Give away

And The Winners Are…

Thank you so much to the many wonderful readers who commented this month! You have been a true God-send. Most of you aren’t aware, but I struggle with severe winter depression from October through March and February is always my worst month. This contest and forcing myself to interact with people when I instinctively want to squirrel myself away has been helpful to my sanity. 🙂


The ultra-cool prizes include:
A. First Fifty Pages Critique
B. Query Letter or Synopsis Critique
C. The wooden box to the right, carved by East Indian artists.
D. A Barnes & Noble Notepad with this beautiful Chinese-style illustration and magnetic closure. (See the picture at the top of this post for the cover and inside illustrations.)
E. Wonton Bath Fizzers. Fill your bathrub with warm water and dissolve the wonton – err, fizzer in it. Kinda cool, huh? (For all those interested, they contain Sodium Bicarbonate, Citric Acid, Pentasodium Triphosphate, Cellulose Gum, Talc, Sodium Sulfate, Isopropyl Palmitate, Parfume, FD&C Blue #1 Cl42090.)
F. A copy of Malinda Lo’s “Ash” OR Diane Lee Wilson’s “To Ride the God’s Own Stallion” were added last week. You saw that, right? 😀


That makes a grand total of eight prizes, just so you don’t have to count.


Now, onto our winners! This was a pretty straight-forward contest in that the winners are those who followed, commented and posted about the contest. Without further delay, broo-ha-ha, obfuscation… Oh, all right. LOL The winners are:


My winners are 1. Eve (aka, Lilacfield). Eve, you get a fifty-page critique OR your first pick of any of the above prizes!
Second place goes to Lynda Young and third to Susan B. Kason and can choose between the two remaining critiques (see below) OR one of the other gifts. Janet Johnson won fourth prize and Rachna Chambria won fifth. Margo Berendson won sixth place, TK Richardson and Lisa Gibson won seventh and eighth places. Wait a minute. There are seven prizes, you say? Yup. Since I have such wonderful commenters who gave me a tie in points, I’m adding in one more prize – a synopsis critique (instead of having it be a query or synopsis critique).


So, wonderful ladies of the blogosphere, would you please be so kind as to contact me at victoria[_]dixon[@]msn.com so I can get your prizes to you? (I apologize for the brackets! Stupid spambots.)

To Ride The God’s Own Stallion

Diane Lee Wilson’s “To Ride The God’s Own Stallion” is the story of two boys, a horse and the destiny the three weave together within the Assyrian Empire.

I still wonder if that wide-spread equality is why I never felt as drawn to any of the main characters as much as I did when reading Wilson’s “I Rode A Horse of Milk White Jade.” Nonetheless, there were times it was difficult to put down  “To Ride God’s Own Stallion.” It is an enjoyable read, especially for boys or those who love a great horse story in an unusual setting.

One Hundred Followers And Counting

Last week, I hit one hundred followers. I will be the first to admit, I haven’t done a great job in reaching out in 2010, so I appreciate each and every one of you all the more!

That’s why I’ve planned for months on throwing a party when I reached 100 followers. Party hats, party trivia, and gifts. ;D

I’ve got LOTS of different giveaways, but there are some rules for winning.

1. You need to be a follower. Yup, since this is a “Thanks for Following Me” party, you need to be a follower. It’s only fair. That said, if you’ve been a follower before today, you’ll receive 5 points. If you start following me now, you’ll receive 2 points.

2. Commenting will get you an extra point for EACH COMMENT during the course of the contest because lets be honest, blogging just isn’t much fun if no one’s listening. Also, it’s the method you’ll need to use to officially enter the contest.

3. If you choose to FB, Tweet or blog about this, that’s awesome and I’ll give you an extra two points for each effort. I’m going to count on your honesty, though, so just let me know you’ve given this post a shout out; no links are necessary.

4. This contest will continue until Midnight on the Ides of February. (I’ve always wanted to use ‘Ides’ in a sentence! Woo hoo!) The Ides of February is the 13th, in case you wondered. I will announce my winners on the following day.

5. First prize will go to the person with the most number of points and so on:

A. First Fifty Pages Critique
B. Query Letter or Synopsis Critique
C. The wooden box to the right, carved by East Indian artists.
D. A Barnes & Noble Notepad with this beautiful Chinese-style illustration and magnetic closure. (See the picture at the top of this post for the cover and inside illustrations.)
E. Wonton Bath Fizzers. Fill your bathrub with warm water and dissolve the wonton – err, fizzer in it. Kinda cool, huh? (For all those interested, they contain Sodium Bicarbonate, Citric Acid, Pentasodium Triphosphate, Cellulose Gum, Talc, Sodium Sulfate, Isopropyl Palmitate, Parfume, FD&C Blue #1 Cl42090.)

Now, if a prize winner would like one of the other prizes, (say, my first prize winner does not want a fifty page critique,) I will shuffle the prizes accordingly, but the next person in line will always be offered the biggest kahuna available. LOL

Good luck and many thanks to you all!

Giveaway at Evening Fades

To celebrate her book’s arrival, TK Richardson will give away all sorts of wonderful goodies this weekend. Make sure to check out the blog and get a pick at Return the Heart while you’re at it!

Book Give Away Quiz

Okay, as promised, we’re going to play a game and do two give aways. The first person to answer either question correctly gets their choice of two books.

Question #1.Who can tell me which book of Amy Tan’s features two sisters and a tale of rebellion, previous lives and self sacrifice during both modern day and the Taiping Rebellion?

Question #2. What Lisa See novel involves dark fantasies, opera and women of seventeenth century China?

I’ve got two books to offer as a prize:
“Born Confused” by Tanuja Desai Hidier or

“Saving Fish From Drowning” by Amy Tan.

Hidier’s novel is a paperback edition and Tan’s is in hardback, for those of you who care about such things. ;D

I have a confession to make: I haven’t read either novel yet. So whichever book is chosen, I’d love to hear the winner’s opinion on the book, or (dare I hope?) a book review with the winner as a guest blogger.