The Night Circus blog tour post + giveaways!

The Circus is here! Welcome to the final stop for the 'The Night Circus' paperback release!

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart

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Find out more about The Night Circus on the Vintage Books website or read my review here

Today I've got something super special for you guys, a cheat code for the online The Night Circus experience! This has been relaunched to celebrate the release of the paperback and I had a play on it for the hardback release and let me tell you, it's wonderful! 

 

Enter the world of The Night Circus through this magical hidden path to receive a special treat to take with you as you explore the online world of the circus.

 http://www.nightcircus.co.uk/a/TheCaitFiles

As if that isn't enough, I also have TWO The Night Circus party packs to give away and ONE copy of The Night Circus paperback! The party packs include: a copy of the book, a reading guide, balloons, sweets and an exclusive night circus recipe! Essentially, everything you'd need to host your own The Night Circus party!

Simply fill in the form below to enter. Giveaway is open to UK and Commonwealth entrants and will end 7th June

 

Blog Tour Stop: All These Things I've Done--Character interview

Today I have with me Anya from Gabrielle Zevins book All These Things I've Done. To read my 5/5 review, click here

Anya, thanks so much for being here today!

Where is here? When is today? 

How would you describe yourself in three words?

Retrospective, doomed, curly.  

In your society a lot of things have been banned, but if you could choose to ban one other thing, what would that be?

Boyfriend’s meddling fathers.

From reading All These Things I’ve Done it seems to me that Scarlet is a pretty good friend to you…do you think you might occasionally take advantage of that friendship?

Possibly, but she gets me back I think.

If you could have one wish granted, what would it be?

That my parents were still alive. 

How hard was it to fight your attraction to Win?

It would have been easy if he’d just left me alone. 

You’ve got one day off from your real life…what do you do?

“Real life”… what’s that? 

In All These Things I’ve Done you’re accused of poisoning your (ex) boyfriend with chocolate, but if you could actually poison someone and get away with it, would you do it and who would you poison?

Okay, so I didn’t poison Arsley but I honestly wouldn’t have minded if I had poisoned him. I probably wouldn’t poison someone – there are far more practical ways to kill someone.

Thanks for taking the time to be here Anya, I’ve really enjoyed interviewing you!

Ne za chto. (I’ve been working on my Russian. I hope this is ‘you’re welcome’…) To anyone reading this interview: it’d be best if you kept its contents to yourself. 

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Sixteen year-old Anya becomes the head of a mafia family after her parents are both murdered by rival gangs. Although Anya is embrolied in the criminal world, she is determined to keep her brother and sister out of the mafia family, but her father's relatives aren't so keen to let them go. When Anya's violent ex-boyfriend is poisoned with contaminated chocolate – chocolate that is produced illegally by Anya's mafia family – she is arrested for attempted murder and sent to the notorious jail on Manhattan Island.

Eventually she is freed by the new D.A. in town, who believs she has been framed. But this D.A. is the father of Win, a boy at school to whom Anya feels irresistibly drawn, and her freedom comes with conditions. Win's father wants to be mayor, and he can't risk having his ambition jeopardised by rumours spreading that his son is seeing a member of a notorious crime family. Anya knows she risks the safety of her family by seeing Win again, but the feeling between them may be too strong to resist...

Blog Tour Stop: Celia Rees--A Day in the Life.

Today I am joined by a wonderful author, who has written my absolute favourite Historical YA book ever (Witch Child, followed by the sequel Sorceress) to tell us about a typical day in the life of Celia Rees.

Celia Rees studied history at university before going on to teach English in comprehensive schools. She has used her passion for the past and her love of literature to create much-loved novels such as the highly acclaimed Witch Child and its sequel Sorceress, as well as Pirates!, Sovay and The Fool’s Girl. Her new book, This is Not Forgiveness, is published in February 2012 and is available in paperback and eBook.

7:30 – Tea in bed – brought to me by lovely husband Terry.

8:00 – 8:30 – shower, dress, breakfast – not much of a breakfast person, so just muesli or toast.

9:00 – At desk – check e mails and reply to any urgent/interesting ones. I’m not on Twitter and don’t check Facebook all that often. I’ll update my Facebook Fanpage if I’m doing anything interesting.

9:30-ish – working day begins…  This depends on what I’m doing. It could be:

·                                       Actually writing, as in a new book. If it is, I will read over what I wrote the day before, note page no. in my writing log and crack on, or not, depending on how it is going.

·                                         Editing – I’ll look through what I did the day before, find where I’m at and start going through the text with my notes and my editor’s notes.

·                                         Blogging, or writing material for other people’s blogs, like today. I have my own blog which I’m bad at keeping up, but I also contribute once a month to two other blogs - An Awfully Big Blog Adventure http://www.awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com/ and The History Girls http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/ so I have to think of something to write about and post it on time. Blogging is a time consuming activity.

·                                         I also have to keep an eye on my website and anything else happening online – writing is not all about sitting at a desk and writing any more – I wish!

·                                         If I’m doing a school visit that week, or appearing somewhere, I might look out material, think about what I’m going to do and update the PowerPoint presentation I’m going to use.

11:00 – 11:30 - Break for coffee. A couple of a days a week, I’ll go into Leamington (the town where I live) and meet friends for coffee. Either Tuesday or Wednesday, I go to a Pilates class at the gym and have coffee afterwards.

1:00 – lunch – soup, or something.

2:00 – 5:00 – Check e mails again then back to work. If I’m writing, I’ll write. If I’m not writing, I’ll spend the afternoon doing research, reading at home, looking things up on the internet, or sometimes I go to Warwick University Library.

I also like to go for a walk at some point in the day, across the fields, or through the parks, or down the canal. Its good exercise and it helps if I’m stuck, or planning, or thinking ahead. I also sometimes go for a swim at the gym (swimming is good for thinking) but not often enough – that’s one of my New Year’s Resolutions.

I generally finish around five, then have an evening meal with my husband about 6ish. I like cooking, so I’ll cook something.

After that, I chill out, read, watch films or TV, or go out with friends for a meal, or to the theatre, or the cinema.

I go to bed at around 11/11:30.

It should go that way, but no day is a typical day because there are so many things a writer is required to do these days besides writing and writers are just like anybody else, with a life that involves shopping and cooking, seeing friends, entertaining, going away on holiday, visiting friends and family, doing research, etc. etc. The trick is to keep some sort of balance, so that there is time for life and time for writing. 

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And there we have it!! Thanks so much Celia, for popping by and sharing details of your day with us. To celebrate the release of Celia's novel, This Is Not Forgiveness, Bloomsbury is offering a SIGNED copy to one lucky person in the UK. Simply leave a comment with your email address to enter. 
The giveaway will open today (8/2/12) and close on the 29/02/12. Again, it is for UK residents only. 

Everyone says that Caro is bad ...but Jamie can't help himself. He thinks of her night and day and can't believe that she wants to be his girlfriend. Gorgeous, impulsive and unconventional, she is totally different to all the other girls he knows. His sister, Martha, hates her. Jamie doesn't know why, but there's no way he's going to take any notice of her warnings to stay away from Caro. But as Jamie falls deeper and deeper under her spell, he realises there is more to Caro - much more. There are the times when she disappears and doesn't get in touch, the small scars on her wrists, her talk about revolutions and taking action, not to mention the rumours he hears about the other men in her life. And then always in the background there is Rob, Jamie's older brother, back from Afghanistan and traumatised after having his leg smashed to bits there. Jamie wants to help him, but Rob seems to be living in a world of his own and is increasingly difficult to reach. With Caro, the summer should have been perfect ...but that isn't how things work out in real life, and Jamie is going to find out the hard way. This taut psychological drama is the brilliant new novel from acclaimed Celia Rees.

You can find out more about Celia Rees and This Is Not Forgiveness by visiting these links:

WEBSITE: www.celiarees.com

FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/theofficialceliareesfanpage

EXTRACT: http://www.bloomsbury.com/Celia-Rees/authors/709/article/9730

TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTD1w7nKYD0

BLOG TOUR STOP: Smokeless Fire by Samantha Young

Today I have with me a wonderful UK author, Samantha Young. To celebrate the release of her book Smokeless Fire which comes out tomorrow (21st October) Samantha has stopped by to share her top ten YA heroines with us!

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Samantha has created an absolutely stunning trailer for Smokeless Fire:

Isn't that just gorgeous? I love it!!

To celebrate the release of Smokeless Fire, Samantha is giving away TWO ebook copies! To enter, simply leave a comment telling me and Samantha:

 Who is your top YA heroine and why 

along with a way to contact you if you win!

Giveaway is INTERNATIONAL and will end on the last day of Samantha's blog tour, the 28th October.

Be sure to check out the rest of the blog tour stops-you can find the list here

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your list with us Samantha!!

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Find out more about Samantha and her books here
Follow Samantha on Twitter
Watch the full length trailer here

BLOG TOUR STOP: Descended by Blood by Angeline Kace

So today I am hosting Angeline Kace, author of Descended by Blood which is a really cool book that has a really unique take on vampires! Angeline thought it would be pretty cool to show you where she does all her author-y things. So here's her post:

My Writing Space

I thought it would be fun to give you all a sneak peak of where the magic happens. This is where I do all of my writing, revising, editing, tweeting, etc.

Yes, my desk is a kitchen table. It's actually the table from our kitchen! I know, I know. That sounds bad, but let me explain. The hubs and I have lived in this house for over four years, and we've sat at the table in the dining room for dinner probably only about seven times. And each of those times have been when we've had company over for dinner. Now, we just eat out, or sit on the couches. More comfortable that way. ;)

I stole the table out of the kitchen when I was getting close to doing the edits for Descended by Blood. My plan was to print off the manuscript and go through each page with a red pen. I needed enough space that I could have the pile I was writing on and going through, a pile of the pages already gone through, and then a place for my notebook for any major notes that I needed to remind myself of or to add in later. I also need my computer so I could get emails and tweet (a necessity, no?). I needed something BIG for all this, and instead of buying something else, I rearranged and took what we already had but weren't using.

Taking the kitchen table as my desk instead of buying a bigger desk worked out great because you see those two monitors in the picture? Well, part of the process of publication (at least for a lot of the authors I know) is to have your book beta read. That's where you send your book out to readers, and they send you feedback on it, and you adjust your project accordingly. Well, I knew this was all going to be via the computer, and I just knew I needed a screen open of the file from the betas and a screen for the file I'm editing. No way was I going to deal with switching back and forth from screens like crazy, so I HAD to buy a second monitor. It saved me LOADS of time. There were even days when I wish I'd had a third screen!

So, that's what my writing area looks like! Well, all except the Kindle is off to the side on days when I'm not using it. Oh, but everything you see here, the skin on the Kindle, bookmarks, and nail polish is part of your prize pack up for grabs today! My sister even tried to steal one of the nail polishes the other day. Silly sister! Those are for my readers! ;)

Thank you so much for hosting me, Cait! You're such a fun blogger, so I'm glad I got to stop here today!

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Thanks for stopping by Angeline! As well as a really interesting guest post, Angeline also has a giveaway for you lovely, lovely people.

The giveaway will run from now until 11:59pm EST tomorrow (21st September)

There will be one winner who will get their hands on an ebook of Descended by Blood, a kindle/nook skin, a signed bookmark and a nailvarnish! Cool prize huh?

It *is* US ONLY but because I am an international blogger myself, Angeline has also generously given a second prize of a Descended by Blood ebook for one international winner too!

To enter, simply leave a comment with your email address and whether you're entering the US or International giveaway, easy as that!