Valentine's Day Giveaway

We're spreading some Valentine's Day love with a giveaway full of chocolate, books, and pretty things! 

I'm going to be spending my Valentine's Day with my fiance - our tradition is a fancy meal somewhere in Cambridge. I'm lucky enough to be engaged to a very talented cook, but it's so nice for us both to get out and have someone else do the cooking! It's simple, but it's always romantic.

To enter fill out the Rafflecopter then hit the comments and tell us about something YOU love. Your favorite author, book, or blog. Tell us about your true love, your kids, your best friend or your pets. Anything you love. We want to hear about what makes your heart full or just makes you smile.

Enter the Giveaway!

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The Attack of the 14 Nights of Halloween!

It's that time of year again. The days are getting shorter, the air is getting cooler and the nights are getting spookier. Yes, it's time for tricks and treats, goblins and ghouls, chills and thrills and huge amounts of sugary sweets. But at the Laughing Vixen Lounge blog it's also time for the 5th annual Attack of the 14 Nights of Halloween Giveaway. Join Laughing Vixen Lounge and our bewitching co-hosts The Kids Did It, The Mommy Island, Herding Cats and Burning Soup, The Hopping Bloggers, Mama Smith's Reviews and Women and Their Pretties for a spooktacular Halloween event.

Enter to win a $250 Prize Pack filled with goodies from 10 wickedly fabulous shops. All shops are offering Gift Cards or your choice of item(s) so there will be something for everyone. Many of the shops have items perfect for any book lover along with lots of unique, handcrafted and custom designs to choose from.

Visit the Laughing Vixen Lounge blog daily during the giveaway for the Halloween Movie Marathon. Test your movie knowledge with the Guess the Movie Game. Then try to solve the Murder Mystery Scavenger Hunt, if you dare! Each event will get you daily entries in the giveaway plus a special giveaway for the Scavenger Hunt. Find full details for these events HERE.

You can start by entering the Rafflecopter widget below. To experience all the games, movies, shop features, giveaway info and all around awesome fun make sure to stop by the Laughing Vixen Lounge blog HERE. 

The giveaway runs October 18th - November 1st and is open worldwide to anyone 18+. 1 winner will win the Prize Pack and 1 winner will win the Scavenger Hunt Prize Pack. Laughing Vixen Lounge is responsible for all giveaway details. Click HERE for full details.

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And feel free to comment and let me know your favourite scary movie or book! One of my favourite horror films is Event Horizon - I never get sick of watching it and it always makes me jump no matter how many times I see it! Space/cosmic horror is something I absolutely love. Throw in Pandorum and Pitch Black, and there's the perfect Halloween movie marathon!

 

Fall Into Romance Hop!

Fall Into Romance! Share the romances that had you falling in love with the genre!

Or the ones that keep you smitten! Stop by each blog for new recommendations and giveaways!

It's the most wonderful time of the year! I love Autumn, and I love romance, so what better way to celebrate the two than with a Fall-Romance themed blog hop? Not to mention a giveaway!

The book that made me fall in love with romance was...well, probably not a romance by my standards now. Goodreads tells me it's a historical romance, but I think it's probably more accurately a "saga." I'm talking about The Girl, by Catherine Cookson.

My grandparents used to live in a farmhouse and whenever we'd go to visit them, I'd sleep in what had been my uncle's room. He was a voracious reader and the room was stuffed with floor to ceiling bookcases, and those bookcases were stuffed with books of every genre. I used to spend hours searching the shelves for something new to read, and some of those books would become treasured favourites. I found The Girl when I was around fourteen or fifteen, and I must have read it dozens of times over the next five or six years. I loved it. I still love it. The story of Hannah, her unhappy childhood, her awful marriage, and her constant, unwavering love for the man she truly belonged with was captivating for me. Parts of the book are harrowing, parts were wonderfully tender, and it all felt so real. Looking back now, I can see that some elements of the plot were a bit questionable (Hannah's one true love had been obsessed with her since meeting her when she was six, which...yeah, is questionable), but the passion and raw emotion of The Girl hooked me as a teenager and made me seek out more romance novels. Without The Girl, I think it would have taken me a lot longer to discover the genre.

So that's how I fell in love with romance! Now tell me how you did - what was your first love in the romance genre?

To get you talking, I'm offering an e-copy of my first published romance, SHADOW CURSED!

Released from Ottevar Asylum after eight hard years, Lady Emmeline returns to Nachtholm Manor to reclaim her birthright. But she has a battle on her hands - Rainart Eckhard refuses to give up his position as lord of manor, and whilst his cold attitude enrages Emmeline, his smouldering kisses leave her weak at the knees. Who is this dangerous, enticing stranger, and what secrets does he hide? Caught in a web of desire, curses, and self-doubt, Emmeline is not only fighting Rainart for Nachtholm Manor, but for her own heart as well.

To be in with a chance of winning, just leave a comment telling me which romance novel you first fell in love with! And don't forget to visit the other blogs on the hop for more fun and prizes!

 

Welcome to 2016! It's the Hello Hop!

We’re ringing in the New Year with lots of giveaways! And by sharing some fun and wacky facts about ourselves. There’s a new giveaway at each stop so be sure to visit them all!

So the New Year is upon us, and hopefully it's going to bring loads of new, awesome things into our lives...like new people, right? And there's no better way to break the ice when meeting new people than to share weird facts about yourself, so let's get right to it. I'm going to share five quirky facts about me, and I'm going to ask you to share some of your own to enter my giveaway. So without further ado...

1. I'm really scared of robots. Like, genuinely scared. I'm genuinely worried that Skynet is a future possibility (and apparently I'm right to worry). This all stems back to seeing Superman III at an impressionable age, and being horrified by Vera being transformed into a cyborg at the end. Ever since then, I've harboured a deep distrust of anything robotic, cyborg-ish, or even vaguely mechanical.

2. I collect tarot cards. I know how to read 'em too, although these days I very rarely do readings. I'm happy just to pull a deck out every now and then and admire the gorgeous artwork. My very first deck was the Tarot of the Moon Garden. I bought it from an indie bookstore in Liverpool while I was at university and taught myself to read the cards in my spare time. Since then I've collected all kinds of decks, from the Quantum tarot to the Santa Fe tarot.

3. I have five tattoos. I have a kanji symbol for "mind, body, and spirit" at the small of my back, which I got on my 18th birthday. A second kanji for "witch" at the top of my spine, which I got for my 21st birthday. A black and red tribal design at the small of my back, which I got on my last day of university. I have an elder sign beneath the witch kanji, which my fiance paid for as an anniversary present. And finally, I have the words "hope begins in the dark" on my left inner forearm, which I got last February as a Valetine's gift from my fiance. I'm trying to decide where to have number six...

4. I'm obsessed with perfume. Actually, this won't be news to people who know me, but if you're new here...I am obsessed. I have boxes upon boxes of perfumes. I make my own as well as buying from beautiful indie shops, so I also have boxes upon boxes of essential and fragrance oils. I never, ever wear the same perfume two days in a row.

5. I love true crime stories. I don't know if this is particularly weird, but I guess it's probably something not many people know. I'm addicted to the podcast Sword and Scale, and I especially love historical crime stories, the weirder the better!

Now, the giveaway! I'm giving away a copy of my urban fantasy, BLOOD WITCH, book one of the Blood Canticles series (it's definitely got some weird crime going on). 

To be in with a chance of winning, just tell me something not many people know about you! And don't forget to visit the other blogs on the hop. Happy hopping!

 

Christmas Treats Blog Hop!

What are our favorite Christmas Treats? Books, of course! Stop by each blog for a chance to win fabulous books & gifties for the Holidays!

I've been reading a mixed bag lately - my favourite recent read was Ekaterinburg by Helen Rappaport, which is an account of the final days of the last Tsar of Russia. It's an amazing, but heavy-going book, and I'd love to get some more of Rappaport's books under the tree this year! At the other end of the scale, I've just started Libby Bishop's Ghosts of Kingston Cottage, which is a paranormal romance full of psychic investigators, ghosts, and skeptics, which is right up my street! I'm about halfway through and really enjoying it. I know there are two more books coming up in the series, so that would make another great Christmas present for me.

Giveaway!

Since it's the season of presents (and good will, obviously), I'm giving away two of my favourite things - a book and some perfume! First, an e-copy of my Christmassy werewolf story, COLD NIGHT MOON.

After a difficult year, Ayla Hammond wants to give her girlfriend Shannon a dream Christmas. A cosy, romantic cabin in the woods seems like the perfect way to put their troubles behind them and start the New Year right. And at first, everything is going according to Ayla's plan...Until night falls.
There's something in the woods. And it's after Shannon.
 
*An Editor's Pick*

And to go with that, a 10ml bottle of Wolf Moon from my Etsy shop, Common Brimstone.

Top notes of musk, blue tansy and dogwood make for a dusky floral opening that fades down into an earthy base of violet leaf, pine and cedar. A trickle of patchouli gives this scent a wild edge.

To be in with a chance of winning, just leave me a comment letting me know what your ideal Christmas gift would be!

And remember to visit the other blogs on the tour: