...and the winner is

At last! Today I announce the winner of the TLG Blogpalooza and the bag of LOST GIRL goodies. YAY!

Just to remind you, here's what the winner gets

Which is

a signed, annotated copy of THE LOST GIRL
THE LOST GIRL bookmarks
a set of Eva's Post-It notes
stickers with the Mark on them
temporary tattoos of the Mark (maybe)
a Sangu pen
a copy of FRANKENSTEIN
and a little wooden elephant,
all bundled up into that bag.

So I added up all the entries, punched numbers into random.org, and and the winner is

!! JULIANNA HELMS !!

Congratulations, Julianna!

Happy Friday, everyone! And thank you all, again, for all your enthusiasm and support over the last few weeks. I wish I could pick tons of winners.

...and the Winner is

It's the 20th of April, which means MY GIVEAWAY ENDS TODAY! Eight weeks ago I revealed the cover of THE LOST GIRL and promised a signed ARC of the book to one commenter. To everyone who commented, Tweeted, blogged and generally shared my cover-love: thank you so much! I wish I could give you all an ARC, but I fear my editor would kill me. (Don't panic, Sara! I'm not actually proposing a massive ARC exodus.)

Before I announce the winner, though, I think I need to ramble on about my day, and also tell you about my new project, and while I'm at it, I really think it's important I tell you all about what the weather was like in this corner of the world...

...no? Not even a little bit interested?

I stuck all the entries in one of those random number generator thingies that Google is so very good at finding, and the winner is

Britta !!!

Congratulations, Britta! And thanks again, everyone. Your support and enthusiasm mean the world to me.

Have a great weekend!

COVER REVEAL! Yay!

It's time! Finally! Chances are you're not going to give a hoot about what I'm saying up here, so I'll get straight to the good stuff.

My gorgeous cover.

Are you reading this part already? No, no, go back and take another look. You must. Honestly, my publisher's got me the bestest cover ever. Isn't it beautiful and haunting and don't you just want to stroke it to death? (If the answer is no, don't tell me.)

Okay? Looked at it? Twice? Three times? Now you can read on.

Eva's life is not her own. She is a creation, an abomination - an echo. Made by the Weavers as a copy of someone else, she is expected to replace a girl named Amarra, her 'other', if she ever died. Eva studies what Amarra does, what she eats, what it's like to kiss her boyfriend, Ray. So when Amarra is killed in a car crash, Eva should be ready.

But fifteen years of studying never prepared her for this.

Now she must abandon everything she's ever known - the guardians who raised her, the boy she's forbidden to love - to move to India and convince the world that Amarra is still alive. 

"The most honest portrait of grief and loss that I've read in a long time. Filled with heartache, love, and things that would stir Mary Shelley's ghost, this is not a story to be missed."

-Lauren DeStefano, bestselling author of the Chemical Garden trilogy

THE LOST GIRL will be out August 28th, which seems like forever away, but the book is already available for pre-order! A few of the links are below.

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Barnes and Noble

Can I just say? I could have fainted on the spot when I saw Lauren DeStefano's blurb. FAINTED. I read WITHER several months ago, not long after it first came out, and loved it so much. It was just the most exciting thing that Lauren read(!) and liked(!!) my book too.

And now for the other part of this post: ARCs. More specifically, an ARC giveaway! A signed ARC, no less. Because, while it will be a wrench to part with one of my shiny copies, I love you all that much.

Yes, one of those!

So, to enter to win, leave a comment on this post, including some way for me to contact you (ideally an email address), and obviously with many, many swoonings over how pretty the cover is. I will pick and announce a winner on April 20th. The giveaway is open internationally.

And this isn't necessary to enter, but it would be very very lovely if you could tweet/blog/somehow get the word out about the cover and giveaway - I'm so excited about this and I just want to show my amazing cover off to the world!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

Giveaway winner announced!

Last week I interviewed Talli Roland and offered a signed copy of her novel The Hating Game to a commenter. I said I'd announce it sometime this week, so here it is. After some trial and error with picking a name out of a hat (literally - you'd be surprised how many names accidentally fall out of hats), the winner is...

Bish Denham!

Congratulations, Bish! Could you email me your address? (sangumandannawrites@gmail.com)

That's all for today, unfortunately, but stay tuned for another Reader Request post and a review of the new Frankenstein play later this week.

Interview with Talli Roland - and Giveaway!

The thing you simply must know about Talli Roland, if you don't know it already, is that she loves cupcakes. Okay, so maybe that's not the thing you must know, but it is pretty darn important. Other important things include the fact that she is the author of the awesome The Hating Game - and she happens to be an incredibly lovely person too.

On with the interview!

---

 
Hi, Talli! Your debut novel The Hating Game will be out in paperback tomorrow (09/03/2011). Can you tell us a little bit about the book?

The Hating Game features Mattie Johns, a man-eating woman who decides to go on a dating game-show to win the prize money she desperately needs to save her recruitment business. She thinks she’ll sail through the show no problem… but little does she know the male contestants aren’t just anonymous strangers, they’re her very unhappy exes. Add in an ambitious executive producer whose career depends on stopping her from making it to the end, and you have the recipe for lots of on- and off-screen drama!

I've read the book - and loved it! One of the things I found most interesting was your protagonist Mattie. You almost love to hate her when the novel starts and there's a great change in her as the story unwinds.

What put you onto writing someone like Mattie? How much of her did you draw from personal experience, if anything?

I’m so happy you enjoyed the book – thank you!

I had so much fun writing Mattie, mainly because her thoughts are so direct and she certainly doesn’t pull any punches. But underneath her tough persona, she’s actually very vulnerable. I think everyone has an outer shell they use as protection. Mattie’s just happens to be a bit thicker than most!

  

Okay, serious stuff. You're being sent off to a desert island with three books and an unlimited supply of wine. What are the three books?

Thank goodness you’re giving me an unlimited supply of wine! Okay, well, hmm… One of the books definitely has to be The Time Traveller’s Wife. I could read it over and over – it’s such a beautiful story. Next up, Emily Giffin’s Something Borrowed because she does such a great job giving the typical ‘love triangle’ story a modern twist. Finally, I’d take an English-Arabic dictionary, so when I’m finally rescued from the island I can stun my in-laws with my mad language skills.

I'm totally with you on The Time Traveler's Wife, but my favourite choice there is the English-Arabic dictionary. Brilliant!

What's the worst thing about being a writer? What's the best?

There’s one thing about being a writer that’s both the best and the worst: being your own boss. I love setting my own schedule and knowing I’m in control of my future – and being able to sneak a cheeky glass of late-afternoon wine, if I want! On the flip side, it’s pretty damn scary. There’s no safety net to catch you if you fall, and if you don’t get the job done, there’s no-one to blame but yourself!

That scares the heck out of me too! What advice would you give an unpublished, aspiring writer? What's the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you?

I know it sounds like a giant cliché, but don’t stop writing. Seek out help and advice from other writers, go to workshops and conferences if you can, but just keep writing! The best piece of advice I’ve heard is from Nicola Morgan, who runs a wonderful website called Help! I Need a Publisher. She said it’s not enough to be persistent – you need to be able to learn from your mistakes as a writer to get better! It sounds obvious, but that was a light-bulb moment for me. I’d written a few novels without really taking the time to assess what I was doing wrong and how to improve.

And finally - what would you do if you were trapped on a dating show with your ex-boyfriends?

I’d run away screaming and begging for mercy! I am nowhere near as brave as Mattie.

---

See? Isn't she lovely?

Thank you so much for that interview, Talli, and for being so fabulous to know. 

Now as I mentioned in the interview, The Hating Game releases in paperback tomorrow (Kindle edition available already here). UK readers can probably find the book in most stores, but here are a couple of places you can find it online too: here's the book on Amazon.co.uk and on The Book Depository (I got the latter link via Talli's blog). Congratulations on your release, Talli!

And, to celebrate the release of the paperback and the amazingness of having your debut novel out in the world, I am giving away a copy of The Hating Game, very kindly signed by Talli! 

All you have to do to be eligible is leave a comment on this interview. I'll pick the winner at random in about a week.

Stop by Talli's blog this week, if you haven't already - she's giving away tons of books to celebrate her launch week!

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

The Giveaway Ends!

Oooh, I'm so excited! Today I end the giveaway I announced a while ago, in which I give away their choice of two books from a list to a winner randomly selected from all the entries. 

Let me tell you, this was my first giveaway and it was a doozy. Who'd have thought it'd be so mind-boggling to keep track of entries (both from the actual post and from the game I played), numbers of entries per person, and putting all the right names and numbers of names into a boot? Obviously, my talents do not lie in numbers. 

But, boggling though it was, it was also a lot of fun - not least because I didn't have a clue whose name I was going to pull out of my boot! It was like being in school again and putting names into a hat to decide who gets to do something fun or horrible... ah, the suspense.

Okay, Sangu, I hear you cry. We get it. Get to the good part, would you?

And the winner is...

[insert dramatic music here]

 Vintage Vixen

Ta-da!

I laughed out loud when I pulled Vix's name out, because I remembered she said she hadn't read any of the books on the list and wanted to try them. So here's your chance, congratulations!

Here's the list again:

Me and Mr Darcy by Alexandra Potter
The Tin Princess by Philip Pullman
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Beastly by Alex Flinn
The Dream Mistress by Jenny Diski
The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe

Vix, could you please send me an email at sangumandannawrites@gmail.com with the names of the two books you'd like and your postal address?

Hooray!

And that, dear readers, is my Tuesday.

Stay tuned to tomorrow!

I'm just popping briefly in this lovely bank holiday to let everyone know that my giveaway, which was supposed to end today, is going to end tomorrow instead. I'll be putting all the entries into a boot (for lack of a hat) and will then post to announce the winner! And because I'm extending it by a day, it's not too late to sign up over at the giveaway post. I'll take entries all the way to midnight tonight (the 30th) - any time zone.

Remember, the winner gets their choice of any two books on the list!

Good luck!

Giveaway! Giveaway! Giveaway!

I got myself a job interview today, which made me very happy. I mean, I have no idea if I stand a chance at actually getting the job, but an interview's a step up, so, yay!

And... today I hit a hundred blog followers! Yes, that's right, 100. (As I write this, I'm hoping one doesn't just vanish unexpectedly and destroy my day.) Now I know that many of you have far more than a hundred followers, but you must remember how excited you were when you hit your first hundred, right? Honestly, I never expected I would, so I am so happy and so grateful to all of you!

 So grateful, in fact, that I'm going to have a giveaway. I promised myself I'd do something if I ever hit that first hundred, so here it is. And, surprisingly enough, I'm going to give away a book!

Well, two, actually. I'll pick a name/entry out of a hat (or box, as I don't actually own a hat) and that lucky winner will get two books!

Here's a list of books, which cover a number of different genres-


Me and Mr Darcy by Alexandra Potter
The Tin Princess by Philip Pullman
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Beastly by Alex Flinn
The Dream Mistress by Jenny Diski
The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe


If you haven't heard of any of these, do look them up and see if it's something you'd like to read! If absolutely none of them sound appealing to you, or if you've - gasp - read them all, then, if you smile just right and give me cakes, I might be able to add on a couple books that aren't already on the list. 

Basically, as I'm sure you've figured out by now, the winner gets to pick two of the books in this list and I'll send them along to him/her. 

(Yes, you can enter no matter where in the world you live. You just need a postal address and I think we'll both have to cross our fingers and hope various postal services don't flake out on us!)


So, to be eligible to enter- 

1. You have to follow the blog
2. You have to leave a comment on this post, letting me know you want to enter 

Rules- 

1. You get +1 entry for following the blog and leaving a comment
2. +3 entries if you post/tweet/talk about the giveaway somewhere else and post the link here in the comments. And this accumulates, so if, say, you tweet about it and post it to your blog and let me know about both, then you get +6 entries.
3. +3 entries if you stick an announcement of some kind linking back to this post in your blog sidebar. 
(Sorry I haven't got a nice pretty picture-and-link for you to use, but I'm not very good with HTML. You could always do what I did and just add in the picture I've got, using the blogger Picture gadget to link back to the post.)

Deadline-

All comments/entries have to come in by Saturday, August 28th to be eligible. And for all the smarty pants out there (that means you, Steve), yes, of 2010. I'll announce the winner on Monday the 30th.


Apart from involving free books, this could also be a fun way for us to find new blogs and new followers!