It’s time for another Guest Dare – the November edition. For those new to the feature, our Guest Dare is a monthly endeavor in which we invite an unsuspecting victim to read a book totally outside of their comfort zone. You can read all previous Dare posts HERE.

This month’s victim is the fabulous Rhiannon Hart – prolific blogger and aspiring author of Young Adult fantasy. Rhiannon’s reading tastes run towards the Dystopian and Apocalyptic (sound familiar?), especially of the YA persuasion. When we contacted her for a guest dare, she came back with a laundry list of genres she’s uncomfortable towards, we (naturally) found a way to encompass multiple areas of discomfort in one book – a male protagonist, in a science fiction setting (minimal physics involved), with multiple war/thriller storylines. The book is The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold, starring none other than the incomparable, indomitable Miles Vorkosigan.

Ladies and gents, please give it up for Rhiannon!

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Title: The Warrior’s Apprentice

Author: Lois McMaster Bujold

Genre: Science Fiction

Publisher: Baen
Publication Date: 1986
Paperback: 320 pages

Stand alone or series: The first book to feature Miles Vorkosigan in the ongoing Vor series and the first book published in the series, though technically the fifth story in the series. (Think Star Wars Episodes I-III versus IV-VI – The Warrior’s Apprentice is starting at episode IV)

Why did we recommend this book: After discovering this series last year, Miles Vorkosigan has become one of Thea’s favorite protagonists. And when Rhiannon mentioned her aversion to scifi, male protagonists and war/espionage thrillers, we knew immediately that Miles and his shenanigans would be able to win her over. Thus, we recommended The Warrior’s Apprentice!

Summary: (from amazon.com)
Between the seemingly impossible tasks of living up to his warrior-father’s legend and surmounting his own physical limitations, Miles Vorkosigan faces some truly daunting challenges.

Shortly after his arrival on Beta Colony, Miles unexpectedly finds himself the owner of an obsolete freighter and in more debt than he ever thought possible. Propelled by his manic “forward momentum,” the ever-inventive Miles creates a new identity for himself as the commander of his own mercenary fleet to obtain a lucrative cargo; a shipment of weapons destined for a dangerous warzone.

Rhiannon’s Review:

Miles Vorkosigan has eleven generations of proud warriors preceding him, all weighing heavily on his stunted, fragile frame. His attempt to qualify for the Barrayaran Military Service Academy and follow in his illustrious family’s footsteps fails when he breaks both legs on an obstacle course. At a loss for what to do with himself now he’ll never become an officer, he turns his attention to Elena, the beautiful daughter of his bodyguard, Sergent Bothari, to help her found out the truth about her unknown mother. A chance meeting with a jump pilot about to have his ship scrapped on Beta colony sets in motion a series of events that sees Miles become the leader of a private, imaginary army, and embroiled in a war against the Oserans.

From the very beginning of this novel I was fascinated by Miles. He’s the perfect combination of audacity, wit, ego and fragility. On a planet where defects are barely tolerated, Miles’s physical imperfection makes him even more determined to prove himself, especially to his father. His catchphrase “forward momentum” is an apt one, and combined with an overwhelming desire to help the underdog (who he is prone to identify with) he becomes embroiled in all manner of sticky situations. Outward he is austere and commanding; in private he is fraught with worry and prone to tears. I don’t know whether I want to clasp him motheringly to my breast or tongue pash him.

I was relieved at how character-driven the narrative was. I’m not a sci-fi aficionado despite all the speculative fiction I read. I get a bit lost in deep space. I really like to know how things look and where they sit in relation to one another. The problem with space is it’s mostly empty (funny that) and I can’t get a proper handle on where things are. All the worm-holing and planet-hopping that went on had me a bit baffled, and see now why it may have been a good idea to read the two preceding books in this sequence, if only to learn more about Beta and Barrayar, what they look like and where they sit in relation to Earth. While I had a hard time visualising things, the social aspects and interplanetary relations were well fleshed out. I loved the contrast between the prudish and sheltered Barrayarans and the liberal Betans. Cordelia, Miles’s mother, is from Beta and also the protagonist of the first two novels, and her exasperation with Barrayarans his highly amusing.

Overall, this is a very funny book. I had a huge grin plastered on my face the whole time I was reading it and frequently laughed out loud. Bujold is a true wit. It’s also very touching, exciting and believable. Bujold doesn’t try to tie things up too neatly. Characters with a sordid past are neither demonised nor exonerated. They just are. I will definitely be picking up the other books in this series and picking up more sci-fi in general. I think a lot of teenagers would get pleasure out of books like these, but no one seems to writing them for a mass audience at the moment. Perhaps I should try! I’ve heard whispers that after the wave of dystopian novels that is about to submerge us up to our necks in end-of-the-world scenarios (hurrah!) sci-fi will be the next big thing. I better start researching rocket fuel and air-locks.

Thanks for having me, Smugglers! This was a fantastic dare, and maybe the start of a beautiful friendship between me and deep space sci-fi.

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There you have it, folks! Rhiannon is converted to the wonder that is science fiction and the awesomeness that is Miles Vorkosigan! Thanks again to Rhiannon for being a good sport, and for the fabulous review!

Next on the Guest Dare: We are actually letting you off the hook next month, as Smugglivus will be in full swing – but don’t fret! The Guest Dare will be back, with a vengeance, come 2010. If anyone is down for a challenge, feel free to email us or leave a comment here! We are always hungry for a new victim…

“Inspiration and Influences” is a new series of articles in which we invite authors to write guest posts talking about their…well, Inspiration and Influences. The cool thing is that the writers are given free reign so they can go wild and write about anything they want. It can be about their new book, series or about their career as a whole.

Our guest today is debut author Lori Brighton. Her first book, Wild Heart (released last week by Kensington Books) is a paranormal historical romance with a bit of mystery on the side, and the first in a series. You can read more about the book here. We are happy to open the floor to the author so that she can talk about the inspiration behind the story.

Ladies and gents, Lori Brighton:

One of the most common questions an author receives is where do you get your ideas? It’s rather like asking a bird how they fly and for a brief moment there’s usually a confused pause as we frantically search for something to say. If we’re lucky a memory will come to mind, something seemingly insignificant, yet important for the basic fact that the tiny detail, that tiny moment, started the ball rolling. For my debut book, Wild Heart, that significant moment started with a children’s cartoon.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start where most things start…at the beginning. I got my imagination and creativity from my mom, a woman who writes poetry and always has a book in hand. As a child I read, a lot, but I never really wanted to be a writer. The grammar rules that went along with English class bored me to tears. It didn’t stop me from making up stories in my mind. When I was upset or bored, it was the perfect time to retreat into my make-believe world. Also, growing up in a family with little money to travel, forced me to use my imagination; it was the only way I could go places. ?

Then one fateful day when I was around sixteen years old, I discovered Julie Garwood. Instantly I fell in love. England, Scotland, alpha heroes and that suspenseful adventure she does so well, all influenced how I would write my own books. I’d always been interested in history, but now it was romantic. Living in the Midwest in the U.S. I was surrounded by the Victorian Era, so its not surprising that my books often take place during this era. It’s also the time period in which one of my favorite books takes place, Jane Eyre.

You can find the influence of Charlotte’s gothic writing style in my own book. It’s also that dark, gothic style that has fueled my interest in the paranormal. I’ve always enjoyed the paranormal. I’m pretty sure we lived in a haunted house when I was a child. When I wrote Wild Heart, it seemed almost natural to add the paranormal element. I figured by adding in the paranormal, it would make it more unique.

So how did Wild Heart come about? This is going to sound odd, but the Disney Cartoon Tarzan.

My son was watching it a few years back. Around the same time, I saw a documentary on Discovery or some equally educational channel about feral children. I’d seen them both rather close together and thought, hmm, what would it be like if my hero had been lost in the wild during his childhood? And so with one little question, a book was born.

So what about you? Who or what has influenced where you are at this moment? Leave a comment. Two people will win a copy of my debut book, Wild Heart.

A big thank you to Lori Brighton and good luck to all who enter! Contest is open to US and Canada residents and runs till Saturday 14th November 11:59 PM (Pacific). Go!

Today, for our last guest of the season, we have the incomparable Katie(babs) of Babbling About Books, And More!. Katie has decided to write a little bit about some of the scariest places to visit, in Travel Channel fashion!

Without further ado, we give you the lovely KB!

When the Spooky Book Smugglers asked for me to join in on their scary Halloween Week, I was stumped on what to post about. In the past I have talked about my favorite scary books and movies, so thinking of something totally different to post was difficult. (even though I had about a month to think about it *blush*).

Along my blog and website hopping across the internet I found myself at Travelchannel.com and their post on the Top 10 Creepiest Places. This list is the most frightening places in the world:

10. Bermuda Triangle
9. Haunted Hollywood
8. Tower of London
7. Mutter Museum of Medical History
6. Gettysburg
5. New Orleans
4. Salem
3. Roswell
2. Winchester Mystery House
1. Lizzie Borden Bed-and- Breakfast

Out of the 10 here, I have visited 4 of these places. I guess you can assume I haven’t been to the Bermuda Triangle because I would probably be stuck on some alternative island universe ala the show Lost. (Not that I wouldn’t mind being a beach bump with either Matthew Fox or Josh Holloway.)

The Tower of London is filled with so much history, over one-thousand year’s worth! Unfortunately I didn’t see any ghosts walking around with their heads in their hands. Salem is a bit cheesy and corny but still a fun time and Gettysburg, PA is very tragic and spooky because as you look down on the battlefield where the North and South fought the most deadly battle of the Civil War, chills wrack your whole body because the ghost of that battle and the dead, their residual energy still remains. There is also this wonderful Wine Festival in September there that I also recommend you go to if you have the chance.

But the one place I wanted to specifically point out is number 2 on this list. The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, CA is an amazing structure that may or may not be haunted!

Why is the Winchester House such a creepy place? The house is full of rooms with stairs and doors to nowhere! You open a door and there is a wall. Stairs lead up toward the ceiling. It is a winding labyrinth with rooms that make no sense.

I even walked up one set of stairs and bumped my head on the low ceiling. O.o

The story behind the Winchester House is pretty sad. The reason the house was built this way is because:

“When rifle heiress Sarah Winchester began building her Victorian-style mansion in 1884, she pledged that the construction would never end during her lifetime. The reason? She thought the continuous noise would appease the ghosts that plagued her after the deaths of her husband and daughter as well as help her attain eternal life.”

“Sarah Winchester built a home that is an architectural marvel. Unlike most homes of its era, this 160-room Victorian mansion had modern heating and sewer systems, gas lights that operated by pressing a button, three working elevators, and 47 fireplaces.”

The Winchester House is not a house of horror but a wonderful and marvelous mansion full of bizarre features and oddities. The rumors still persist that the victims killed by Winchester rifles haunt the house that was never finished, roaming the halls, confused because of the stairs and doors that lead to nowhere.

Out of the 10 creepy places mentioned, which ones have you been to? How about some places that aren’t mention that you may have visited that should be placed on this list? And if you have been in the Bermuda Triangle and lived to tell about it, do they have a island happy hour there?

Thanks again, Katie!

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?

Greetings, friends! Our next guest for Halloween Week is the lovely Kristen of Fantasy Cafe. Kristen isn’t much of a horror reader, but when we invited her over for the week, she was eager to give one of Thea’s favorite childhood authors, Christopher Pike, a try.

Ladies and gents, please give it up for Kristen, as she reviews Whisper of Death!

I have a confession to make: I’m a serious wuss when it comes to horror. Normally I avoid it like the plague due to childhood memories of being completely creeped out by anything the least bit spooky. When I was about six years old, I saw the movie Aliens and was terrified for at least a year. (This was around the time Alf was popular so my six-year-old self had learned to associate aliens with light-hearted and funny instead of horrifying before this movie scarred me for life.) Just the sound of the spooky Unsolved Mysteries music was enough to keep me wide-eyed and awake at night with the blankets pulled over my head.

For some reason I was in the mood to be adventurous and give horror another shot this Halloween. I mentioned to Thea that I could not remember reading a horror novel since reading R.L. Stine as a teenager so she kindly offered to send me a copy of Whisper of Death, one of her favorite novels by Christopher Pike, who was another popular YA horror novelist around the same time R.L. Stine was widely read. So one afternoon I settled in to read my first Christopher Pike novel, making sure to read it while it was bright and sunny out. Iím glad I did since its premise would have had me turning all the lights on and constantly looking over my shoulder if it was dark out, especially if it was eerily quiet too (not that eerily quiet happens often living in a college town).

The first couple of chapters describe the meeting of Roxanne and Pepper, who begin dating. Soon after that, Roxanne becomes pregnant so she and Pepper gather up some of their savings and head out of town early one morning to get an abortion. Once she and Pepper return to their hometown, Roxanne notices it is very quiet and she cannot even get a TV channel or radio station to come in. It almost seems as though she’s the only person left…

Roxanne becomes completely freaked out and runs around the town yelling and knocking on doors only to find she really does seem to be the only person in her neighborhood. Eventually, she meets up with Pepper in the center of town since he came to the same realization she did and tried to find somebody, anybody else in their town. They find they are the only inhabitants along with three other teenagers – a troublemaker, the smartest kid in the school, and a gorgeous and popular girl. After wracking their brains to try to figure out how they are connected, they realize it may be Betty Sue, a girl from their high school who recently committed suicide. Yet everybody seems rather secretive concerning her and those who are closest to her seem wary about discussing her in any detail. They go to Betty Sueís house anyway where they find some stories she has written – stories in which each of them dies.

Whisper of Death is a quick read and it is easy to fly through. The first couple of chapters didnít hook me since there was a lot of teenage angst and discussion about how hot Pepper looked (the story is all told from Roxanne’s perspective), which Iím not really a fan of. Once Roxanne discovered that most of the town seemed to have disappeared, the story really took off. At that point, I really wanted to know what happened next and how the death of Betty Sue and her stories tied together. I ended up reading the whole book in one afternoon.

This may be easy reading but there are some rather heavy, mature themes in this book, especially considering it was marketed as YA. Thatís not necessarily a bad thing, but I couldnít help thinking about how my mother would have died if she found out I was reading this book when I was a young adult. Not only does Roxanne have sex in it but she becomes pregnant, and there is some time spent on her agonizing over the decision of whether or not to keep the baby and how it will affect her life and Pepper’s.

Toward the end of the book, there was a sort of odd twist and it worried me that the book was going to have one of those cop-out “it was just a dream” endings. Fortunately, this was not the case and it was one of the most bizarre, twisted, wtf-inducing conclusions I can remember reading.

I had fun with my first foray into horror in years, but I wouldnít say Iím a convert to the genre yet. I enjoyed it while I was reading it, but once I put it down I found it fairly unsatisfying since it didnít stick with me for very long afterward. The messed-up way it ended did have me thinking about it for a little while, but I tend to remember the books where I really come to love the characters for the very longest. While Roxanne was likable and I had definite sympathy for her plight, I found myself focusing on what happens next instead of what happens to her and her friends, meaning my reaction once I finished was to think “fun book” but not “I want more right now!” Thatís not the fault of the book at all; itís just the way I am as a reader. I’m sure it wouldn’t be fair to judge all of horror as not being particularly character-driven based on one book, so feel free to recommend me some creepy books with great characters for next Halloween!

But anyway, back to the book now that I got the caveat about my personal preferences out of the way…

Whisper of Death is a great read for Halloween – it’s short enough to read in one sitting and is rather chilling. The brave can read it Halloween night but for someone easily spooked like me I’d recommend reading it during the day when your imagination isn’t likely to run away with you and creep you out.

6/10

Thank you Kristen! And we’re glad you enjoyed Whisper of Death!

For our next stop on Halloween Week, we have the fabulous paranormal romance/urban fantasy author Meljean Brook over for a guest post!

We are unabashed Meljean fangirls – so when we were inviting folks over for Halloween, she was one of the first names that came to mind. And, we were ecstatic when she agreed to put something together for our Halloween Celebration! Today, Meljean will be talking about Silver Bullet – the ’80s horror flick, starring Corey Haim and Gary Busey.

Without futher ado, please give it up for Meljean Brook!

Silver Bullet

Thanks to Ana and Thea for inviting me over for Halloween week! This is one of my favorite events at The Book Smugglers, so I’m thrilled to take part.

When Thea asked me what I wanted to do, the first thing that came to mind was writing a pseudo-review of Stephen King’s Silver Bullet, a 1985 werewolf movie produced by Dino De Laurentiis (Flash Gordon, Conan the Barbarian, Army of Darkness, and a bunch of other Stephen King-based movies) and directed by Daniel Attias (usually a TV director, including Buffy, Alias, House, and a gazillion other episodes of various shows.) I’d been thinking about Silver Bullet a lot lately, and how, when I was nine years old, I used to scare the crap out of myself walking home. We lived out in the boonies, and the driveway from the main road where the school bus dropped me off to our house wound through the woods (the Oregon kind, which are tons of tall fir trees surrounded by leafy underbrush that is very, very easy to hide in (I know this, because I used to hide in it and scare the crap out of my sisters and cousins when they had to walk the road at night)).

Anyway, I used to sprint down that drive in record time, certain that either a wendigo or the werewolf from Silver Bullet would leap out and kill me. Maybe I shouldn’t have watched it that young. But the truth is, there wasn’t any way I couldn’t watch it. If a movie was scary and I could sneak it past my parents, there was no holding me back.

The Basic Premise: Over the course of a summer, a werewolf terrorizes a small town in Maine (this is Stephen King, so of course it is.) One eleven-year-old boy, Marty Coslaw (played by the Corey of the Haim variety) and his sister, Jane (played by Megan Follows, best known for Anne of Green Gables) discover who the werewolf is and, with the help of their Uncle Red (Gary Busey, in what might be the perfect role), plan to kill it.

And I loved the movie. Sure, it scared the crap out of me, but I loved it. When I was 13, I read the novella it was based on – Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King – and aside from being intrigued by the structure of that novella, I don’t remember a single thing about it … but I remembered (quite fondly) many, many elements of the movie.

Would it hold up after twenty-three years, though? When I was nine, I didn’t make jokes about Corey Haim. When I was nine, the image of Gary Busey’s teeth weren’t yet burned in my brain. The two main characters – Marty and Uncle Red – are both played by actors whose Hollywood history and pop culture status is much, much bigger than their roles here. So, watching it now, would it just be crackalicious fun with one of the Coreys and crazy Gary Busey, but not worth watching for the movie itself?

The answer? Yes, it is crackalicious fun with Corey and Gary. And I still love it. There’s a lot that just works in this movie, and it thankfully outweighs the stuff that doesn’t.

(Everything until the end involves minor spoilers.)

The characters are hands-down the best part of this movie. Wheelchair-bound Marty is at the center of the action, and his disability plays an enormous part in the both the suspense and illuminating the other characters, yet the movie avoids making him precious, avoids making statements, or falling into any cloying sentiments that could have easily bogged down both the plot and characters.

Gary Busey just might have been made to play Uncle Red. He’s a twice-divorced alcoholic who dotes on Marty and whose sister (Marty’s mother, in a small but well-played role by Robin Groves) disapproves of his lifestyle. He’s the uncle who comes over to his sister’s house, gets drunk and plays poker with Marty, tells the naughty jokes, shouts obscenities, and builds Marty’s motorized wheelchair-bike (the Silver Bullet).

Early on, there’s this great conversation between Red and Marty’s mother, Nan, after Red has come over for one of those drinking nights. She asks him not to drink in front of Marty, Red yells at her not to boss him around (ah, those big sisters.)

NAN: Red, I don’t care how you live. But he is a very impressionable little boy.
RED: You know, you think your only responsibility is getting his butt out of the chair and into the tub and out of the chair and onto the toilet. And you oughta realize there’s more to Marty than him not being able to walk.
NAN: It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?
RED: Yeah, it is!
NAN: You blow in here once a month, and you tell a few jokes, and you have a few beers, and you want to lecture me about how to raise my son. Well, I am the one responsible for how he feels when he sees you like this, and how he feels when you leave! Red, Marty has enough strikes against him as it is—
RED: (interrupting) He doesn’t have any strikes against him!
NAN: —that I am scared to death that some day he is just going to give up.
RED: He’s not going to give up!
NAN: Well he doesn’t need you showing him how to do it!

And this is the kind of dynamic that I really love in this movie. Yes, the mother is over-protective, and yes, Red is a bad role model. But both of them are understandable and believable, and yes, both of them are right. What I also find impressive is that, despite this blowup and the echoes of it in their later conversations, Red and Nan still get along later. There’s no making either one of them into the bad guy or the good guy. And Red, whose view of Marty seems to sit somewhere in the realm between Denial and Eternal Optimism, is the one who eventually puts Marty in a position where he’s in the most danger – yet even that action isn’t ever given a ‘bad’ label (because the ‘bad’ is obviously the werewolf, no matter how recklessly-indulgent-cuz-he-loves-Marty Red can be.)

Then there’s Jane, who is perfect (and more importantly, also believable) as the sensible older sister who is resentful of the burden Marty’s disability places on her and of how much slack their mother gives Marty, but who isn’t Teh Eveeel. She forgives him when he’s a twerp without martyring herself, and apologizes when she’s been overly impatient with him. She also plays the necessary straight man against Marty and Uncle Red. Her mixture of practicality and acceptance becomes essential to the plot – as close as Uncle Red and Marty are, it is Jane who is able to convince the skeptical Uncle Red that a) Marty is in danger, and b) the killer might be more than just a psycho human.

Silver Bullet isn’t a character-driven movie, though – it’s werewolf-driven. Between the scenes where we get to know Marty and family, we get to see the werewolf killing people: the drunk railroad maintenance man who he beheads with a swipe of his paw (when I was nine, that flying head was the most awesome shot ever), the pregnant single woman who is about to kill herself.

The first two murders only touch Marty peripherally, but the third victim is his almost-girlfriend’s drunk slob of a father, and the fourth victim is Marty’s best friend (and kind of a jerk) Brady.

Are you sensing a theme about the victims here?

The small town is essentially another character in this movie, and is described at the beginning (before the terror) as “A town where people cared about each other as much as they cared about themselves.” Which is, I think, a fantastic description – it first gives the impression that everything is on-the-surface perfect, but really … how many people care about themselves and take care of themselves as well as they should?

The townspeople aren’t as nicely drawn as the Coslaw family – they definitely run more to stereotypes: The hunter at the bar with the loud mouth, the gentle giant bartender who carries a baseball bat called ‘The Peacemaker,’ the in-over-his-head but competent sheriff, and the minister who tries to comfort everyone when everything starts going apeshit and the bodies start piling up.

And this is another point where I love this movie. Horror so often takes an apparently-perfect situation and peels back the layers to reveal the rot hidden underneath: the drunks, the molestations, the secret pregnancies. Silver Bullet doesn’t do that. Those things aren’t hidden in this town; everyone knows that the first victim was a drunk, and Jane sees the pregnant woman being rejected by the father of the baby. At one of the early gatherings of the townspeople in their favorite bar, we learn that everyone knows who is behind on their taxes. This isn’t a town of secrets; it’s a town where people are just people, for good or bad, and everyone recognizes that.

So when even the ‘bad’ people in the town are shown to be normal, it highlights the werewolf’s wrongness even more. A town that has a few drunks? That’s normal. Ripping them apart? It’s unnatural.

This is another point where the movie really works: It doesn’t try to explain the werewolf. There’s no mystic force behind it, no ancient curse, we don’t know how [spoiler] became a werewolf, and it’s even suggested that he doesn’t even know how he became one.

One thing that often kills horror movies is digging too deep into the reasons WHY? and then coming up with a crappy explanation. How many times have you sat in a movie (or read a book) that, although it was going along great, suddenly became really, really stupid as soon as you found out why it was all happening?

Silver Bullet avoids that by … well, avoiding it. I imagine that some viewers will be disappointed that there’s not more explanation behind the werewolf, but it really worked for me.

Was the werewolf scary, though? … hmm, maybe not so much. Although some of the suspenseful parts where the werewolf is stalking someone out of sight were well done, Silver Bullet suffers from the same problems that many similar movies do: Once you show the monster, he’s not quite as scary. (This is also the scene that I’m talking about when I say that Uncle Red, though acting out of love, doesn’t exactly help Marty and is reckless – he gives Marty some fireworks to go shoot at night, even though there’s a mass murderer on the loose that has already killed his best friend. In romance, we call that TSTL, and I’m not sure who is dumber here: Marty or his uncle.)

There is a transformation scene, too – though not bad by 1985 standards, it’s also not An American Werewolf in London or The Howling.

Then there are a couple of missteps, and the biggest one comes right in the middle of the movie. A little humor is all well and good in horror (and I think necessary), but there is a scene after Brady has been killed when the townspeople form a mob to go after the killer. There’s some great tension between the people, the sheriff, and the boy’s father. There’s a lovely setting in the woods where the fog is thick and creeping over the ground, and visibility is low, and the townspeople realize they are being hunted beneath the fog.

And it all becomes a joke. I’ll admit I laughed out loud when the werewolf started beating the people with The Peacemaker (the bartender’s bat) because it was campy and funny … but it also throws off the tone of the movie, and it doesn’t make sense. The whole point of the werewolf is that he’s ripping people apart, he’s unnatural, he’s terrifying … he shouldn’t be funny. And yet that scene skews him in that direction. And even though it’s only for a short time, it makes everything feel off, and something that should have been horrifying (Brady’s death, and the townspeople’s mob-like reaction) is played for a laugh.

But despite that misstep, and a few other “Oh, come on!” moments, this is a fun, solid little film, perfect for Halloween (or any other time when you have friends over, and shouting OMG, IT’S ONE OF THE COREYS! seems like it might be just as entertaining as the movie itself).

Or, you know, just play this fan-made tribute to Corey Haim.

Thank you Meljean for the fabulous post! And holy crap, that Corey Haim tribute video is something else.

Yesterday, the wonderful Harry Markov of Temple Library Reviews – or Harrymonster, as we like to call him – had us Book Smugglers over at his blog for a Halloween interview. Today, we return the favor! See, Harry, Ana and myself make up our own Unholy Trinity – Harry as Harrymonster/chainsaw-wielding maniac, Ana as the master Ninja Assassin, and I as ZombieThea (note the battle cry for BRAAAINS). In the spirit of our Trinity, of course we had to have Harry over for a chat.

Without further ado, we give you our chat with Harry!

The Book Smugglers: Do you celebrate Halloween?

Harry: I don’t have Halloween traditions, although mentally and spiritually I am all tuned for the holiday and if you visit my home town you will most likely find me begging evil creatures that hide in the dark to devour people I generally don’t like. There have been attempts to participate in a masked party or just roam the streets and shuffle around. So far I have missed the last three years on such plans, but hopefully this year.

The Book Smugglers: What (if any) are the Halloween celebrations in Bulgaria? Can you describe your traditions (even if they are completely your own and have nothing to do with Bulgarian celebrations)?

Harry: Since we are orthodox in Bulgaria, there is pretty much no such thing as Halloween. We are fans of the martyrs and saints and usually have special dedicated for these figures. But there is one tradition that comes closest to Halloween. The men dress up as monsters and dance in the streets with bells to scare the evil winter spirits and bring health and fertility with the new year. It’s a very loud exorcism and dates back to the Middle Ages, if I am correct in my estimation.

The Book Smugglers: What was your most outrageous Halloween costume? (Or, what would be the most awesome/outrageous costume you wish you could wear, but never have?)

Harry: I haven’t had an official costume yet for Halloween, but during my German classes we had quite a few stage games and I have worn a lot of costumes, but none were outrageous. I want to paint my body in chalk white, add blue-grey and wear white hair and eyes. The costume will be plastic sheets wrapped around me in a robe fashion as if I am a corpse in one of those morgue sacks, but see through.

The Book Smugglers: If you could be any Halloween monster (zombie, vampire, werewolf, ghost, etc), what would you be?

Harry: Oh that is pretty easy. I want to be a wraith, but not just a simple wraith, but quite pissed and vengeful apparition. That way I can be incorporeal, which means floating and flying and at the same time affect the physical world, when I kill people most mercilessly. Yup, I am going to be a bastard in my death.

The Book Smugglers: What’s your favorite book and/or movie to get into the Halloween spirit?

Harry: I don’t have a favorite book, because I never ever re-read… The ending is always the same sadly. However zombie movies and anything bizarre. Yesterday I watched “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and although a rock musical comedy it screamed Halloween mental patient to me and I have been aching to find the soundtrack to that movie.

The Book Smugglers: Do you know any good Halloween myths or scary stories? Care to share one with us?

Harry: YES! Do I? Man, I grew up summoning spirits with a mirror, lipstick, cookies and a penny. Hah. There are the ever popular Queens, one queen for ever color of cards. The Queen of Diamonds sliced your veins while showering, while the Queen of Hearts ripped your chest open and ate your heart. The most popular was the Queen of Spades, who is pretty much like your Bloody Marry. Also dead people like pennies. Leave one on a grave at midnight and you will see a ghastly hand trying to grab it. I recall something about calling three old dead ladies again at the cemetery at midnight, but it’s all vague now.

The Book Smugglers: And since this question is so. damn. awesome. can we steal it and ask it back to you: In which horror movie would you like to be a protagonist and what kind of protagonist would you like to be. Give me details and there is no limit to answers. You can be a chimp with a lightsaber in Night of the Living Dead for all we care.

Harry: That is pretty damn easy. I wanna be an all powerful wizard in an apocalypse of super fast and mutated zombies. Tarantino will be movie director along with Clive Barker and Stephen King as the script writer. Imagine how grand it’s going to be… *sigh* Anyway I will have nuclear ranking powers that will kill mercilessly and fly. I am also considering whether to wear magic cape or spandex and who to have as partner, but Thea sounds right for the job.

So there you have it, folks! Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got some lightsaber wielding chimps to train. Thanks again, Harry for the fabulous interview!

For Halloween Week 2009, we will be bringing you a different guest blogger each day, sharing their own Halloween Words of Wisdom and Ponderings. Today, we give you the uber-talented and supercool Graeme, of Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review. A fellow book blogger and horror fan, Graeme tells us what happens…When Books Attack!

Give it up, boys and ghouls, for Graeme!

‘When Books Attack…’

Books are great aren’t they? I know I’m preaching to the converted here (well, is there anyone reading this blog who isn’t completely mad about books?) but it’s still a fact that there’s nothing better you can do with a spare five minutes than pick up a book and have a read. Books take you out of this world and into another one entirely. Books introduce you to some of the most interesting people you will ever meet and not only do you get to meet them but you also get to hang out with them and see them do the most amazing stuff. If I wasn’t writing this post then the odds are I would be reading something right now.

Books are also strange things though. Not only do they have the power to transport you into another world but sometimes a well written tale can burst right through the page and invade our own. It doesn’t happen all that often but when it does…

Let me tell you the tale of when this happened to me. If you want to hum the ‘Twilight Zone’ theme then now would probably be the best time to start…

It was a couple of years ago and the wife and I were camping in the middle of Dartmoor. Strangely enough, the weather was gorgeous (if you’ve been to Dartmoor, you’ll know what I mean) but that wasn’t the freakiest thing to happen. Things were about to get a lot freakier and it was all down to the book I was reading…

I’d found myself a copy of Robert McCammon’s short story collection ‘Blue World’ and was completely lost in this very under rated horror writer’s work. Seriously, when he’s on form McCammon is brilliant; check out ‘Blue World’ and ‘They Thirst’ (better than ‘Dracula’ in my opinion) if you get a chance. This is a guy who can get right under your skin and make your hair stand on end. The story that got to me the most was ‘Yellowjacket Summer’ where a family trip comes to an unexpected halt in a deserted town. I say ‘deserted’ but what I really mean is ‘deserted apart from a couple of people and a strange boy who can control all the hornets in the area’. I’m scared of wasps and bees so it completely freaked me out reading about the boy who goes to the toilet (in the café) and gets absolutely covered by a swarm of hornets. They don’t sting him but you know they could… The aforementioned strange boy wants the new arrivals to stay in town and he’s not afraid to use a swarm of hornets to get what he wants. The family is after a quick exit though and everything blows up in a massive stinging frenzy. The last thing the reader sees is the family heading out of town in a van that’s low on fuel and being followed by the biggest swarm of hornets that you’ve ever seen…

I couldn’t get ‘Yellowjacket Summer’ out of my head and I was still thinking about it when I went to for a shower the next morning. The toilet cubicles were open at the top (it was in a barn) so imagine how I felt when I heard a really loud buzzing and a hornet came to hover right over me… I couldn’t move (seriously, these things scare me to death!) and was stuck there for ages, waiting to see if the hornet decided to have a piece of me. Luckily it didn’t…

Now, life is full of little coincidences but to read a scary story about hornets and then get to see one at close quarters the very next day…? There was definitely more to this than met the eye. I was just glad that I hadn’t had a visitation along the lines of what happened in McCammon’s ‘He’ll Come Knocking at Your Door’! Read it and you’ll see what I mean…

There’s more to this world than we know and even the most innocent looking book can some back and bite you when you least expect it (if it hasn’t already, has something similar happened to you?) I hope that you enjoy whatever you’re reading this Halloween; just keep an eye out after you put the book down…

Welcome to the second day of Book Blogger Appreciation Week! Today’s topic is Blogger Interview Swaps! We are extremely happy that were paired up with Sheri from A Novel Menagerie, which was a new-to-us blog and now is a regular in our lineup of must-read sites.

A Novel Menagerie is a blog with not only book and entertainment reviews, but also great features such as the “Monday’s Movie“. And we so love her special banners for each section like this one for the Monday’s Movie feature:

Isn’t it cute? We have banner envy. It’s such a great idea. But we digress. We had a great chat with Sheri and here is what she has to say:

Ana and Thea: Hi Sheri, it is great to have you here!

Sheri: I’m thrilled to be here! Really… I am! I recently discovered your blog through BBAW and I just can’t believe that I’ve been under a rock so long. How could I have not known about your blog? But, now that The Book Smugglers are added to my Google Reader, it’s safe to say that I will be visiting here much more often.

Ana and Thea: Can you please tell us a bit more about you, The Person Behind The Blog?

Sheri: Now, that’s a scary question!

In my “real life,” I am a single mom of twin 12-year old daughters. We have a house filled with way too many animals: 2 dogs (Tori & Claire), 3 cats (Tommy, Oliver & Dante), and 3 fish aquariums… hence, my menagerie! “A nearing-40-year-old soccer mom with an addiction to key lime martinis,” can also adequately describe me. For those who know me, they would agree that I’m a complete nerd, an animal lover, and can most times be found with my nose in a book as I try to escape the unrelenting hormones of my tweenie-daughters.

Ana and Thea: The Origin: How and why did you decide to become a blogger?

Sheri: I’m a fairly new blogger and have been doing it for just a tad over a year now. If you can believe it, I didn’t even know what a blog was in July 2008. How sad is that? I became a blogger after meeting the fabulous Lisa of Books On The Brain/TLC Book Tours. Ever since I started blogging, the person that I am has changed considerably. Instead of being tethered to my computer for work, I’m married to it because of my passion for reading and writing. All of this came out of losing my professional career in 2008. I am currently enrolled in school and working towards my college degree.

Ana and Thea: You review mostly Literary Fiction – Is it safe to say that it is your favourite genre? Do you read other genres as well?

Sheri: You noticed! (“My name is Sheri and I’m addicted to novels.” )

Due to J. Kaye’s 100+ Reading Challenge, I have read soooo much in the past year. I used to mainly read ChickLit & women’s fiction. But, in the past year, I have read everything from historical fiction to mysteries to “How-To’s” to YA. It has changed me as a reader. I found that I really do enjoy all kinds of books. Being a member of a book club has also forced me to read some books that I would have otherwise said “no” to.

All of this reading, I hope, has helped me to become a more well-rounded reader. I’m finding that I have a passion for memoirs in addition to fiction. My readers will get to read about some non-fiction this fall, as well as some cookbooks.

Ana and Thea : How do you approach your reviews? Like for example: how do you pick the books for review? Do you have a reviewing process?

Sheri: When I first started blogging my book reviews, I only reviewed what I purchased. There’s a certain amount of ownership you tend to take when you are picking out books, you know? In my beginning months as a blogger my mentor, Lisa, helped me to discover the world of reviewing for publishers and authors. Over time, I have built my relationships with the publishing community and I do review provided books more than 50% of the time. I still make my monthly purchases from Amazon.com (love love love Amazon.com) and check out books from the local library. Oh, and I do review books for TLC Book Tours and a few select book tour groups.

When the books arrive at the doorstep (*oh, don’t you just love those days?*), I enter them all into a spreadsheet. I enter when they were received, their date of publish, and whether or not they are for a book tour. I keep my spreadsheet updated when I write my Sunday Salon post on Sundays. This color-coded sheet helps to keep me up-to-date on cross posting my reviews on Amazon.com and The Library Thing. It serves as a great database that I can sort by type, author, rating, date, and origin. With the use of this spreadsheet, I try to use it as a tool to force me to read the books in date order (by when it was received or when it is being published). But, every now and again… I cheat. There are just some books that come in that are too hard to resist!

When I review, there are some things that are very important to me:

Reading the entire book… even if I want to put it down. I’ve only “partially read” one book that I’ve reviewed. I feel good about this because I’ve reviewed over 150 books in the past year. I have found that some books get really good after you’re ½ way through with them. Give the book a chance. Give the author a chance.

Find the good in every book… I’m such a “wanna-be” writer. I truly am! I’ve started writing “my great novel,” but who knows if and when it will ever be finished. My hat goes off to anybody who can write and publish a book. That’s such an accomplishment of mind and heart. I want to try to honor authors by always saying something positive about their book. And, my “positives” are always honest!

Write honest reviews… If I was not true to my readers, and myself for that matter, the reviews would not come across as authentic and true. If I didn’t love a book that everybody else did… so be it. That’s okay. And, vice versa! It’s totally okay in my book to love-love-love a light-weight ChickLit escape book.

Ana and Thea: We are very nosy like that so we would like to ask: are you happy with the way things are for your blog? You stats? Your readership? Would you wish to change anything if you could?

Sheri: That’s totally not nosy! Man, your questions are freakin’ awesome… you’re killing me!

Am I happy? Well, I get bored with the look of my blog frequently. I think it’s because I am looking at it too much. I’m considering a re-design… partially in-thanks to you guys! I love your design and artwork!

My stats… yes… and no. I have changed URL’s 3 times over the course of 1 year. Because of this, I’ve lost readers. However, I’m totally set and will never change my URL ever again! I see that my stats are high Sunday-Wednesday. I don’t know what happens to my readers, but they go away Thursday through Saturday. I always wonder why. Of course, we all want higher stats… but, I’m thrilled to have received as many visitors as I have.

My readers… I love my readers! But, you know… you only really get to know your readers through their comments. I can’t thank my readers enough for their comments! I make and effort to spend the time reciprocating on as many blogs as I can.

Ana and Thea: You are quite the prolific blogger: you post book and movie reviews and you take part in several challenges, plus you have children and several assorted pets: how do you keep up with all that? Would you say you are one of us – Obsessive Bloggers Anonymous?

Sheri: The thing is, as a woman, I love to be entertained. I love juicy gossip on movies, tv, and books. When I go to play Bunko with my girlfriends or talk to moms on the soccer team, these are the things that I like to talk about. Why not blog about them? I decided earlier in the year that my goal was to provide my readers with an overall “entertainment review” blog. Therefore, my focus became to provide movie reviews, television reviews, music reviews, and book reviews. I also throw in juicy current headlines when I can. My passion is my series called The Writer’s Block in which I write personal articles about my life. What I hope is that I can appeal to a range of readers…

All of that being said… you want to know how I manage to keep up such an active blog? Well, I’m an insomniac. I also have not been working 80 hours a week, like I used to. When I go through some life changes this fall with full-time work and school, I’m sure that my blogging activity will suffer. I will try to pre-post as much as I can on the weekends or nights when I can’t sleep. Also, my kids are older… they hang in the same room as me and watch tv or play games while I pound away at the keyboard. We’re all in the same room… I’m just not watching tv with them. I do make it a point to take the dogs and girls to the park, beach, and out and about.

But, in all truth, I do belong to your club. I’m a most Obsessive Blogger! Only, now I’m not anonymous.

Ana and Thea: A Novel Menagerie has been around for just about one year – looking back at your first year, did it work well for you? Do you have any regrets?

Sheri: I hope y’all are still reading this. I feel so long-winded… SORRY!

My first year was probably typical to what most bloggers encounter… it was a learning curve year. I mean… I didn’t even know what CSS or HTML were a year ago! (Let alone a RSS feed…). I blew up my blog… I fixed my blog. I messed up my URLs… I fixed my URLs. I’ve stuck my foot in my mouth plenty of times. But, I also made friends. In the past year… I’ve made new friends. That’s amazing to me. No regrets.

Ana and Thea: What do you think is the best thing about blogging?

Sheri: OMG! The best thing? It’s a tie. For me, it’s the creative release that blogging provides and the people. By people, I mean other bloggers in the community and the readers. On the creative release… I should share that my creative side had been stifled and completely hibernating for over a decade. It feels great to play with art, design, and to write! Oh… to write! I love it!

Ana and Thea: If there was a zombie apocalypse and you could only save 5 books and 5 movies – which would they be?

Sheri: If there were a zombie apocalypse, I’d cal l you guys. You’d know exactly what to do!

After that… the books I’d save: Gone With the Wind, Life of Pi, The Holy Bible, The Glass Castle, and Snow Flower & The Secret Fan.
The movies I’d save: Gone With The Wind, The Notebook, Forrest Gump, Always, and Kingpin.

Ana and Thea: And finally A Very Important Question: you know how we are so obsessed with books and keep buying and buying them and then had to resort to have them delivered to our offices so that we could smuggle them home undetected in order to escape admonishment from our Significant Others? Did you ever suffer similar plight? Come on, share with us: Are YOU a book smuggler?

Sheri: I wish I could be a smuggler. I don’t have a S.O. I would like to have a S.O., but just can’t find a silver-haired hottie! Do you guys know anybody 41-48 in Orange County, California? I would dig some romance in my life!

But, the minute that I become a smuggler, I’m totally going to tell you guys. The thing is… once I find romance, will there be time to read?

________

Our reply to Sheri is…hell yes! There is ALWAYS time to read. And thanks Sheri for the great chat!

Now, make sure to stop by her place to see our answers to her fabulous questions!

Also, check on the BBAW website to see more Blog Interview Swaps!

A couple of months ago read, or at least, try to read, Night’s Rose by Annaliese Evans and it ended up being the first ever book that neither of us were able to finish. The result was a conversational style review in which we examined the reasons why we did not finish the book. The review sparked a pretty good discussion on reader’s expectation based on blurb and cover and about publishers’ marketing strategies. You can read all about it here.

We also had a giveaway with that review and we offered the winner, Danielle (who was chosen randomly), the option to write up a review of the book, agreeing or disagreeing with us – and she accepted it. Here is what she has to say.

Title: Night’s Rose

Author: Annaliese Evans

Genre: Fantasy/ Paranormal Romance

Publisher: Tor
Publishing Date: March 31, 2009
Paperback: 384 pages

Stand Alone or series: first in a series

Summary: Beauty was not awakened by a kiss.

With the help of her handsome allies, Rose may yet find it

Danielle’s Review: ***BEWARE SPOILERS!!!***

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