Possession Winners!

I love these posts!

You know why?

Because SOMEONE - in this case SOMEONES - are getting signed books!

Last week a whole bunch of you guys joined in with Nichole, Ali and I on a bloghop on June 7 to help launch POSSESSION by Elana Johnson.

Through the wonders of Random.org (and verification bloghop posts were up), the three winners of the signed copies of POSSESSION are:

Amy McBray
John Sankovitch
Rachel Morgan

Congrats you three! Keep an eye out for an email to come from one of us for your info so we can get the books sent out to you!

And if you DIDN'T win ... you've still got a chance to get some personal Elana-time! There's still time to enter to win this awesome prize! All you have to do? Send a copy of the receipt from your POSSESSION purchase to windy (dot) aphayrath (at) gmail (dot) com! You've got until the POSSESSION Virtual Launch on Thursday, June 16 (at 12:00 pm Mountain time) to get these in! I know you've already bought your book(s), so why haven't you sent me the receipt yet???

Random Stuff Friday

1) I really need to capture a vid of my kid brother jamming out that horrendous "It's Friday" song, seeing as that's the first thing I thought of when I started this post. Every time I say something about Friday, he busts out in the chorus of that and it's hilarious! Regardless, it IS Friday and I'm so glad. It feels like it has been a long, long week. Even if I had yesterday off ;)

2) So every year, between Mother's Day and Father's Day, well, things at this Aphayrath house are jam-packed! We've got 3 birthdays (the 2 kidlets & mine, the parents' days, our wedding anniversary), and then this year we had to add to that 4 graduations (1 college, 3 high school), a family wedding and, of course, a lovely friend's HUGE book release & launch party (*ahem* Have YOU picked up your copy of Elana Johnson's POSSESSION yet?? Well, have you??).. and well, yeah, it's been a busy 6 weeks or so. Just listing it out makes me want to crawl back to bed and take a nap.

3) I'm writing again. Woohoo! After a long and unexpected hiatus, it feels so good to get new, albeit crappy, words down again. Love this feeling and have missed it so, but the break was good, I think.

4) We've lived in our house for 4 years now and finally, FINALLY, we've gotten to some MAJOR yard work. In the last couple of weeks, Husband and a couple of his buddies rented a chainsaw from Home Depot and chopped down 2 obnoxious trees that I've totally hated since the first summer after we moved in. One was a nasty tasting purple plum tree with a mean ol' robin that would dive bomb you if you got too close, and the other was a tall flowering shade tree that while the flowers were pretty, they smelled sort of like dog poop. And we have a dog, so I know that smell. GROSS! So yay! Every time I look at our yard now I feel a bit more Zen.

5) And lastly, if you're a local Utah blogger (reader / writer / general supporter of all things wordish) I've still got a few spots open on the locals ARC tour of Brodi Ashton's EVERNEATH (Winter, Balthazar & Bray). Email me at windy (dot) aphayrath (at) gmail (dot) com if you're interested. Spots are filling up fast! - to those of you outside of Utah, I know Brodi's going to have ARCs out with some of the other tours, so keep an eye out!

Have a fabulous weekend everyone!

#POSSESSIONparty!

Guess what today is kids? Yes, yes, it's another day of this almost all POSSESSION week!

And for those of you lucky enough to live in Utah, or who were feeling particularly travely and came to visit ... tonight is the launch party for Elana Johnson's book POSSESSION!

Here are the deets:

Come Join the Resistance!
POSSESSION by Elana Johnson
Launch Party at 7:00 PM
The King's English Bookshop
1511 South 1500 East
Salt Lake City, UT 84105

And a little birdy told me the bookshop has a limited number of copies of the book available for purchase there, so come early!

If you're not able to join us in Salt Lake, well, keep an eye on Twitter and #POSSESSIONparty for live-tweet coverage of the party and maybe, just maybe, there could be some freebies in there for you too!

So if you can come, please do! There will be lots of book bloggers and writers and you may even run into a few familiar names who you can finally say "holy, wow! you really do exist!" to! - I know I've done that more than a few times ;)

See you at the party!

Broken Rules: A Possession Bloghop!

Happy Book Birthday, POSSESSION !

And of course, in honor of this grand occasion, we (Ali, Nichole and I) are along with a whole bunch of Baddies ;) are blogging about a time when we broke the rules! It's not too late to jump on the bloghop and add your blog to the list below and get something posted today - you could win a signed copy of POSSESSION! Or you can send one of us a copy of your receipt from your POSSESSION purchase and get entered to win some personal Elana-time! (All the details can be found HERE.)

So then, on to the rule breaking!

Back in the high school days, I honestly was the ultimate Goodie. I didn't break the rules. I did what I was supposed to do and called it good. There was no questioning and only a little bit of wondering what I was missing out on. I'm from a pretty traditional Laotian family and with that came crazy strict parents and lots and lots of family obligations. Friends they would approve of, and never, never did I just "go out" because, well, that's just not what Goodie girls did. I just did what I was supposed to and called it a day.

Flash forward to the following spring ...

(And yes, I realize technically, I was 19 and an "adult" but really, I still lived at home and honestly - in most Laotian families, age doesn't mean much) ... I'd started hanging out with a different crowd, made some new friends and some of them had some pretty colorful histories.

Within a couple weeks, every rule my parents had ever sent flew out the window, shattering as they hit the ground twenty feet below.

I was staying out all night. Coming home just as the sun was coming up and my parents were leaving for work.

I started dating a guy who, although really nice, was involved in some pretty shady stuff.

And I was spending so much time when I was usually with my brother and sister with these people who, at any point if a member of law enforcement came in, would probably have gotten us all arrested for one reason or another.

The thing here that was hard, was that beneath their activities, most of these people were really nice people. I liked them, as people. Maybe not everything they did, but isn't that always the way it is?

In the end, I got tired, bored, whatever you want to call it, and I walked away from the hanging out at all hours of the night. School priorities and finals came around and honestly, there's only so much of sitting around doing nothing a person can handle before you start to think, "yanno, I could be home sleeping."

I think my biggest lesson here is something that reaffirms a lot of other lessons that we've all been taught. You never really know people until you get to know them. So 1) Don't judge others. 2) Treat people with respect. 3)Always remember the Golden Rule.

P.S. As for the guy I was dating? Because we all know that's where most of the curiosity lies ... Well, his decisions changed a lot of his life and years later, I heard from him after he was released from prison. He found me on Facebook. (True story, I swear!!) It was a very thoughtful and sincere letter filled with apology and regret, as well as hope that he'd be able to get his life turned around and wishing me the best in mine. We're FB friends now and that's about the most contact we have, not for any real reason other than we're just very different people from who we were back then. And lesson 4)? Regardless of how you feel or what you think, people CAN change - they just have to want it and need to have the right motivation.

Your turn! What rules have you shattered??

Quote of the Week

"Civilization had too many rules for me,

so I did my best to rewrite them."

Bill Cosby

And just a friendly reminder! The ever-lovely Elana Johnson's debut POSSESSION releases TOMORROW - have you added yourself to the bloghop and pre-ordered your copy of the book yet? Remember, this gives you a chance to win a signed copy of the book or maybe even some personal Elana-time! Check over HERE for all the details!

Random Stuff Friday

1) Holy crow, it's been a while, hasn't it? I swore I was gonna get better at blogging more regularly and then ... well, 4 graduations, 2 birthday parties, revisions, new wips and ... yeah. The list goes on and on. Anyway, I'm back now and--

*** WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG POST WITH AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE: Tuesday, June 7th we will all be wishing a Happy Book Birthday to POSSESSION, the debut novel from the one and only, Elana Johnson and lucky, lucky you could have a chance for some personalized Elana-time! This contest is open from now until Wednesday, June 15th and all winners will be announced by Elana on Thursday, June 16th. For complete details ... CLICK HERE!!! *** WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED BLOG POST ***

2) My baby brother graduated from high school this week (yeah, he's the tall one in the middle in case you couldn't tell by the cap & gown) and we're all so proud of him! And the best part about his graduation? I don't HAVE to go to another graduation for at least 2 years (depending on how long he and my sister decide to take until they graduation college!). It's the little things I tell ya!

This is my cute family: Dad on the left, my younger sister, baby brother, me and Mom.

3) Speaking of graduations, 5yo who will be 6yo as of the middle of this month has now graduated kindergarten. It's bittersweet, as a mom. I'm proud of her and she loved school and I hope that continues, but she's growing up SO fast, I almost started crying the other day. I know, lame and emotional, but I bet the rest of you moms out there totally know what I'm talking about. *sniffles*

4) I'm seriously considering shelving a project I've been working intensely on for the last year and a half. Over the past several weeks, I've just fallen out of the mojo of the story and I cannot seem to get a firm grasp on the characters' voices right now. I'm having a tough time with this because, well, despite having "fallen out" with the story, I still really love it. What's a girl to do?

5) Rain, rain, go away, come again another day . . .

Possession: the Bloghop & Contest

**Sorry I've been a bit MIA - things have been crazy busy - but man, have I got a reason to be back in the saddle now!**

The day is almost here, and unless you've been living under a rock or in a really deep, dark hole, you know I mean POSSESSION is almost here!

There's a flurry of ways for you to participate in the fun and win a SIGNED copy of the book or other uber-cool prizes, so you are NOT going to want to miss this week in the blogosphere!

Nichole, Ali and I are hosting the first contest and it comes in 2 parts - and you know what that means right? More chances to win!

PART ONE: Join in the bloghop by signing up today, or any day between now and next Tuesday, June 7th on any one of our blogs. Then, on June 7th, POSSESSION's official book birthday, post on your blog about a time when you had to break the rules for the greater good. 3 lucky winners will receive signed copies of POSSESSION!

PART TWO: Anyone who pre-orders a copy of POSSESSION between right this moment and June 7th, will be entered in a drawing for an awesome prize of your choosing. What are the choices you ask? Well ... you'll get some one-on-one time with Elana and you get to choose what that time is used for! A query crit? An online chat? A Skype session? Yep, totally up to the lucky winner!

Feel free to advertise this contest on Twitter, your blog, Facebook, or even by skywriting if you want! The more entries, the more fun!

Good luck to everyone!

Oh, and P.S. All winners will be announced on Wednesday, June 8th! ***UPDATE: The contest has been extended an extra week!! You've got until Wednesday, June 15th to enter and Elana herself will announce the winner on Thursday, June 16th!***

A Pretty Possession

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to get my hands on this:

Isn't it pretty? Yeah, I think so too. So anyway, thanks to Elana for giving me an opportunity to read this before it's June 7th release.

In case you've been living under a rock or something and need to know what POSSESSION is all about, here's the blurb straight from Elana's blog.

About POSSESSION: Vi knows the Rule: Girls don't walk with boys, and they never even think about kissing them. But no one makes Vi want to break the Rules more than Zenn...and since the Thinkers have chosen him as Vi's future match, how much trouble can one kiss cause? The Thinkers may have brainwashed the rest of the population, but Vi is determined to think for herself.

But the Thinkers are unusually persuasive, and they're set on convincing Vi to become one of them...starting by brainwashing Zenn. Vi can't leave Zenn in the Thinkers' hands, but she's wary of joining the rebellion, especially since that means teaming up with Jag. Jag is egotistical, charismatic, and dangerous--everything Zenn's not. Vi can't quite trust Jag and can't quite resist him, but she also can't give up on Zenn.

This is a game of control or be controlled. And Vi has no choice but to play.

Now, I haven't done many book reviews on here lately. Partially because I just haven't and the other part because, well, I haven't had a whole lot of time to read. But when the opportunity to read POSSESSION presented itself, I could not pass that up. I had to make time to read it!

Many who know me know that dystopian's not really my thing. I've read a couple here or there that I've really enjoyed, but like, I have yet to read HUNGER GAMES. *ducks flying tomatoes* It is in my TBR pile, but yeah. Anyway, so POSSESSION.

Add this to the ammo trying to convert me to be a dystopian reader! Elana does a great job with the world-building, the sci-fi was just enough without going over the top and making me lose interest (yanno, not being a sci-fi fan), and the storytelling sucked me in, making me feel so much of what Vi is going through. . And the characters, oh, the characters. Vi's just snarky enough to still be likable and when it comes down to it, she is such a girl :). Jag, he's a Bad boy - what's not to love? And Zenn, just trying to be Good. *sigh*

The entire premise really made me think about my own life and who's really in control. Me? Or is everyone around me really in control and just making me think I am.

Not on your to-reads yet? Go add it. Now.

Happy Reading!