Contest to win an ARC of TOUCH by Jus Accardo

Add it on goodreads

Le blurb:

When a strange boy tumbles down a river embankment and lands at her feet, seventeen-year-old adrenaline junkie Deznee Cross snatches the opportunity to piss off her father by bringing the mysterious hottie with ice blue eyes home.  

Except there’s something off with Kale. He wears her shoes in the shower, is overly fascinated with things like DVDs and vases, and acts like she’ll turn to dust if he touches her. It’s not until Dez’s father shows up, wielding a gun and knowing more about Kale than he should, that Dez realizes there’s more to this boy—and her father’s “law firm”—than she realized.  

Kale has been a prisoner of Denazen Corporation—an organization devoted to collecting “special” kids known as Sixes and using them as weapons—his entire life. And, oh yeah, his touch? It kills. The two team up with a group of rogue Sixes hellbent on taking down Denazen before they’re caught and her father discovers the biggest secret of all. A secret Dez has spent her life keeping safe. 

The author is holding the ARC contest on her blog: http://www.jusaccardo.com/2011/09/wanna-read-touch-before-november-1st-enter-to-win-an-arc/

It looks and sounds epic, and I really don't want to wait until November 1st to read it... but I will if I have to. I'm getting a Kyle XY vibe from the description, which is a very good thing! So head over there to enter the contest and spread the word about this exciting new book.

p.s. Amparo is over at Operation Awesome today blogging about agent-involved contests for those of you ready to be discovered! 

Emy Shin's ARC Giveaway (MATCHED by Ally Condie)

Gorgeous, isn't it?

Emy Shin is giving away an ARC of this awesome YA dystopian novel, and I'm  hoping to win. But you should enter, too! If you win, I'll be totally excited for you. I also might turn the color of that bubble. 

Enter on her blog.

Even if you already have this one, you ought to head over to check out Emy's new blog. She used to blog as Sandy Shin, so be sure to follow her to her new online residence. :)
 

My Greatest (blog-appropriate) Adventure

I'm writing this to win an ARC of Beth Revis' epic new book, Across the Universe.

Read the first chapter. You'll want one, too!

Okay, so my greatest adventure is actually the planned home birth of my second son. It was incredible and beautiful, but it was also full of words (like pushing and dilation) which might make my blog buddies queasy, so I'm going to tell about a different adventure.

The Ragnar Relay

It's this really great, crazy foot race that you run with a team of twelve people, and it goes on night and day for...ah, I'll let them tell you:

Think of it as a 188-mile party with 12 best friends. Teams of 12 will rock out to live bands, enjoy the wacky participant costumes, and make life-long friends with teammates and competitors. Teams will party along the backside of the beautiful Wasatch Mountains from Logan (85 miles north of Salt Lake City) to Park City, Utah (15 miles east of Salt Lake City).

I was a member of the Runamok Divas team in June 2008. We didn't all fit in one van, so there were two, but I only really got to know Van 1, these awesome girls:

I'm the little blonde one second to last on the right.
The pigtails are a high school cross country tradition.

The beast that followed us along the trail.

My Dad and me.
He was on an all-guy team, but I got to see him a few times between my relay legs.
He just ran his (counts on fingers) sixth? post-cancer marathon, in St. George.
(He's even run Boston!)

This guy was our driver and support.
He gave us water and encouragement, which was really nice.
This pic was taken on my last leg and I was pooped!
You totally can't tell, but this is all uphill. I promise.

My brother, me, my dad before it really began. They were on the same team.

I'm the short, sunburned one third from the left on the back row.
Finally done!

"After" pic. I am allergic to the sun.

My three relay legs were probably the easiest on the whole team of twelve women. 3 miles, 5 miles, 3 miles. I ran the five mile leg in the pitch dark of night, and I swear I saw nocturnal predators moving in the high grass beside the road. It may have been my glo-sticks distorting things, but it was still kinda freaky. I am not a nighttime runner (my sun allergy notwithstanding).

We slept for a few hours in sleeping bags on the grass outside a school while the other van took its turn running the 188-mile relay. Running three distance races in what felt like one day was really intense, and helped prepare me for my first marathon a few months later. It also made me feel like the old me for a little while, which was pretty amazing, since I'd just had my first baby a year and a half earlier. It was fun meeting other girls who love to run as much as I do, and to talk about something other than babies, which was my whole life at the time. 

When I got home, I was a walking beet...really more like a waddling beet since my legs were so sore! But it's an experience I'll always cherish, even when the memories of peeing my pants mid-race fade into the years. (Right! Like I'm ever gonna forget that!) 

So there's my adventure. Do I win? :)

What's your second-greatest adventure?

Honorable Mention--It's not a Paranormalcy ARC

Remember that embarrassing contest entry I created and then posted as a permanent fixture at the top of my blog?

The results are in!

I did not win. :-( But I can't feel too bad because the winners were particularly spectacular! <--Say that five times fast. No, don't. I don't want to be sued when you sprain your tongue. ;-)

Check out the winners for yourself at Kiersten White's lovely, lovely blog.

I did get an honorable mention, complete with a link to my silliness on youtube, so I'm pretty excited about that!

Kiersten White knows I exist!

In other news (ah, who am I kidding; it's more about Paranormalcy): THE BOOK comes out in thirty-five days!!

Another Fabulous Contest: a dozen YA novels for 1 lucky winner

Got this tweet this morning:

@Laura_Fitzg, marketer of awesome at TOR, is hosting an AWESOME contest!
http://inkinallforms.blogspot.com/2010/05/kick-off-contest-ya-giveaway.html

(PHOTO FROM HER BLOG of the Booty)

Contest ends June 18th. Winner announced June 25th on the blog.

I think the photo speaks for itself!

Win an ARC of MATCHED- contest ends TONIGHT!

Okay, people! I just found out about this, so I'm sorry to be passing it on at the last second.

THIS IS THE LAST DAY (I'll stop shouting now) to comment on Ally Condie's blog to win an ARC copy of her new book, MATCHED.

The contest ends at midnight tonight: http://www.allysoncondie.com/?p=864

This is another book that caught my eye based on the cover. Gorgeous, isn't it? But just to show I'm not that shallow, here's the compelling premise, too (as quoted from her blog):

In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.

Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s barely any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one . . . until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow—between perfection and passion.

So go now! You might just be the lucky one to get an advanced copy of a sure-fire bestseller that doesn't come out till November 30th. The rest of us will just have to look on with envy. I hate you already. :-)

Contest for ARC's from YAHighway.com

Run on over to YAhighway.com to enter their fabulous contest and win Advance Reader Copies of exciting books like The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins!!! There are more, of course, but you have to check it out.

Follow them on twitter: @yaHighway
From their twitter page:
"Bio We're YA novelists from all over the world. Chat us up about travel, what you're writing, and of course, YA novels!"