The Discriminating Fangirl » Contests

Naamah’s Curse Winners!

TDF Pamela — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 03:16:53 +0000

Congratulations to DD, Katrina, and Stassja! Check your email soon for details!

TDF Pamela

The Discriminating Fangirl, who is more likely to answer to Pamela if you shout it at her, is the proud owner of an MA in English, focusing on children's/young adult literature and popular culture. Because of her ample free time thanks to being gainfully unemployed, she reads voraciously. She also loves geeky movies and tv shows, reads comic books as often as she can buy them, and when she's procrastinating, she enjoys playing video games. She can be contacted at t.d.fangirl @ gmail.com and followed on Twitter at the link below.

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Giveaway: Naamah’s Curse by Jacqueline Carey

TDF Pamela — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:00:41 +0000

The giveaway is now closed! Thanks for entering, everyone!

Do you love Jacqueline Carey? I know I do (I thought Naamah’s Kiss, the first book in her new series, was amazing), so I’m very excited to announce that The Discriminating Fangirl is giving away three copies of her newest novel, Naamah’s Curse!

Jacqueline Carey, New York Times bestselling author of the Kushiel’s Legacy series, delivers book two in her new lushly imagined trilogy featuring daughter of Alba, Moirin.

Far from the land of her birth, Moirin sets out across Tatar territory to find Bao, the proud and virile Ch’in fighter who holds the missing half of her diadh-anam, the divine soul-spark of her mother’s people. After a long ordeal, she not only succeeds, but surrenders to a passion the likes of which she’s never known. But the lovers’ happiness is short lived, for Bao is entangled in a complication that soon leads to their betrayal.

The book will be released on June 14, but you can enter now for the chance to win one of three copies!

To Enter:

Comment and tell me either the most exotic, exciting place you’ve been, or the place you’d like to go the most. (counts as 1 entry)
Subscribe to The Discriminating Fangirl’s RSS or email feed, then comment and let me know. (counts as 1 entry)
Follow @tdfangirlblog on Twitter, then comment and let me know. (counts as 1 entry)
Tweet, blog, Facebook, or link to the giveaway in some way, shape or form, then comment and send me the link to your pimpage. (1 entry per tweet/blog post/FB post/etc; only one tweet/post/etc will count, so repeat tweets will not give you more entries)

The Fine Print: This giveaway is open to anyone with a U.S. or Canada mailing address. All entry comments must have a valid email address. The Naamah’s Curse giveaway will run from June 7 to June 21, 2010. The three winners, chosen using randomizer.org’s number randomizer, will be announced and emailed on Tuesday, June 22, 2010. The winners will have until Friday, June 25 to respond. If a winner does not respond by that date, another winner will be chosen and contacted.

Enter early, enter often, and good luck!

Harry Potter Giveaway Winner!

TDF Pamela — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:38:29 +0000

Huge congratulations to Linda! Check your email, and hooray! Thanks to everyone else for entering the giveaway!

Tsunami Blue Giveaway Winner!

TDF Pamela — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:01:26 +0000

Congratulations to Tania! You’ve won a copy of Gayle Ann Williams’s Tsunami Blue! Check your email for a note from me. :)

The Real Magic of Harry Potter Giveaway!

TDF Pamela — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:33:37 +0000

The giveaway has ended!

Read the fastest selling book of all time and experience the adventure from the beginning! Enter to win the complete Harry Potter box set in paperback! And don’t forget to check out Scholastic’s national sweepstakes. They are giving away 4 family trips to Universal Orlando Resort’s The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which opens June 18th!

I know that’s a lot of exclamation points, but seriously, this is a sweet giveaway.

One lucky winner here on TDF will receive:

$50 Visa cash card
The complete paperback box set (books 1-7)

To Enter the TDF Harry Potter giveaway:

Comment here with your favorite Harry Potter moment, or if you’ve not read the books, tell me why you want to read them! (worth 1 entry)
Tweet/blog/facebook about this giveaway, then post another comment here with a link! (worth 1 entry per tweet/blog post/facebook post; you must comment with a link to your tweet/post to earn an entry; only one tweet/facebook/blog post counts toward an entry)
Subscribe to The Discriminating Fangirl! Just comment and let me know how you subscribed (worth 1 entry)
Follow @tdfangirlblog on Twitter! (worth 1 entry)

The Fine Print: The Real Magic of Harry Potter giveaway is open to participants with a United States mailing address only (international readers can enter if they have a friend in the States who can accept their prizes by mail). Entrants under age 13 must have parent or guardian permission to enter. The contest will run from April 12 through May 2, 2010. Winners will be announced and emailed on May 3, 2010. All comment entries must have a valid email address. If the contest winner does not respond by May 5, 2010, a new winner will be chosen. Box set retail value is $86.99.

Please note that if you have never commented on TDF before, your comments might take a little while to appear on the site. In order to keep the spammers from trying to sell us on enhancement products and online card games, initial comments are moderated. As soon as I’ve approved your comment, you’ll be able to comment without delay in the future. Thanks!

Scholastic has launched a Sweepstakes to WIN one of four family trips to Universal Orlando Resort’s THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER! U.S. residents between the ages of 7 and 14 can enter at the link below. (so if you’ve got kids or know some who love Harry Potter, get them to enter! Maybe they’ll take you with. ;)

For more information on the wonderful world of Harry Potter, visit Scholastic’s Harry Potter page, and while you’re entering the giveaway here at The Discriminating Fangirl, check out the series trailer!

Enter early, enter often, spread the word, and GOOD LUCK!

Review: Tsunami Blue by Gayle Ann Williams & GIVEAWAY!

TDF Pamela — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:00:16 +0000

Tsunami Blue by Gayle Ann Williams

Buy It Now: on Amazon.com

Description: With her badass rain boots, her faithful dog, and the ability to predict the monster tsunamis that have reduced the US to a series of islands, Kathryn O’Malley isn’t afraid of much. Cut off from all society, she takes to the airwaves as Tsunami Blue, hoping to save something of humanity as the world around her crumbles. But Blue should be afraid—because her message reaches the wrong ears.

Now she’s the target of ruthless pirates known as Runners who want to use her special talents for their own profiteering—as soon as they can find her. Blue’s only shot at survival lies with the naked stranger who washes up on her rocky beach. A man who might just be working for Runners himself. Torn between suspicion and attraction, the two will have to navigate a surging tide of danger and deceit if they hope to stay alive. (from the author’s site)

This review is based on a free review copy provided by the publisher.

TDF Pamela’s Review: Gayle Ann Williams’s debut novel is an entertaining read, but it unfortunately suffers from stilted characterization and a weak ending.

I have to confess, I bounced back and forth between liking Blue, the main character, and being completely irritated by her. On one hand, she was raised by her Runner uncle–Runners are basically pirates, more on this later–and has lived alone since she was a young teenager. It makes sense that she’d talk to her dog as if he were human, and it makes sense that she would have become a tough person to both fight off the Runners and to survive the isolation of her life. On the other hand… I found her bad ass banter with both the love interest and with the Runners to be contrived and eyeroll-worthy.

The fact that the novel is written in first person didn’t really help me get past my annoyance with Blue’s dialogue–inner and spoken. For example, from page 27:

I twirled the knife into a blur, which was habit. . . . “Depending on what I hear,” I continued, “if I like your answers, I’ll decide if you live” –twirl– “Or die.” Twirl. Man, I’d just impressed myself with this knife act, set a new speed record, even. I was such a badass.

The book falls victim to telling-not-showing syndrome. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a book will be much better if the author shows you what she wants you to understand about her characters/world/plot. When the reader is told that the protagonist is a badass over and over and over, it just doesn’t have the same effect as being shown that Blue can, in fact, kick someone’s ass. We get to see her fighting the bad guys, but she’s constantly telling us how tough she is. I would have liked her much better if she’d stopped talking about it so much and just kicked ass.

Gabriel Black, on the other hand, just didn’t feel developed enough for me. He shows up, half-dead on Blue’s beach, and after she saves his life, he smolders at her, flirts with her, and acts generally dangerous. We get hints of his history throughout the book, particularly in his relationship with two orphaned boys, but I felt like he didn’t have much of a personality at all. He also seems to have a strange obsession with Blue that never quite made sense to me, but this might be because I do have a problem with the love-within-hours-of-meeting trope that’s so integral to a lot of romances.

The world itself and the overall concept of the book are very interesting to me. I like the idea of a world wracked by natural disasters and tsunamis so violent that they’ve reshaped the continents. However, my inner science nerd really wanted more about what was happening, and the explanation that’s given just didn’t satisfy me. However, I say this with the caveat that I like hard science fiction and I read a lot of nonfiction about geology, so I expected a lot more than the average reader will. I did have trouble believing, though, that every major city in the world has been wiped out by the waves. The waves reached Chicago? Denver? Moscow? Wow. Those were really some serious waves. The Runners reminded me really strongly of the Reavers from Firefly in that they’re big, scary, evil guys who rape, murder, and pillage (well, the Reavers didn’t pillage) their way through the islands that make up the world. Life in this world is dangerous, and that definitely comes across through the writing.

The ending, however, just didn’t satisfy me as much as I wanted it to. I won’t spoil it, but it just happened too easily for my taste. It was rather formulaic and would have benefited greatly either from more explanation or less happy-ending. Again, this is one of my issues with romance tropes–I’m not the biggest fan of the happy happy ending where everything bad is gone, blah blah blah, so if you’re a romance fan, your mileage may vary, but I just wished it had been a little more difficult for them.

Despite all of the stuff I’ve just complained about, it was a fun read with some nice, sexy scenes and a very interesting concept. I’m just a ridiculously picky romance reader, haha.

And now, the giveaway!

I have one copy of Tsunami Blue to give away. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and be sure you include a valid email address! If you tweet or blog about this giveaway, you can earn extra entries. Just comment with the link to your tweet or blog entry!

The giveaway is open to residents of the U.S. only (sorry!) and will run April 12 through Monday, April 19. The winner will be announced and emailed on Tuesday, April 20.

Numbers Giveaway Winners!

TDF Pamela — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 15:30:22 +0000

Congratulations to the following winners of TDF’s Numbers giveaway!

Christie
Donna S
Amanda B

Check your email, ladies! And thanks to everyone for entering!

Numbers Giveaway!

TDF Pamela — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:00:34 +0000

This giveaway has ended. Thanks for entering!

Numbers by Rachel Ward
Giveaway!

Three lucky winners will receive a hardback copy of Rachel Ward’s new book!

Ever since she was child, Jem has kept a secret: Whenever she meets someone new, no matter who, as soon as she looks into their eyes, a number pops into her head. That number is a date: the date they will die. Burdened with such awful awareness, Jem avoids relationships. Until she meets Spider, another outsider, and takes a chance. The two plan a trip to the city. But while waiting to ride the Eye ferris wheel, Jem is terrified to see that all the other tourists in line flash the same number. Today’s number. Today’s date. Terrorists are going to attack London. Jem’s world is about to explode! Visit the official Numbers website to read more.

To enter, just leave a comment on this post! You can earn extra entries by tweeting about this contest as well as linking to it on your blog. Just post links to your tweets or blog posts (or wherever you post about the contest) in the comments.

The giveaway will run from March 8 to March 22, so enter early and enter often!

And after you’ve entered, watch the book trailer!

Or click here to watch on YouTube

The Fine Print:
The Numbers book giveaway is open to participants with a United States mailing address only (international readers can enter if they have a friend in the States who can accept their prizes by mail.). Entrants under age 13 must have parent or guardian permission to enter. The Draw Star Wars: Clone Wars book promotion runs from March 8 to March 22, 2010. Winners will be announced on March 23, 2010.

Giveaway: Draw Star Wars: The Clone Wars!

TDF Pamela — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:53:13 +0000

The giveaway has closed! Congrats to the winners!

DRAW STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS Giveaway!

Draw Star Wars: The Clone Wars is filled with tips, techniques, practice space, and translucent overlays to make you a master of drawing. Start with stick figures, move onto basic shapes, and finish up with the details. Use the included double-tipped metallic-colored pencils and black marker to make 20 Clone Wars characters come to life.

Five (5) winners will receive:

a copy of Draw Star Wars: Clone Wars

And one lucky winner will receive:

an autographed copy, signed by Bonnie Burton

To enter, just leave a comment on this post! Be sure you include a valid email address in your comment, as that’s how I’ll be contacting the winners.

Become a fan on Facebook! and Watch the book trailer!

The Fine Print:
The Draw Star Wars: Clone Wars book giveaway is open to participants with a United States mailing address only (international readers can enter if they have a friend in the States who can accept their prizes by mail.). Entrants under age 13 must have parent or guardian permission to enter. The Draw Star Wars: Clone Wars book promotion runs from November 16 to November 30, 2009. Winners will be announced on or around December 1, 2009.

Blog Tour for Free eBooks!

Finn — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:02:21 +0000

Hey guys, it’s my first post and I come bearing news of free eBooks. (What a great way to start out!)

A whole slew of authors over at Liquid Silver Books (these are the 18 and over type of romance books, folks) have gotten together today for a Trick or Treat Hottie Blog Tour. There are only two rules: 1) Follow the trail of blogs, commenting on each one as you go and 2) enjoy all the hotties! I did say free eBooks and here’s where that comes in – commenters who post at each blog will have their name entered in a random drawing and the giving shall commence (there’s a hefty list of books to be given away)!

So, the tour kicks off at Gem’s blog: http://gemsivad.wordpress.com/blog

Have fun and enjoy!

Finn

Finn is a fangirl that turns her nose up to tradition by being a mom who is actually cool – at least in her own mind. She also lives happily under the delusion that one day a knight in shining armor will ride up on a white horse, hand her a stack of comic books and sweep her away to somewhere she’s always wanted to go…a fantasy/sci-fi convention. Finn can be reached at finnfangirl @ gmail.com.

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