Memorial Day Weekend!

My, my, how life flies by! For Memorial Day Weekend is the unofficial kick-off of summer, right? Making me think vacations, kids home, and lots of R & R...

Included in Rest and Relaxation is usually time for movies and books. Sequels like Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and The Hangover, Part II are sure to get crowds. And while not exactly a sequel, I happened to see that Season Four of True Blood begins next month. As far as books, Libba Bray has Beauty Queens is just hitting shelves, as does Sarah Dessen’s What Happened to Goodbye.


All those sound good! But I’ll probably spend most of my time trying to catch up on the books and DVDs already around my house. In fact, I’m on book two of The Hunger Games trilogy right now!

How about you? What are you looking forward to watching and reading this summer?

Tina

Tina Ferraro
Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress
How to Hook a Hottie
The ABC’s of Kissing Boys
www.tinaferraro.com

Time is Running Out...

I wanted to remind our readers that the clock is ticking towards the end of author Brenda Novak’s (month-long) Annual Auction for the Cure of Diabetes!

There are 24 signed YA books available by authors such as Rachel Caine, Ally Condie and Janette Rallison.

For budding YA authors, there are critiques listed by YA authors Simone Elkeles, Tera Lynn Childs, and Jennifer O’Connell

Plus jewelry and handbags and sports memorabilia and...MORE!

In fact, I am "top bidder" on two items right now! We'll see if I can stay in the running if the bidding gets steep!

Kindle Sales Are Soaring!

I read an interesting on-line article today in which Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos is quoted as saying they are now selling more e-books than print or hardback combined.

“Customers are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books,” says Bezos. “We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly—we’ve been selling print books for fifteen years and Kindle books for less than four years.”


This coincidentally happened the same week that I “caved” and bought my second Kindle, as my son had commandeered my first one. (I’m not really complaining! I had been wanting to buy the Kindle 3 for ages, and this gave me the excuse.)

Both Kelly and I--while retaining our love and support of paperbound books--bought Kindles a while back, and were excited to get on the e-bandwagon with our YA novels. My books, How to Hook a Hottie, The ABC’s of Kissing Boys, and Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress are available through Random House Digital, Inc., and Kelly’s Graffiti Girl is sold through Simon and Shuster Digital Sales.

So tell us, do you have a Kindle, Nook or e-reader? How do you like it? And how do you feel about this news from Amazon?

Better Late Than Never!

I've had a copy of The Hunger Games around my house for a year or so. I'm not a big paranormal reader, so it just kept getting overlooked in my stack. Yesterday, at the urging of some friends, I finally decided to "see what the buzz" was all about.

And so now, just three chapters in, I am hooked. I GET IT! (And probably will have to "get" the sequels, too.)

This reminded me of when I finally, finally saw The Terminator...and loved it and then suddenly had watch numbers two and three.

How about you? Is there a mega-popular book or movie to which you've been "late to the party," and ended up loving?

Our Randomly Fresh Winner...

Thanks to those who participated in our Randomly Fresh giveaway this past weekend. The winner is:

BrendaJean!

So BrendaJean, please e-mail me at admin@tinaferraro.com, and we'll get your book in the mail to you!

To all our readers, we'll have another one of these contests later this summer, and all you have to do to be eligible to enter is to comment on a (non-contest) blog post. It's easy!

Randomly Fresh Giveaway

Hello YA Freshers! It's that time again for a...

RANDOMLY FRESH GIVEAWAY!

It's Random.
It's Fresh.
It's a Giveaway.
For visitors who comment on YA Fresh.
With a choice from 3 books.
Did I mention it's random?
:)

Here's who can enter...anyone who has commented from February 10th through May 10th! (And sorry, comments on giveaways don't count! They have to be good ol' friendly chatty comments. I know, I'm so picky!)

So what can you win? The winner has a choice from these three titles:

AVALON HIGH: THE CORONATION


TOP TEN USES FOR AN UNWORN PROM DRESS
(signed)

BORN AT MIDNIGHT



List your choice in the comments and I’ll announce a winner on Monday!
Good luck!

Check this out!

Did you hear?

Author Allison van Diepen is holding a cool contest to help spread the news of her newest release, THE VAMPIRE STALKER!

Check out Allison's facebook page here .

Here's what Allison says:

"NEW CONTEST! I'm giving away FIVE copies of my books -- Street Pharm, Snitch, Raven and the Oracle of Dating books. To enter, just share The Vampire Stalker book trailer on your page. Then send me a message to let me know you've done it."

Sounds great and good luck!

Brenda Novak's Annual Auction for the Cure of Diabetes

It’s May again...which means author Brenda Novak’s (month-long) Annual Auction for the Cure of Diabetes is in full swing!

Kelly and I are loyal supporters of this fun and very important event, and would like to point to some items we think our friends here at YA Fresh might like to bid on:

There are 24 signed YA books available by authors such as Rachel Caine, Ally Condie and Janette Rallison.

For budding YA authors, there are critiques listed by YA authors Simone Elkeles, Tera Lynn Childs, and Jennifer O’Connell

Plus jewelry and handbags and sports memorabilia and...MORE!

To stay on top of one-day items and breaking auction news, follow Brenda on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/bnovakauction. And we'll see you there, huh?

Our Latest Winner!

We had a Caption It! contest this past weekend, where we asked readers to help us caption a silly photo with of a cat with a bag on her/his head! All answers were amusing, and I picked one at random...

YAN

who wrote, "Can I get a doggie bag to go?" :) :)

So Yan, please e-mail me at admin@tinaferraro.com and we'll get that $10 Amazon.com gift card on the way to you!

Thanks to all who entered!