Cover Reveal for RINGS OF TRUST, plus Other Awesome Stuff

Kittie Howard will soon be releasing her second novella, Rings of Trust. Here is the cover!

And some other awesome stuff happened today ...

My amazing school-family threw me a pantry party! So I got stacks of awesome foodie things plus some fantastic gifts for our future kitchen. I feel so blessed and am honestly overwhelmed at the generosity of all the people I work with :-)

And ... husband-to-be-in-16-days handed in his PhD thesis today! Weeheeee! I'm gonna be married to a doctor ;-)

PS - I'm REALLY sorry for not getting back to so many commenters recently. There have just been a lot of things going on ... Come January 2013, I will be a dedicated blogger once again!

A Spelling Tongue Twister of Sorts

While packing up my stuff to move it to our-next-year-house (ohmygosh, wedding is less than three weeks away now!), I came across a newspaper clipping my grandfather gave me. It says "author unknown", but it's possible one could find the author by Googling (or at least follow a trail of references...). There are plenty of similar poems out there. I think they're all quite clever :-)

~  ~  ~

Ah, the perils of the English language! Reader Eric Hodgson sends in this piece titled "Spelling Traps" (author unknown). Speaking English is as complicated and hazardous as negotiating Durban traffic.

I take it you already know of tough and bough and cough and dough.
Others may stumble, but not you,
on hiccough, thorough, slough and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps, to learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word that looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead - it's said like bed, not bead; for goodness sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat. (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.)
A moth is not a moth in mother; nor both in bother, nor broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there, nor dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose -
just look them up - and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward,
and font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful language? Why man alive,
I learned to talk it when I was five.

Promoting Writers and Bloggers: Cally Jackson, Gwen Gardner, Worlds Away Book Blog

Good morning, bloggers :-)
I'm surfacing from exam-marking mode to share some stuff.

Cally Jackson has just wrapped up a super cool blog tour for her debut novel, The Big Smoke. I've read this novel and really enjoyed it. It's of the New Adult variety. A Christmas prezzie idea for someone you know, maybe? ;-)

Gwen Gardner has also recently finished a blog tour for her debut novel, Givin' Up The Ghost. Gwen has always been very supportive of my own writing, so I'm really looking forward to reading her book once the craziness of end-of-year school stuff and wedding stuff is all wrapped up. It sounds like such a fun read!

The Worlds Away Book Blog is run by author Carlyle Labuschagne. She highlights new authors, new book covers, blog tours, ebook freebies, and is generally just a really sweet and awesome person :-)





Last week was a good week :-) 
I ...

• launched a book
• had another successful blog tour (thank you, bloggers!)
• ran my first Goodreads Giveaway, which 1200 people entered in just one week (WOW, that seems like a lot me!)
• won a $20 Amazon voucher in a really cool blogfest (thanks, Cally!)
• won an ebook of The Mistaken by Nancy S. Thompson (thanks, Nancy!)

So ... back to marking those mathematics exams now ...

Spotlight on Ryn and Tora #CreepyHollow

Two spotlights today! You can find out more about Oryn at Worlds Away Book Blog, and Tora at Better Read than Dead.

I found stock images that I thought perfectly suited Violet, Nate and Ryn, but I eventually picked an actress for Tora - Abbie Cornish. She's meant to have green highlights in her blonde hair. Yip, green.




And that brings this short little blog tour to an end :-)

A big THANK YOU to everyone who hosted, everyone who visited and commented, and all the people who have never stopped being a great support on this exciting writing journey :-) I'm grateful to every one of you.

Three in a Row, and a FR33BIE for Creepy Hollow Fans!

Three book reviews in a row, today! We've got Cherie Reads , Read Review Smile (including an interview and another giveaway - whoopie!) and Camille Picott. Thank you, lovely ladies!

*FREEBIE TIME*

I know that a lot of you readers have already bought the four ebooks that make up the content of The Faerie Guardian. So if those of you who have (honour system now ;-) ) would like a copy of The Faerie Guardian so you can read the little extra bit at the end (or just because it looks good in your collection ;-) ), just leave your email address in the comments and I'll get back to you.

Happy Thursday :-)


*expires 12 Nov

Spotlight on Nate #CreepyHollow (And Wedding Stress!)

Thank you, thank you, yesterday's hosts :-)

And woohoo, today we have another character spotlight! This time it's Nate who's on the spot, over at **Qwerty**.
And if you'd like to "meet" me and see where I spend my days writing and teaching, you can visit erica and christy (who came out of blog hiatus especially to host me! What an honour!) to check out the video fun :-)

 ~  ~  ~

In other news ... I had my first wedding-stress dream! Aaaah! I think I've been pretty chilled so far with wedding stuff, but ever since I woke up from that stressful nonsense dream, I've had this anxiety inside me! Ridiculous, since there are the same amount of wedding things left to do today as there were yesterday. But this happens to everyone, right? You get all stressed out and then it's an awesome day? *sigh* I know it will be. Just gotta get there :-)

Spotlight on Vi #CreepyHollow

Thank you to yesterday's hosts!

Today you can find out more about Violet over at The Book Hookup.
And Sandra of the Simply Sensational Book Fanatics (who is a South African blogger like me - yay!) is posting a review. Awesomesauce! [Edit: seems I'm not the only one using that word today ;-) Hehe! ]

And in case you haven't entered (because it hadn't yet been approved yesterday), here is the Goodreads giveaway :-)

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Faerie Guardian

by Rachel Morgan

Giveaway ends November 12, 2012.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

The Official Launch of THE FAERIE GUARDIAN!

Yaaaay! Launch day!

I know the content of this book has already been published in separate parts, but it's still exciting to have it all together in a novel. And in a print edition! And thank you to anyone who's already purchased a copy -- and those who've sent me messages to tell me they've enjoyed it :-) I won't get tired of hearing that :-)

Ebook:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords

Print:

CreateSpace

So there's a little blog tour happening this week. Today you can visit:

• Loves 2 Read for a book review and giveaway of some ebooks, 
• Refracted Light for a chat with Vi & Ryn (definitely fun ;-) ), and 
• Walking on Bookshelves for another review and an excerpt from the book.

Here's the Rafflecopter giveaway taking place on Loves 2 Read:

Rafflecopter Giveaway

Aaaaand here's a Goodreads giveaway for a paperback of The Faerie Guardian!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Faerie Guardian

by Rachel Morgan

Giveaway ends November 12, 2012.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

PS - If you haven't read the latest news, check out yesterday's post about a Creepy Hollow decision.

A Creepy Hollow Decision

Remember when I asked people to vote on the future of the Creepy Hollow series? And half of the voters wanted me to continue producing the series in little bits every two months or so (that would be about ten installments), and the other half said they prefer to read novels and they don't mind waiting longer for a novel-length book (there would be three of those)?

So ... I've thought about it and decided ... I'm only going to publish the series in novel-length format from now on. The first novel (which is a compilation of the first four short installments) has its official launch tomorrow, the second novel will be published in the first half of 2013, and the third novel in the second half of 2013.

Now, the fact that novel #1 is also available in four short parts (namely Guardian, Labyrinth, Traitor and Masquerade) is going to be--and has already been--confusing to some people. To those who haven't been following my publishing journey, it may look like those are prequel/companion novelettes. So ... I've decided to remove these short ebooks from online retailers. Since Guardian is currently free on Smashwords and Amazon (the US Store, anyway), I will leave it available as The Faerie Guardian, Part I. It's cool to have a freebie out there :-) But I'll be removing the other three installments.

And there you have it :-)

If you look on my sidebar you'll see I'm having a mini blog tour this week--mini as I'm still organizing a number of wedding things at the moment! I've also started moving my stuff to our-next-year-house (it's an hour away from where I currently live). SO. MUCH. FUN setting up home! Who would have thought buying a bed and linen and blinds could be so exciting?! Hehe, if you've been there I'm sure you know what I'm talking about ;-)