Win: Soul Beach by Kate Harrison

Thanks to the publishers, I have 3 copies of the paperback of Soul Beach by Kate Harrison to giveaway.

I really enjoyed Soul Beach as you can see from my review.

The giveaway is open to UK and Eire residents and you must be over 13 to enter (please ask someone to enter for you if you are under 13).

You don't have to be a follower to enter but I don't mind if you do :)

One entry per person/household please. I am asking for the address upfront to get your prize out more quickly.

The competition closes on 31 May 2012.

Please fill in the form below. Please note there is no correct answer to the question posed  (or at least I don't know it) it is just a bit of fun!

Blog Tour: Mary Hooper - Guest Post, Extract & Giveaway

Today is the final day of Mary Hooper's Blog Tour for her stunning new book, Velvet and Mary has kindly written a guest post about her Fantasy Dinner Party Guests:

Fantasy Dinner Party
(five people, living, dead or fictional that you would invite and why)

Do people still have dinner parties? I would probably have an Indian takeaway then we can all gather around the foil dishes and I wouldn’t have to worry about all that cooking.

Elvis Presley. He was my number one crush when I was fourteen. I had 120 photographs of him on my wall and I used to kiss every one of them before I went to bed. When I saw a trailer of TWILIGHT the other day I realised why girls had gone mad over Robert Pattison: he looks just like a twenty year old Elvis. Only not quite as gorgeous.

Heathcliff. I can’t see him fitting into a dinner party, or helping the other guests to a spoonful of Bombay pickle, and he’s a bit of a bad-boy cliché, but when he was invented by Charlotte Bronte he wasn’t a cliché at all. He’d hate everyone at the party and brood a lot, and when he left early we could all talk about him.

Jo Brand. I love Jo. I love her dry wit and her deadpan delivery, I love that she doesn’t care. I think I could be best friends with her. I don’t think she’d get on with Philip Larkin as a person, however, so I’m looking forward to a lively debate over the Tikka Masala.

Paul Whitehouse. Okay, I know he’s been around a while now, but he’s still my favourite comic. So versatile – the list of “characters” he has played or invented is endless. And nothing is funnier, or more poignant, than Ted and Ralph. It’s one of those rare pieces that make you laugh and cry at the same time.

Philip Larkin. Witty, erudite and a bit of a dark horse (impassive behind his glasses, but what about all those women he had on the quiet?) his poems linger in my mind like no others. From the endlessly debated and read-at- weddings, An Arundel Tomb, to the simple truth of This be the Verse to an eight-line poem about Myxomatosis which can reduce me (an ardent lover of rabbits) to tears, Larkin has a poem to cover it. Perhaps he’d care to immortalise my dinner party in a few well-chosen words...

Thanks very much Mary and Bloomsbury for allowing Teenage Fiction For All Ages to take part in the tour.

You can find out more about Mary Hooper at her website.
You can check out the earlier stops on the tour via her Facebook page

Scroll down to read an extract from Velvet and to enter the giveaway to win 8 of Mary's books.

Synopsis
Velvet is a laundress in a Victorian steam laundry. With both her mother and father dead, she is an orphan and has to rely upon her own wits to make a living. The laundry is scalding, back-breaking work and Velvet is desperate to create a better life for herself. Then Velvet is noticed by Madame Savoya, a famed medium, who asks Velvet to come to work for her. Velvet is dazzled at first by the young yet beautifully dressed and bejewelled Madame. But soon Velvet realises that Madame Savoya is not all that she says she is, and Velvet's very life is in danger ...A romantic and thrillingly exciting new novel from an acclaimed and much loved historical writer for teens.

Trailer




Extract
Velvet by Mary Hooper - chapter one.


Giveaway

Thanks to Bloomsbury, I have one set of: At the Sign of the Sugared Plum, Petals in the Ashes, The Remarkable Life and Times of Eliza Rose, At The House of the Magician, By Royal Command, The Betrayal, Fallen Grace and Velvet to giveaway.


The giveaway is open to UK entrants only and the closing date is 20 September 2011. To enter please complete the form below.

Win 8 Children's Crime Fiction Books

To conclude this special focus on children's crime fiction, I have a brilliant competition with 8 books to giveaway thanks to Orion and Random House.

One lucky person will win:

Alex Carter - The Case of the Ruby Necklace & The Case of the Poisoned Pie
Caroline Lawrence - The Case of the Deadly Desperados & The Thieves of Ostia (#1 Roman Mysteries)
Helen Moss - The Mystery of the Whistling Caves & The Mystery of The Midnight Ghost
Marcus Sedgwick - Flood and Fang (#1 The Raven Mysteries)
Lauren St John - Dead Man's Cove

To enter, please fill in the form below. All entries will be deleted once the winner has supplied their address details. The prize will be sent out by the publishers.
One entry per person only please. To enter you must be over 13 and live in the UK. (You do not have to be a blog follower to enter but if you become a new follower I will be most happy!)
The competition will close at the end of the day on 30 June 2011.

Giveaway: The Sky is Everywhere (UK)

I was recently part of a blog tour of extracts from Jandy Nelson's The Sky is Everywhere. Thanks to Walker, I now have a prize to offer of

a t-shirt, a copy of The Sky is Everywhere and some post-it notes

The competition is open to UK residents only and will close on 28th June. You don't have to be a follower to enter but I don't mind if you do :)

Please complete the form below to enter:



All details will be deleted once the winner has been contacted.

Win: Witchfinder: Dawn of the Demontide by William Hussey (UK only)

Thanks to Galactus, I have 1 copy of Witchfinder: Dawn of the Demontide by William Hussey to give away. To enter, just submit your details in the form below. One entry per person please. The competition will close on 16th April 2010 and is open to UK residents only and all contact information will be deleted once the winner has been notified.
(You don't have to follow this blog to enter but I'm very grateful to those who do :).)

The first in a terrifying trilogy, read on if you dare: Jake could now see the demon fully. Its body was a mass of steely sinew, its arms roped with muscle. Six fingers sprouted from its hands, each ending in lethal talons. The thing did not possess a nose; instead a large hole, bubbling with green mucus, occupied the middle of its face. Mr Pinch's tongue flickered between his teeth and slurped across his fat lips. He was hungry. When a violent storm rages around the little village of Hobarron's Hollow, a young boy is sacrificed 'for the greater good'. His blood is used to seal a mystical doorway and prevent an apocalyptic disaster known only as the Demontide. Twenty-five years later, another boy, Jake Harker, is about to be drawn into the nightmare of the Demontide. Witches and their demon familiars stalk his every move, and his dreams are plagued by visions of a 17th Century figure known only as the Witchfinder. When his father is abducted, Jake must face the terrible secrets kept by those closest to him and a shocking truth that will change his life forever . . .

More information, downloads and extracts can be found on the Witchfinder website

Win: Beautiful Dead: Arizona by Eden Maguire

This competition is for UK residents only but if you're in the US you can enter the Crocodile Tears giveaway.

Courtesy of the publishers, I have two copies of Beautiful Dead: Arizona by Eden Maguire to giveaway:


There's been no sign of the Beautiful Dead for weeks. Darina achingly misses Phoenix all over again. But surely he will return with the rest of the Beautiful Dead as so much still remains unresolved. It's been ten months since Arizona drowned in Hartmann Lake. Suicide, it would seem. But something doesn't add up. Drowning herself in a hidden-away lake does not sound like strong, confident, Arizona: Ellerton High School's high-maintenance drama queen. Darina needs to help Arizona the way she helped Jonas. But time is running out ...

Book one, Jonas, is reviewed here.


To enter the draw, simply answer the question below:

What is the name of the third book in the Beautiful Dead series?

a) Autumn

b) Spring

c) Summer

Hint: The answer can be found on the Beautiful Dead website

Email the correct answer to karen at eurocrime.co.uk, putting 'Arizona' in the subject line. This competition is open to UK residents only and the closing date is 30 November 2009. One entry per household please.

Giveaway of Crocodile Tears (US only)

Courtesy of Penguin USA, I have 1 copy of the new Alex Rider novel, Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz, to giveaway.

The giveaway is open to US residents only and will close on 9 November.

To enter, please email me: karen at eurocrime.co.uk, with the subject line Crocodile.
One entry per person please.
After the closing date I will contact the lucky winner for their postal address.
All emails will be deleted once the winner's address has been supplied.



Synopsis: It's just another day in the life of an average kid. If you're Alex Rider, that is. A con artist has realized there is big money in charity-- the bigger the disaster, the greater the money flow! So that is what he will produce: the biggest disaster known to man, all thanks to genetically modified wheat that can release a virus so potent it can knock out an entire country in one windy day. But Alex Rider will face whatever it takes--gunfire, explosions, hand-to-hand combat with mercenaries-- to bring down his most dangerous adversary yet.

Win: 2 books by Andy Briggs

A competition for September: win a set of the latest two books in the Hero.com/Villain.Net series by Andy Briggs.

HERO.COM and VILLAIN.NET are a fiendishly clever new concept of series and anti-series. Publishing simultaneously within one set of covers, the two books stand alone but, thanks to their cunning plotting, they also overlap, to give added enjoyment to super observant readers.

When a group of teenagers discover that they can download superpowers from the internet their ordinary lives suddenly take an extraordinary turn.

In Books 3 of this brilliant new series, we watch as The Hero Foundation is a shadow of its former self and Lord Eon–the most terrible supervillain ever–has hatched a plan to tear apart time. Toby and his superhero friends should be able to stop him . . . but Pete has woken up from his coma a different person, Emily has been kidnapped, and Lorna has disappeared.

At the same time, schoolboy supervillain, Jake Hunter has taken his seat on the Council of Evil. Now he will live his dream and exact revenge on the cruel world.

But the cruel world has other plans, and they come in the shape of the Hero Foundation. Jake’s not scared of the Hero Foundation. He even has a plan to turn it to the dark side. Until it gets a new member – Jake’s own sister. Is he really so villainous as to try to get her out of the way?

Read the books as separate satisfying adventures . . .or read them together and spot the heroes and villains blasting into each other's missions.

Which side are you on?

[NB. You can win a Playstation 3 with £100 of Play.com vouchers at the offical website - Which Side Are You On?]


To enter the draw, simply visit the official website Which Side Are You On? and get yourself tested to see if you are a Hero or a Villain. Email your result (Hero or Villain) plus your postal address, to karen at eurocrime.co.uk putting 'Competition Briggs' in the subject line.

This competition is open to UK residents only and the closing date is 30 September 2009.

(This competition is also listed on my Euro Crime website.)

The Third Pig Detective Agency - extract and competition

1
A New Client

It was another slow day in the office. Actually, it had been a slow week in the office. No, if truth be known, it had been a lousy month for the Third Pig Detective Agency. That's me by the way: Harry Pigg, the Third Pig.


Where did the name come from? Well, I was the pig that built the house out of bricks while my idiot brothers took the easy route and went for cowboy builders and cheap materials. Let me tell you, wood and straw ain't much use when Mr Wolf comes calling. Those guys were pork-chops as soon as he drew in his first breath and filled those giant lungs of his. Blow your house down, indeed.


The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke can be found shelved in both adult and teenage sections of all good bookshops but you can also try and win a copy via the competition being run this month on my other blog/website Euro Crime: here.

(There are two other competitions for Relics of the Dead by Ariana Franklin and Blood Law by Steven Hague).