Angieville

And the winner is . . . Charlotte ! Congrats, you lucky duck! Please shoot me an email with your mailing info and your books will be winging their way to you shortly. A big thanks go out to Sarah for being such a good sport, participating in the interview, and offering up such highly coveted copies of her books. I also loved Sarah's question about your favorite literary family dynamics. Reading through your comments was extremely interesting and fun. Many of you named as your favorite families Scarlett Martin's family from Suite Scarlett and Scarlett Fever , Clary and Jace from The Mortal Instruments trilogy, Simon and Derek in the Darkest Power trilogy, Felix and Mildmay from the Doctrine of Labyrinth series, the Powers family from The President's Daughter series, and the Weasleys from the Harry Potter books. Thanks for all your comments and kind words. 

R etro Friday is a weekly meme hosted here at Angieville and focuses on reviewing books from the past. This can be an old favorite, an under-the-radar book you think deserves more attention, something woefully out of print, etc. Everyone is welcome to join in at any time! I include roundups from participating bloggers in my weekly post.  Originally published back in 2001 in the UK, Noughts & Crosses is the first book in a series by British author Malorie Blackman . I first encountered it as part of the Young Adult Reading Group (YARG) over at Readerville. It was chosen as one of our monthly selections and a dear friend of mine actually picked up copies for several of us while she was in England and mailed them out so we would have time to read them before the discussion. Those were just the kind of people that filled the YARG in those days. Sometimes I miss them all so much it hurts. But my copy (pictured above left) came just in time to take it to Italy with me to visit my ...

And here, in all its awesome, is the cover for Ascendant --the second book in Diana Peterfreund 's killer unicorns series. I love it. I love it from the complicated look on Astrid's face, to the scroll work on the sword, to the slightly lighter overall tones. Yep. It's gonna look just swell next to my copy of Rampant . What do you guys think? And if you'd like a chance to win an ARC of Ascendant , Diana's giving one away right now! I love what you have to do to enter--comment with a 6-word work of fiction . Check it out .

You May authors, you. What are you trying to do to me? I toss and turn in reading slump hell for what seems like weeks on end and then you present me with a string of top-notch books and it's like emerging from a drought into hip-deep water. With mermaids. And flying fish. And seals. What? I like seals. I have to thank the tremendously benevolent KMont of Lurv a la Mode for seeing that an actual living, breathing (oh, you know what I mean) copy of Magic Bleeds made it into my hot little hands before I expired from the intense longing I've been suffering from ever since I closed the cover of Magic Strikes   just over a year ago. I thought husband-and-wife duo  Ilona Andrews raised the stakes incredibly high in that third installment in the Kate Daniels series, launching it instantly into my top two urban fantasy series right up there neck and neck with  Patricia Briggs ' Mercy Thompson books. And I have to say, it's been an absolute delight getting to read the latest v...

Alrighty. The randomly selected winner is Northlander by Meg Burden  as suggested by Charlotte ! I actually already own this book and just haven't gotten around to reading it yet. So this works out well. I've heard lots of good things and I just love Charlotte's reviews and recommendations. Looking forward to it! Here is the full list of suggestions: • Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork ( sbjames ) • The Light of Asteria: Kailmeyra's Last Hope by Elizabeth Isaacs ( Book Crazy Jenn ) • A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliott ( Katy ) • The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner ( lustyreader ) • The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (Holly) • Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer ( Emily ) • Nothing But Blue Skies by Tom Holt (Diana) • Spellbent by Lucy A. Snyder ( Sullivan McPig ) • The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer (Lauren Jean and Michelle ) • Except the Queen by Jane Yolen and Midor...