A Bit Of Me (posting 2 of 2)

CMash January 1, 2011 5 Comments

SATURDAY

Happy New Year Everyone!! Hope you had a festive evening. And for those who had a little bit more than festive, lol, grab your coffee mugs, because today is the BIG day!!! Start those engines, Ready, Set, Go Read….Challenges are waiting to be filled in with titles of books!!! GL everyone!!!!!

Hosted by Danielle at There’s A Book

From Danielle’s blog:

We all leave our “footprint” on the world, in one way or another. We each, individually, do something or are someone that makes the world a little better just by being here. I created this weekly meme to get to know the blogging community I love just a bit better. To know what makes them tick, outside of books, that is. Each week I will post a question to be answered in the following week’s “A Bit of Me(Me)”. Check back each Saturday to get the info for next week’s post and link up with your current post right here.
This Week’s Question: Do you have a New Year’s resolution? Share at least one (more if you want!).
Read more: http://www.theresabook.com/category/a-bit-of-meme/#ixzz19AlITKdf
You got to love Danielle….she comes up with the greatest questions!!! Resolutions? As in keeping a resolution? She didn’t say for how long though!!!!

OK….I’ll play along (lol). I have decided on 2 for the New Year!! My resolutions…………………… for the 1st hour of 2011 are:

Not sure though…carrot cake doesn’t count, does it? That

would fall under the category of vegetable. And what

about apple and blueberry pies? Those are fruits!!!

My 2nd is not signing up for any more challenges….well….

not the year long kind (since they all start today).

The mini challenges don’t count. And saying NO to so many requests

…..sorry…..got to run…have some emails that are waiting for

me to answer regarding reviews (but I’ll wait an hour before responding lol).

Book Review, Guest Author

Guest Author and Review Vincent Zandri

CMash January 1, 2011 12 Comments

I was thinking, now that I have a full year of blogging and reviewing under my belt, how do I want to start off my 2nd year. If you have followed my blog, you know I have been a big James Patterson fan, even to the point of saying he was my overall # 1 male author. However, in 2010, I was introduced to a new author, read 3 of his books and have to tell you that he picked up speed and sprinted to the finish line. On Thursday, I announced that I had found a new # 1 male author. The timing couldn’t have been better !! I just finished reading his 4th novel and planned on it being my first review of 2011. What a way to start the New Year? Right? But then I had an idea!! How perfect would it be, not only to have my first review be of one of his books, but if he would be the first author that I hosted for a visit in 2011!!!! An invitation went out and he graciously accepted. So please help me welcome my Number 1 (and hopefully you will also become a fan) author, Vincent Zandri.

About VINCENT ZANDRI

Vincent Zandri is an award-winning, bestselling novelist, essayist and freelance photojournalist. His novel As Catch Can (Delacorte) was touted in two pre-publication articles by Publishers Weekly and was called “Brilliant” upon its publication by The New York Post. The Boston Herald attributed it as “The most arresting first crime novel to break into print this season.” Translated into several languages including Japanese, Russian, French and the Dutch, Zandri’s work has also been sought out by numerous major movie producers, including Heyday Productions and DreamWorks. Other novels include Moonlight Falls (R.J.Buckley), Godchild (Bantam/Dell), and Permanence (NPI). His newest thriller, The Remains (Stone House) will be published in July, 2010 in E-Book and in November, as a Trade Paperback. Forthcoming novels include The Concrete Pearl (Stone Gate), a new detective series starring the brassy but beautiful construction business owner, Ava “Spike” Harrision, and the re-publication of the classic, As Catch Can (Stone Gate).

An adventurer and freelance photojournalist, Zandri has been the author of the blogs, Dangerous Dispatches and Embedded in Africa for Russia Today TV (RT). He also writes for other global publications, including Culture 11, Globalia and Globalspec. Zandri’s nonfiction has appeared in New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, Game and Fish Magazine and others, while his essays and short fiction have been featured in many journals including Fugue, Maryland Review and Orange Coast Magazine.
He holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College and is a 2010 International Thriller Writer’s Awards panel judge. Zandri currently divides his time between New York and Europe. He is the drummer for the Albany-based punk band to Blisterz.

GUEST POST

2011 Resolutions and Dissolutions!

By Vincent Zandri

2011 is not only going to be the year I establish some serious new goals for myself. More importantly, it will also be the year I dissolve or, give several things up (I gave up smoking 5 years ago and have stuck to it!). Things that not only have become terrific time wasters, but that are unhealthy or are leading me in directions I no longer want to go.

For instance, I’m no longer going to “obsessively” check on my Amazon rankings. I’ve actually started on this, checking my numbers only once or twice a day instead of every hour on the hour. In 2010 my books The Remains and The Innocent became Number 1 Amazon Hot New Bestselling Releases in Hard-Boiled and Psychological Suspense fiction, as well as Amazon Bestsellers in Hard-Boiled Mysteries, and it caused the junky in me to jones for those stellar Amazon rankings. When the rankings got better, I felt high. When the rankings slacked off, I felt depressed and irritable. Not good! Then I found out that the numbers really don’t mean anything. That it’s a matter of how well you sell over time. And anyway, shouldn’t a writer be concerned primarily about writing, and secondarily about rankings?

Second thing I’m dissolving, or changing, if you will: My blog postings at The Vincent Zandri Vox (also my Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin contributions) will no longer be about me, myself, and I. They will include guest blogs from other authors, reviews of other books, and commentary on relevant issues that affect the drastically changing literary world we live in.

So why the shedding; why the changes?

Exactly one year ago a small publisher, RJBuckley published Moonlight Falls, my first novel in more than five years. My career up to that point had been at a standstill, even after having received a major six-figure advance in 1999 from Delacorte in a two book deal. That said, given a new opportunity to make good, I wanted to give myself one full year of guerilla marketing focusing entirely on myself and my work. And it worked! So well in fact, I ended up signing a whole bunch of new contracts with StoneHouse Ink. And when that went well, the publisher actually created a brand new imprint for me and several of their “darker” authors called StoneGate Ink.

But one year of advertising entirely about oneself is enough. Time to shed what could become a dangerous if not narcissistic habit and start paying attention to some other great and upcoming authors out there who will sooner than later, be sharing the same literary platform. Who are some of those authors? Bri Clark, Aaron Patterson, Les Edgerton, just to name a few, but of course, I could go on and on. The point here is that Indie publishing is taking the world by storm and while not all of the authors I mentioned are published only by Indie presses, 2011 will be the year many of them make their mark, and I plan on featuring many of them in the “Vox.” No doubt some of their books will be reviewed here as well.

It’s a positive move to make New Years resolutions. So long as you stick to them. For instance, I want to eat better, climb the ancient pyramids, publish more journalism features, be a better father, a better partner, a better man.

But it’s also a good thing to make dissolutions so long as the shedding process makes you free and therefore, the over all breathing process easier. As difficult as it may seem, I plan on letting go of old friendships and relationships that no longer work or are pulling me down in negative ways. Doesn’t mean I don’t care, or in some cases, love these people. It’s just that I can no longer assume the awesome responsibility of trying fix something that for now anyway, seems irreparably broken. What was Einstein’s definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I want to limit my intake of sweets, red meats, and beer, at least during the week. I want to allow myself the luxury of being bored sometimes, so that I have time to think. I want to toss a whole bunch of stuff out or give it all away, including old clothes, papers, magazines, useless junk, and clutter. I want to live a simpler, freer existence. Finally, I want to give up some of my cash to charities close to my heart. The Boston Children’s Hospital for one.

This year I’ve gotten an early head start on making some necessary life changes. And I already feel much better about myself and the world. I hope you can do the same.

Vincent Zandri Books to be released in 2011:

–GODCHILD (PART II of the Jack Marconi Series) by StoneGate Ink (previously published by Bantam/Dell)

–Special Kindle/E-Book Edition THE REMAINS/SWEET DREAMS by Vincent Zandri and Aaron Patterson, by StoneHouse Ink. (The Two Amazon Bestsellers combined in one edition)

–Special Kindle/E-Book Edition THE INNOCENT/GODCHILD, by StoneGate Ink (The Two Part Series Collected into one edition)

–THE CONCRETE PEARL (Part I of the new Spike Harrison Series), by StoneGate Ink.

–Also, two new Digital Shorts and possibly the Part II in the Dick Moonlight series!

My Review

The Innocent by Vincent Zandri

Published by StoneGate Ink

ISBN-13: 2940011815430
ISBN: 0011815434
An EBook edition, was purchased by me, for my personal reading enjoyment.
Synopsis (borrowed from Amazon): Getting caught is simply not an option.
It’s been a year since Jack Marconi’s wife was killed. Ever since, he’s been slipping up at his job as warden at an upstate New York prison. It makes him the perfect patsy when a cop-killer breaks out–with the help of someone on the inside. Throwing himself into the hunt for the fleeing con, Jack doesn’t see what’s coming.
Suddenly the walls are closing in. And in the next twenty-four hours, Jack will defy direct orders, tamper with evidence, kidnap the con’s girlfriend–and run from the law with a .45 hidden beneath his sports coat. Because Jack Marconi, keeper of laws, men, secrets, and memories, has been set up–by a conspiracy that has turned everyone he ever trusted into an enemy. And everything he ever believed in into the worst kind of lie.
My Thoughts and Opinion: It is ironic that today, the first of the year, that I am reviewing the first book that started it all. Even though this version has been rewritten, the original was Mr. Zandri’s first. I became hooked by this author when I read his other books, Moonlight Falls, The Remains, and the digital short, Pathological. Reading The Innocent, for me was like watching a toddler start to walk. Amazing!!!!

What did I think of The Innocent? A heart pounding read!!! Non stop suspense!!!. Zandri is a genius when it comes to writing. He grabs you from the first few pages and doesn’t let go until the last word!! Masterful writing, whereas, he incorporates the present day plot and then transports the reader to another page turning subplot of the past and back to the present making it a page turning, can’t put down read!!! Due to one continuous spoiler, that I do not want to give away, the story line had this reader fleeing and breathless with the main character, Keeper Marconi. Phenomenal!!! Chilling!!! The only negative I am finding with Vin Zandri’s books is this, when I finish reading one, I want more!! Vincent Zandri and The Innocent are a Grand Slam!!!!!!

A Bit of Me

A Bit Of Me (posting 2 of 2)

CMash January 1, 2011 5 Comments

SATURDAY

Happy New Year Everyone!! Hope you had a festive evening. And for those who had a little bit more than festive, lol, grab your coffee mugs, because today is the BIG day!!! Start those engines, Ready, Set, Go Read….Challenges are waiting to be filled in with titles of books!!! GL everyone!!!!!

Hosted by Danielle at There’s A Book

From Danielle’s blog:

We all leave our “footprint” on the world, in one way or another. We each, individually, do something or are someone that makes the world a little better just by being here. I created this weekly meme to get to know the blogging community I love just a bit better. To know what makes them tick, outside of books, that is. Each week I will post a question to be answered in the following week’s “A Bit of Me(Me)”. Check back each Saturday to get the info for next week’s post and link up with your current post right here.
This Week’s Question: Do you have a New Year’s resolution? Share at least one (more if you want!).
Read more: http://www.theresabook.com/category/a-bit-of-meme/#ixzz19AlITKdf
You got to love Danielle….she comes up with the greatest questions!!! Resolutions? As in keeping a resolution? She didn’t say for how long though!!!!

OK….I’ll play along (lol). I have decided on 2 for the New Year!! My resolutions…………………… for the 1st hour of 2011 are:

Not sure though…carrot cake doesn’t count, does it? That

would fall under the category of vegetable. And what

about apple and blueberry pies? Those are fruits!!!

My 2nd is not signing up for any more challenges….well….

not the year long kind (since they all start today).

The mini challenges don’t count. And saying NO to so many requests

…..sorry…..got to run…have some emails that are waiting for

me to answer regarding reviews (but I’ll wait an hour before responding lol).

Friday Memes

CMash December 31, 2010 13 Comments

FRIDAY

Hosted by An Island Life

From An Island Life:
In Hawaii, Aloha Friday is the day that we take it easy and look forward to the weekend. So I thought that on Fridays I would take it easy on posting, too. Therefore, I’ll ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response.
If you’d like to participate, visit An Island Life answer the question and then post your own question on your blog and leave your link below. Don’t forget to visit the other participants! It’s a great way to make new bloggy friends!

My Question:

What was one of your most memorable New Year’s?

My Answer:

It was 1980-1981. we had received news that day, that the offer we had

placed for buying our 1st home, had been accepted.

Hosted by Java from Never Growing Old

From Java’s blog:
Are you a blogger over 40? Yeah, welcome to the club!
Please join in the fun and get to know your fellow bloggers!!

Friday Memes

CMash December 31, 2010 13 Comments

FRIDAY

Hosted by An Island Life

From An Island Life:
In Hawaii, Aloha Friday is the day that we take it easy and look forward to the weekend. So I thought that on Fridays I would take it easy on posting, too. Therefore, I’ll ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response.
If you’d like to participate, visit An Island Life answer the question and then post your own question on your blog and leave your link below. Don’t forget to visit the other participants! It’s a great way to make new bloggy friends!

My Question:

What was one of your most memorable New Year’s?

My Answer:

It was 1980-1981. we had received news that day, that the offer we had

placed for buying our 1st home, had been accepted.

Hosted by Java from Never Growing Old

From Java’s blog:
Are you a blogger over 40? Yeah, welcome to the club!
Please join in the fun and get to know your fellow bloggers!!

Thursday Memes

CMash December 30, 2010 13 Comments

THURSDAY

http://btt2.wordpress.com

What’s the best book you read this year?

If you followed my blog over this past year, you learned that James Patterson was my all time #1 author, however, in May of 2010 I was introduced to a new author that I felt was equal to Patterson. Since May I have read 2 more books by this writer and presently reading his 4th and can honestly say that he has taken the #1 spot. That author is Vincent Zandri. And the book that hooked me was:

Worst?

Other than the ones that ended up in the DNF pile, there were a few that I could put in this category but I know that these 2 had different thoughts around the blogosphere but were not enjoyable to me:

Favorite?
Some of my 5/5

Jackson, Lisa Most Likely To Die

Sheehan, Jacqueline Now & Then

Walker, Bill A Note from an old Acquaintance

Rose, Karen Silent Scream

Keener, Rachel The Memory Thief

Dixon, Dianne The Language of Secrets

Baron, Michael The Journey Home

Thayer, Nancy Beachcombers

Sheldon, Sydney After The Darkness

Stevens, Chevy Still Missing

Samuels-Young, Pamela Buying Time

Gardner, Lisa Live To Tell

Patterson, James Private

and

Like I mentioned above, I am currently reading the newest book by Vincent Zandri, The Innocent, which I will be posting my review for on January 1st. What better way to start off the New Year but to review a book from my new #1 favorite author? Oh I know,…………………to have him stop by and visit with us all. So mark your calendars…Vincent Zandri will be here January 1st to let us know what we can look forward to in 2011.

Hosted by Lori from Dollycas’s Thoughts

From Lori’s site:
It struck me recently how much time I spend on this computer every day, blogging, chatting or playing games on Facebook, emailing friends and relatives, making cards and calendars, etc. etc. etc.
We depend on each other for book reviews, giveaways, encouragement, friendship, but how well do we really know each other?
So that is what this meme is all about, getting to know each other.

WEEK 18 QUESTIONS

1. Did you get what you wanted for Christmas?

And more…..matter of fact….hubby shocked me with an 8 day trip to Aruba!!

2. Do you make New Year’s Resolutions?

No

3. How will you spend New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day this year?

We haven’t decided yet. Either with friends or a

quiet dinner, just the 2 of us, having shrimp cocktail and lobsters.

Thursday Memes

CMash December 30, 2010 13 Comments

THURSDAY

http://btt2.wordpress.com

What’s the best book you read this year?

If you followed my blog over this past year, you learned that James Patterson was my all time #1 author, however, in May of 2010 I was introduced to a new author that I felt was equal to Patterson. Since May I have read 2 more books by this writer and presently reading his 4th and can honestly say that he has taken the #1 spot. That author is Vincent Zandri. And the book that hooked me was:

Worst?

Other than the ones that ended up in the DNF pile, there were a few that I could put in this category but I know that these 2 had different thoughts around the blogosphere but were not enjoyable to me:

Favorite?
Some of my 5/5

Jackson, Lisa Most Likely To Die

Sheehan, Jacqueline Now & Then

Walker, Bill A Note from an old Acquaintance

Rose, Karen Silent Scream

Keener, Rachel The Memory Thief

Dixon, Dianne The Language of Secrets

Baron, Michael The Journey Home

Thayer, Nancy Beachcombers

Sheldon, Sydney After The Darkness

Stevens, Chevy Still Missing

Samuels-Young, Pamela Buying Time

Gardner, Lisa Live To Tell

Patterson, James Private

and

Like I mentioned above, I am currently reading the newest book by Vincent Zandri, The Innocent, which I will be posting my review for on January 1st. What better way to start off the New Year but to review a book from my new #1 favorite author? Oh I know,…………………to have him stop by and visit with us all. So mark your calendars…Vincent Zandri will be here January 1st to let us know what we can look forward to in 2011.

Hosted by Lori from Dollycas’s Thoughts

From Lori’s site:
It struck me recently how much time I spend on this computer every day, blogging, chatting or playing games on Facebook, emailing friends and relatives, making cards and calendars, etc. etc. etc.
We depend on each other for book reviews, giveaways, encouragement, friendship, but how well do we really know each other?
So that is what this meme is all about, getting to know each other.

WEEK 18 QUESTIONS

1. Did you get what you wanted for Christmas?

And more…..matter of fact….hubby shocked me with an 8 day trip to Aruba!!

2. Do you make New Year’s Resolutions?

No

3. How will you spend New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day this year?

We haven’t decided yet. Either with friends or a

quiet dinner, just the 2 of us, having shrimp cocktail and lobsters.

Hachette Giveaway

Hachette Giveaway "The Science of Kissing" 12/29 to 01/12

CMash December 29, 2010 Leave a Comment

THE SCIENCE OF KISSING

by SHERIL KIRSHENBAUM

December 29th to January 12th

SYNOPSIS:

What Our Lips Are Telling Us

From a noted science journalist comes a wonderfully witty and fascinating exploration of how and why we kiss.
When did humans begin to kiss? Why is kissing integral to some cultures and alien to others? Do good kissers make the best lovers? And is that expensive lip-plumping gloss worth it? Sheril Kirshenbaum, a biologist and science journalist, tackles these questions and more in THE SCIENCE OF KISSING. It’s everything you always wanted to know about kissing but either haven’t asked, couldn’t find out, or didn’t realize you should understand. The book is informed by the latest studies and theories, but Kirshenbaum’s engaging voice gives the information a light touch. Topics range from the kind of kissing men like to do (as distinct from women) to what animals can teach us about the kiss to whether or not the true art of kissing was lost sometime in the Dark Ages. Drawing upon classical history, evolutionary biology, psychology, popular culture, and more, Kirshenbaum’s winning book will appeal to romantics and armchair scientists alike.

THANKS TO BRIANNE AND THE KIND
PEOPLE AT THE HACHETTE BOOK GROUP