. Setting off a monumental, obsessive excavation of a space ship which will eventually involve her entire township and the destruction of everyone in it.

This was not my favorite Stephen King book, it had moments I really enjoyed, but they were so bogged down in useless blah blah blahing I eventually felt like I was drowning in his ramblings. Now part of this also has to do with the shear size of Kings novels, the one I was reading was written in 1987 and the hubbies copy was probably from the early nineties. This particular copy was a dictionary weight and size hardcover of 553 pages packed with the tiniest writing and the smallest margins you've ever seen, tightly spaced. I cringe to think of how many words were actually on each page, but to suffice it to say a modern printed paperback of the same book would likely have been closer to 1000 pages long. Now in a more readable book I could easily have cleared the word count in half the time Tommyknockers took me, hell the Stand took me less time and its a fair amount longer, but so much of the text was just a sticky mud of words not really going anywhere but taking up oddles of space and time.

My biggest complaint about the book is how the "becoming" of the villagers sucks all their personality out and leaves a story full of drones wandering around doing stuff. I think one of Kings real talents is character development, and his large cast books with many interesting personalities are what I've come to think of as his trademark. So it was disappointing to read a book so full of characters who only have personalities for a few pages before the alien air takes hold and they turn into these, not even particularly creepy, alien/drone hybrids.

But boy oh boy, Tommyknockers has a great ending! And in the past I've mocked Stephen Kings dislike of pre-planning his books, as the reason his books are good but his endings blow chunks. I mean how can someone rave about the talents of J.K Rowling and still think writing without a purpose "to see where the story takes him" is a good method?? Anyhow, it worked for him here, as many new characters streamed into the story, livening things up, and even the people of Haven were a little more enjoyable

Look even writing a review for Stephen King makes for epically long windedness!

Tommyknockers, By Stephen King
Published by Putnam Press, Nov 1987

City of Fallen Angels Teaser, and Clockwork Angel answers post

Back by insanely popular demand! Cassandra Clare's October teaser for City of Fallen Angels releasing in April of 2011.
Alec/Magnus with a mini-teaser about Clary/Jace.

"I don’t know what I want.” Alec, his head bent, was playing with an abandoned plastic fork. Though his eyes were defiantly cast down, their pale blue color was visible even through his lowered eyelids, which were pale and fine as parchment. Magnus had always found humans more beautiful than any other creatures alive on the earth, and had often wondered why. Only a few years before dissolution, Camille had said. But it was mortality that made them what they were: the flame that blazed brighter for its flickering. He wondered if the Angel had ever considered making his human servants, the Nephilim, immortal. But no, for all their strength, they fell as humans had always fallen in battle through all the ages of the world.


“You’ve got that look again,” Alec said peevishly, glancing up through his lashes. “Like you’re staring at something I can’t see. Are you thinking about Camille?”


“Not really,” Magnus said. “How much of the conversation I had with her did you overhear?”


“Most of it.” Alec prodded the tablecloth with his fork. “I was listening at the door. Enough.”


“Not at all enough, I think.” Magnus glared at the fork and it skidded out of Alec’s grasp and across the table toward him. He slammed his hand down on top of it and said, “Stop fidgeting. What was it I said to Camille that bothered you so much?”


Alec raised his blue eyes. “Who’s Will?”

2)Oh boy! Oh Boy!!
And then because good news can only improve if there's more of it, Cassandra has posted an Answer Post for Clockwork Angel.  It's got oddles of spoilers for those who haven't read the book already, so be aware before you pop over or recommend it to others.
 
Happy Monday!

Jace caught her hand in his. “Just say it again.”


“I’ll never leave you,” Clary said.


“No matter what happens, what I do?”

Exciting Giving me the Creeps October news! A Great Giveaway!

Three reviews, one guest post and three kitty costumes in and it's time for....drum roll please!  The first contest announcement!

Author Vanessa Morgan has kindly offered up two spectacularly creepy reads to round off your scary reading month. 

The First Prize winner will receive a copy of her Supernatural novella- Drowned Sorrow

Released June 2010, Drowned Sorrow is about a remote New England village where water has become a supernatural element that can think... and kill.

The Second Prize winner will receive a PDF copy of her brand new Kindle short story The Strangers Outside.

Two sisters, Jennifer and Louise, return to their remote holiday cabin after a day at the seaside. But little do they know they’re being surrounded. Soon after their arrival, the girls will come face to face with THE STRANGERS OUTSIDE. When the assailants make their intentions known, things take a shockingly terrible turn and an intense battle for survival will begin.

Both stories are being made into movies.  Check out everything there is to know about the stories, the author and the films at Vanessa's blog.

This contest is open INTERNATIONALLY!! yes the elusive international availability!  So make sure you enter, the contest will close on October 31st midnight Toronto time.

following/Hoping Friday Extravaganza!

"When you read a book that you just can't get into, do you stick it out and keep reading or move to your next title?"

ugh, talk about a pertinent question.  I've been stuck on Stephen King's Tommyknockers for almost an entire week now (forever, in other words!).  And only last week I was telling everyone I aim for three reviews a week! hahahah, it must be Karma or something.

Well I'm a trooper, bored, annoyed or just plain don't care at all,  I'll do my damnedest to finish.  Which seems ridiculous but I have issues with giving up.  In this instance the hubby loves it and I want to give the book a fair chance (I really like parts of it).

But sometimes you just have to junk a book.  I've found that if there's something serious going on I sometimes have to switch genres to lighten things up, and in those cases whatever I ditch becomes one of those awful half finished books that lay on my bookcase mocking me. 

So on to news!  Obviously, as previously stated, kinda behind on the whole review thing! Yikes! But I'm closing in on the end of Tommyknockers and will race through to the next book immediately (I swear!).  But more exciting, in just a few hours I'll have a new and exciting contest which will include a PDF of a short story ARC!

Also, people are starting to drop their links to all their reviews, interviews and contests for all things scary, paranormal or otherwise Halloween inspired.  So make sure to have a look on my Giving me the Creeps October links page, and while you're there drop off your links and/or pick up a button.  Lets get together and share the scary! Two weeks down and two to go!

Feline Fridays- Giving me the Creeps edition Number 3!

Little Miss Muffet, 

Sat on her Tuffet, eating her curds and whey (or sending curdling looks),

When along came a spider.

And Sat down beside her,

And played with his hat.

And Erg! mom, this is so dumb! I did this lat week!!! Isn't that enough?????

At which point Miss Muffet lost interest in the whole ridiculous thing.  She's a modern feline anyhow,

they don't run away from spiders.