Blog Contest Winner Announced

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Kourtney

Thanks to all the participants in my first blog contest! Everyone who answered the four questions correctly was entered into the contest. I put the email addresses in a hat and drew one.

And the lucky winner is: Stacie Amelotte/scouts579@aol.com.

Stacie, Paige Shelton will email you to follow up with you on whether you want the autograph personalized and your mailing address. If you don’t receive the email, shoot me an email at: kourtney.heintz@yahoo.com.

Congrats! Hope you love the book as much as I do. 🙂

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Blog Contest Officially Ends!

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Kourtney

 

Thanks to all who participated in the blog contest for a free autographed copy of Paige Shelton’s Fruit of All Evil! I’ll be announcing the winner on Thursday’s blog post. 🙂

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Fruit of All Evil–Book Review+Contest Reminder

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Kourtney

In honor of this week’s blog contest (click here for contest info) where you can win a free autographed copy of Paige Shelton’s Fruit of All Evil, I decided to repost my review of her book. Just so you’d know what a great prize this is. 🙂

The best Christmas present I got (excluding the Ipad from Mom)?

The ARC for Paige Shelton’s second book in the Farmers’ Market Mystery series, Fruit of All Evil.

Ms. Shelton does it again with a deliciously good twist. There are enough possible suspects and a variety of clues that leave you uncertain over who the murderer is until the protagonist begins putting the pieces together in the last 40 pages.

The protagonist, Becca Robins is a quirky, true-to-life character. I wish I could set up a stall next to her at the farmers’ market.

I love how believably Becca becomes entangled in what should be police business. Her amateur sleuth foibles are hilarious. Laugh out loud moments included: the cat-in-the-hen-house and the ledge-climbing. Ms. Shelton does an excellent job bringing the reader along with Becca on all her escapades to the point where I held my breath out there on the ledge with Becca.

The other members of the farmers’ market are all well-rounded and endearing, from the curmudgeony Abner to the super-efficient Allison. The setting is always well done, I can picture Linda’s gingerbread house and Drew’s culinary masterpiece of a kitchen. I am not a fan of setting, but it’s worked in and done so well, I scarcely realized I’d read those paragraphs until the image of the place fills my mind.

The plot moves quickly and the transitions are seamless. Every scene builds on the one before it.

The voice is captivating and I can’t imagine anyone not liking Becca. Especially as she tackles the job of “Number One” (maid of honor) to her friend Linda.

And the recipes at the back sound scrumptious.

Dying to get your hands on a copy?

You can  enter my contest to win a free autographed copy or order it from Amazon.

I can’t wait for the next book in the series so that I can return to the town of Monson!

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Win An Autographed Copy of Fruit of All Evil

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Kourtney

In honor of one of my fav authors having a new release in March, I decided to have my first blog contest ever.

The prize:

An autographed copy of Fruit of All Evil by Paige Shelton.

The rules are simple:

  • Comment below with your responses to my questions and your email address.
    • If you want to keep your answers private, comment below with your email address and email me your answers at: kourtney.heintz@yahoo.com.
  • If you answer all 4 questions correctly, you are entered to win a free copy of Fruit of All Evil signed by Paige Shelton. (Ms. Shelton has graciously donated a signed copy).
  • The winner will be randomly selected from the correct entries.
  • The contest ends on March 21, 2011 at 11:59 PM EST.
    • You have 7 days to find the answers and comment. (If you’re good with a blog search function, this should take 10 minutes max)
  • The winner is notified within 3 days via an update in the comments below and an email from yours truly.
  • Note: This contest is only open to people living in the continental U.S.

And now…

The Contest Questions:

1) What is the ingredient in the cookie recipe in Fruit of All Evil that Paige had never worked with before?

2) What tattoo did Paige consider getting after reaching the NYT Bestseller List for the first time in 2010?

3) What was the best Christmas present I received in 2010 (excluding my Ipad)?

4) How does Becca refer to her job as maid of honor in Fruit of All Evil?

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Book Review–Spackled and Spooked

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Kourtney

While in Italy, I finished Jennie Bentley’s second book in her Do-It-Yourself murder mystery series, Spackled and Spooked. Here’s me in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa with Spackled and Spooked.

Excuse the sorta grimace on my face. The sun is: a) shining on me and b) shining in my eyes. Two things I positively hate. But I did it for the photo.

As the second book in the series, Spackled and Spooked, picks up a few months after the previous book. Avery is now romantically involved with the hunky Derek. And they’ve decided to start a home renovation/restoration business.

Derek picks their first property. A ranch where a brutal killing happened 2 decades ago. And then the footsteps without anyone else in the house start…

Creepy? Yup. A fun page turner, definitely.

While the past murder intrigues, another body also turns up. Poor Avery just wants to renovate a house. But duty calls. The only way she can sell the house is to disprove all the heebie jeebies about it. Which requires diving into the murder mystery.

The pacing is great and the book quickly acclimates the reader. A great seamless book 2 in the series.

The killer is unclear through most of the story. There are lots of suspects and Ms. Bentley does a great job spreading the possible guilt around.

I wasn’t quite sure who did what until the last 30 pages. She did an excellent job laying out the clues so when it comes together it definitely makes sense and you have that AHA moment.

I don’t want to give anything away, but if you’re into cozy mysteries, this is a great read.

Avery and Derek have terrific chemistry and are the perfect amateur sleuthing team. I love Waterfield, Maine. The way Ms. Bentley describes the setting, I feel like I’ve been there. And I’ll definitely be coming back for the rest of the series. 🙂

You can get your copy at: http://www.amazon.com/Spackled-Spooked-Do-Yourself-Mystery/dp/0425229130

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Book Review–Too Good To Be True

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Kourtney

During the worst of my jet lag, I couldn’t sleep from 2-6 a.m. for several nights in Italy. What to do? Well, I took my Ipad in the bathroom (so as not to disturb my travel companion’s sleep) and read on the Kindle app. What did I read? The best contemporary romance by Kristan Higgins, Too Good To Be True. In fact, it was so good, it might have kept me up longer, dying to finish it.

First off, the characters are painted in portraits that leap off the page, from the mother whose glass sculptures resemble female genitalia to the snide older sister who zaps everyone with her tazorlike tongue. My only complaint was that it was a single title romance. Because I fell in love with every character in this book and I didn’t want to say goodbye at the end.

The protagonist, Grace Emerson is a prep school teacher with unruly hair whose passion is civil war re-enactments. And her fiancĂ© left her for her younger sister. Ouch. But oh, what a great protagonist. You stick by her side through the whole book. Where she must face her family’s pity until finally she reaches her breaking point. And invents a boyfriend.

The best part is only her older sister and gay best friend are in on it because she did it all the time when she was younger. Everyone else buys her story. But she gets caught up the web of lies and must choose between a real-life-faults-included boyfriend or her perfect doctor that exists only in her mind.

Everyone in this book is 3-D including the younger sister that you want to hate for stealing her fiancĂ©. But Kristan writes in such a way that you can’t fall back on black and white. There’s so many shades of gray and even something I find unforgivable (being with your sister’s ex fiancĂ©) she made believable and somewhat sympathetic.

The plot moves at a nice pace and the wry humor weaved throughout kept me turning page after page. And then there was the bittersweet moment where I realized I had 50 pages left. I couldn’t wait to see how it all turned out, but I so didn’t want to say goodbye to the characters. Not only had they stayed up with me through the worst bout of jet lag ever, but I’d really fallen in love with them.

There is a reason Kristan Higgins is a national bestseller and a two-time winner of the Romance Writers of America RITA Award. She is a triple threat–tantalizing voice, multi-dimensional characters, and great pacing.

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truly, madly– Book Review

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Kourtney

truly, madly is the first book in Heather Webber’s quirky new series about Lucy Valentine, who cannot see auras like the rest of her matchmaking family but can find lost objects.

This talent makes her the “black sheep” of her family….at least in her own mind. But when her father needs someone to step in and run the family business, Lucy discovers just how useful her talent is.

Full of quirky, robust characters and a plot that didn’t reveal itself until the last 10 pages, this is a great read for mystery fans that like a paranormal element and a dash of romance too.

Honestly, I don’t know how to categorize this book and neither did the publishers. The labeled it a novel. Personally, I see it as a mystery with romantic elements and a dash of the paranormal. Something for everyone.

The writing sucks you in from page 1 with this opening line: There comes a time in every girl’s life when she realizes her father isn’t perfect.

Aren’t you dying to hear more?

I was. I finished the novel on my flight to Italy. I have the kindle for book 2 to read in Italy. So excited. The third book is due out soon too.

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The Last Song–Movie Review

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Kourtney

The Last Song was an unexpected tear-jerker. I hate when that happens. What starts out as a bit of teen parental angst and a sweet teen romance ended with my sobbing on the couch.

An absolute must watch if you like Nicholas Sparks’ novels. But make sure you have the tissue box nearby.

Greg Kinnear turns out an amazing performance as the absent dad trying to rebond with his kids. Miley Cyrus holds her own as the rebellious music prodigy.

The plot was slightly predictable with respect to the romance, but the family drama took me by surprise.

Mom cried too. Poor Emerson got so upset trying to figure out why we were both crying.

The kid playing the younger brother totally brought me to the edge of sobbing. What an amazing actor.

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Dust of 100 Dogs–Book Review

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Kourtney

I met A.S. King at the Backspace Writers Conference in May 2010. She is one of the most down-to-earth, approachable author I’ve ever met. Her first book, The Dust of 100 Dogs, sold out at the conference.

At the time, I was struggling with my manuscript’s genre–marketing college age characters as YA. She advised me to change them to high school age if I wanted to sell it as YA and confided that she had written a couple books set in college. But they just take up room in a drawer. The market doesn’t seem to have a place for them.

I followed her advice and it has led to multiple requests for my manuscript, to which I am eternally grateful to her. Sometimes, you need someone to give you perspective on the industry and she did that for me.

That alone made me want to buy her books. She was a genuine person,who took time to help me deal with one of the biggest stumbling blocks in my manuscript.

So I bought both her books–signed copy from Aaron’s Books.

I read Please Ignore Vera Dietz, which is an Edgar-nominated YA novel, back in December and reviewed it. It still lingers in the back of my mind. It’s the kind of book you can’t walk away and forget. And you don’t want to.

So I pushed aside all the other books on my to-read list and grabbed The Dust of 100 Dogs. A.S. King’s first book was as mind-blowingly good and haunting as her second book had been. I’m chomping at the bit for her third due out this year.

But onto the review…

The Dust of 100 Dogs is an amazing tapestry of converging events. Emer Morrisey is a famed teenage pirate who was cursed with the dust of 100 dogs and forced to reincarnate 100 times as a dog before she can return to a human body with her memories intact. There is a short prologue of Emer’s last moments and then we enter the story via Saffron (Emer’s assuming human form again).

Pirate+curse+reincarnation+snarky teenager with knowledge of former pirate queen.

I was hooked by page 4.

The book flashes from Saffron growing up to Emer’s life story to a dog’s life. In a quirky twist, it also includes training tips for dogs. The story draws you deeper into all their lives until they converge on a beach in the Caribbean.

Wow. I never saw it coming. Intricately crafted plot. Beautifully written protagonist, allowing teen angst to combine with bloodthirsty pirate. Three dimensional characters. I teared up as I read all that Emer had to endure. And rooted for Saffron to somehow avenge Emer.

The Dust of 100 Dogs is likely to be my favorite YA read of 2011. Though A.S. King’s third book is coming out soon…

It’s been a week since I finished it and the story still rolls around in my mind. Ms. King painted such a vivid picture of her characters, they become a part of you.

If you’re searching for a spellbinding adventure and an unintentional emotional journey, check this book out.

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If I Stay–Book Review

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Kourtney

If I Stay is a poignant, heart-wrenching story as told through the eyes of a 17-year-old girl who survived a car crash that left her an orphan.

However, the twist is that she is in a deep coma with critical injuries. Somehow, her spirit/soul is outside her body and observing everything from the moment after the fatal collision.

She has to decide whether or not to stay here or give up and join her parents in death. Ms. Forman has captured the voice of her protagonist and we feel every second of Mia’s emotional pain and the weight of this decision.

We root for her to stay, but we are 100% on her side about why she has every right to go.

The book was a super-fast read at 237 pages. I started in Friday and finished it on the train ride into NYC Sunday.

Although the book was told in first person present tense, Ms. Forman used flashbacks to show the relationships Mia built with all the people in her life and why each had a hold on her heart and how they all complicated her choice.

What would you do if you had the choice?

I don’t know. I can’t imagine my world without my parents at 17. I also can’t imagine having a deep meaningful relationship with a guy at 17 (which Mia has with her Adam).

But I think I would stay because leaving is way more permanent. You can’t un-leave.

If you like YA paranormals that make you think and feel –this is a definite to-read for 2011.

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