Kitty + Carrie + Contest

Yesterday was the official Carrie Vaughn / Kitty Norville blog tour, and it was awesome to see so many terrific posts about this great series that I’ve enjoyed reading so much. If you didn’t get a chance, make sure to take a look at all the participants that got together to celebrate these books.

* Kitty Sightings * A Circle Of Books Amateur De irresistible Weblog Amber Stults Book Series Reviews The Book Zombie Booking Mama Books Ahoy! Books By TJ Baff Cafe Of Dreams Cheryl's Book Nook Cindy's Love Of Books Confessions Of A Romance Book Addict Darby's Closet Drey's Library Fiction To Fruition Foreign Circus Library Gramma's Reads In Bed With Books Jenn's Bookshelf Medieval Bookworm Ms. Bookish Musings Of A Bookish Kitty My Friend Amy The Novel Bookworm Sam's Book Blog Stephanie's Confessions Of A Book-A-Holic This Book For Free The Tome Traveller's Weblog Un-Mainstream Mom Reads Wendi's Book Corner What Have I Read Lately Wrighty's Reads Write For A Reader

I decided to break the rules and continue on with another day’s posting about the series. 6 books is a lot to talk about in just one day! In my last post, I blabbered on about why I liked this series and provided the book jacket summaries for books 1 through 5. So today I am going to present my thoughts on book 6 – Kitty Raises Hell – write a bit about the author – Carrie Vaughn – and then give you all a chance to win some books – Sound good? Okay here goes…

Too Darn Hot. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas… except when it doesn’t. Kitty and Ben return to their werewolf pack in Denver only to discover an invisible evil that smells of brimstone and plays with fire has followed them home. Stalking the whole pack, it leaves a charred trail of ashes and death across the city. Kitty seeks help from Rick, the master vampire of Denver, as well as from the paranormal investigators on a popular reality TV show. But when a mysterious vampire who claims to be a demon hunter – and the only one who can help them – suddenly arrives, Kitty and her allies won’t be able to predict what he really wants… or what they must do to extinguish the terror that can torch them all.

Kitty Raises Hell, is by far my favorite book of the series, so far! It starts off right from where Book 5 ended. Kitty returns to Denver, but she seems to return a stronger, more kick-ass Kitty. When her pack, family and friends are facing danger this time, it is apparent that all the crap that’s happened in the past has finally become enough for Kitty. She is clearly more confident and sure of herself this time. Which is cool, there’s been steady development in her character, but it’s here that we see the realization of just how powerful Kitty can become.

I don’t want to give away too much of what happens plot-wise, but there were a lot of things in this book that I really enjoyed. Action – again, I have to highlight the fact that the action sequences are terrifically played out. You never doubt that Kitty will pull through, but the scenes are still pretty intense. I also enjoy how more characters are introduced, as they have been steadily through the series. This series is very full of people, but the author is pulling them into the story in a way that is not overdone. All of the characters are given the right amount of focus to make them memorable and individual. Sometimes in a series with such a large cast, people seem to pop in and out and leave the reader wondering “hey who was that?” but it’s skillfully done here. The connections between the characters are  also great, in this book specifically, the way that Kitty feels about the ‘mysterious vampire’ is especially well done. It’s clear that Kitty is fighting internally about how this vamp can help them, and what is she willing to risk. Her feelings of being stuck between a rock and a hard place come through wonderfully. And I know I’m gonna sound like a total geek, but I loved the Paradox P.I. bits. I’m a sucker for those true haunting style reality shows, and I thought this was a great way to bring a bit of current pop culture into the series! 

Overall, an awesome read! Great follow-up to the Vegas vacation. I was a little worried about where the series would head after Kitty and Ben got married, but Carrie Vaughn pulled it off fantastically. Needless to say, I’ll be first in line for the next installment!

Author Bio: Carrie Vaughn had the nomadic childhood of the typical Air Force brat, with stops in California, Florida, North Dakota, Maryland, and Colorado. She holds a Masters in English Literature and collects hobbies-fencing and sewing are currently high on the list. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.

While checking out Carrie’s blog, I came across the most awesome picture ever! Seriously how cool is this chick ----------->
Carrie Vaughn as Vampire Hunter! With Stakes!! Love it :)

BlogTalk Author Interview:

	Author Blog: Filling The Well
	Author Website: Carrie Vaughn.com

Author Essay: There are two essays by Carrie available for reading on her page at Hachette Book Group, I knew almost immediately that I wanted to share one because of this particular passage: “Everyone who's a lifelong reader has that book, that best friend they read as a teenager and still read because it feels like coming home.”  Feels like coming home – that’s exactly the feeling I get when re-reading a treasured book.

Books As Friends
by Carrie Vaughn

I've been thinking lately about the idea of books as friends. Maybe even best friends. When I was about 15, I read Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword for the first time. It's about a girl who is orphaned, uprooted from her home to move halfway around the world, where she discovers a mysterious foreign land full of magic, danger, and beautiful horses. Here, she becomes a warrior and saves the world, but more than that she finally finds a place where she belongs. This novel is custom made for slightly misfit, horse-crazy 15-year-old girls, and I was definitely a slightly misfit, horse-crazy girl (around this same time I broke my collarbone falling off a horse, and was back riding four weeks later). I've reread The Blue Sword almost every year since then. That's getting to be a lot of rereadings. Not only does this book make me happy--especially when I'm down, I can curl up with it and a cup of cocoa and retreat from my troubles--it's one of the books that made me want to be a writer. Harry was so real to me, I wanted her to step out of the pages and take me on her adventures. Since that wasn't going to happen, I wanted to write adventures of my own, and create characters who could also be friends, who could comfort me, cheer me up, and who I could root for and weep for.

This is an amazing thing. I'm constantly amazed by the power of words, of mere ink on the page, to evoke this kind of emotion, this feeling of loyalty I have for a character and a world that don't even exist. (The Blue Sword is at the top of the list of books I hope I have if I'm ever stranded on a desert island.) And it isn't just me. Everyone who's a lifelong reader has that book, that best friend they read as a teenager and still read because it feels like coming home.

It's such a cliché to talk about the power of literature. But we talk about it because it's true, and it includes the power to make a kid feel like she's not alone in the world, and that maybe she can make a difference, too.

Okay, one last thing… Carrie includes a special something at the beginning of each book. When I saw these somethings I thought it was such an amazing way of sharing the writing experience with the reader. So what Carrie does, is she includes a playlist at the start of every book. Not just any playlist though, it’s the music she found herself listening to as she wrote the Kitty books. How cool it that? Sharing her musical inspiration with us – I also like to think (in that geeky fan-girl part of my mind) that these songs are ones that Kitty would be playing on her radio station. I’m a big music nerd, so anything that exposes me to music or bands that I might not know of is wicked! To get an idea of how cool this is, here is the playlist for book 6 Kitty Raises Hell.

Kitty Raises Hell: The Playlist

Eric Burden & The Animals - “Paint It Black”
KT Tunstall - “Hold On”
Thompson Twins - “In The Name Of Love”
Pretenders - “Day After Day”
Oingo Boingo - “Just Another Day”
Squirrel Nut Zippers - “Soon”
The Cardigans - “Happy Meal II”
Abby Travis - “Blythe”
Duran Duran - “View To Kill”
They Might Be Giants - “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”
Garbage - “As Heaven Is Wide”
Cyndi Lauper - “All Through The Night”

And now, here is your chance to win some Kitty books of your own! I’ve got a couple books to offer everyone and a couple of ways to earn some extra entries. First here is what’s up for grabs:

3 people will win a copy of the newest Carrie Vaughn book Kitty Raises Hell!

 

1 Lucky person will win all 6 books in the Kitty Norville series!

Here’s how you can enter:

• For your first entry – Just let me know you want to enter by leaving a comment.
• +1 extra entry – If you could shape-shift into any animal, which would you choose?
• +1 extra entry – Blog about this contest – side bar is fine.
• +1 extra entry – Do you follow or subscribe? Let me know.
• +3 extra entries – This is the big question – Zombies take over the world do you barricade yourself in the house, run to the nearest shopping mall, or grab some weapons and bash some brains?

Complete all five things and get 7 chances to win! You can use multiple comments for each entry or just one comment for all – but please be sure to state how many entries you have qualified for and make sure that I have some way to contact you should you win. Leaving your email is the best way – just format it like this ‘whoever [at] email [dot] com’ to fool any spam-bots.

This giveaway is open to anyone with a US or Canada mailing address.
(Sorry no P.O. Boxes) 
Winners will be notified by email and must respond with mailing address.
Books will be mailed by Hachette Book Group directly.
Entrants may only win one prize. Winners are chosen at random.

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