I have a fun and funky giveaway today, so get ready!
Lynsay Sands' Argeneau series has a new book, Under a Vampire Moon ( A | BN | K | S ), and Avon has offered some very fun prizes for you.
Because Under a Vampire Moon is partly about travel to exotic locales (in this case, St. Lucia), the prize is travel and beach themed, and I think the grand prize is really spiffy.
The grand prize is a Baggallini rolling tote bag in steel blue with green trim, stuffed with all of Lynsay Sands' Argeneau books, including:
- A QUICK BITE
- LOVE BITES
- SINGLE WHITE VAMPIRE
- TALL, DARK, AND HUNGRY
- A BITE TO REMEMBER
- BITE ME IF YOU CAN
- THE ACCIDENTAL VAMPIRE
- VAMPIRES ARE FOREVER
- VAMPIRE INTERRUPTED
- THE ROGUE HUNTER
- THE IMMORTAL HUNTER
- THE RENEGADE HUNTER
- BORN TO BITE
- HUNGRY FOR YOU
- THE RELUCTANT VAMPIRE
- UNDER A VAMPIRE MOON
There are also five runner-up prizes: a copy of Under a Vampire Moon and a Lynsay Sands beach ball.
Since I am all about the beach, here's the really tough and difficult question you have to answer: which beach do you think is best for reading? What's the best beach you've ever visited? Share – and we'll all have summer-beach envy together.
The contest will be open from today (24 April) through noon eastern on 1 May. I'll select the winners at random from the comments.
Standard disclaimers apply: I'm not being compensated for this giveaway, not even with spiffy luggage. Void where prohibited. Must be over 18 and wearing a hula skirt (but not a coconut bra – those things look itchy) to win. This giveaway is open to international residents (yay!). Clothing that is itchy is hereby outlawed in my immediate jurisdiction. Action figures and margaritas sold separately.
So, tell me: what beach do you think is the best for reading and relaxing? If you could visit a beach anywhere in the world with a book and no time limit, which would it be?
My favorite beach is St.Pete in Florida. Sugar sand and sun!
O, what a decision. The purest beach I’ve been to was in an national park outside Esperance, Western Australia. The whitest-whitest sand and the deepest blue water. Absolutely FREEZING water however. I think the best beach for reading I’ve been to was a little cove just around from Positano, so not the main beach, and available to our hotel. Beach chairs available, with little sun shades, attached, and no sand (very weird to this Australian) but that means no sand to go into unmentionable places! Quiet, almost-balmy water, and no sand to blow into one’s eyes to distract from reading!! 🙂
I would have to say Ditch Plains beach in Montauk NY. It isnt particularly quiet, but if you get a spot by the cliffs you can read in solitude but still look up and watch the surfers play in the waves down the beach.
Being from Australia I am totally spoilt for beaches but I must go to my constant favourite place which is Port Fairy in Victoria. This tiny country town is inundated with visitors in the Summer but even then you can often find a quiet nook to nestle in with a good book. Admittedly, the scenery can be distracting so you don’t get much read on the actual beach but the thought is always there 🙂
I haven’t been to many, so I will have to say Oak Island. It isn’t very crowded so you can read for hours without interruption 🙂
ALL beaches are good for reading. The best beach I’ve been to was on the coast of Italy in Sorrento. It was beautiful!
I’m a Michigan girl, so my vote for the best beach is on Lake Superior, when the sun is shining but it is just cold enough to have a fire and bundle up in a sweatshirt. And read a good book, of course!
The beach at Destin, FL is the best. My grandparents have a condo there so I’ve been so many times it’s like a second home.
I would have to vote for the beaches along the panhandle of Florida – we call it the Redneck Riviera and inevitably run in to as many people we know there as when we’re home in Nashville, TN. The sand is beautiful, lots of wildlife in and around the water; last time we were there a whole school of small stingrays came up and was swimming around us. We often see dolphins out cavorting in the surf, too. I have spent MANY MANY hours with books on those beaches over the years.
I don’t really like beaches…which ever one comes with clean water, no fish, hot men in attendance of my needs, vodka over ice, warm air, cooling breezes, and shade would be my pick.
I’m guessing it only exists in my imagination…
Any beach that is connected to a 5-star resort is the way to go. I visited one in Key West that had someone put cucumbers on your eyes; hard to read that way but I think I can muddle through.
Yay, international competition and super prizes!
I absolutely adore the Waikiki Beach (just outside the Royal Hawai’ian Hotel). However, for reading, I would probably choose a small beach close to lake Mälaren in Sigtuna (Sweden’s oldest town) where I live. And, like Kristen already pointed out, on a day when it is too cold to swim, so I would be almost alone.
I’ve only been to Virginia Beach (which is merely okay) and I’ve never read there, but reading on the beach sounds wonderful… maybe I just need a new beach? 🙂
Sarasota Beach in Florida. You never want to leave. So romantic and relaxing.I would love to visit the Lahaina Beach in Hawaii
There’s a stretch of beach on the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia where the sand is soft, the water is warm, and the coconut trees give you just the right amount of shade to read in (whilst still getting a bit of sun). If you’re ever close by, stop in at the Tanjung Jara resort and say “hello, beautiful!” for me. 🙂
I have fond memories of a beach in Knokke where some friends and I built a 100th scale sand castle of the great pyramid of Giza. That’s what happens when a bunch of physicists and engineers go on a 30th bday long weekend. There is photographic evidence, but alas, it was before digital was popular. The beach had great sand, but I think it wouldn’t be so wonderful for reading.
For reading I think somewhere in the Maldives, with a nice young man in speedos holding a sun shade and another one holding a wireless repeater so when I run out of books I can just log in and download some more ;).
I like lake beaches best, because then you can sit under trees in dappled sunlight. I always remember being a teenager at Devil’s Lake in WI reading romance novels on vacation.
If I could spend time at any beach for any length of time… It would be a beach with a protected cove, so the wind and surf was a bit less. Oh, and trees for shade. Mmmm… Warm…
Ooooh, now I want to read Under a Vampire Moon just for the St. Lucia references. And since I’m thinking of it and we honeymooned on St. Lucia, I’d choose Anse Chastanet as the beach to read it on!
While perhaps not the nicest beach I’ve ever been to, I have to go with my beloved Point Pleasant Beach in NJ. I’ve been reading on that beach since I learned how to read; that beach, for me, is like the favorite blanket you cuddle under with your book in wintertime, as the snow falls. No better place to go on that first perfect beach day, when you play hooky from work and go soak up some sun…
Because Maine Beaches tend to be nearly empty during the winter, I can imagine sitting at Reid State park Beach, in George’s Maine, curled in a down blanket being entranced by all sorts of Vampiric romance.
I’ve been to a few beaches in Europe and the Caribbean, but my favorite is still Long Beach Island, NJ, where my family has been going since before I was born. The water isn’t as warm as the Caribbean, but the sand is soft, and the waves and seagulls are good background sound to read to. I always try to spend one morning out there reading. Not more, sadly, unless I really slather on the sunscreen and sit under an umbrella mostly clothed, otherwise I’ll turn sunburned and crispy which is not cool.
My favorite is Negril, Jamaica! I was married there, and returned for my 10 yr anniversary. Absolutely nothing like it!
My family always goes to Cape Henlopen in Delaware. It’s really nice. Great scenery, hot lifeguards, indoor changing area. What more could you ask for? haha
I am actually going to say St. Lucia, simply because I am St. Lucian. Even though I was born in Wisconsin, I will always and forever consider St. Lucia my home. Since everyone else in my family was born there, I grew up hearing wonderful stories about the islands, eating the cuisine, and getting yelled at in patois. If I could be anywhere, my very first choice would be in St. Lucia, on the beach, with a bake in one hand, a book in the other and rum punch at my side.
Any beach where I’m able to read without anybody interupting me. Or North Padre Island.
I’m not a big beach fan. More a lover of pools (who wants sand in everything!) But I love Canaveral national seashore. Being a national park site its not as crazy as some other Florida beaches, plus nearby is a manatee zone.
Even though I only live a couple of hours from the beach, I don’t go very often. HOWEVER, I periodically have beach day in my back yard, with a beach umbrella, a kiddie pool, corona’s, and my book of the day! So, I think my favorite beach is in my back yard 🙂
Beach trips are usually not relaxing read time for me. I’m the mom, so I’m always carrying coolers, spreading sunscreen, watching for drownings, and generally keeping everyone else having fun. It’s fun, but in the shrieking-running-laughing way.
The only time I’ve really been able to read on a beach was on the trip I took with my father and aunt to Panama City Beach to spread my mother’s ashes. We went down a few weeks before the spring break crowds rolled in. The shops and attractions were open, but the area was still pretty peaceful. I woke up early one morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I went to sit in the sand and read. I don’t even remember what book I brought. It was so peaceful and healing, just listening to the waves roll in, watching the sun come up.
That was the day I finally understood beaches.
A beach on the Aegean, where the water is so salty that you’re light as a feather, but so clear than you can see your shadow on the sea floor.
Gotta say, not a huge fan of reading on beaches – too sandy and cold and what are you supposed to do with the book when you want to go in the water? Leave it on shore? No way! I guess if I was FORCED to read on a beach, I’d read next to a pond. A nice boring pond.
My favorite reading beach is Point Beach State Park in Two Rivers, WI but that would be because there’s large sections of it totally deserted and it’s gorgeous (except in the peak of summer tourist season – then sometimes you have to compete with the nudist dudes trying to make a statement and seriously, they aren’t guys that should be parading around nude).
But the eeriest beach and the one I’d like to spend a ton of time at (though not necessarily doing all reading there) is called Fossil Beach on Drummond Island as far east in upper Michigan as you can get before crossing into Canadian waters. It’s a funky little island and is a perfect place to watch storms roll in and Great Lake freighters drift buy. Stephen King really needs to set a novel there.
There’s this beach on Ocho Rios, Jamaica where the Dunn River falls meet the ocean. There’s a rainforest behind you and the turquoise ocean in front of you and every now and then the falls splash you. I could live there forever. With a stack of thrashy books, of course!
I like the beaches on Elbow Cay in the Bahamas. Give me a rummy drink and a good book and I’ll be happy all day.
Hmmm, my favorite beach for reading is a little sandy beach formed by a river near my house. I have to hike to it carrying my lawn chair, book, and thermos of iced tea so there is never anyone else there, just me, the wind in the pines, and the occasional free-range cow who’s come for a drink. But my FAVORITE beach isn’t really a beach, it’s the combination sea wall/road The Malecon in Havana: gorgeous colonial architecture, salt spray, a rock wall to lounge on, and some of the best people-watching I’ve ever experienced.
My favorite beach for reading, hiking, people watching, napping, etc….is T-Street Beach, San Clemente, CA. San Onofre State Beach just down the road is a close second, but only because I can take my dog there and watch by boyfriend surf.
I’ll be discovering new shores in June – my friend and I are hitting the Croatia shoreline! I can only imagine what a picture of me on the beach would look like with all those books scattered around me. 🙂
I wouldn’t read on a beach. I hate sand. 🙁
Personally, I’d love to try reading on a beach in the South Seas. Really, any place where the “culture” of the beach is one of complete laziness and who cares what you’re doing. However, I’d also probably be sitting under an umbrella as I burn almost as quickly as a vampire in full sun.
Seychelles beach on the Greek island of Ikaria, a true paradise – smooth white pebbles, azure water, and peace. It’s not easy to get to; one must hike or take small watercraft there, but it’s worth it. Also St. Pete Beach in Florida, great place for cocktails and hanging out with friends.
I have fond memories of reading for hours and hours on the beaches around West Palm Beach, where I grew up, during our usual weekend-fishing-trips. My parents fished, my brothers and I explored, and then I’d settle in with my book. I can remember many days when we did the way early start thing, and I’d be waiting for it to get light enough to read the book I’d brought along. When I got older, it was all about going to those beaches with friends, to arrange ourselves as Offerings To The Sun and read… with one eye on the cute lifeguards, of course.
My favorite beach-reading, though, was probably when we went camping in the Keys. Then, we’d set up the hammock. Hammock beach reading is the *best*. (Even before you’re old enough to have an appropriately cold adult beverage to go along with your book! It only gets better once that happens. Heh.)
I’ve lived on the West Coast, the East Coast and on the Gulf Coast, of the US. My absolute favoritest ocean-beach will always remain the West Coast. 🙂 Gualala. Anchor Bay. It is one of THE most beautiful beaches in the world. White sands, blue water.. and about 20 yards of beach between the Pacific Ocean and a gorgeous Californian forest full of greenery and beauty. It has everything you could possibly want, all right there. I luvs it. *dreamy sigh*
http://www.gualala.com/
http://mendosearch.com/Anchor-…