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?
Crane Beach on Cape Ann in MA. Yes, the water’s usually cold even in July and August, and the wind frequently overpowers the sun, but but it’s truly beautiful.
I live in Florida so we have no shortages of beaches. The closest beach is about an hour away but it’s well worth the trip. There’s a beach we go to that I can’t think of the name right now but it’s cool because it has a great pier where they do a lot of fishing so the girls can be stretched out on the beach and the guys can be fishing. Best of both worlds. My favorite beach? Would be that one. Gotta go find out the name of it.
Um…. right, I sort of hate the beach (and I live in Florida!). I’m allergic to the sun, so any day at the beach (or even a few hours) will leave me covered in hives 🙁 … However, I do have fond memories of the Outer Banks before all the development happened… actually I sort of hate it now because it’s so touristy and expensive. Yea, me and beaches tend to not get along. I prefer to find a mountain to read on.
I grew up in Ventura, CA, and the beach all along the walkway from the pier to Surfer’s Point is just a lovely place to sit and read (or to jump in the water and enjoy the waves!). But despite the allure of hometown waters, my favorite beach so far is definitely in Waikiki at sunset. Warm sand, romantic light…just the perfect place for a handsome stranger to come up and inquire as to what you’re reading!
I’m more of an overcast-deserted-beach kind of reader, so I’d go with Swakopmund, Namibia, in the winter.
The best beach I have ever been to is St. Simon’s Island in Georgia. The town is small and charming and not at all commercialized. The water is warm and the sand on the beach is perfect for bike riding. Shark-fishing from the pier is a great way to spend an evening. It is about an hour and a half from Savannah which is also beautiful. My favorite beach, however, is the one my family always visited every summer: Wildwood Crest, New Jersey.
If I am reading on a beach I want a quiet one, where I wont be interrupted or harassed by young children. So for the sake of that, I am going to say my hometown beach of Long Beach CA, which is often deserted (bring down the breakwater!) and has lovely views of the Queen Mary. Said book would be so engrossing I would be completely ok with not going in the water.
Laguna Beach on the Gulf in Florida. Green water, perfect sand. Beautiful!!
My favorite beach is in Racine, Wi, (on Lake Michigan) where I grew up. First because I have so many awesome childhood memories there, and second because whenever I go back to visit my parents and we go to the beach, we have a great time. Otherwise, I don’t spend too much time at beaches because I burn so quickly!
Fernando De Noronha in Brazil! It looks like paradise, and I’d love to spend the time reading in the middle of that gorgeous scenery!
I would have to go with panama city beach, Fl or any beach in Belize..
The Jersey shore is the beach I’m most familiar with, but alas, Wildwood beaches are not the best for a quiet escape into a book. I’m going to go with beach in Honolulu, soft sand, tiki torches lit by half naked hot men… totally relaxing! 😉
I would love to be on a somewhat deserted tropical island, away from work and people but with all the creature comforts (I want men in loin clothes feeding me peeled grapes and fanning me with palm fronds) so I can relax, read and soak up the solitude. It exists in my dreams but maybe one day, I’ll have my own island!
Okay, I have to enter this b/c Lynsay Sands books are fun.
I’ve been to the beach a handful of times my whole life. When I was a kid, I was wading, fell into a hole, and scared the heck out if myself; and since I’ve been older, beaches have been hot and sandy. 🙂 I wouldn’t mind trying a Caribbean beach if I could stay non sandy and just gaze into the lovely clear water.
One Mile Beach, up past Newcastle on the east coast of Australia. It’s just ridiculously beautiful there – cliffs, native vegetation, sand dunes and in summer the sound of cicadas.
Warnemunde, just a little north of Rostock, Germany. From the jellies who would come in early summer (it really was fun to scoop the little ones up in your hand…until the idiots would go for the big ones and tear them apart) to a chilly winter stroll in sand and snow. For a land locked mountain girl, it was really awsome the year I was there. Even with the occasional sight of someone in a speedo that possibly shouldn’t have been…
My favorite beach is Dewey Beach in Delaware. I read the whole Sookie Stackhouse series under the sun there (well, the first 8 anyway).
I don’t mind, it can be a sandy beach, a stony beach or a grassy beach as long as I have one book in my hands and another one waiting in my bag 🙂 Nostalgia tells me to nominate my childhood beach located on the island of Öland in Sweden as the best beach for reading. I spent many happy (and seemingly endless) summer days there while growing up. The first books I remember dragging with me to the beach every day was my stepfather’s old Enid Blyton “The Famous Five” books. From there I graduated to my older sister’s Harlequin books, hiding them under my beach towel and reading them (paying special attention to..ehm..certain scenes) secretly. These days I’m all grown up and a mother of a one year old boy. I no longer feel the need to hide my books, even though the abundance of man-titty on many of them makes my husband blush 🙂
It was all I ever dreamed it would be – Waikiki Beach, Hawaii! My 25th wedding anniversary present.
The sugar sand beaches of the Destin area of the Florida panhandle. Bliss…
The best beach for reading is the one that is 5 steps from your beach house and your nice clean bathroom. LOL.
I would love to visit St.Lucia or The Cook Islands if money was not an issue.
The Dunes in Bodega Bay (California). *sigh* wish I were there now.
Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. I love the beach. It is so much fun to walk in the surf and gather sea shells.
I generally don’t read on the beach, but if I had to pick one, I’d say Bethany Beach in DE, which is a family vacation spot.
I love reading on the beach, any beach – it’s such a great way to relax. My favorite beach has to be on the Mediterranean. Gorgeous.
Is it weird that I’ve spent more time in Hawaii in the past few years than just about any other state in the US and yet my immediate thought when I read this question was Mohegan Bluffs on Block Island? Loved it, even though hiking down with a cooler full of beer was a bit of an adventure. But the beach I most want to visit would be any beaches in Greece.
As a very fair-skinned, heat-sensitive lass, I haven’t been a huge beachgoer, but we now take family vacations at one of the islands off the coast of North Carolina that haven’t been quite as commercialized as some other popular US beaches. It’s amazing to be on the beach, in June, and glance down the island coast and see only a few other families splashing in the water. If that. Plus, it’s a sea turtle sanctuary! All beach-side lights out after dark, and turtle nests marked in the dunes. We had a nest near our spot on the beach in 2010 and it was very exciting. So that would be my beach choice for reading, as long as somebody else (Awesome Hubby) is watching the kids 🙂
My favorite beaches are in Malaga and Calpe, both in Spain. Calpe is smaller than Malaga, but it’s really lovely. I also recommend tons-o-sunblock while reading that book!
My favourite beach is in Cornwall, near Perranporth. Lots of good childhood memories but also getting sunstroke and spending the last day of my summer holiday hugging the toilet instead of being on that beach.
I’ve had sadly little beach experience, but I had loads of fun on the beaches in Wisconsin around Lake Michigan as a kid. Of course, I was covered in seaweed and sand as soon as I ran out of the water, but who cares about than when you’re 10?
If I could visit any beach, I’d be really obvious and go to Hawaii. Maybe Kailua or Hapuna beach.
I love to read at the beach, so I think they’re all good for that. My favorite beach is in Jamaica. I went to Ocho Rios for vacation and it was amazing!!!
My favorite was the beach in Cozumel when I visited a decade ago (was it really that long ago?!). Warm without being hot, a nice breeze, not too many people. It was perfect.
Here at home I’d have to say Grand Traverse Bay. The Great Lakes are really too cold to swim in, but they have the same effect as those in the Gulf.
I just got back from Ft. Myers Beach in Florida. The sand was awesome, warm, white, and sitable enough to kick back in a beach chair, turn on my ereader du jour (I have more than one), and read, read, read. More than 40 yrs. ago, however, I lived in Panama City, Panama and they have some wonderful beaches that are great for relaxing, too.
Ooooh, this one is tough ‘cause the beach is my favoritest place. Tybee Island outside of Savannah, GA is awesome before the summer rush. Anywhere along the coast between Salinas and Carmel in CA is relatively quiet as long as you stay away from the few crowded spots. St. Lucia is phenomenal. I also adore the beach near the Presidio in San Francisco – it’s a local hangout and people bring their dogs to play.
I love the beaches at Amelia Island in Florida. They are gorgeous.
I just moved to Boston, and while I’m loving the East Coast I really miss the California beaches from when I was a kid. I would give anything to be out there on a towel with a new book right now!
My very favorite beach was Sand Key Beach in Clearwater Beach Florida. Not crowded, the sand was fabulous and we had a great time there as a family.
As for reading on the beach? Any beach will do so long as there is a comfy chair and I have time to read. A cabana boy or two never hurts either.
Best beach: Honeymoon Beach at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Secluded and clean!
One of my favorite beaches is Spanish Banks in Vancouver. I love how you can walk out for what seems like miles when the tide is out. I can sit for hours on the beach reading.
I think La Jolla Shores, in Southern California is my favorite beach for reading; it’s warm enough to lay out 6 or 7 months of the year and it’s close to my house.
If I’m day dreaming it Shipwreck Cove or Navagio on Zakynthos one of the Greek Islands. I’ve seen pictures of this place and it looks like a perfect place to hide away with lots of books.