Winners and Other Saturday Odds and Ends

Happy Halloween everyone! Hope you had a great week. Last night when I came home from work it was 73 degrees, but the weather fronts decided to do a flipflop last night and it was 51 when I got up this morning. I thought maybe I might wake up in Oz after all the wind and craziness in the night. But, I'm still here, so I get to announce the winners of Hatchette's Spine-Chiller book drawing. Since I had more entries than any other contest to date, they said it would be alright to choose three winners instead of just two. So,

Renee from Washington
Brian from California
Jonnie from Alberta, Canada

are the lucky winners of Jen's Book Thoughts' drawing. They will each in turn be entered into the new drawing for one of the 20 copies of the Dekker ARC. So, good luck to them there. I've contacted each of the winners by email and passed their information along to Hatchette so they can receive their prizes.

I'm planning to hold a couple more contests before Christmas. I am contributing to the BUY BOOKS FOR CHRISTMAS campaign, and I thought I'd have some drawings for books I would recommend this year for crime fiction fans. So try your luck and maybe you can win a Christmas gift and save yourself a few dollars this season!

Jen's Book Thoughts received a prize of sorts this week. Corey from The Drowning Machine emailed me to congratulate me on our mention in the new Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Author Bill Crider was extremely generous to mention us in his Blog Bytes column. I have to get out and get my hands on a copy. Thanks to Corey for bringing it to my attention. Bill had mentioned it before Bouchercon, but in all the craziness, it completely slipped my mind! Sometimes I can be so clueless. Geez! And of course many thanks to Bill for making that happen.

Also, keep your eyes peeled for the next Crimespree Magazine. Of course I'll have more reviews but I believe I'll also have an additional special item in Crimespree this time around. And I'm absolutely tickled because I worked with someone I think the world of on this particular project. Yes! I'm being evasive on purpose. I don't want to spill the beans. I want you to check it out yourselves! When I have a better idea of when it'll be available, I'll give you a heads up, but remember, you can always get a subscription here.

I finally made some time to update the Crime Fiction Twitter Directory. Since it was last updated some authors have climbed on board. And I also received some names from others who knew of authors I was unaware of. So that's updated and I also put a link to it over in the sidebar under "Book Sites I Frequent." So if you want to check it out or have needed a little convincing as to whether or not to open a Twitter account, that's where you can easily find the directory.

News for anyone who is a fan of the PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES book. I believe there was a second one? SENSE AND SENSIBILITY AND SEA MONSTERS? Anyway, I have not read these books but know they have been extremely popular lately. Which is why I'm excited for Steve Hockensmith - who, if you'll remember, I met at Bouchercon. He has written book number 3...or maybe it isn't exactly 3 because it's a prequel to P&P&Z? Whatever, it's called DAWN OF THE DREADFULS, and it is based on Austen characters but has no Austen writing in it. So that comes out in March of next year and Entertainment Weekly has a story about it at their site.

I have registered to attend Murder and Mayhem in Muskego. I think I'm having Bouchercon withdrawal, so, you know it's absolutely necessary. Anyway, if you are in the area or can come as well, here's the site with more information. It's November 14th with a meet and greet reception the night before. And also, registration IS open for Bouchercon 2011 in St. Louis. I'm already registered. It's not likely I'll be able to afford San Francisco next year, but I'm all in for St. Louis. Hope you'll be there, too!

And as a parting thought if you're interested, Sean Chercover had a post this week at The Outfit about his new writing digs. It's very cute...or as I commented at the blog, it's very clas-sy!

Have a great weekend and HAPPY READING!