We’re one day closer to our 10th anniversary on January 31st. Ready for more fun? The other giveaways are still open, but here are two more!
Today we have some special things, including a Kate Spade bag, and a rather rare collectible. I haven’t seen any of these on eBay or anywhere in awhile. Oh – and some books! And treats! And an ARC of an April book, and a hardcover that isn’t out for 2 more weeks.
This is so fun, you guys.
Each giveaway will be open until 31 January 2015, and each prize pack is open to international residents where applicable by law. Must be over 18 to win. Void where prohibited.
Here’s our first prize pack!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Included in this giveaway are: a new (with tags!) Kate Spade Beantown Lene grey and black wool crossbody handbag. If you’d like a slightly better picture, here it is: Isn’t it cute? Also included: a Smart Bitches flask, a MAC eyeshadow quad in “An Amorous Adventure” from the True Romance collection, a digital copy of Pride, Prejudice, and Popcorn by Carrie Sessarego, a Moleskine hardcover Book Journal, a hardcover notebook from the Harlequin Notable collection featuring the cover for I’ll Bury My Dead by James Hadley Chase. Ready for the next collection? I bet you are! a Rafflecopter giveaway
This giveaway collection includes a somewhat rare (I haven’t seen very many, that’s for sure) Nora Roberts bobblehead doll, a hardcover copy of Obsession in Death by JD Robb, an address book featuring the vintage cover of You’re Lonely When You’re Dead by James Hadley Chase, a hardcover notebook featuring the vintage cover for Anna by Anneke De Lange (“She lived like a wicked little animal.” Oh yes), a digital copy of Pride, Prejudice and Popcorn by Carrie Sessarego, and a small hardcover Moleskine notebook (to record all of your wicked adventures with bobblehead Nora, of course).
Good luck, and thank you for being here!
I generally read reviews when I am struggling to get into a book hoping for a comment of starts slow but gets better. after i finish a book I rarely read a review. That being said I heard so much wonderful things about Lord of Scoundrels I rushed to buy only to find I ad already read it and rated it ok.
i usually agree with you bitches. however, amazon reviews are a whole other story. so many times i’ve been disappointed by a book after reading rave reviews. i can’t even think of an example. just so many times.
Stephanie Laurens’ Devil’s Bride. It was DNF for me and you have to be almighty bad for me not to finish something I paid money for.
Is it bad how much I want the flask?
I tend to review book reviews for the entertainment value more than anything else (see book rants, and the awesome hilarious reviews of the crazysauce from SBTB). I will sometimes go back to read a review once I’ve read something to see if it meshes with my opinion. I recently finished Shana Galen’s “Love and Let Spy” and found I did agree with a lot of what Amanda had to say about it. I was also disappointed with the direction the author took with the story and felt the reactions of the hero relating to his back story didn’t adequately reflect the seriousness of the situation.
I like to read the reviews of a book I don’t know, especially the ebook ‘deals’ that come on all the lists I get. I am not good abot writing reviews. Once I finish reading a book I go on the the next one. There have been a couple times I disagreed with a review, can’t remember which books.
I find reading reviews after I’ve read the book to often point out subtleties I missed. The most recent was the review for Lady Windemire’s Lover.
I really love Jill Shalvis’ Lucky Harbor series but a couple of her books in that series got a negative review from a few bloggers that I didn’t agree with. It’s hard to agree with every single review of a book, just depends on who’s reading it and what their preferences are.
I’m not usually a review reading gal, batches! I do it old school when it comes to books and can intuitively guess it’s contents by its cover. Dude, I’m talented like that. My instincts have never failed me.
My phone auto corrected BITCHES to be BITCHES. Eesh…
BITCHES! WTF, Samsung! Just….WTF?!
I give up 🙁
Every positive review I’ve ever read of Black Silk by Judith Ivory. I found the book beautifully written but ponderously slow, unromantic and boring. I thought I might have to turn in my romance card until I discovered others who thought the same as me!
Off topic: I have that book with the couple at the top of the post, but I think I just put it in my ‘donate/giveaway’ box.
I have to say that reading and review wise I had a similar experience to another reader here with Loretta Chase. I picked up a few of her books and as with many people took a while to get to them on my towering TBR pile!
Then last year I had so many people telling me how amazing the Carsington family series was and I pulled them out to read them. I didn’t love them, I liked them but didn’t LOVE them and somehow felt disappointed where I wouldn’t have normally.
Where I didn’t love Mr Impossible however, I did love Knave’s Wager. Reading can be strange sometimes!
Happy anniversary!
I discovered so many treasures on your blog! But mainly I come here for the laughs, the Bitchery, the snark, the D and F reviews and the sense of belonging. Thank you so much for these amazing ten years!
Now the same isn’t true for other review sites, but I’m finding that my taste closely aligns with the reviews here. Pretty much if you guys like it I’ll like it. It is rather odd, like there’s some sort of strange psychic link or something…
A recent review I agreed with was the review of The Rosie Effect. Like Sarah, I found that it just did not live up to The Rosie Project.
Also, as a non-Tweeter, it would be great if there was a way to enter both giveaways each day without having to tweet. I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s not on Twitter and who is missing out on the opportunity to win some awesome free stuff!
Yes, it happens sometimes, especially with books or authors about which there has been a real hype of some sort. Then I just stand (or sit) there thinking what’s it all about? It’s how I’ve learned that most of the times it’s better not to read too many reviews for a book if it is one I felt I wanted to read after just reading the blurb. Too positive and too negative opinions just seem to color my mind in advance and I want to make my own judgment of a book.
It’s happened a couple of times. I can’t remember the titles, but I did learn which reviewer and I had similar tastes.
Every Anna Campbell book ever. It drives me nuts, because she is a lovely person and so funny and engaging, and reviewers rave so but her, and yet her books just don’t work for me.
Sad to say, but I was disappointed by Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels. I didn’t care for the hero and the way he’d treated his illegitimate son–especially given how he’d been treated by his own father.
I also didn’t especially care for a recent book everyone’s raving about, The Duke of Dark Desires. It worked for me until the heroine revealed her true identity, and then it fell apart.
Should I set up a twitter account just for the opportunity for a Kate Spade bag? Tempting.
Of course. Both happened. Me and my friends usually match our reading experiences. The latest, I think, was Burned by Karen Marie Moning
Before I’ve read the book I use reviews to figure out if there’s a specific thing that might turn me off about a book.
If I know that I’ll be reading the book no matter what, I stay far away from reviews.
After I read the book I’ll look at reviews to see what other people think, but it doesn’t really impact the way I feel about it.
I’m a sucker for the bad reviews. I think the book can’t possibly be that bad then I find out yes it can. Books that get a low grade have become must buys on days I’m too sick to get out of bed.
I often find reviews that have had a totally different experience with a book. I love RS – and yet I just can’t mesh with Allison Brennan’s works – I only wish I could. She is prolific, a great blogger and an all round good egg – but I just can’t engage with her books.
I read a review about Nora Roberts’ Angels Fall where the reviwer was so disappointed that she figured out “Who dun it” by the second chapter. Even her 12-year-old daughter figured it out! I was a little perplexed, since the bad guy was revealed in the prologue but it took her two chapters to realize who the killer was? And I was also a bit irritated that a romantic suspense was reviewed as a locked room mystery. Needless to say I was not impressed with the review!
I can’t recall without more coffee a specific book, but there have been a number of them, where I think: “Did we read the same book? Are you sure?” Of course, this happens too often with the book blurbs, too. I re-read the blurb and think was this the book the author meant to write but just handed in something different?
A couple of times I’ve been completely flabbergasted when the reaction around me is unanimously positive (if not a squee fest) and for me the book is…meh.
But generally speaking, if I already know I want to read that book–an author I trust, an ongoing series, etc–I avoid reviews entirely until after I’ve read it, because I want to go into it as ‘cold’ as possible. If I’m going to write a review after reading, I avoid reading reviews until I’m done writing mine (even when it means that I go, “damn, I forgot to mention that!”) because I’d rather not be influenced by them.
Every once in a while there will be that review that REALLY loves a book, and my feel afterwards is ‘meh’, (& sometimes vice-versa), but since reviews are personal, I don’t really reflect (or bother to remember) on how differently we experienced the book.
Long story short: Yes, but couldn’t state a title offhand.
@Teresa:
The flask can be yours if you aren’t among the lucky winners. It’s on sale at Zazzle.
@Amanda:
I just laughed so hard at all those comments. BATCHES!
@Helen:
You’re right and I apologize for being too Twitter-centric! My bad. I’ve switched the requirements so that you don’t have to Tweet anything, and will alter the others in a minute. My apologies.
And if you used the Tweet-entry option, your efforts still count – don’t worry.
Thank you for being here, y’all!
I wonder if bobblehead Nora will get along with my Toy Story Alien Bobblehead. OOOooooOOoooOooo.
These days, I read reviews after I’ve read the book; I prefer to start books knowing only the most basic stuff, and then, later, I go look at reviews to see whether they match my opinion or not.
For a book where I didn’t agree with the reviewer, I’d have to go back to Bet Me. I insta-bought it based on the premise but the voice of the author never sat right with me.
Reviews for Linda Howard’s or Julie Garwood’s latest books always start with: she doesn’t like herself or it doesn’t sound like she wrote this book.
I love them both and they’re on my automatic-buy list. And you know what, the reviewers are dead wrong. The book sounds exactly like the author, but with a shade of the character added in. Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, right? I’m just gonna ignore and buy, buy, buy. I trust my judgment more than the reviewers.
Focusing only on romance novel reviews…I find that usually my score is higher than the reviewer. I tend to really like a book unless something about it makes me hate it. If I were giving grades for books, most of mine would be As, with a few A+, and a few Fs. So when I see a book I love and the review is like a C, I’m always a bit confused. The only example I can think of off the top of my head was for No Good Duke Goes Unpunished by Sarah MacLean. I read a lot of reviews that were a lot more tepid than my reaction which was pure love.
Before I discovered SBTB, I loved cleolinda’s reviews because they were snarktastic and hilarious.
It wasn’t exactly a review but I heard you girls discussing Kristen Ashley in a podcast. I thought, hmmm… well it’s worth a try. I was bored with what I was reading. OMG so glad I listened to you. I’ve enjoyed her books so much. While the early books are wordy and the details could get annoying, I loved them. I’m finding that her recent books have lost something. I still love her books and look forward to reading them.
Okay, I’m going there. Everyone raved over Tessa Dare’s last book, but it was not all that great. Don’t hurt me.