joanna and tim

On a nice summer afternoon a few local Montreal book bloggers meet up

It feels like I haven't done a blogger meet up post in awhile hasn't it?

For the past month or so we have been trying to nail down a date, time and place that would work for everyone but sadly that didn't happen this time. It seemed like dates that were offered didn't work out for some and then finally we seemed to pick a date and that date was today, Saturday.

This time it was a really small turn out. There was only six of us and we met up at a St Huberts restaurant in the east end of the city. A few of us wanted to avoid going into down town Montreal because of the numerous construction happening on the highway and in various parts of the city as well as the fear of student protests.

Yes student protests are still happening due to the increase in the tutition fees. So please don't get me started on this.

Anyways your are probably wondering who came right? Well there was Tina/Bookshipper , Cindy B/Tynga's Reviews (minus her adorable little baby), Linda/Better With Books , Laura/Library of Clean Reads , Lucy/Moonlight Gleam's Bookshelf and myself.

It was a fun afternoon of exchanging books, talking about BEA, talking about what happened at ALA and a bunch of other unrelated book stuff. I love being able to get away for a few hours and hang out with my booking friends.

So here is the books I came home with:

From Laura:
Reasons to be Happy by Katrina Kittle

From Tina:
-a sample of marcell innovation gene youth day care cream & Olay Regenerist wrinkle Revolution complex
-Enshadowed by Kelly Creagh (this is book 2 coming out in August)
-Dare Me by Megan Abbott (this comes out in July)
-Survive by Alex Morel (this comes out in August)
Thank you Tina for the books and the samples

From Tynga (We did a book exchange)
-Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore (I was excited with Tynga offered me this because she has raved about this series)
-Illuminate by Aimee Agresti
-The Cinderella Society by Kay Cassidy (I read this when it came out in 2010 and I think I gave my copy away and I really wanted a copy to keep)
-Above by Leah Bobet
-Under Suspicion by Hannah Jayne

Thanks so much Tynga for doing a book exchange with me. I hope you enjoy the books I got for you.

Then finally from Lucy:
-This is not a test by Courtney Summers (this was a total surprise until I got Lucy's email early this morning. Thanks so much hun love it)
-Carrier of the Mark by Leigh Falon
-Evercrossed by Elizabeth Chandler ( I believe this is the first book in the series)
-The Wood Queen by Karen Mahoney (this is the second book in the series)
-blood and silver by James R. Tuck

Thanks so much Lucy for the books it was a total surprise. Love them.

It was so much fun seeing everyone again and hopefully we don't wait to long for the next meet up.

It was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon and being able to talk to others about books and stuff is so much fun.

(Meme) The Mailbox Post (June 25th to 30th)

 
Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week and explore great book blogs. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

Mailbox Monday is originally hosted by Marcia  . In the summer of 2010 Marcia decided she needed a change in hosting and didn't want to rely on one blogger alone to do it because its a lot of work so she decided to put Mailbox Monday on tour and so far with great success it has made monthly stops at more then a dozen blogs and this year is booked until the end.

The host for June is Marie from Burton Book Review's .

The host for July is Jennifer from Mrs Q. Book Addict . If that name sounds familiar its because she is a local Montreal blogger and if you haven't already checked out her blog then you should.

Speaking of another Montreal blogger, Tynga is  doing a mailbox post called:

Tynga's Reviews is hosting this meme and you can check out this link to find out more about it .

Can you believe that this is the last week of June? I am so excited because its a long weekend here in Canada. Although the down side of it being a long weekend means that there isn't mail on Monday and since this past Monday was a long weekend in Quebec we are slowly getting mail. So its going to take them awhile to get back on track.

This is the books I got for review:

-Waking Storm by Sarah Porter. This is the second book in the series in the Lost Voices Trilogy (Thank you Thomas Allen for sending this.)
-Only One Life by Sarah Blaedel. (Thank you Pegasus for sending me this. I was happy to get a copy since I missed the event in NYC)
- Size 12 and ready to rock by Meg Cabot (a huge thank you to harper Collins US. I think I am on a blog tour for this. I have read the other books in the Heather Wells series and was happy to hear Meg had written another book.)
-Beach Season by Lisa Jackson along with Cathy Lamb, Holly Chamberlain and Rosalind Noonan and I am on a blog tour for this one.

This is the books we bought:

So I ended up buying some books this week. Two are for Michael and they were Paper Planes that really fly (he loves making paper airplanes) and Pokemon Black and White Vol 8 (he loves these graphic novels) and he wanted the stanley cup bookmark.

For me I got:
-With My Body by Nikki Gemmell ( I saw this on someone's blog recently and the review peeked my curiousity so I bought it. Yea I know shame on me right? LOL)
-Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl. This is the third book in the Beautiful Creatures series. I wanted to get the third book and get the series read before Margaret comes to Montreal in the fall.
-Lost Voices by Sarah Porter, This is the first book in the Lost Voices trilogy.

This is the freebies that came to the house this week:

I have the above pictured labelled so I am sure if you click on it the picture will enlarge. One thing about the tea sample is that is Sarah Blaedel's favorite tea as well as one of her characters favorite as well. I thought that was a great promo.

Happy Summer vacation to all the kiddies out there.

ObamaCare and the Future of SinglePayer with Dr. Margaret Flowers

National Conference Call

ObamaCare and the Future of SinglePayer with

Dr. Margaret Flowers

 JULY 11TH

Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox is proud to present a national Conference Call with Dr. Margaret Flowers who is a leading singlepayer healthcare activist. 

Let's cut through the mountains of propaganda to discover what's in the bill and what's not in the bill and its implications for 2014 and beyond...

Also, we need to bring our ideas, energy and input to the call to continue the principled and necessary fight for medicare for all. 

This conference is limited to 200 people, and the line will be open 5 minutes before and closed when the call reaches 200 people.

If you would like to ask Margaret a question or give input, then send your comment or question to 

Cindy Sheehan via email at: RevolutionALoveStory@gmail.com anytime before the call.

You will get a chance to ask Margaret your question or give your input during the call.

The call will be from promptly:

 8 Pm to 10 Pm Eastern

7 Pm to 9 Pm Central

5 Pm to 7 Pm Pacific

CALL IN NUMBER:

218-632-0995

ACCESS CODE:

PEACE#

(73223#)

VERY IMPORTANT TO HIT "MUTE" OR

*6 ONCE YOU ENTER THE CALL TO REDUCE

AMBIENT NOISE AND ANNOYING FEEDBACK SO EVERYONE CAN HEAR.

IF YOU SUBMIT A QUESTION/COMMENT, YOU WILL BE ASKED TO HIT *6 TO UN-MUTE YOUR PHONE TO ASK YOUR QUESTION OR MAKE YOUR COMMENT.

Any other questions, please email Cindy at:

RevolutionALoveStory@gmail.com

(Review) Who would you vote for? Donkey or Elephant

Title: Vote for Me!
Author: Ben Clanton
Illustrator: Ben Clanton
Pub Date: April 2012
Publisher: Kids Can Press
Pages: 40

Source: Read in the school library.

About the book:
Hey, you! Yes, you with the dazzling smile! The donkey wants your vote. So does the elephant. And each will do just about anything to win your support. Brag? Sure! Flatter? Absolutely! Exaggerate, name-call, make silly promises and generally act childish? Yes, yes, yes and yes. Soon, the tension mounts, and these two quarrelsome candidates resort to slinging mud (literally) and flinging insults. And what happens when the election results are in? Well, let''s just say the donkey and the elephant are in for a little surprise -- and a certain bewhiskered, third-party candidate is in for a first term.

Vote for Me! is a timely satire of American politics, but it''s a story readers of all nationalities and ages will recognize. Comical, retro illustrations (in shades of blue and red, of course) are completely winning, and the duelling duo''s insult-laden exchanges promise to have readers laughing out loud.

Just before school ended I got to read this to the library classes. This was a new book that was being put into the school library and the kids loved it. (The grades ranged from 3 to 6) They were all laughing and taking part in the book while I was reading it.

The book is about a donkey and elephant (who are friends) and they are running in an election and they want your votes. They each give reason's why you should vote (silly but funny reasons) from them and it turns sour pretty quickly with throwing mud at each other and calling names.

Then when the results come in donkey and elephant are in for the shock of their life. Who will win? Well you will have to run out and get the book to find out.

When I asked what they liked about the book they said the illustrations, the ease to read it and the surprise ending. The illustrations were very well done and very simple which was nice because they didn't distract the kids. Plus the surprise ending because you didn't see that one coming although a few of the kids did.

Corner Store (Puerto Vallarta)

Winnipeg Fringe Fest

Dundas Street West

Yonge Street

Winner of Cover Contest for Created Announced

This has been an interesting journey. I never anticipated how hard it would be to decide on the cover model. I so appreciate everyone's patience.

We started with over 50 entries, and everyone was amazing. The ten photos with the most votes moved on to the semi-final round. Thank you to all who entered.


The top 10 were all so beautiful, I didn't know how we would narrow it down to one. After a lot of discussion, we were able to narrow it down to 5 that got to be a part of a photo shoot by 

ADBug Photography 

and Adrian Johnson, photographer extraordinaire, took some amazing shots. 

Here are the original entry pics of the top 5

Mindy Green

Jensyn Beardall

Abby Smith

Jenna Beeton

Tarran Sowder

Once more, we couldn't decide. Every girl seemed to fit the bill. In the end, we had to ship the photos off to the cover designer to have him create some mock-ups of Created's cover. (In the midst of all this, I headed off to Europe to do some research for my next series-sorry about that) The designer even printed the mock-ups. We set the book size photos next to the first two books and then we knew. It was clear.

Congratulations, Jenna! 

You will be featured on the cover of Created, the third and final book in the Watched series.The picture we will be using is stunning. Have you ever wondered what you'd look like with brown hair?

I wish I could show you the cover now, but the cover designer is still working his magic. I only have the mock-up, but I guarantee you will love it.

We will be revealing the actual cover in Sept. Created will be released in early Nov.

Again, thank you to everyone that participated. I hope you all had fun.