ARC Giveaway

Message from Wendy Higgins:

Sweet Temptation ARC giveaway and Sweepstakes!

 

 

Wholly Moley, this week is going to be epically SWEET for giveaways!!!

First, the basics--some information, because many have asked.

Wait, there's a 4th book in the Sweet Evil series??? I thought it was only a trilogy!
Yes, there is a fourth book! It's a companion novel ALL from Kaidan Rowe's point of view! Sweet Temptation has bits of the entire trilogy so we can finally find out what Kai was up to before he met Anna, and during those times when they were apart. You don't have to read the trilogy to understand this book, but it will enrich the experience to know Anna's story first, methinks.

What is an ARC?
ARC stands for Advanced Review/Review Copy, printed for pre-publication publicity purposes within the U.S. They are also known as "Proofs" or "Galleys." Not all publishers print ARCs. Some post e-galleys and some don't do advanced copies at all. ARCs are printed mid-edits, so they are not the finished product. They contain errors and content that might change before the final publication, but they give early reviewers a good idea of the story. ARCs go out to libraries, booksellers, book events, and select reviewers. They are not for sale, and frankly it's hard to get your hands on them. Even us authors are only given a small amount.

Will there be e-galleys of Sweet Temptation?
No. I requested that the publisher not put ST on edelweiss or any of those sites because my only book that was ever offered on those sites was pirated immediately. Thousands of people obtained Sweet Reckoning for free, illegally, months before it was published. That is not okay to me. It might only be one "reviewer" out of thousands on the site who pirate the books, but that is all it takes. I'm sorry that there are a few who ruin it for the masses. I'm truly, truly sorry not to offer the book to my foreign reviewers, but I hope you will understand. I have no control over whether the books are pirated after publication, but if I can stop them from being stolen before it's even out, then I will.

How can I get an ARC, then?
I'm not certain which events the ARCs will be given away at, but I have two ways for you to win one this week!

TWEETSTAKES: If you've never done one of these, prepare your heart because it's likely to beat out of your chest! Monday, March 30th, at 9:00 PM EST we will tweet for 15 minutes with a certain hashtag (to be announced just before the Tweetstakes begins). The publisher is offering Sweet Temptation ARCs to 5 lucky winners with U.S. mailing addresses. Here's how it works: Just before 9pm on Monday night I will tweet the hashtag. You have 15 minutes to tweet with that hashtag as many times as you please. I will refresh my screen 5 times, and the tweeter on top each time is a winner. At 9:15 I will announce that the Tweetstakes has ended, and I'll post winner names as quickly as I can, usually within 10 minutes. It's super exciting!


TRAVEL TO AN UPCOMING EVENT : I will be giving away one ARC at the Roanoke, VA event and one at the St. Louis, MO event! Click on the "Events" tab above to see event details! (Not sure exactly how I will work those giveaways - maybe a free raffle - I'll let you know at the events.) I'm signing at BEA too, but I'm not sure yet if it will be Sweet Temptation or one of the earlier books.

 INTERNATIONAL BLOG GIVEAWAY: I am also doing a giveaway here on my blog today, and this one is open internationally!!! The Rafflecopter form below is for all of these prizes. Winners will be emailed and shown on the Rafflecopter form at the end. You can enter by logging in through Facebook or using your email (please do not use another person's email, only your own).

Kaidan Prize Pack!!!1 autographed Sweet Temptation ARCLarge and medium Kai buttonsDrumstick pencils4 signed Sweet Series bookmarksVictoria Secret perfume (discontinued scent called Sweet Temptation!) Purple polish 

 

7 Autographed Bookmark Bundles: 4 Sweet Series bookmarks1 See Me bookmark1 Drop Card with link & code to get the prologue and first chapter of Sweet Temptation! 

 

Good luck, Sweeties!!! *huggles*

 

-A message from Wendy Higgins, author

Message can be viewed here.

 

Note, from me, your loving Bookaholic: I started the Sweet series quite awhile ago but never finished. Is it something I should pick up again?

Enjoy my lovelies!

 

XOXO,

Kat

 

 

 

Reblogged Rant #feminism

Reblogged from The Contents of Maggie Stiefvater's Brain

Anatomy of Rage

by Maggie Stiefvater, Author





This post is going to be a mess, because I’m just …untidily angry right now. It began with a series of tweets I made today about my ever-broken Datsun. The mechanic had told my husband that he was “working on that Datsun just as fast as I can because now that I’ve met her I can’t wait to get that little girl behind the wheel again.”
Little girl.
As I tweeted that I was 33 and had earned each of those years and thus preferred to be referred to as “Danger Smog-Dragon” or “Rage-Mistress” or “Ephemeral Time Lady” or “Maggie Stiefvater, #1 NYT Bestselling Author of the Raven Cycle,” a well-meaning fellow replied that perhaps I should “use [my] words, politely but firmly, to his face…” He further observed that he’d told his wife that “you know, Honey, unless you’re willing to SAY THAT to (those people), NOTHING is going to change”.
(note: please do not go search for this fellow on twitter to rage at him; this is not about him. He is set dressing, made more appropriate to the conversation at hand by the fact that he probably is a perfectly nice guy who really didn’t mean disrespect).
I told TwitterMan that I was tired of have to use my words. It’s been 33 years of using my words. Why is it my job to continuously ask to be treated equivalent to a male customer? Why is that when I arrive at a shop, I’m reminded that I have to push the clutch in if I want to start my own car? It’s 2015. Why is it still all sexism all the time?
I discovered that I was actually furious. I thought I was over being furious, but it turns out, the rage was merely dormant. I’m furious that it’s been over a decade and nothing has changed. I’m furious that sexism was everywhere in the world of college-Maggie and it remains thus, even if I out-learn, out-earn, out-drive, and out-perform my male counterparts. At the end of the day, I’m still “little girl.”
Possibly this is the point where some people are asking why this tiny gesture of all gestures should be the one to break me.
Here is the anatomy of my rage.

Step one: It is 1999 or 2000. I am 16. I go to college. A professor tells me I’m pretty. A married man in the bagpipe band I’m in tells me he just can’t control himself around me: he stays up nights thinking of my skin. Another man tells me he can’t believe that ‘a little bitch’ like me got into the competition group after a year of playing when he’s been at it for twenty years. After becoming friends with a professor’s daughter, I’m at her house sleeping on the couch, and I wake up to find the professor running his hand from my ankle bone to my thigh. I pretend I’m still asleep. I’m 17. “If something happened to my wife,” he tells me later, “I could be with you.” At my next visit to her house, I see the wife’s left a book on the kitchen table: how to rekindle your husband’s love.

Step two: It’s 2008. I finally buy the car of my dreams, a 1973 Camaro, and make it my official business vehicle. The first time I take it to put gas in it, a man tells me, “if I were your husband, I wouldn’t want you out driving my car.” I tell him, “if you were my husband, I’d be a widow.” The car requires a lot of gas. I get cat-called every other time I’m at a gas station. Once, I go into the gas station to get a drink, and when I come out, a bunch of guys have parked me in. They want, they say, to have a word with me, little lady. We play automotive chicken which I win because I would rather smash the back of my ’73 Camaro into their IROC than have to stab one of them with the knife on my keychain.

Step three: It’s 2011. I’m on tour in a European country, on my own, escorted only by my foreign publisher. I am at a business dinner, and say I’m going to my room. My female editor embraces me; my male publicist embraces me and then puts his tongue in my ear, covering it with his hand so that the crowd of twenty professionals does not see. My choices are to say nothing to avoid making a scene in front of my publisher’s people, or to say FUCK YOU. I apparently was never offered the choice of not having a tongue in my ear.

Step four: It’s 2012. I buy a race car. Well, a rally car. Someone asks my male co-driver if I’m good in bed. Someone asks me if I got sponsorship because someone was ‘trying to check the woman box.’ People ask me if I drive like a girl. Yeah, I do, actually. Let’s play a game called: who’s faster off the start?

Step five: It’s 2014. I’m driving my Camaro cross-country on book tour. It breaks down a lot. I’m under the hood and a pick up truck stops beside me. “Hey baby,” asks the driver, “do you need any help?” “Yeah,” I reply, “do you have a 5/8 wrench?” He did not.

Step six: It’s 2015. It’s sixteen years after I learned that I was a thing to be touched and kissed and hooted at unless I took it upon myself to say no, and no again, and no some more, and no no no. My friend Tessa Gratton points out that a male author used casually sexist language in a brief interview. She is dragged through the muck for pointing out how deeply-rooted our systemic sexism is. The publishing industry rises to the defense of the male author as if he has been deeply wronged. I tweet that the language was indeed sexist, though I didn’t think it was useful to condemn said male author. A male editor emails me privately to ask me if maybe I wasn’t being a little problematic by engaging in the discussion?

Step seven. Still 2015. Someone very close to me confesses that her college boyfriend keeps trying to push her past kissing, and she doesn’t want to. I tell her to set boundaries, and leave him if he doesn’t. A month passes. This week I find out she just had sex for the first time after he urged her to have several glasses of wine. She doesn’t drink. She was crying. She says, “I didn’t say no, though.”
It’s been sixteen damn years. I’m tired of having to say no. I’m tired of the media telling me that it’s mouth breathing bros and rednecks perpetuating the sexism. No: I can tell you that the most insidious form is the nice guy. Who is a nice guy, don’t get me wrong. I carry my own prejudices that I work through, and I don’t believe in demonizing people who aren’t perfect yet — none of us are. But the nice guy who says something sexist gets away with it. The nice guy who says something sexist sounds right and reasonable. The nice guy’s not helping, though. It’s been sixteen years, and the nice guys are nice, but we’re still things to be acquired. We are still creatures to be asked on dates. We are still saying no, still shouting NO, still having to always again and again say “no, please treat me with respect.”

I was just invited to a car show; the well-meaning guy who asked wanted me to bring my souped up Mitsubishi. I clicked on the event page. It’s catered by Hooters. I’m not going. Yeah, it’s a little thing, but I have a lifetime of them. I’m taking my toys and going home.

“I can’t wait to get that little girl behind the wheel again.”