Double Giveaway -- The Diary of Minnie Bonner and That Time I Joined the Circus

Thought for the Day:

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." ~Ernest Hemingway~

Some Gifts for My Writer Friends:

Here are some links I think you will find valuable.

Click HERE for a terrific post on creating maximum conflict in your fiction.

If you are searching for an agent, click HERE for a post listing the top 25 agents by the number of deals for children's books they made last year.

For the seven deadly sins of self editing, click HERE.

Last week I had a chance for someone out there to win a copy of New Lands, the second book in the Chronicles of Egg series. Our lucky winner this week is ....Ta Da!..... Joanne Fritz!!  Joanne is a blogger and writer who can be found HERE. Hop on over and see what she is up to. Joanne, I will be in touch to arrange to have New Lands sent to you. Congratulations!

Now I must tell you, I have been pretty unbelievably busy making a dirndl. Really. My granddaughter's teacher announced last week that the kids should wear a costume tomorrow that represents from where their ancestors emigrated. Faced with watching my daughter pay a LOT of money to rent a dirndl or digging through my massive store of fabrics and making one sans pattern, I chose to make one. I'm cheap even with other people's money. And no one asked me to do it. I volunteered. So I've no one to blame but myself for being totally exhausted this evening. And it turned out pretty cute. I should have an official photo tomorrow and will try to remember to post it next week. 

This is all by way of saying I just don't have it in me to write a review tonight, so instead I will link to two book reviews I wrote recently for the Sacramento Book Review and I will be giving them both away. 

The first is a middle-grade book, part of the Dear America series. This one is The Diary of Minnie Bonner: A City Tossed and Broken, San Francisco, California, 1906. It is an uncorrected proof, but I don't remember seeing any problems. I really love this series, and this book is no exception. You can see my review by clicking HERE.

The other is a YA, but certainly not a hard-core YA. More sophisticated upper-middle-grade readers might well like it. It is That Time I Joined the Circus. You can find my review by clicking HERE.

To have a chance to win, all you need to do is be a follower and leave a comment. If you would like extra chances, you can Tweet the link to this post or post it on Facebook or on your own blog. Just let me know and I will give you extra chances in the drawing.

Don't forget to check out the original Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday blog run by Shannon Messenger. It's always fun to read and there are usually other giveaways there as well You can find it HERE.

For the giveaway, it is for U.S. readers only. Sorry, I fund this myself and can't afford to send out of the country. Thanks for understanding. But please leave a comment. I love to hear from you.

New Lands Review and Giveway (even for my Canadian readers!!)

Thought for the Day:

“Nothing changes your opinion of a friend so surely as success - yours or his.” ~Franklin P. Jones~

Here are some links for my writer friends. I hope you find these valuable.

Click HERE for a good post with some plot generators. The 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th are really good. It also has some great ideas for getting rid of writer’s block.

Great post on building tension can be found by clicking HERE.  

 

For something every writer who ever leaves the house should read, click HERE. 

 

For my wonderful giveaway, the winner is Patty Hawthorn! (WooHoo!) Patty, I will get The Wrigley Riddle and On the Run to you soon. If you didn't win today, worry not. There is another great giveaway today. Read to the end and you can enter.

 

In March, I reviewed the first book in the Chronicles of Egg series by Geoff Rodkey Deadweather and Sunrise. If you missed that review, you might want to look at it HERE before reading the review of book two, New Lands, I’m posting below.

When we last saw our hero, Egg, he and his pal Guts have escaped from Pembroke, but they know well he is still after them and the treasure map. They travel to the New Lands to the town of Pella Nonna. Life turns out to be pretty darned good there as Guts turns out to be an extraordinary guitarist and becomes very popular. Of course, that popularity brings a certain amount of notoriety. That’s not a good thing for a couple of guys on the run from someone as powerful as Pembroke.

There are too many twists and turns to be believed in this fun, quirky second installment of the Egg Chronicles. I really don’t want to tell too much of what goes on, because if you haven’t yet read the first book (What are you waiting for????), knowing almost anything about this book could ruin it for you. The only issue I have with this book is that the ending is truly a cliff-hanger, and we have no idea when the third book will be out. It hardly seems fair to make us wait!

The publicist has generously offered to give away a copy of this newly released

Geoff Rodkey

book. If you’d like to win this second book in the series, be a follower (if you are not one yet, check to the right and join – it’s easy) and leave a comment. If you post the link on Facebook or Tweet it or post it on your blog, let me know and I will give you extra entries.

Don’t forget to stop by Shannon Messenger’s wonderful blog for more Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday links. Click HERE to find it.

On the book giveaway, this is for U.S. AND Canada!! That's a real bonus for this blog. Remember, if you have trouble leaving a comment, click on the title of the post and it will give you just this post with a comments section on the bottom. Also, if you haven’t signed up by email, please do. Just look in the upper right-hand corner of this page, pop your email address in, and you will receive an email each time I put up a new post. Your information will not be shared with anyone.