Spend the Summer in the Low Country

by Susan Roberts

Mary Alice Monroe is a best selling author who writes environmental fiction about my favorite place, the South Carolina sea coast.  She weaves the beautiful SC settings with wonderful characters and also imparts her feelings about the wildlife of the area - the sea turtles, dolphins and monarch butterflies.  Her readers are rewarded with not only beautiful stories but also lessons on the environment.  She has written many great Southern fiction novels and her latest is a series called Low County Summer.

The Summer Girls (Lowcountry Summer #1)

This is a fantastic beach read -- it made me want to pack up and take a trip to the beach. Mary Alice Monroe has been a writer of excellent Southern fiction for years and this book puts her at the top of her game. Its the first book of a trilogy about three half- sisters and their grandmothers's goal to bring them closer to each other. They all spent summers together at the beach but have become estranged and live totally different lives. The grandmother insists that they all need to spend the summer at the beach together or be taken out of her will. I really enjoyed Carson's story and can't wait to read about the other sisters.  Carson is the first of the sisters to return to the beach.  She has lost her job in California and is drifting - she doesn't know what to do but she knows that she needs to re-connect with her childhood home in SC.

Buy The Summer Girls at Amazon

The Summer Wind (Lowcountry Summer #2)

This is the second book in Mary Alice Monroe's Summer Girls series. The series is about three half sisters who visit their grandmother on Sullivan's Island in South Carolina. She has let them know if they don't spend this last summer with her, they will all be cut out of her will. So they all reluctantly make plans to spend the summer in the SC lowcountry. As usual with this author, her description of the area is beautiful, you can almost smell the salt air while you are reading the book. This book concentrates mostly on Dora who, despite trying to live her life as a proper Southern lady, is in the midst of a divorce. She has an autistic son and is struggling to find herself again after a difficult marriage. The book is about family dynamics between the three very different sisters and it's about love and trust. It's a perfect beach read and and I am anxious for book three in the series so that I can read everyone's happily every after ending.

Buy The Summer Wind at Amazon

The Summer's End (Lowcountry Summer #3)

Reading the third book in the Low Country Summer trilogy was like sitting down with old friends to catch up on what was going on in their lives. The characters had been so well drawn in the first books, that I felt like I knew them personally.Book 1 -The Summer Girls was Carson's story, Book 2 - The Summer Wind was Dora's story and the final book in the trilogy was Harper's story. The three half sisters were all pulled together by their paternal grandmother Mamaw who owned Sea Breeze house on Sullivan's Island where they are spending the summer before she sells the house to move into a nursing home. In this final book of the trilogy, we see Harper get out from under the thumb of her demanding mother and learn to be an independent and loving woman. Its a fantastic book and would be a great book to read at the beach because you can almost hear the ocean in the background as you read it. This book wraps up almost all of the loose ends of the novel but it would be so wonderful to meet these old friends again in another book.

Buy The Summer's End at Amazon

A Lowcountry Wedding (Lowcountry Summer #4)

This is book 4 in Mary Alice Monroe's Low Country Summer series. The series needs to be read in order because there are lots of references to the previous books.

Once again we are back on Sullivan's Island SC with the Muir family at Sea Breeze while Harper and Carson plan their weddings. Their planning is helped by Dora, their grandmother and Harper's grandmother from England. If planning two weddings a day apart - one on the beach and one at a plantation - isn't stressful enough, there is a surprise visitor who joins the family and really changes the family dynamics. And of course, there is the beautiful South Carolina low country, the ocean and Delphane, the dolphin from the earlier books. The characters are well done and very real and the scenery makes you feel like you are ready to dip your toes into the ocean.

I love Mary Alice Monroe's book and I really love this series. I'm sad that this is the end of the series and that we won't go back and spend more time with these characters that we've grown to know so well. This is a great series and I highly recommend it!

Buy A Lowcountry Wedding at Amazon

SURPRISE!!
COMING IN OCTOBER 2016

A Lowcountry Christmas

Susan Roberts, reviewer. Susan grew up in the Detroit area but after deciding that city life wasn't for her she moved to North Carolina after college. She and her husband have several acres of land and they enjoy gardening and canning vegetables in the summer. They travel extensively. Susan reads almost anything (and the piles of books in her house prove that) but her favorite genres are Southern fiction, women's fiction and thrillers. Susan is a top 1% Goodreads Reviewer. You can connect with Susan on Facebook or Twitter.

Get even more book news in your inbox by signing up for our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/mHTVL. Girl Who Reads is an Amazon advertising affiliate; a small commission is earned when purchases are made at Amazon using any Amazon links on this site. Thank you for supporting Girl Who Reads.

Related articles

• Short stories for light summer reading (girl-who-reads.com)

Have You Got The Write Time?

by Byddi Lee

I’d just immigrated to America. I knew no-one and my husband worked all day, leaving me home alone to write. Pretty ideal conditions, I discovered, to write a novel. As I networked, joined writing groups and integrated into my new life, the population of people I knew rose. I’m immensely grateful for that, even though it’s a challenge to get down to writing now. Emigrating again, though effective, would probably be overkill.

Most of us juggle a job, a family and the demands of a busy life. Once you find the time to write, there’s still the challenge of finding the energy to write. And yes, you do need energy to write. Whilst you may be sitting still and the only thing moving is, hopefully, your fingers, your brain is working hard. While writing cannot be considered as part of your fitness regime, your brain takes up to 20% of the energy your body uses.

Some believe in inviting the muse, while others insist that a successful writer must sit down every day and force themselves to commit something, anything to paper.

I find that I employ both strategies, the later lending itself to better productivity and keeps me on target. Were I to rely solely on waiting for the muse to arrive, I’d probably never have finished a single manuscript, so I try to write every day.

However, I do succumb to the muse when I can. Right now, I’m writing this on an airplane, a long-haul flight from Ireland to California. Why? One reason is guilt – I’ve been traveling a lot lately, and I’ve found it hard to keep to my writing routine. Another is deadlines – I know I’ll be jet lagged on the other side, and right now I feel energized. I want to capitalize on that. Though the biggest reason, by far, is that when I began thinking about what I would write for this post, I began composing it in my head. That’s the muse striking. It is like having an itch and writing scratches it.

The muse is not to be scoffed at. It can be very powerful, invading the night and keeping a writer awake in the wee hours. I’ve learned to keep a pen and notepad by the bed, beside “my spot” on the sofa, on the kitchen island, and in my handbag. I’ve stopped short at having a pen and pad in the bathroom only because the paper would get wet in the shower, which is, irritatingly, where I get many rushes of inspiration. I’ve often composed great prose there, then rushed to towel off, trying to write down the words before they slide through the mesh of my brain and down the plughole.

The night, or rather morning, very early morning, I wrote my first ever blog post, I had been lying wake for hours with words bouncing off the insides of my skull driving me crazy. Eventually, I got up and wrote…and after an hour I’d written a post called “A blog to a Muse”… and a blog was born.
When the muse strikes, I find can sit anywhere and write on anything – a laptop and note book, the back of an envelope, anywhere I can trap and tie down that prose as it races around in my head. The muse can be a flaky friend and may not visit of her own free will for long stretches of time. Sometimes she needs to be coaxed in and that is where the regular routine comes in.

Some people like to write at particular times of day. Steven King writes in the morning, using the afternoon for naps and writing letters, keeping the evenings for family and leisure time. Rudyard Kipling was an afternoon guy, while John O’Hara wrote during the night and slept late into the afternoon. There are morning birds and night owls. Figuring out which you are will help you set your writing schedule.

For many it is hard to simply carve time out of a busy life to write. For others, the time is tauntingly there, but the motivation to sit down to write is elusive.

One source of motivation for me is my writing group meetings. I like to submit for each meeting, held once every two weeks. As a submission is 15 pages, that means I’ll create at least 30 fresh pages every month for my work in progress, not including short pieces and blogs.

Our writing group uses social media to encourage each other also. We have a group on messenger and post the number of minutes we write each day. By committing to sit down and write for a minimum of 30 minutes we discovered that we often continued to write for longer every day. It was just a matter of building up our writing “muscles.” We also realized that we could squeeze that initial 30 minutes slot into each day more often that we’d at first thought.

Some people recommend writing a set amount of words every day.  Steven King writes 2000 words a day, every day. He claims that if he misses a day, his characters tend to go stale. This works really well when working on a first draft but not so well for rewriting. Another writer I know writes 1000 words or 2pm, meaning that she if she writes 1000 words in one day she will stop then or else keep going until 2pm, at which time she needs to stop due to family commitments.

This is fine for full time writers. People who squeeze writing between a job and family commitments may find this off-putting. What matters is that we figure out what works for us as individuals. The important thing is to keep writing.

Many of us need the carrots in life to keep on pushing that pen. Chocolate, or wine make great carrots, but at the end of the day the fulfillment of writing is in its own way one of the largest carrots we have.

Byddi Lee, features writer. Byddi grew up in Armagh, Ireland, and moved to Belfast to study Biology at Queen’s University when she was 18. She made Belfast her home for twenty-one years, teaching science and writing for pleasure. In 2002 she took a sabbatical from teaching and traveled round the world for two years, writing blogs about her adventures as she went. She returned to Ireland in 2004 and resumed teaching. In 2008 she and her husband moved to San Jose, California where she made writing a full-time career. After the publication of her short story, Death of a Seannachai, she decided it was time to write, March to November. Connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Get even more book news in your inbox by signing up for our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/mHTVL. Girl Who Reads is an Amazon advertising affiliate; a small commission is earned when purchases are made at Amazon using any Amazon links on this site. Thank you for supporting Girl Who Reads.

Drive More Traffic to Your Site With This Trick

by Donna Huber

Girl Who Reads just finished two big blog events - April's A to Z Challenge and ArmchairBEA. These are big events both in the terms of the number of participants, the number of blog posts/topics, the amount of traffic a blog gets and commenting.

There is a lesson to be learned from these events that I think is often overlooked. Yet if bloggers employed it not only during challenges but also during their regular blogging business they would drive more traffic to their site every day.

Blogging challenges are often about visiting other blogs and leaving comments. Everyone loves to get comments on their posts (see Why You Should Leave a Comment), but did you know leaving comments on other blogs can drive traffic to your site?

Leave Comments on Other Blogs

One of the trends I saw in the A to Z Challenge was a lot of people saying that they were only visiting those blogs that had left a comment on their posts. If you have never heard of the A to Z Challenge a bunch of blogs, of all types, not just book bloggers, participate. It's in the thousands.

Participants had to manage the sheer volume somehow. And truth be told, towards the end I started only going to the blogs that left a comment on my blog.

You are probably asking how they find your blog from a comment.

Leave a Calling Card

A few blogs are still using the third party comment app CommentLuv, though its use seems to be dwindling. The nice thing about CommentLuv was that it would provide a link to your latest post.

The good thing is you don't need CommentLuv to leave a link to your blog in the comments. I like to think of it as a calling card and use it as a signature - Donna from Girl Who Reads.

I use to think that it was spamming and as there are other benefits to leaving a link it is used by spammers. But if you leave a thoughtful, applicable comment that adds to the discussion or makes a relevant point, a comment where it is obvious that you are not just commenting to gain SEO points, then I believe it is not a spam tactic.

Now you could just type out your URL - http://www.girl-who-reads.com. However, this requires the person to copy and paste the URL into their browser. And we know how busy we all are, so you want to make it as easy as possible for readers to get to your blog. To do this you just need a simple string of HTML code:

<a href=URL>NAME</a>

Replace URL with the URL to your blog or a specific post. For me, it is http://www.girl-who-reads.com.

Replace NAME with your name or other text. For me, Donna from Girl Who Reads

Who Will Use the Link?

You may be thinking, 'Donna, this sounds great, but I don't want just other bloggers visiting. I want new readers."

While it is true at first that the only person who may follow a link left in comments is the blogger, it does not exclude others from following it. Especially if a conversation gets started around the comment you left. Also, if the blogger likes your content they may include a link to your blog on their blogroll or share it on their social media channels.

The important thing to keep in mind is to leave a worthy comment. That comment will be the first introduction to your writing. Put some thought into it.

Do not limit yourself to book bloggers (whatever kind of blogger you are). Just because someone doesn't blog about books, doesn't mean they aren't readers. During the A to Z Challenge, I met several lifestyle and entertainment bloggers who love to read.

Ideas for Comments

I know leaving comments can be difficult. Here are a few ideas you can use when the content doesn't spark any original ideas.

• "I love historical romance and that book sounds great. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I recently read BOOK TITLE and you can read my review here (link to your review)"
• "This is a new-to-me author, but I'm going to have to check her out. Thanks for sharing. Donna from Girl Who Reads"
• For a movie blog "I too thought the movie was well done, but I like the book a little bit more here's my review"

How often do you comment on other blogs? Do you leave a link to your blog when you write a comment?

Donna Huber, founder & publisher. Donna is an avid reader and natural encourager. She is the founder of Girl Who Reads and the author of how-to marketing book Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour. She reads most genres, but her favorite books are psychological thrillers and stories that highlight the survival of the human spirit against unbelievable circumstances.

Get even more book news in your inbox by signing up for our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/mHTVL. Girl Who Reads is an Amazon advertising affiliate; a small commission is earned when purchases are made at Amazon using any Amazon links on this site. Thank you for supporting Girl Who Reads.

A Gripping Thriller ~ People in Season by Simon Fay #BookReview

by Elisa Hordon

A gripping thriller from start to finish. People in Season was a darker story than I normally read but I really enjoyed it.

Great characters, good solid storyline. Simon Fay has a talent for writing about people, his characters are strong

Agent Mullen is tasked with finding the 'untouched' before they can harm other people. Agent Mullen is referred to as a 'Social Agent' basically a government bureaucrat sent out into workplaces such as a newsroom to find Untouched People, he does this by interviewing and watching everyone some people might say it's a boring job but I found the idea interesting especially if you like studying human behaviour, how people interact with each other and how they act themselves in given situations. Taking into account for this story that most of these people are reporters makes it even more interesting as these people are usually the ones doing the interviewing but here in this case they are also being interviewed. With the basis of the storyline being set in the future the whole book has a slight science fiction quality about it but without it seeming unbelievable.

The author Simon Fay has a unique way with words, so much so you can actually feel the tension coming off the pages as he describes certain scenes, this is what makes the book so hard to put down, it's also what makes the game played throughout the story much more thrilling and where the hunter becomes the hunted or do they? I love how the story is played out to the very end. and still leaves you wondering if they got it right or not.

This thriller was just that and so much more, it was beyond any other thriller I have read, the characters love playing games with each other, which in a crime thriller makes the story even more gripping because you never know which way the game is going to play out and because a game can have many twists and turns plus you don't know the winner until the very end you just are never sure if the crime will ever be solved, will the perpetrator be apprehended or will the bad guy win this one. I really enjoy the mind games that come with a well written thriller and Simon Fay does not disappoint.

Agent Francis Mullen is used to investigations where he is made to feel unwanted, it comes with the job and he really loves his job, it's all about being able to really read people, to find out just what makes them tick.

Francis meets reporter Ava at the newsroom and he is instantly taken with her but he is confused as to why, is it just an attraction or is it more and what game is she really playing, if any at all.

Ava is more than a mere reporter, she more than any other character in this story knows how to play a game and play it well, she has a strong personality, she reads people well, she is a temptress, a seductress but is she really a bad person underneath it all, only time will tell.....

I love the way Francis comes off as being a bit nervous when interviewing people, it is an interesting tactic and one that works for people to underestimate him, not only is Francis very good at his job he has made it his life's work to understand human behaviour especially that of the 'untouched'.

The ending to this great story will leave you breathless.

Buy People in Season at Amazon

Elisa Hordon, reviewer. Elisa lives on the Southern Highlands of NSW, Australia were she spends her days reading, journaling, painting, cooking and home schooling her daughter. She has always been an avid reader, Elisa loves reading many genres of books except horror; her favourite genres would be mystery, romance and paranormal. Elisa also loves pursuing many creative outlets if she is not relaxing with a book she can be found writing, sketching, painting or cooking. Elisa loves to share her obsession with books especially with her family and friends. Reading and reviewing books is a favourite pastime of Elisa’s.

Book info:
available formats: ebook (217 pages)
published: March 2016
genres: thriller, crime fiction
source: free ebook provided by the author

Get even more book news in your inbox by signing up for our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/mHTVL. A free ebook was provided for this review. Girl Who Reads is an Amazon advertising affiliate; a small commission is earned when purchases are made at Amazon using any Amazon links on this site. Thank you for supporting Girl Who Reads.

Review: Going Against Type by Sharon Black

by Alison Deluca

Charlotte had waited years for Donal to utter those magical words. This morning he'd finally said them'We're trying you out as a columnist, Charlie. Go Grab 'em by the ...''Thank you, Donal,' Charlotte replied fervently.Yessss!!!! She mentally punched the air. 'I won't let you down.'Maybe not the magical words every girl longed to hear, but for Charlotte Regan - sports reporter for Ireland Today - they were music to her ears.

Going Against Type by Sharon Black is a delightful book. This story of journalist Charlie Regan follows her journey to become a full-fledged sports writer and the man she falls in love with along the way.

When Charlie gets the chance to write a sports column, Side Swipe, she finds herself in a feud with The Squire, a fashion columnist. The readers love the feud, and Charlie’s career takes off. Little does she know the Squire is none other than Derry Cullinane, the fella she’s been dating!

This is all great fun, but what makes Going Against Type stand out are two things. First, I loved the setting of Dublin and the city’s waterfront outskirts. It was exciting as a reader to recognize Sandycove, Dun Laoghaire Pier and Dalkey where Charlie goes for her daily runs run. This area is close to my heart, and Sharon Black has captured it perfectly.

More importantly, I fell in love with Charlie. She’s a thoroughly modern Irishwoman – obsessed with sport, very athletic, determined to work hard and make it in a tough business. She surfs in the West of Ireland. She helps coach a football league. She bets on horses, goes to curling matches, and interviews very naked footballers while trying not to break horizon.

I admired Charlie’s no-nonsense attitude and determination to find her career in the male-dominated world of European sports news. She insists on recognizing female athletes and is more concerned about getting her daily run than what she’s got in her closet. When it comes to being a great friend and wonderful sister, Charlie’s your woman.

She and I could definitely hang out at the Temple Bar.

I also loved the humor running through the novel. This is a cozy read, a great book for a soft day with the rain lashing at the windows. Pour some tea, have some biscuits at your elbow, and open Black’s novel by the fireside. Sounds like the perfect afternoon!

In fact, when the author approached me to review the novel, it took me only a few minutes to say yes. The sample had me laughing from the start. Still, Going Against Type isn’t all comedy. There are parts that are wistful, true to life. In the book, as in real life, not every relationship has a happy ending.

 

Henrietta Street, courtesy of Wikipedia.org

 When Black describes Charlie’s life as a reporter, the novel takes flight and soars. The columns themselves are wonderful – The Squire and Side Swipe have their own voices. This makes sense, after all – apparently Black has her own biweekly column. I was totally invested in Charlie’s struggle to make herself known as a sportswriter.

Alas, for me the story fell flat when it came to the romance between Charlie and Derry. I got that he had his heart broken and, as a result, decided he’d flit between affairs. However, the moments between the lovers were far and few between. Each date ended off-camera shortly after they set out to the cafe or pub.

Throughout the book, Derry has to deal with fallout from one of his casual relationships. Belinda, a former Miss Ireland and Derry's pick-up, is beautiful, fluffy-headed, and usually dressed in pink from head to toe. Lord, she was annoying – and not for the reasons you’d think.

Belinda is a complete stereotype with her low IQ and yappy dog, actually called Wuffy. She pouts, she bats her eyelashes, she tosses her long, blonde hair. Poor Belinda deserved more dimensions to her character so I could feel something other than, “Wow. This poor girl is one hell of a cliché.”

Couldn’t Belinda have a character flaw, tragic backstory – anything to get me invested in the scenes between her and Derry? If she had developed a personality, maybe it would have helped me become more interested in what happened to her – and, as a result, in Derry and Charlie’s romance.

Belinda is only one of a slew of side characters. There’s Fiona, a common friend of Charlie and Derry who gets them together, as well as Derry’s ex (Leona) and someone he’s working with (Sonya.)

On the male side, we have Donal, Andrew, Ian, and Charlie’s ex, Conor. I wish Black’s editor had insisted on cutting 50% of these side characters – they’re unnecessary and clutter up what is otherwise a lovely story.

In fact, if Going Against Type had focused on the story of Charlie’s career, I think it would have improved the novel and brought it to the next level. Journalism, which begins and ends the novel, is obviously in the author’s blood, and her prose is glorious when she writes about the profession.

However, these flaws don’t completely spoil what is a fun, frothy read. It’s still a wonderful glimpse into life in the suburbs of Dublin as well as a fascinating story of an original character.

Come for the romance if you must, but stay for Charlie.

Buy Going Against Type at Amazon

*****

IRISH author Sharon Black is a diehard screwball comedy enthusiast. Her first novel, Going Against Type, a contemporary romantic comedy set in Dublin, was e-published by Tirgearr Publishing in September, 2014 to great reviews.

She lives in a Dublin coastal village, with her husband and their three children.

Find Sharon on her blog, at her author website, on Facebook and Twitter, and on Amazon.

Alison DeLuca, features writer. Alison is the author of several steampunk and urban fantasy books.  She was born in Arizona and has also lived in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Mexico, Ireland, and Spain. Currently she wrestles words and laundry in New Jersey. Connect with Alison on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and her blog.

Get even more book news in your inbox by signing up for our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/mHTVL. A free book was provided for this review. Girl Who Reads is an Amazon advertising affiliate; a small commission is earned when purchases are made at Amazon using any Amazon links on this site. Thank you for supporting Girl Who Reads.

Related articles

• Book Review: Going Against Type (chicklitcentral.com)

Two #Books to Enjoy While Sipping Your Favorite Wine #MondayBlogs

by Susan Roberts

After a long day there is nothing better than to relax with a glass of wine and a great book. These two books about wine would make the perfect pairing.

The Winemakers: A Novel of Wine and Secrets by Jan Moran is about two strong women in a wine making family - Ava, the mother and the owner of the California winery and her only daughter Caterina who has hopes of working at her mother's side. What could have been a wonderful mother and daughter business is ruined by the secrets that both women keep from each other. After telling her mother about the baby that she had when she was at college and that she plans to keep, Caterina goes to Italy to the house that she has inherited from the grandmother she never knew. There she finds out secrets about her mother and her family that may change her life and the existence of the family winery in Napa Valley. She and her mother must face the past together or be destroyed by it.

The time period of the novel is the 1950s and the author highlights that very well. The reader sees it in the treatment of both women as second class citizens, especially in the way they are treated by bankers. We also see it in the clothes that the women wear when they dress up with hats and gloves.

The author definitely did considerable research into the process of wine making. I learned a lot about it as I read the novel. Not in a boring way but as part of the story of what went on at the winery.

This novel has it all - great plot, strong characters, mystery, suspense and romance. Trust me, you won't be able to put it down once you've started it!

A free book was provided by the author for this review.

Buy The Winemakers: A Novel of Wine and Secrets at Amazon

In Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave, Georgia wants life to be perfect. She chose a career and a potential husband who would fulfill her goals. When she sees her fiancé with another woman, her life begins to fall apart and she runs home to the family winery. She thinks that life will be perfect there like it was when she was growing up but she finds out that even at home, there are secrets and discontent. Georgia is a little old to call this a 'coming of age' book but it is the story of someone who grows up and learns that life isn't all perfect and tidy and that sometimes the best parts of life are the things that you don't expect. I really enjoyed this book - not only the characters and the plot but also all of the information about growing grapes and making wine. Great read!

A free book was received from GoodReads.com for this review.

Buy Eight Hundred Grapes at Amazon

Susan Roberts, reviewer. Susan grew up in the Detroit area but after deciding that city life wasn't for her she moved to North Carolina after college. She and her husband have several acres of land and they enjoy gardening and canning vegetables in the summer. They travel extensively. Susan reads almost anything (and the piles of books in her house prove that) but her favorite genres are Southern fiction, women's fiction and thrillers. Susan is a top 1% Goodreads Reviewer. You can connect with Susan on Facebook or Twitter.

Get even more book news in your inbox by signing up for our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/mHTVL. Girl Who Reads is an Amazon advertising affiliate; a small commission is earned when purchases are made at Amazon using any Amazon links on this site. Thank you for supporting Girl Who Reads.

Related articles

• Book Review: Eight Hundred Grapes (chicklitcentral.com)
• M.M. Wolthoff's Guide to Books & Booze (thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.com)
• Laura Dave has nothing to "wine" about....plus a book giveaway (chicklitcentral.com)

It's a Wrap - #ArmchairBEA

by Donna Huber

So another ArmchairBEA has come to a close. This was my fifth year and usually I'm exhausted afterwards, but not this year. I didn't try to do everything. I always love the Twitter parties, but they are probably the most hectic part of the event so I passed on them this year.

I did some of the Instagram Challenges.

One of the reasons I chose this book is because I found the cover interesting #armchairbea #bookcoverperfection

A photo posted by Donna (@girl_who_reads) on May 12, 2016 at 1:07pm PDT

I would love to go to Cedar Cove and Alitheia. #icouldhang #armchairbea

A photo posted by Donna (@girl_who_reads) on May 14, 2016 at 3:04pm PDT

And of course I did the daily topics, but I kept it short.

Day 1: Introductions & Diversity in Books
Alison also contributed an awesome post on Diversity in Books

Day 2: I talked about book covers and blog design

Day 3: I discussed audio books and ways that I've taken what I've learned blogging and applied it to my real life.

Day 4: I listed a few fictional worlds I would like to visit and there's a giveaway! (You have until noon on Monday to enter)

Giveaway swag

Get even more book news in your inbox by signing up for our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/mHTVL. Girl Who Reads is an Amazon advertising affiliate; a small commission is earned when purchases are made at Amazon using any Amazon links on this site. Thank you for supporting Girl Who Reads.