Howdy folks, and happy Sunday!

As the first part of our official Steampunk Week comes to a close, we return to our regularly scheduled programming…but fret not! If you want more dirigible-inspired goodness, we’ve got our second installment of Steampunk Week coming at you next month…

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes:

Well, not much today other than – we got a makeover!!!!! Which you’ve probably noticed. If you look above, we’ve installed a brand spankin’ new navigation bar, for your reading pleasure. One of the most frequent comments we got from you good folks in our recent customer satisfaction survey was the need for easier navigation of the site. And we’ve listened! Want to read all about Ana and Thea? Want to search for a specific review? Want to shoot us an email, or peruse our review policy? All is listed and linked above.

We’ve also widened our post area and lightened the background for our sidebars to help readers with different browsers access our material more easily.

We hope you like the changes! And, as always, please let us know if you’re having any technical issues with the site – we’ll try our best to iron things out.

This Week on The Book Smugglers:

On Monday, Ana reviews coming of age YA novel, The Unwritten Rule by Elizabeth Scott.

Tuesday, Thea *FINALLY* gets to read and review The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan – sequel to the Stoker-nominated sensational debut novel The Forest of Hands and Teeth (one of Thea’s Top 10 Books of 2009) by Carrie Ryan! Later in the day, we’ll have Carrie over for a Top 10 List, and to answer five questions about the themes in her harrowing YA novels.

Wednesday, Thea reviews another of her most highly anticipated books of 2010 with the newest installment in Kim Harrison’s ongoing sweet-ass Urban Fantasy series, The Hollows: Black Magic Sanction.

On Thursday, Ana reviews one of her most highly anticipated novels of the year with Maureen Johnson’s Scarlett Fever, sequel to Suite Scarlett.

And finally, we close out the week with a joint review of Seanan McGuire’s second October Daye novel, A Local Habitation!

It’s another busy week, and we hope you enjoy…

And just because this is fun:

Hello everybody, hope you are all having a good Sunday!

We start this mini-stash with some news:

Change of Address

Two of our favorite bloggers have moved to new and shinning adobes:

Racy Romance Reviews is no longer. Jessica has not only moved her blog but also renamed and revamped it (or sort of). Read React Review is the new name and she plans on reviewing not only Romance but other genres as well and keep on writing all of those awesome philosophy of fiction posts. Like this one.

Kenda of Lurv A La Mode is the other one and we luuuurves the new design – very cool. Be sure to check it – the content remains the same awesomeness as always: reviews of romance, fantasy and scifi.

Make sure to update your blogrolls and feed readers!

In other news

Meanwhile, the second part of Jackie Kessler’s “Carpe Noctem” – Tales of the Vampire, part of the Buffy Comics is up and you can preview it here.

Also, the *official* countdown timer for the third and final installment in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy has been released! Check it out:

So. Very. Pretty.

Finally, you may or may not have heard the fabulous news that Carrie Ryan’s paperback release of The Forest of Hands and Teeth debuted at #8 on the New York Times Best Seller List!

We are so thrilled for Carrie – and if y’all haven’t read The Forest of Hands and Teeth, NOW is the time to go forth and buy a copy. Speaking of…you may have seen the shiny new countdown widget in our sidebar. We cannot WAIT for the release of The Dead-Tossed Waves next week – and what’s this? Thea just received her ARC in the mail this afternoon!

Giveaway winners

We also have a few giveaway winners to announce.

The winner of one copy of Something About You by Julie James is:

Shel! (comment#42)

The two winners of the Stacia Kane giveaway taking home the complete set of the Megan Chase books are:

Mel Butcherl! (comment#3)

Sharon K (comment#70)

And the 20 winners of the Kresley Cole giveaway are:

brina g (comment#58)

Anna Shah Hoque (comment#1)

elaing8 (comment#64)

chelleyreads (comment#41)

maered (comment#10)

Amanda Isabel (comment#24)

Ava (comment#76)

Maria (comment#22)

Tracey D (comment#52)

iokijo (comment#74)

Dawn (comment#69)

Rebecca (comment#47)

Virginia C (comment#11)

KayAnna Kirby (comment#6)

GSM (comment#34)

Jennifer K (comment#3)

Laura Hadland (comment#15)

Maija A. (comment#59)

Bianca F (comment#14)

Stacy (comment#45)

You all know the drill. Email us (contact AT thebooksmugglers DOT com) with your snail mail address, and we will get your winnings out to you as soon as possible. Thanks again to everyone that entered, and congratulations to all of the winners!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand that’s it from us today. Well, sort of.

We will be back later with our calendar for the Steampunk Week and launch the event in all its glory! We are excited. Yes, we are!!

Hola compadres!

Another Sunday, another stash, another installment with some fabulous news to share!

Book Blog Covention

A couple of Sundays ago we reported that the first ever con for book bloggers, The Book Blogger Convention, will happen in New York on the 28th of May one day after the Book Expo America (May 25-27) and that Thea was going to attend both whilst Ana was going to stay home dying of envy.

Well folks, some things have changed and we have some further news to report! First of all, the BBC has affiliated with BEA and if you register for the former you are automatically registered to the latter. How great is that?

Second, there are going to be several interesting panels during the con like Professionalism/Ethics, Marketing, Author/Blogger Relationships, Building Community, Writing/Building Content, and Thea has been invited to be a panelist for the Marketing segment!

Finally, because she must be there to see this in person, Ana decided to throw caution to the wind and will be joining the hordes attenting both events! This will be grand, the second time ever the Smugglers get to meet in person. Needless to say, we are Super Excited.

So come on, join us! Registration for the con is still open and available for a discounted rate of $90 (until February 14). This includes your pass to BEA, so it’s quite a deal!

In Other News:

Locus Magazine in its February 2010 issue, published The 2009 Recommended Reading List with inputs from many professionals of Fantasy and Scifi genres. Amongst the listed, some of our own favorites such as the ubiquitous Ark by Stephen Baxter (which seems to be making most ‘top of’ lists); Drood by Dan Simmons, Liar by Justine Larbalestier and Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. And of course, many, many others that we really want to read (what else is new?).

On that same vein (hee),The 2009 Stoker Awards Preliminary Ballot has been released. The Stoker Awards are held each year by the Horror Writers Association in celebration of the best of the genre has to offer. And we are stocked to see Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth and Kaaron Warren’s Slights making the list! The Forest of Hands and Teeth and Slights were two of Thea’s Top 10 reads from 2009. You can read her review for The Forest of Hands and Teeth HERE, and the review for Slights HERE. Also, you can check out our interview with Carrie Ryan, her Smugglivus Guest Post, as well as Kaaron Warren’s guest post about her favorite horror reads of 2009. Congratulations, Carrie and Kaaron!

As you might be aware, the last season of Lost premiered last week with an episode that was mind-blowing and which already sent us into full Theorising Mode. We probably exchanged a hundred emails after we watched the episode discussing the implications of everything that happened to the future of the show. If you are rolling your eyes right now, well, it seems you are not alone. We were shocked, we say SHOCKED, to find out last week, that we, as Lost fans, are officially considered….annoying, Oh, the HORROR, by the non-fans of the show. This, according to this video from The Onion. (Seriously now, THIS VIDEO IS AWESOME. We lurves it. Thanks to Willaful for the heads up).

Current Giveaways:

Don’t forget that our Soul Screamers giveaway is still going! You have until February 15th to enter for a chance to win either both and (first winner) or (two additional winners). You can enter it here.

This Week on The Book Smugglers

We kick start the week with a Lisa McMann special. Thea reviews Fade and Gone books 2 and 3 in the Wake Trilogy and we will have a massive giveaway to celebrate the release of Gone.

On Tuesday, it’s another very special day here at the Book Smugglers. Thea reviews A Dark Matter by Peter Straub, one of the masters of Horror and one of her favourite authors since she was a child. And we are supremely proud to announce that her review will be followed by an interview with the author!

On Wednesday, Ana reviews A Tale of Two Demon Slayers by Angie Fox, third in her Demon Slayer UF series.

Thursday sees Ana reviewing Lex Trent Versus The Gods the first YA offering by writer Alex Bell. The review will be followed by an interview with the author.

Finally on Friday, Thea reviews the Fantasy novel Except the Queen by Jane Yolen and Midori Snyder.

And that’s it from us today.

Enjoy your Sunday!

~ Your Friendly Neighborhood Book Smugglers

Today’s Guest: Katiebabs, aka KB, of the Romance blog Babbling About Books, and More!. KB puts a Herculean Effort into running her blog – she (and a certain demon sheep) post every day, multiple times a day, about all things romance. As one of the very first bloggers to welcome us and introduce us to the wacky online world of reviews, we’re ever-grateful for KB.

So, ladies and gents, please give it up for the exquisite Katiebabs!

When Ana and Thea asked me to take part in Smugglivus once again, I said sure! Not only are these two Book Smugglers one of the best book blogs in all of bloglandia, but they make me work hard when writing own reviews at my blog, Babbling About Books and More because they write such precise and through provoking opinions about all the books they read.

And how could I refuse them after seeing my blog name in their 2009 Smugglivus poster and having the honor of being the only post on Christmas?

I was told to come up with my top 5 books for 2009 to post here. Actually I am going to do something a bit different and post the top 5, with a spare one, that affected me the most as I read. This is quite a challenge seeing as I read close to 300 books this year alone and picking just 5 (and a spare) may be harder than you think.

Deidre Knight’s Butterfly Tattoo published by Samhain really hit me hard. This is not a traditional type of romance. First of all, doors were closed for Deidre as she tried to sell Butterfly Tattoo to the traditional NY publishing houses. They rejected is based on the story. It’s about Michael who was in a fifteen year relationship with a man. His lover ends up dying, leaving him to raise their daughter all alone. Michael doesn’t think he will ever love again, that is until he meets former actress Rebecca. What is amazing about this book is that Deidre Knight has shown perfectly why falling in love is something very powerful and it doesn’t matter who that person may be. Deidre has changed my own personal beliefs about love and why people feel the way they do. After reading Butterfly Tattoo it makes perfect sense that love is found within a person and not based on their gender.

When I read Meredith Duran’s Written on your Skin published by Pocket I became a bit weepy. The reason was the beauty of Meredith’s words. She writes such poetry about an all consuming love affair where two people, who necessarily don’t care for one another, must join forces and work together to save a life. Written on Your Skin is a beautiful, all encompassing experience. Dark and poignant, this book will have you awestruck because the words that Meredith Duran has written reaches deep into your soul.

Carrie Ryan’s Forest of Hands and Teeth published by Delacorte is the only book in a very long time that gave me nightmares. The last time that happened was when I read The Stand by Stephen King was I was 18. This post-apocalyptic end of days tale with flesh eating zombies gave me such a fright. The Forest of Hands and Teeth is a chilling debut by Carrie Ryan. This is a book not for the faint of heart. There is death and destruction, filled with violence and fear, where hope is a distant memory.

Soulless by Gail Carriger published by Orbit is the type of book where you have such a rousing good time as you read. This paranormal steampunk romance brought forth such laughs and an abundance of happiness while I read. That it is a true winner in my eyes. I couldn’t stop smiling for hours after I finished reading. Soulless is one of two books this year I gave an A+ to.

The other book I gave an A+ to and my pick for favorite book this year is Meljean Brook’s Demon Forged published by Berkley. This is in part because I’ve been emotionally invested in Meljean’s Guardian series since the beginning. Why is this book my number one pick for 2009? Demon Forged astounded me in ways no other book did where I was in shock and shaking as I held the pages because I really didn’t know what would happen next. On the surface this book is a continuation of the battle between the angels and their counterparts against evil, but there is more to it. The build up, the romance and the way Meljean wrote a book where she didn’t stick to what’s safe, and took a big chance, where she really didn’t have to with one of her most beloved characters was such a balsy, emotional move and had me cursing her. And cursing an author in this way is a big compliment from me.

Finally the spare I cannot fail to mention is a debut author. Tessa Dare, who writes for Ballantine released a trilogy over the summer, has breathed new life into the historical genre. Where the majority of the historical romance I’ve read has been more fluff than meat, Tessa Dare has shown that with her debut Goddess of the Hunt she has the skill, but it was with A Lady of Persuasion I knew Tessa was a class act all the way.

There is much to look forward to in literature for 2010. There are three authors releasing their debut book in the first part of the year that I must mention who will surely set the publishing world on fire. And I consider myself a bit bias when it comes to these three talented ladies because I’ve known them for awhile:

Sara Lindsey is sure to set the historical genre on fire with Promise me Tonight, to be released in February from Signet. If you are a fan of Julia Quinn, you will not want to miss out on Sara. This is the first book in her Weston family series which features seven siblings all with Shakespearean names. Perhaps she will give Quinn and Stephanie Laurens a run for their money?

For fans of urban fantasy with a twist, keep your eye on Carolyn Crane. Her book, Mind Games, to be released from Spectra in March looks like a combination of action with a kick ass heroine in a quirky setting. You can get a good idea of Carolyn’s personality from her blog The Trillionth Page and the knowledge that this is one intelligent and wonderful woman who is very welcomed indeed.

Also out in March is Lorelie Brown’s Jazz Baby to be released Samhain, set in 1920s New York. When was the last time you read a speakeasy romance? Hurrah for a very different type of romance from the norm.

Many happy holidays, and an awesome new year filled with excellent reading! Perhaps I can hit 400 books read for 2010?

Thanks KB!

Next on Smugglivus: KMont of Lurv ala Mode

Welcome to Smugglivus 2009 – Day 21!

Throughout this month, we will have daily guests – authors and bloggers alike – looking back at their favorite reads of 2009, and looking forward to events and upcoming books in 2010.

Today’s Guest: Danielle, of the YA/Horror/Speculative Fiction/etc blog Opinionated, Me? Danielle is a dedicated blogger and straight-shooting reviewer with a ton of posts to her credit – and she’s only a high school freshman, which makes all her accomplishments even more impressive.

Please give it up, folks, for the awesome Danielle!

When Ana and Thea asked me to be part of Smugglivus, I was more then a little daunted. I’d only been blogging for a short time, and I wasn’t sure I could write a coherent post about what I loved/didn’t love about the publishing world in 2009 (y’know, without rambling). There were so many high points in YA and horror this year, I’m struggling to pin-point the excellent from the enjoyable. So, while extending my deepest thanks to Ana and Thea for putting up with me, here is my bloated Best of list for 2009.

Break by Hannah Moskowitz:

About a boy on a mission to break every bone in his body, Moskowitz’s novel is heartbreaking in a strangely approachable way. It explores beautifully the relationship between brothers and, to a lesser extent, the effects of a loveless marriage. I was sobbing by the end of this baby and, while definitely not for everyone, is something everyone can relate to.

Furnace Lockdown by Alexander Gordon-Smith:

Jesus, this ones scary. About literally the world’s worst prison, a young boy finds himself framed for a murder he did not commit and trapped thousands of feet under ground with no way of escape. Warning: do not read while eating–your food WILL get cold.

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

One of the most frightening novels I’ve read in a long time, and a YA at that. Kind of pseudo-gothic and tragically over looked due to, I’m assuming, the lack of mopey teenage vampires.

Slights by Kaaron Warren

Actually thanks to Thea’s review, Angry Robot is quickly becoming one of my favorite publications with deliciously disturbing releases such as this…I mean, look at the cover.

Dexter by Design by Jeff Lindsey

Ah, Dexter. Do you ever disappoint?

For those who don’t know, Dexter is the serial-killer-with-a-heart-of-gold who currently has his own show on Showtime. He is also a book series that makes my heart cry tears of joy. By now, the books have obviously deterred from the TV series, but they are both nonetheless made of win and should therefore be picked up for some good macabre fun. I was actually going to have a Dexter week on my blog in celebration of Design’s release, but then life happened and I had to push it back so far I forgot where I put it. Maybe one day…

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

Book Two in the Chaos Walking series, anything I can tell you about it would be a major spoiler. Basically, it’s post-apocalyptic and awesome. Patrick Ness has a true gift for storytelling that only comes along once in a while…definitely a must-read and one of the best of the year.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

It’s zombies. Next.

Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks

Not new, but new to me. Addicting in that very odd way where you don’t realize it’s addicting until you put it down and feel the emptiness of where it was nudged in your hand. The conversational tone and cynical protagonist is just so much fun to follow.

Along for the Ride by Sarah Desson

I feel dirty putting this on the list. I am so not a teen romance type of person, but for some reason someone in The Family thought it appropriate to buy me an entire prize pack of Desson novels for my birthday. After several hours of negotiating with a sales clerk to exchange it for a magazine or something, I relented. I am so glad I did. Possibly one of the sweetest, most touching YA I’ve ever read, my faith has been restored in the Cheesy Cover. Perfect for everyone, YA or not.

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

New-to-me and about five sisters who all off themselves within the course of a year, The Virgin Suicides follows the quest several unnamed protagonist take to discover the cause of one of their most alluring childhood mysteries. While I’m not usually a literary kind of reader, I was undeniably attracted to the dark subject matter (emo? Perhaps) and The Virgin Suicides did not disappoint. I’m even considering lifting my Kirsten Dunst ban to watch the movie.

Ballads of Suburbia by Stephanie Kuehnert

“If you made a book of what really happened, it’d be a really upsetting book”

–Angela Chase, My So-Called Life

As a teenager, I am obligated to my occasional “nobody understands” temper tantrums. The beauty of Ballads is that Kuehnert puts down into legible print every feeling of frustration and isolation I’ve ever had, put to the best soundtrack I’ve ever heard. One of the few authors I would say “gets” it, and I definitely look forward to anything she has in store.

Deathwish by Rob Thurman

Cal Leandros, I lurve you. I am equally smitten with your creator for simply bringing you into existence. Continues Cal’s adventures as he battles his half-monster heritage and other assorted angsty subjects, this series continues to be one of the most well-written UF’s I’ve ever read. While it obviously has it’s flaws, Cal’s biting narrative and dare-I-say wacky friends will grab you by the throat (and not in a bad way) and never let go.

Pygmy by Chuck Palnhiuk

While he has dropped significantly in popularity since Choke, Chuck Palnihuk has once again released a gem of WTFery that only a guy who turned soap intimidating could produce.

Causes for Concern

Supernatural:

Dear Eric Kripke (creator of Supernatural),

I am done.

I am done with your ridiculous doomsday obsession. I am done with your “witty” satires on the very fans that made you half-way relevant. I am tired of your WTF plots and inability to actually seem like you give a shit. I am sick to my stomach with not your jumping of the shark, but taking a soaring leap over the shark and proceeding to punch it in the face. I am hurt, and I am saddened. This relationship has brought me nothing but grief and heart-ache. I feel like my IQ has gone down just for sticking with you as long as I have. I have given more then you have even thought of giving me. I am tired of you face-raping my beloved Jenson Ackles with Paris Hilton’s big nose and I am so goddamn done with your stupidass oneliners. You hear me? Done. Finished. Over. You can leave your keys on the counter.

Hatefully yours,
Danielle

Under the Dome by Stephen King:

Oh, I had so wanted to love this book. I had shelled out the 35 dollars out of my measly 120 dollar per-week pay check, I had lugged it with me to school and back again, I had shoved it forcefully into my backpack and sacrificed countless hours better spent on homework or socializing reading it…and I’m greeted with this mess? Really, Steve?

Really?

Please, friends, don’t be another causality of Irrational Pricing. If your so terribly obsessed with Mr. King, just go to the library. 35 dollars is not an appropriate price range for this mess.

Most anticipated:

I’m really not one to anticipate over books unless they’re actually available (less I loose my mind) but this is definitely at the fore-front of my 2010 shopping list:

Self Promotion At It’s Finest:

A friend and I started something of a project: see if we can get ONE journal to as many people, places and countries as possible. We called it the Big Fat Nerd Journal, and are looking for some more participants. You can sign up at http://bigfatnerdjournaltour.blogspot.com, or just click the button:

As far as pop-culture has gone, it’s been a pretty shiteous year. More movies have disappointed then blown minds, Jon and Kate have been considered real celebrities, people such as the guy from Renegade have been awarded television shows, and the standard for entertainment has been dropped so low it has fallen off satellite radar and scientist believe it to have melted somewhere in the Earth’s core. But at least we can say goodbye to those horrible 2000 glasses.

Happy holidays.

Happy Holidays to you too, Danielle!

Next on Smugglivus: Kristen of Fantasy Cafe

Welcome to Smugglivus 2009 – Day 16!

Throughout this month, we will have daily guests – authors and bloggers alike – looking back at their favorite reads of 2009, and looking forward to events and upcoming books in 2010.

Today’s Guest: Carrie Ryan, YA author who debuted in 2009 and is already one of Thea’s favorite writers (The Forest of Hands and Teeth blends a post-apocalyptic world and ZOMBIES). You can read our interview with the author here.

Recent Work: The Forest of Hands and Teeth, set to make Thea’s Top 10 Books of 2009. You can read her review here.

Ladies and gents, Carrie Ryan:

Smugglivus

Ever since October 2007 when I sold my debut novel, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, and found out it would be coming out in Spring 2009, I’ve been focused on this year. I’ve spent so much time and energy looking forward to 2009 and living through this year that it’s hard to believe it’s almost over.

One of my biggest joys this year, aside from that whole debut thing, was having the chance to meet and become fast friends with other debut young adult authors and I set out early to read as many of their books as possible. The best part of doing so was that I got to expand my horizons and read such a wide variety of books! Like Sarah Rees Brennan’s The Demon’s Lexicon, Aprilynne Pike’s Wings,

Michelle Zink’s Prophecy of the Sisters, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s Beautiful Creatures: these books spanned the globe, spanned time, and spanned creatures

I got to live so many lives and worlds and also share the experience of being a debut author all in one!

The first of these books I read was Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell and I feel in love with her voice – I still go back and read passages just for the beauty of her words.

Another book that I stayed up late into the night was Sarah Cross’s Dull Boy — what I loved about Dull Boy is that I wasn’t sure how I’d like it since I didn’t know much about superheros and yet I was captivated (and awed by her wit and humor – LOVE her characters).

And of course I also loved reading books by more established YA authors: Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan (which had be shouting “barking spiders!” for weeks afterward) and Justine Larbalestier’s Liar which is so amazingly twistedly wonderful. Laurie Halse Anderson’s book Wintergirls also has amazing language — just beautifully written.

Another YA favorite from 2009 was The Season by Sarah MacLean. Now, I’ve spent a whole lot of time reading Regency romances but for some reason I hadn’t read any for a few years. Sarah MacLean reminded me of my deep abiding love for romance novels. I stayed up late re-reading all the glances across the ballroom, all the double entrendres and flirting and then I begged her to give me a reading list so I could dive back into that world.

I was lucky enough to read Sarah MacLean’s first foray into adult romance for Avon, Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake and WOW. I think this might be the book I’m most excited about for 2010. I loved this book so much that when I was running errands with my mother I left early so I could sit in the store parking lot with my computer to read the last chapter.

Another joy of 2009 has been sharing it with my critique partner, Diana Peterfreund, and her YA debut, Rampant. She was writing Rampant when I started writing my debut, The Forest of Hands and Teeth and we shared chapters and cheered each other on. I loved Rampant (two words: killer unicorns!) and I’ve read the next in the series, Ascendant, and I couldn’t put it down!

It may not sound like it, but I did read some books other than YA (but not many!). My favorite of these was Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster. My sister emailed me lines from this book saying “I think there might be something wrong with me because I’m laughing so much with this book!” which made me grab it right then. Nothing wrong with her – I laughed so hard reading this I think I got an ab workout (and I’m working my way through her other books now – she’s hilarious).

I’m super excited about 2010 not only for my next book, The Dead-Tossed Waves, but also for some other books I’ve already had the chance to read: Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce and Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver and of course lots of second books from all my debut friends (and one that got bumped: Sea by Heidi Kling) .

I can’t believe 2009 is almost over! Hopefully 2010 will be just as much fun!

Thank you, Carrie!

It’s Adios! to week 2 of Smugglivus and Hola! to week 3. But before we tell you the line-up for another MUY LOCA week, we need to announce last week’s giveaways winners!

Simon and Schuster UK giveaway (swag with titles for 2010):

The winner is……..Peta

The Julie James Giveaway:

The winner is…Susan Laura (Comment #11)

The Nalini Singh Giveaway

The winner is…….Donna S (Comment # 23)

The Sherrilyn Kenyon Giveaway:

The winner is….SaraC (comment #34)

Flash Giveaway

Winner of batch 1: Ginny
Winner of batch 2: Debbie (comment # 62)

Congratulations! You know the drill – send an email to contact AT the booksmugglers DOT com with your snail mail address, and we’ll get your winnings out to you as soon as possible! Thanks to all that entered, and if you didn’t win this time, don’t worry. There’s plenty more where that came from!

This Week on The Book Smugglers

The week starts later today with a guest post from Linnea Sinclair, one of our favourite Sci-fi Romance writers.

On Monday, we have Historical romance writer Kate Noble with her fave reads (and other cool stuff) of 2009

Later on Monday, Thea will post reviews of Vampire Haiku by Ryan Mecum and I am Scrooge – A Zombie Story for Christmas by Adam Roberts.

On Tuesday, our Smugglivus guest of the day is Ilona Andrews, followed by our joint review of Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.

On Wednesday, we have two more Smugglivus guests: writers Carrie Ryan and Diana Peterfreund tell us all about their top reads of 2009 and…

…then on Thursday, Fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson tells us all about his upcoming book The Way of Kings and Alice Morley from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers with what we can expect from the publisher in 2010 with a fabulous ARC giveaway!

On Friday it is Sarah Rees Brennan’s turn to tell us about her Favourite Things of 2009 (with a special giveaway), followed by Thea’s review and giveaway of Raiders Ransom by Emily Diamand.

Finally on Saturday, Fantasy writer Sam Sykes talks about what books he loved best in 2009 followed by a post by Historical Fiction writer Susan Holloway Scott with her own list.

Then FINALLY (phew), on Sunday, our last author/publisher guest, Erin Galloway, publicist for Berkley and NAL, tells us all about the upcoming books from the imprint.

And after that…it is guest bloggers’ time to dish about their favourite reads of 2009!

So buckle up, we have only just started!

~Your Friendly Neighborhood Book Smugglers

For today’s guest, we are very lucky to have young adult authors Diana Peterfreund (of Rampant fame) and Carrie Ryan (genius behind YA zombie novel, The Forest of Hands and Teeth) over to guest blog. For their topic, they’ve decided to write about another young adult author: The Awesomeness That Is Christopher Pike.

Please give it up for the lovely Diana and Carrie!

Hi, we’re Carrie Ryan (The Forest of Hands and Teeth) and Diana Peterfreund (Rampant). Our first teen novels came out this year. They’re filled with supernatural horror and teenage girls who must fight for their lives – sort of like the novels we read and loved when we were younger… the novels of Christopher Pike. In honor of Halloween, we decided to have a Pike reminiscence and love-fest. This is the conversation that transpired.

Diana: My favorite Pikes were MONSTER, SEE YOU LATER, and MASTER OF MURDER.

Carrie: Your memory is so much better than mine.

Diana: Just because I’m LOOKING at them. I have a stack of them here on my desk.

Carrie: I wish I’d gotten my box of books. I’m sure just holding them would make me remember. I read these books on weekends, staying up until 3am usually because I HAD TO KNOW what happened.

Diana: Yeah, me too. I remember Monster kept me up all night, and I kept trying to convince myself it was just fiction, so I could go to sleep without thinking that vampires from outer space were going to come eat me.

Carrie: Oh, that’s right! His vampires were from outer space!

Diana: And India. He had those vampires too. That’s actually the one they’re reissuing and is on the bestseller lists right now: THE LAST VAMPIRE, with the sexy immortal blonde girl vampire from India. Not MONSTER, with the crazy bat-like alien vampires.

Carrie: Those books taught me to speed read. [Carrie goes online to look up old favorites.] It’s interesting to read this flap copy now.

Diana: Why is that?

Carrie: His plots – the descriptions – don’t seem as complex as I remember: “Kid goes on vacation, someone dies, haunting ensues.” But I remember the stories being so fantastically unique. They were SO beyond anything else I was reading or thought about.

Diana: I wonder how much of that was that they were going to tone down anything that seemed out of the ordinary, for marketing purposes. I love the covers. Neon candy colors with blood dripping from the fonts – but not girly, even with all the pink. All these gorgeous paintings of girls with long glossy hair in jeans and sweaters standing with boys in jean jackets pulling them to safety. (Even though the girls could take damn good care of themselves.)

Carrie: Oh yeah, the covers bring back TONS of memories.

Diana: Is there any Pike book you specifically want to talk about?

Carrie: What’s the one with the bad coke? [note: that’s the one where someone was forcing people to snort bad cocaine and killing them]

Diana: DIE SOFTLY.

Carrie: I wonder whether you could have a book like that now. I can’t remember at the time if I was appalled by the story line – I doubt it. I think today there might be issues with it being too dark or edgy (or, would it be considered a problem novel). And I also wonder if it would fly in terms of plausibility. The chick’s killing people by making them snort it (duct tape over their mouth).

Diana: Yes! That was freaky. “Say no to drugs, kids.”

Carrie: I remember that ending with him setting up a camera in his closet and AS HE’S DYING he hears the photo shutter. Of all the books, that’s what stands out in my mind because I never saw that coming and I thought it was so brilliant, because the chick would have gotten away otherwise. Now, I wonder if readers would think “Oh, they’d find the tape residue on his mouth,” because they watch so much CSI.  I wonder if today you have to be hyper aware of forensics and stuff like that. I NEVER thought about those types of things when I first read the books but maybe today’s teens would.

Diana: That’s a good point. It was weird how sometimes he’d write thrillers with no paranormal elements, and sometimes they’d be supernatural. And sometimes they’d start out as thriller/mysteries and then BECOME supernatural in the sequels. Like, I loved CHAIN LETTER but then I thought the sequel kind of went off the rails.

Carrie: Oh, I forgot about that one! The best thing about CHAIN LETTER is that there were actual Chain Letters out there – I remember getting them. Not this email nonsense – real letters with stamps.

Diana: I still remember how scary that was, especially in the sequel, where the supernatural came in. How you moved your name up on the list, and then once you were at the top of the list, your name went into the box. “Once you are in the box, you stay in the box.” that line was so scary, I remember it more than a decade later.

Carrie: See what I mean about memory?

Diana: Because – spoiler warning — the box was hell.

Carrie: Maybe you didn’t like the sequels as much because it’s that initial figuring out the world that’s so interesting with him.

Diana: His worldbuilding was fascinating. It was always so Californian and had that New Age flare, too—biofeedback machines and reincarnations, etc. So different from what I was used to in Florida.

Carrie: And me in South Carolina. It sort of gave it an even more otherworldly aspect.

Diana: We two southern girls living vicariously through the liberal woo woo Californians in Pike novels!

Carrie: LOL. But I never felt like I couldn’t “get it.”

Diana: I didn’t even have cheerleaders at my high school, let alone sociopathic coke dealing ones.

Carrie: I was a cheerleader at my school – haha!!

Diana: Did you deal coke?

Carrie: No, not so much.

Diana: Did you sell cookies? That was their cover.

Carrie: I made stupid plastic cups filled with candy for the football players.

Diana: Close enough!  I guess I must have read a lot of these in middle school, because had I tried in high school, I might have gone, wow, why does everyone have boyfriends in this!

Carrie: The other thing I really like about Pike is the games he plays with the narratives. It’s a question of who is telling the story and when. There are a lot where it’s the cop interrogating people later on.

Diana: Oh yeah. I loved that. The first-person narratives in REMEMBER ME, where she’s dead, and in THE LAST VAMPIRE, were very powerful. Who is telling DIE SOFTLY? Herb, right? But he dies.

Carrie: Just because someone was narrating didn’t mean they’d make it at the end, which, from an author standpoint, is fascinating. It’s also something I love about writing YA because as an adult I wonder if I’d find something like that trite because I’d seen it before? But there’s always got to be that first time and that’s the BEST feeling – when you’re reading and for the first time to realize that your narrator can die.

Diana: Do you have something to tell us, Carrie?

Carrie: About my characters dying? LOL. That’s what I love about writing for teens. It’s always new for them.

Diana: All those little narrative tricks. Unreliability, killing off the protagonist, story-within-a-story (which he does in so, so many of the books, ROAD TO NOWHERE, THE MIDNIGHT CLUB, WHISPER OF DEATH)… Pike kills off a lot of people in his books. No one was safe.

Carrie: I love how he sort of took these ordinary things we all knew – chain letters, scavenger hunts – and then made them horrific.

Diana: That’s where I always thought horror is scariest. That’s what Stephen King does so well, Dogs, cars, trucks, sink drains, cornfields….

Carrie: I learned not to pick up hitchhikers from Christopher Pike.

Diana: Ha! That was ROAD TO NOWHERE. Awesome cover. Chick with a skeleton hitchhiker in her car.

Carrie: I think reading Pike then expanded my understanding of how far authors could go. It’s exactly what you said – no one’s safe, which I think added to the thriller aspect. I mean, there’s a comfort in reading a romance where you know things are going to work out, you just don’t know how. They’re still page turners because it’s the figuring out how that’s fascinating, but with Pike… all bets were off.

Diana: And so many of his books started out with death. Just reading the descriptions people are dealing with the death of someone in the group…their murder, their suicide.

Carrie: They always are. Do you think that was a choice he made cause he was writing thriller and death is an easy thriller choice? Or do you think he was trying to deal with something more?

Diana: He wrote one from the perspective of a serial killer—Dexter before Dexter. THE WICKED HEART. I think it’s a way of saying these teens are already in danger, they’ve already seen darkness. Usually the past death is connected to whatever is going on. It’s the inciting incident, from a storytelling perspective.

Carrie: I wonder if I would have read them differently if I’d dealt with something like death as a teen. Because as a reader, I got to hold those stories out at arm’s length.

Diana: That’s a really good question. I don’t know if you see books like this for teens anymore, where they aren’t called “problem novels.”

Carrie: Me neither. It’s more common to see books that deal with suicide be more in the vein of THIRTEEN REASONS WHY.

Diana: So many of the Pike characters have best friends or exes that committed suicide too, but instead of sitting in a diner listening to tapes, they are fighting the killer vampires from outer space.

Carrie: Or being haunted… literally. Hmmm, I was about to say that that’s because the books aren’t about the suicide, but aren’t they? I mean, dealing with a literal ghost of the dead person… isn’t that just a stand in for how people deal with suicide and death? He just makes it literal?

Diana: True. You could probably write an excellent comparison paper between 13 REASONS and Pike’s WHISPER OF DEATH.  They are both about a teen girl suicide whose last act on Earth is to arrange a post-mortem payback for the people she blames for her death. Hannah of 13 Reasons does it with tapes. Betty Sue in Whisper does it by magically creating a parallel dimension in which she horrifically kills the people who made her suffer in life.

Carrie: Huh, that’s really interesting to think about. Just looked on the Amazon website – for Whisper of Death they have the reading level at ages 4-8… er… no

Diana: Really? That book STARTS with an abortion. And then this one guy, Helter Skelter — I’ll never forget it – is walking on this wall that turns into a razorblade and splits him in two.

Carrie: Ugh – that’s very Saw.

Diana: That book actually IS very Saw, now that I think about it. It’s very horror porn — the horrific killings. Now, people might say some of the stuff in his books was way too old for middle schoolers, which is mostly when I read it. I never even thought of it. Rape and murder and abortions and coke dealers. I read them at 11, 12, and people are saying “oh, this is 14 or 15 and up” now.

Carrie: I never thought any of it was too mature for me.

Diana: Or maybe people were saying it then too and because I was a kid, I never heard it.

Carrie: It never freaked me out – except for late at night when I needed to know how it ended.

Diana: It freaked me out, but then again, I’m a wimp. As for horrific deaths, there are some in Suzanne Collins that are just as horrific…the wasps, the mutts, etc. The more things change….

Carrie: Good point.

Diana: Pike’s books were always thrillers, and sometimes they were supernatural thrillers, which at the time was called horror. It’s like how now they call books “dark fantasy” what might have been called horror. Like your book. I’ve also seen reviews of Rampant that call it horror.

Carrie: Really? I never saw it that way.

Diana: It’s kind of how when chick lit was popular, people would try to call any sort of women’s fiction chick lit. Sometimes, with these old Pikes, you had to read the book before you knew if it was supernatural or not. That’s another thing they don’t do now. That and let books with all that death slide without being a Book About Death. Though I guess your book starts with deaths.

Carrie: True, but I don’t think of it as a problem novel.

Diana: Well, THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH isn’t even set in our world. Pike’s novels were always set in OUR WORLD.

Carrie: Which made it easier for them to at once seem real and accessible, but still didn’t feel like it was going to happen to ME, which kept that horror at a distance.

Diana: You don’t think it would be more at a distance if it was set in another world? That’s what scares me about the “normal” horror – I’ve been in a rest stop bathroom, I’ve been in the house with the lights off. This could happen to me. I’ve never lived in a religious compound in the zombie-infested forest after the apocalypse.

Carrie: No?

Diana: I remember making the conscious choice to start RAMPANT like a horror movie. Babysitter, boyfriend, monster in the woods.

Carrie: I’m not sure I even saw all that but it’s true. Wow, I’m shocked I missed that.

Diana: Me too. And grumpy. There was also a lot of meta in Pike novels. Like he would have his characters go to see a movie based on another of his books, or he would have them mention his other books. For instance, the characters in FALL INTO DARKNESS were inspired by reading GIMME A KISS, and the writer in MASTER OF MURDER seemed to have written FALL INTO DARKNESS. That was another favorite, actually. MASTER OF MURDER was about a teenage bestselling horror novelist and no one knew it was him, including his crush, who was a huge fan. Such fantasy wish fulfillment for me!

Carrie: I loved reading books about people in publishing.

Diana: I wonder how many aspiring teen writers reading that book got the totally wacked out idea that they could be a secret novelist and no one but their agent would ever know their true identity. I know I suspected Pike was really some 17 year old kid when I read that particular book.

Carrie: Oh, I’m totally sure of that. I even remember another book that was basically the same idea: popular genre writer with a pen name and the book they’re talking about in the book is the book you’re reading (wait… was that too convoluted of an explanation?)  I totally felt like reading Pike is what got me to not only love books, but love the idea of writing.

Diana: I actually met Pike’s longtime agent this summer at a cocktail party and I totally monopolized her telling her what an inspiration Pike was to me.

Carrie: Yeah, I remember you calling me right after that happened.  I felt the same way when I met RL Stine (which is who I read after Pike).  I spent most of the time around him being stunned and wanting to tell him just how much of an influence he was on me. Do you think your writing now is influenced by Pike?

Diana: I do, especially when it comes to characters making plans. Pike wrote characters who thought things out and made these elaborate schemes. You’d have chapter after chapter of the character going “Okay, this is how I’m going to fake my death/kill the alien vampires infesting my town/whatever. I’m going here and I’m getting this harness and I’m building this kind of bomb that will throw me clear…” And it was always so interesting, watching the plans come together, watching them work or fail or backfire. Nothing came easy for the Pike characters. They really had to work for it, and there were dangers and consequences of messing up.

Carrie: That is totally so true and I think that’s what I’ve taken from him – how things can just get worse and worse and you never know what the consequences could be — nothing was taken off the table (death, dismemberment, happily ever after).  That’s what really kept me reading: I just never knew what would happen.

You know it’s just sort of funny to find ourselves here as critique partners, having grown up in totally different places and yet both loving Christopher Pike and both being influenced by him/taking inspiration from him. Man, I really need to go get that box of Pike books out of my dad’s attic once I’m done with this deadline.

Diana: I was in the store the other day and his reissued vampire books (THIRST) are shelved next to RAMPANT because of our last names – Peterfreund and Pike. That seemed so incredible to me. I can’t imagine someone going up to 13 year old me in the Waldenbooks clutching a copy of REMEMBER ME and saying, “One day, you’re going to be right there on the shelf next to him.” And now I am.

Carrie: OMG that is just about the coolest thing ever! To be on a shelf next to Pike – heck being on any shelf in a store at all.  You’re totally right, my 13 year old self would have died (and my significantly older self still does die when I see my book near his!).  Thanks Mr. Pike!

Thank you, Diana and Carrie, for the fabulous post, and trip down memory lane! You’ve both inspired me to bust out my old Pikes for a Halloween re-read (luckily, I have them with me thanks to my sister):

Some of them are pretty tattered, but readable. And I’ve had them all these years, through multiple moves…so I’m proud of my Pike collection.

How about you? Any Christopher Pike books you love? Or any YA horror favorites you care to share?

Hello, good morning and welcome!

Another week ahead of us and plenty of cool things to come but first….

A Couple of HUGE Announcements:

We have just received some AMAZING news! Joel Sutherland, speculative fiction author extraordinaire, has made the final ballot for the 2009 Stoker Awards. His psychological horror novel, Frozen Blood is up for Superior Achievement in a First Novel (along with David Oppegaard’s Suicide Collectors, another author we’ve read and interviewed here). We’ve read and loved Joel’s short story work, in Fried! Fast Food, Slow Deaths and The Beast Within, and were blown away by his fantastic debut novel effort with Frozen Blood. And so, we offer our sincere heartfelt congratulations to this new author, and have our fingers, toes, and any other appendages crossed for Joel!

For those interested in giving Joel’s hopefully soon-to-be-award-winning horror novel, it is now available online at Amazon.

In other spectacular news, debut author Carrie Ryan has announced that the movie rights to her zombie young adult novel The Forest of Hands and Teeth have been purchased!!!! Here’s the Publisher’s Weekly tidbit:

Alan Nevins of Renaissance Literary & Talent has just closed film rights on Carrie Ryan’s YA novel, The Forest of Hands and Teeth. Nevins, who brokered the deal on behalf of Jim McCarthy at Dystel Literary, sold the book, which Delacorte Books for Young Readers published in March, to Seven Star Pictures (K-11, forthcoming). Nevins said the book, a zombie thriller set in colonial times about a girl who lives in a religious community in the woods and is equally worried about a zombie invasion and her planned marriage, is in line to “do for zombies what Twilight did for vampires.” Supposedly Seven Star is developing the project for an-as-yet-unnamed A-list starlet, and fast-tracking the project with a first draft of the screenplay already in the works.

Hell. YES.

As The Forest of Hands and Teeth is already one of Thea’s favorite reads of 2009, we couldn’t be more excited for Carrie and for the film. If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading Carrie’s evocative, haunting, soon-to-be-a-hit-movie debut, go forth and do so. Immediately.

Contest Winner

The winner of our recent contest: Keeper of Light and Dust by Natasha Mostert is

Jo, congratulations! Please send your snail mail address to contact AT thebooksmugglers DOT com.

This week on The Book Smugglers

On Monday, Ana will be rambling about her reviewing process in another piece for our series Smugglers Ponderings.

On Tuesday, Ana reviews Always a Scoundrel by Suzanne Enoch

On Wednesday, Thea reviews Diamond Star by Catherine Asaro

On Thursday we will review Strange Angels,the new YA book by Lili St.Crow

And finally on Friday, we will do a joint review of Pride, Prejudice and Zombies:

And finally, a piece of advice:

GO WATCH STAR TREK – WE BEG OF YOU, FOR EVERYTHING THAT IS SACRED AND HOLY.

We can’t even begin to tell you how much we loved the movie and how it is made of awesome. We loved the storyline, the science made sense, the surprises (!!!!!!!) and above all, the acting. Every single one of them was spot on: Spock and Kirk more than anyone else. There is this one scene….no, we shall not tell, but know this: it kicks ass. Plus, Young!Kirk? HOT!!!

That’s it for today folks: we leave you with this message:

When word about Forest of Hands and Teeth started to spread over the net, Thea grew more and more impatient to get her greedy hands on it. She finally did and she loved it . And we have to thank our good friend Karen Mahoney – official honorary Book Smuggler and pimp extraordinaire – once again, for setting up a correspondence between us and Carrie Ryan.

Carrie was kind enough to take the time during this busy release week to chat with us about the book, zombies and how she came to be a writer ( also it’s great fun to see how Thea tries to squeeze Carrie for secret information about the sequel while Carrie pleads the fifth, repeatedly. It’s Clash of the Titans right here!)

Ladies and gentleman, please say hello to Carrie!

The Book Smugglers: In The Forest of Hands and Teeth, the world has been ravaged by the “unconsecrated” – that is, zombies. Little, however, is known about the origins of the unconsecrated or life before “the Return.” Can you tell us a bit about the cause of the Return? What inspired you to write about zombies, and an isolated existence in the forest?

Carrie: When I was writing The Forest of Hands and Teeth I purposefully didn’t talk about the Return and the origin of the apocalypse. Part of this is just the structure of the book – Mary, the protagonist, didn’t know so the reader doesn’t get to know. But also I wanted to emphasize that the book isn’t about the Return and that the people of this world have accepted the world they live in. It’s not a zombie novel as much as a novel that happens to have zombies. You do learn a little more about it in subsequent books though.

I ended up writing about zombies because I was looking for a new idea any my fiancé, JP, told me to write what I love. I jokingly said “the zombie apocalypse” and he just smiled at me. A few days later as I was walking home from work the first line popped into my head and I emailed it to myself. When I got home I couldn’t stop writing!

The Book Smugglers: Have you always been a fan of the walking dead? Any favorite zombie books or films you’d care to share with us?

Carrie: I actually refused to watch any horror movies growing up due to an unfortunate Poltergeist incident in which my baby sitter convinced me to watch Poltergeist when I was only four years old. But then somehow my fiancé convinced me to go with him to the opening night of the Dawn of the Dead remake when we were in law school and that got me hooked! I’ll watch pretty much any zombie or apocalypse movie but my favorite zombie movies are probably Night of the Living Dead and Shaun of the Dead. I’m also a big fan of the graphic novel The Walking Dead and, of course, World War Z.

Shaun of the Dead

The Book Smugglers: The Forest of Hands and Teeth ends on something of a cliffhanger – will there be a sequel (pretty, pretty please!)?

Carrie: Yes! And it’s actually already written! The title is The Dead-Tossed Waves and it will be coming out in Spring 2010. It’s not a direct sequel but is set a while later and from a different point of view.

The Book Smugglers: Your book uses two different types of zombies: the standard slow, shambling variety and the vicious, fast variety. Why the difference? Will we find out why some unconsecrated are fast and others remain slow moving?

Carrie: There’s definitely a reason for the difference between the two and I promise you’ll find out why in the second book!

The Book Smugglers: In the book we are introduced to a village surrounded by fences in the woods, and later find that there is another village out there, connected by the same system of fences. Are there any more villages we don’t know about? Do the fences led anywhere else?

Carrie: Another question I have to pass on for fear of spoiling future books!

The Book Smugglers: The sisterhood that ran the village was a secretive, powerful lot – will we ever find out what else they were hiding? Is the village gone for good? What were your inspirations for this zealous, powerful group?

Carrie: I do hope that the reader ultimately understands more of what the Sisterhood was hiding and why. I don’t think that Sister Tabitha and the rest of the Sisterhood meant to be malicious – I think they were doing what they honestly thought was best for the village and the people who lived there. But that’s just my opinion and I think it’s totally fine for readers to feel otherwise!

My lips are sealed re: the other questions

The Book Smugglers: Should the zombie apocalypse strike, do you have a plan for escape, survival and/or rebuilding your life? (‘Cuz we Smuggler geeks do! )

Carrie: Like Ana, JP and I are pretty much doomed unless we’re lucky enough to be out of town when the apocalypse hits. Our house is only one floor and there are tons of windows! Plus living near a city means the outbreak would spread rapidly. We wouldn’t survive there for long at all. So our plan is to pretty much get the heck out of dodge as fast as possible, high-tailing it to his parents house in the mountains. There I have no idea what we’d do… probably hope that zombies are inherently lazy and unwilling to climb a mountain just for a tasty treat.

The Book Smugglers: You are a practicing lawyer who has turned to writing young adult fiction! Can you tell us a bit about why you decided to become a writer and your road to publication?

Carrie: I actually always wanted to be a writer (at least since high school) but knew my odds of making it were pretty unlikely. So being a lawyer was essentially my back up plan. I loved law school and still love the law but the practice wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. Around the beginning of 2006, about four months after starting at a firm, I looked at JP and said “I need an exit strategy!” That’s when I really started taking my writing much more seriously.

I’d written and submitted two novels before going to law school and so my first step was to re-join the author community. I joined Romance Writers of America, began reading blogs and making friends, and most important of all, I started writing.

I wrote partials of a few novels before I started The Forest of Hands and Teeth during NaNoWriMo in 2006. I finished the first draft in April, 2007 and then revised the heck out of it until my critique partner got fed up with me and subbed the book to her own agent. This prompted me to close my eyes, take a deep breath and hit send on all the query letters I’d already prepared. I signed with my agent and sold that October.

The Book Smugglers: Who are some of your influences? Favorite authors?

Carrie: I think every book I read influences me in one way or another as I see how other authors approach the craft. Who my favorite authors are changes every day, but I really love Nabokov, Faulkner, Scott Westerfeld, Holly Black and Suzanne Collins. Recently I’ve read some wonderfully witty and clever characters written by Sarah Cross (Dull Boy) and Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon’s Lexicon).

The Book Smugglers: The zombies are coming! Aaaargh! You can save ONE book, ONE movie and ONE television show. QUICK! Name them:

Carrie: Ack!! If I only get one of each for the rest of my life then I’d probably take the Simpson’s as the television show because there are just so darn many of them! I’d never get tired! The movie would probably be The Princess Bride which I can watch a million times. The book is harder to decide… probably the Zombie Survival Guide

Save The Princess Bride

The Book Smugglers: We Book Smugglers are faced with constant threats and criticisms from our dear significant others concerning the sheer volume of books we purchase and read—hence, we have resorted to ‘smuggling books’ home to escape scrutinizing eyes. Have you ever had to smuggle books?

Carrie: Boy do I know how that goes! I love to own books and have finally gotten JP to accept this (he even got me a new bookcase for our anniversary!). When I was practicing law I’d order my books from Amazon (since I rarely had time to go to the local indie) and I’d get the packages delivered to my office where I’d take them out of the box and just take them home tucked in my purse

So there you have it folks: the world is being taken over by book smugglers! A big thank you to Carrie Ryan for taking the time to answer our questions and we wish her all the best with her book.

Born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, Carrie Ryan is a graduate of Williams College and Duke University School of Law. A former litigator, she now writes full time. She lives with her writer/lawyer fiancé, two fat cats and one large puppy in Charlotte, North Carolina. They are not at all prepared for the zombie apocalypse.

NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY :

We have one copy of Forest of Hands and Teeth to giveaway. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post – simple as that. The contest is open to ALL and will run until Saturday March 21st at Noon PST and we will announce the winner on Sunday. Good luck!