Opinionated? Me?: 12 Days of Christmas Guest Post: Sarah Beth Durst, author of Ice

contact/review policy

Alright, I'm not a rules kinda gal. But I do, believe it or not, have some sort of policy on review request and offers. First off, my prefered genre's generally fall under every category but Romance and the real fluffy kind of Chick Lit (i.e. if the summary has the word 'sassy' or 'independent' anywhere in it, consider it blacklisted). Other then that, it's all far game. If it is a review copy, I will more then likely read and review it in a timely matter, though please keep in mind I'm a student and need to maintain some sort of social life (less people worry...). If you'd like to contact me, my email is:

danielleeloko78@aol.com.

I do check my email daily, so chances are I will get back to you sometime in the afternoon. I maintain right as a reviewer not to review a novel because a) I found it so disturbingly bad I think it best to save the author some face or b) I have fallen ill with some kind of Malarian disease and simply cannot move my wee little fingers.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

12 Days of Christmas Guest Post: Sarah Beth Durst, author of Ice

Posted by D Swizzle at 12:10 PM

I am always a tiny bit disappointed to receive a present that isn't book-shaped. And if you give me a present that's book-shaped but isn't a book... that's just cruel. My husband has been known to wrap books in oversize boxes so I'll be surprised, like the time he gave me the entire Andrew Lang fairy book collection wrapped all in a single box. (It was while I was writing Into the Wild, my book about fairy-tale characters in the real world.) That was AWESOME.

All the best presents I've ever gotten have been books. Once, my mom gave me a second set of David Eddings's Belgariad because I'd worn out the spines of my original set. (These were the books that hooked me on fantasy.) She'd also given me the first set. Not many presents you can get twice from the same person and have them be special both times.

I love to give books as presents too. Some of my favorite gifts to give this year:

For babies/toddlers... Blue Moo by Sandra Boynton, Lullabies by Fiona Watt and Elena Temporin, The Three Pigs by David Wiesner, and When Dinosaurs Came With Everything by Elise Boach.

For kids... Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George and the Unicorn Chronicles series by Bruce Coville..

For YAs (i.e. teens or adults with good taste)... Dreamdark series by Laini Taylor, Rampant by Diana Peterfreund, Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover by Ally Carter, and The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan.

For grown-ups... the Confessions of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom series by Julie Kenner and the Retriever series by Laura Anne Gilman.

And of course lots of people in my family are getting copies of my latest book, Ice. :)

As for those people who don't like books... I haven't the faintest idea what to get them. Socks??

4 comments:

Natalie said...: I wish my family read more often. If I got them a book for Christmas I think they'd shoot me. I'm definitely the oddball! But I am able to buy books for my friends for Christmas, because a lot of them read.

Socks are always good. Practical, right? :) Then again, who wants a practical gift?; December 22, 2009 at 1:50 PM
Anonymous said...: Hi Sarah :)
Thank you for sharing here today.
I love giving books for presents.
Luckily my family are readers and my children have caught my love of books. I remember one Christmas I gave my mother the entire John Jakes "Family" series and my sister Terry Goodkind's entire "Seeker" series.
:)
Merry Christmas!; December 22, 2009 at 2:43 PM
Jodie said...: That's another recommendation for 'Rampant' then, I really must get on that. I've decided to try and give books as gifts to people I wouldn't normally hand them out to this year and see how that goes.; December 23, 2009 at 2:33 AM
Laura Anne said...: My folks gave me a gift certificate so I gave myself Ice for Channukah. Sat down and read it last night -- wonderful as always! Now, where's the next book...?; December 24, 2009 at 9:12 AM