Mundie Moms

Saturday, August 21, 2010

In My Mailbox

In My Mailbox is a meme hosted by The Story Siren and was inspired by Alea of Pop CultureJunkie! We share the books we've received this past week for review, borrowed from friends or the library, received as a gift and/or bought for both Mundie Moms andMundie Kids (our Children's Book Review Site).

For Review:
* When I Was Joe by Keren David, received by & published by Frances Lincoln Children's Books, released on January 1st, 2010
* Romeo, Juliet, and Vampires by Claudia Gable, William Shakespeare, received by & published by HarperCollins, to be released on August 31st, 2010
* Greek: Double Date by Marsha Warner, received by & published by Harlequin Teen, released on April 21st, 2010
* Maybe This Time by Jennifer Cursie, published by St Martin's Press, to be released on August 31st, 2010 received by the author/publisher
* Mieradome by Kate Hegarty, published by Author House, released on July 30th, 2010, received from the author
* Matched by Ally Condie, received by & published by Penguin, to be released on November 30th, 2010
* Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, received by & published by Scholastic, to be released on August 24th, 2010

Bought:
* City of Glass by Cassandra Clare (2 paperback books for giveaways)
I did buy some other books as well, but they've not arrived yet.

Thank you to Scholastic, HarperCollins, Penguin, St Martin's Press, Harlequin Teen, Kate Hegarty, Frances Lincoln Children's Books and Jennifer Cursie for this weeks wonderful reads.

What goodies did you receive this week?

Clockwork Angel- Day 14 Giveaway Winner!

Last Saturday we posted a fun giveaway, which was "Who Said This?" Here's what the quote was, "Inanimate objects are harmless indeed, Mr. Mortmain. But one cannot always say the same of the men who use them." I am totally blown away at how many enteries we had! We had 269! Out of that, 168 people guessed the right answer..... HENRY!! I'll be honest, if I hadn't re-read it, I would have guessed the wrong person.

To figure out our winner, I took those who guessed correctly and entered that number on Random.org's site. The winning number is #52- Taylor Pappas!

CONGRATULATIONS!!! Your Clockwork Angel journal, bookmark and CWA inspired necklace from Fire & Ice will be sent out to you soon.

Thank you to everyone who entered. Be sure to enter more of Clockwork Angel giveaways we have going on now.

CWA Celebrations-Day 21, CWA Excerpt


This excerpt is when Tessa is first at the Institute. After declining Charlotte's help in guiding her back to her room, Tessa finds herself lost.

..... Sometimes the torches flared up and then faded as she passed, as if responding to some peculiar stimulus she couldn't see. This particular corridor was fairly dim. She picked her way to the end of it carefully, where it branched into two more, each identical to this one.

"Lost?" inquired a voice behind her. A slow, arrogant voice, immediately familiar.

Will.

Tessa turned and saw that he was leaning carelessly against the wall behind her, as if he were lounging in a doorway, his feet in their scuffed boots crossed in front of him. He held something in his hand: his glowing stone. He pocketed it as she looked at him, dosing it's light.

"You ought to let me show you around the Institute a bit, Miss Gray," he suggested. "You know, so you don't get lost again."

Tessa narrowed her eyes at him.

"Of course, you can simply continue wandering about on your if you really wish to," he added. "I ought to warn you, though, that there are at least three or four doors in the Institute that you really shouldn't open....."

-Clockwork Angel (ARC) pages 81-82

Let's Talk Settings

Recently a friend of ours, Jen, who runs the The Secret Life of a Bibliophile blog, asked Sophie and I if we'd like to be apart of a series of posts she's doing on her site, talking about settings. We were thrilled as we love talking about books. You can find Jen's post about Settings here
http://tinyurl.com/2a8g5o5. Did I mention that with each weekly post (on Friday's) Jen will be giving away a book that features the mentioned setting?

My chosen setting to talk about is the Northwest. This is not a post about Twilight. My post is about the setting, which is the Northwest. If you're from there or if you've been there, you'l know what I'm talking about, when I saw the Northwest is beautiful and hards to leave. Here's what I said,

"Settings create the tone of a book, and have the power to either pull me into the story, or turn me off of it completely. There's been a handful of books I've read lately that have captivated me and sucked me in not just with the story, but also with the setting. Beautiful Darkness, Clockwork Angel, Firelight, Paranormalcy, and Guardian of The Gate are a few. I'll admit there's one book that I read just because of the setting, and that was Twilight. I had friends for months trying to get me to read Twilight (long before it was a huge seller) and I kept refusing. Why would I want to read a "stupid vampire love story", were my exact words. It took one paragraph with the words, "Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State" for me to be hooked on this book. Why? I'm from the Northwest. Born and raised there and though I don't live there now, the setting took me back to what I love and miss about the Northwest and it's beauty with it's lush green trees and ferns that liter the woods, colder weather and even the rain.

Places I'd been, and some things I grew up doing where captured in the Twilight series. Of course I never ran with wolves or vampires, but Stephenie brought to life a series that couldn't have survived in a different setting. The Northwest brought the story to life and made it more real. People flock from all over the world to see this amazing, real setting of dense, green, moss covered trees and to climb over old pines trees washed up on the rocky beaches of La Push, just to walk along the shore where real dog prints can be found among the colored pebbles that wash up on the shore. Who wouldn't want to go there? You don't need to love Vampires or Wolves to want to go here. It's the ideal place to let your imagination run wild and if you grew up in a place similar to this, than you can relate to running around for hours in a small wooded area, letting your childhood imagination run wild. Maybe that's what the appeal is to the older readers.

While the Twilight series has a great story, if the setting hadn't been in the Northwest, it wouldn't have been as appealing to me. This is one series where I love it for the setting first, and the story second. Stephenie not only described the outdoor element of the Northwest perfectly, but she took real aspects of the Northwest with Native American culture, hobbies of the Northwest, like hiking, fishing and camping, along with life in a small Northwestern town and wove it into her story. She made me feel like I was really there, experiencing the story. It's not just the story of Edward and Bella or the closeness of the pack or the Cullens, or the feelings of a first love that appeal to fans. Twilight's setting can connect us through experiences we've had or places we've been and that adds realism to the story. Settings can be real, like places we've lived or visited, or they can be made up, and allow us to expand our imaginations and get lost in an imaginary place that comes real in our minds." (quoted from Jen's site)

You can find the rest of the my post here http://tinyurl.com/23d86t9 AND be sure to leave Jen a comment and enter to win The Body Finder! Another great book takes place in the beautiful Northwest.

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