Maybe This Time: A Giveaway

Maybe This TimeGiveaway on Friday? Sure, why not! I have five ARCs of Jennifer Crusie’s upcoming hardcover, “Maybe This Time,” and you can win one.

This book is Crusie’s first single-author single-title in a few years (as in, she didn’t collaborate on this one) and when the ARC arrived on my doorstep a few weeks ago, I idly started reading the first page, only to find that I’d stood at my kitchen counter reading the first chapter completely blind and deaf to everything around me. My house is loud, so this was alarming. I was sucked in immediately, and couldn’t stop reading.

I’d love to hear what you think of it before the book comes out at the end of the month. Want a copy? A sexy flexible paperback ARC?

Alls you have to do is:

1. Tell me in the comments if you believe in ghosts and why/why not. Ghost stories are totally ok to share.

2. Let me know if you review the book after you’ve read it, and where your review is (or, you can send it over to me if you don’t have your own website).

Easy, right?

You’ve got 48 hours and I’ll announce the winners on Sunday and, with luck and quick responses, start mailing the big ol’ packages Monday morning.

Standard disclaimer: I’m not being compensated for this giveaway. I will ship to international prizewinners. I will not eat them in a box. We’ve got to hold on to what we’ve got. No shirt, no shoes, no service.

Comments are Closed

  1. misspiggydon'twannabe says:

    I’m not sure about ghosts. I haven’t experienced one but some people I trust (Eileen Dreyer, Shelley Mosely) tell credible tales of their experiences with them. I’d like to be convinced.

    I don’t blog or review books ordinarily but I’ve seen the Booklist, Kirkus and Library Journal reviews of this book and I’m curious. I’d like to read it and give a “definitive” review.

  2. I wouldn’t say that I believe or disbelieve as I haven’t had any official encounters with them but I’m not ruling them out as a possibility.

  3. Kate Pearce says:

    When I first got married we lived in a 500 year old
    thatched cottage in Wiltshire, England. Weird stuff happened, The back door would lock my husband out when he went outside and when we lay in bed at night you could hear people talking downstairs. We didn’t realize we’d both heard them until after we moved having been reluctant to mention it!!

  4. lizzie(greeneyedfem) says:

    Ooo, a new Jennifer Crusie book! Yes, please! I love her writing and it’s been too long since I read a contemporary. Plus, I really love ghost stories (both the scary and benevolent kind).

    Do I believe in ghosts? ….yes? (she said hesitantly.) I *think* I do. I definitely believe in unexplained forces and supernatural presences. I’ve never encountered a ghost or a haunted place myself, but I’ve heard friends who I trust 100% talk about their experiences. One friend has a string of stories about a haunted dorm at her college (the hauntings ceased after it was remodeled).

    I don’t have a blog, but I’d be perfectly happy to write a review and send it in to you. In fact, I’d be downright excited to do so!

    (Sidenote: All these ghost stories remind me of Anne Shirley and Diana Barry freaking themselves out telling ghost stories while walking through the haunted wood. 🙂

  5. Zita Hildebrandt says:

    I do like ghost stories. I’m always hoping I’ll meet one, but no luck yet. I have a blog and will post a review on it if I win the ARC. It will be at (http://zita-is-booked.blogspot.com/)

  6. Jora says:

    I would like to believe in ghosts, because being a poltergeist just sounds like fun.

    And while I don’t normally review books, I would completely make an exception in this case, and could send the review to you.

  7. Scrin says:

    I’m honestly unsure.

    Crazy for the geology major, huh?

    But a while back, my cousin (she lives nearby) kept coming over to use her spare key. She said she kept locking herself out.

    Eventually, one night, she came over and said she thinks her place is haunted. She went on about doors slamming and spooky feelings and said that’s when she kept getting locked out.

    Oh, and she says other people admit to it, too. When she was babysitting a friend’s kids for a few days (overnight trip), she says the oldest boy told her one morning that he’d woken up in the middle of the night and saw a man standing over the guest bed. He was obviously speaking with his mouth moving like it was, but no sound came out. And the boy said “What scared me the most, though, is I looked down, about to jump out of the bed and get OUT of there…I looked down and the man had no feet.

    And he stayed in bed after that, and doesn’t remember going to sleep.

    Now, I haven’t seen the kid and been able to catch him alone. And he’s 14, so he might just decide to be a cuss and lie about it either way (Fourteen: The Age of Der Stoopid, and you’d have to know him anyway). And I’m not sure if my cousin is completely reliable either (she says she’s seen a lot of weird crap. Like, being at a cemetery and leaning against a statue of Jesus at the front. And swearing there was a grating sound as the statue moving its foot over a little to make room. She says she got the HECK out of there after that).

    But it’s enough to make me keep an open mind. That way, the crow won’t taste so bad when it happens.

    And I’d be happy to review this one by sending the reviews into here.

    spamword: research76.

  8. Michaelene says:

    I believe in “ghosts,” but not the standard flying white Casper like creatures (though I love Casper!).  My sister used to live in this house. It was vacant for many years, but she took up the top floor. Everytime my little sister (she was just a baby at the time) was there, she would scream and cry. She wouldn’t stop until she was in a car and driving away. Many times screen doors were seen opening. There was an incident with a pitchfork being struck into her back wooden door. It was some creepy, creepy stuff. 

    I only remember it because it used to have this cellar like building attached. One of my friends and I went in there and found some really old stuff along with this old portrait…and what do you know? The mysterious pitchfork. Needless to say, my sister moved out and I’m not going back!!

    *cue some creepy, ghost music*

    And I don’t review books professionally. I used to keep my own blog but I can never keep up on my reviews. I read too many!!! But oh do I love Crusie’s books!

  9. El says:

    Totally accept fictional ghosts, not so much in the real world. And am SO ready for this book!!! (Been reading Crusie’s blog.)

  10. Alpha Lyra says:

    I don’t believe in ghosts. I just don’t see any convincing evidence that they exist, plus their existence wouldn’t make sense to my from a scientific standpoint.

    I’d be happy to review this book on my blog!

  11. magneticwave says:

    I grew in a huge old Victorian, so it’s almost impossible for me not to believe in them. My family spends a large portion of its time sharing stories—I’ve had faucets turn themselves on and off, trinkets get moved around, and sometimes the CD player turns on and flips through tracks (this actually happened when my father was asleep; he thought the house was being robbed). People make lots of explanations for why those things happen, but I prefer to believe that we have a friendly Casper.

  12. HelenK says:

    In real life? Not so sure. But in my books? Love them! Mostly I tend to see them in mysteries, but I’m happy happy happy when they cross over into my romances. 🙂

    I don’t have a blog, but I’d be happy to send you my review.

  13. I don’t believe in ghosts because if I died and had a choice between reading a good book up in heaven (they only have good books there I’ve heard) and scaring people down here on Earth (where there are a large number of not so good books) I’d stay up in heaven. I assume most deceased people would agree with me.

    However- when I am home alone my disbelief does not stop me from freaking out every time I hear a noise from another room.

    I would also review this book on my blog if I got the ARC.

  14. Natalie says:

    I had a best friend in high school that swore her long dead ancestors were still living in her 100+ year old house, so how could I be a good friend and NOT believe in ghosts?

  15. I don’t believe in ghosts necessarily, but I do believe that positive and negative energy can hang around a place long after its inhabitants have left.

    I can review it at my blog.

  16. Rechelle Brown says:

    It seems like some people are more susceptible to ghostly occurrences or phenomena – our family history is rife with odd and bizarre ghost stories and when my oldest son bought his first home, guess what was inhabiting it?  We live in a small town so we have bumped into several people that lived in that house and they all have similiar stories about it being haunted.  After he married, our daughter in law put up with it for a year and then, very understandably, wanted to move out so we rented the house for awhile.  My husband drove by one day and saw the father of the family renting the house pacing nervously up and down outside in the yard, smoking furiously.  He stopped and asked him if anything was wrong whereupon the renter turned volubly and slightly hysterically on him and informed my husband he wasn’t going back in the house until his family came home- apparently all the steroes and tvs in the house had turned themselves on full blast and every time he shut them off they would turn back on-
    My husband assured him that was a common occurance and asked if he had seen the person in the mirror yet-
    they moved out shortly after….
    I don’t have a blog but would be very happy to write a review of the book-

  17. stacy schuck says:

    I don’t have a website but YES I’d LOVE to review this book (and I’ll keep the all CAPS in check).
    Yes I do believe in ghosts. Whenever a member of my family has died I’ve either dreamed of them saying good bye (just before that horrible phone call with the bad news) or sensed their presence in a way that isn’t just that person popping into my thoughts (again just before that horrible phone call). Years after my grandmothers deaths little things that were special to just the two of us pop up here and there.

  18. cursingmama says:

    Totally believe in ghosts!  I always suspected that they existed but then I had a “visit” when my daughter was born – not a visual mind you but I just KNEW my grandmother was there – so that sealed the deal.  Besides, if they didn’t exist there are a lot of people making a lot of money pretending to be ghosts in strange places and there is no education or licensing program for that so I think it’s an industry that does not exist.

    I can review all sorts of places – my home blog, my review blog and at goodreads.

  19. Jolene Allcock says:

    I believe in ghosts, mostly thanks to my mom.  She had a run in with a ghost when she was a child and lived in Santa Barbra.  To hear her tell it still gives me the chills and it’s something she can recall with great detail and can even draw a picture of what the lady looked like.
    I haven’t read the book yet but really want to 🙂  If I happen to win it, I can always send you my review 🙂

  20. Francesca too says:

    I want to be sucked in: I haven’t been grabbed by a book in over three weeks! I’m so desperate that I’m thinking of dusting off some of my old favorites.

  21. TheDuchess says:

    I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do believe in the supernatural. There are definitely things out there we might find difficult to explain. I myself have never had a brush with the paranormal, yet there’s so many stories that one cannot entirely dismiss all of it.

    A story which is told in my family has to do with a recipe. It’s no ordinary recipe. It’s a healing recipe. As the story goes, the maternal grandfather of my maternal great-grandmother had been taught a recipe for an herbal remedy in a dream (don’t ask me about the “teacher”, no clue!). After he woke up and experimented with what he had been shown, the resulting herbal oil was a healing concoction our family still swears by. Burns, cuts, bruises, aches, pains, cramps, you name it and this oil works. The recipe has been passed down from generation to generation on my mother’s side of the family, along with the story of how it came to our family in a dream. I know it might sound silly to some, but everyone who’s ever used it says it’s no joke.

    And yes, I would totally love to review this book!

  22. I grew up next to a trail where there were ghost stories a plenty circulating. From the typical white lady standing next to stranded drivers to stranded drivers that never really existed. We had to take that road to get to my aunt’s house and it was a very silent drive… Yup. Still believe the one of the white lady even after all these years and I make sure to pass along the stories to my own girl. (Misery loves company)

    Would love to get the ARC and would review it on my blog.
    I have been looking for something to give me a good kick into writing my reviews again.

  23. Leslie H says:

    While I have never seen a ghost, people I trust have done so. I am keeping an open mind.

    I am happy to read and review the book, it looks like fun!

  24. Alexys R. says:

    Oh, yeah I believe in ghosts. It’s hard not to when you have to stay late at a movie theater that has the creepiest creepy sounds and shadows.
    1. When you walk down the stairs, alone, you can hear footsteps right behind you walking down the stairs and sometimes you get pushed. Not cool cause I’m so clumsy and I almost fell down and broke my neck .
    2. When alone in the boys bathroom and you make that particular ghost mad he slams the stall door. Also, not cool and sometimes a lil guy ghost says ‘hi.’
    3. Last but not least, when you are going to the bathroom in the girls bathroom there’s a little girl who laughs. Maybe at you while you’re going to the bathroom but I prefer to think she just heard a joke from one of her ghostly friends.

  25. Gianisa says:

    I don’t believe in ghosts, but interestingly, my identical twin sister does.  When we were infants, my family was moved over to Japan because my father (Navy guy) was sent to Hiroshima.  The people arranging housing asked my mother what size house we needed, and she said “large” because of all the kids.  But the Japanese people arranging the housing thought that they needed to find a house large enough that a foreigner would consider it large, not just Japanese-style large.

    So we ended up living in a 400 year old former samurai’s house.  It sounds cool, but it was all tatami mats and shoji screens and no flush toilets (my mother: “What do you mean you can’t vacuum the mats?”)

    To this day, my twin sister swears that there was an old Japanese man who lived in the house and who used to play games with her.  My grandmother also claims that she saw him when she was visiting.  He was dressed very old-fashioned and had no feet (ghosts in Japan don’t have feet).

    I never once saw, heard, or felt anything about this old dude.  We lived there for years and the only conclusion I can come to is that he liked my twin sister but not me.

    P.S.  I don’t review books.  🙁

  26. Diane/Anonym2857 says:

    I believe spirits exist—some good, some evil.  Rather than determine which is which, I tend to avoid ‘em all! LOL

    I’d be thrilled to read the ARC, and would cheerfully provide you with a review.

    Diane :o)
    a wuss when it comes to woo woo…

  27. Maria says:

    Oh yeah, I believe alright. I’ve had too many experiences not to. And I happen to have time right now to tell you about it.

    The oldest story is perhaps the most compelling.

    Like many kids, I grew up thinking that there was a ghost in my closet (right? other kids thought that, right?). I used to talk to it all the time, tell it not to come out or it would scare me. But I felt sorry for it and talked to it quite a bit. Sometimes when I was home alone, I’d hear footsteps upstairs and a glass falling in the sink.

    As I grew up, I never doubted that the ghost was still there, I just became (somewhat) less afraid of it. After my sister moved out (she was eight years older and had shared the bedroom with me), I asked her if she’d ever felt someone there. She admitted that she had but never told me about it because she knew how I was and hadn’t wanted to scare me.

    One afternoon in my teens, I wandered to the front of the house with the idea that someone was at the door. It was summer, so the door into the porch was open to let in a breeze (yeah, I’m that old). There was a little girl at the outside door, blond hair in pig tails and wearing a party dress (a birthday-party dress, but I don’t know how I knew that, I just did). I went to open the door and she was gone.

    I figured she was the ghost from my closet and couldn’t understand why she was outside. I shrugged it off. During those strange years, it wasn’t unusual for me to see my mother in the kitchen when she wasn’t really there (yes, she was still alive).

    But a year or so later, I came down stairs from getting ready to go somewhere and my best friend was sitting in the living room, looking very freaked out. Joking, I said something about her having seen a ghost. She went kind of pale. I don’t know why, but I said, “Little girl, blond hair?” She nodded and said something about the party dress and the pig tails and the birthday party. It was truly freaking weird.

    Some years (and another ghost) later, I told my boyfriend about it. He asked me if anyone in the house had died. My mother had told me that two boys had lived in my room before we moved in. So I told him that I’d always thought that it was a little girl who’d died on the way to a birthday party at the house, probably a car accident or something.

    Well, he asked my mother about it the next time we went to visit. She got a very strange look on her face. Then she told us that a little girl had lived in our house. My mother hadn’t told me about her because she’d died of leukemia.

    I’m guessing it wasn’t too much before a birthday she’d been looking forward to.

    I never saw the ghost that happened in between. I only felt him, watching me in the shower of a little house I rented. I felt it a lot and it creeped me out. Later, one of the neighbors told me that a “pervert” had been living there with two women and killed himself in the garage.

    Bingo. That one fit, too.

    I was in my early twenties when I ran across the next ghost. I had a big wolf-hybrid dog and it was hard to find a place to live, so I ended up in the upstairs of an old rickety house in a questionable part of town. The neighborhood didn’t bother me, I had the big scary dog.

    The ghost didn’t bother me, either. He wasn’t creepy like the last one, or sad like the first one.

    The guys who lived across the street were professional thieves, as the neighborhood talk went, so I thought it best to be on friendly terms with them (I really liked my stereo and was way too broke to buy a new one). It turns out I needn’t have worried. They were scared to death of the place—it was haunted they said, a guy had killed himself there a few years ago. They couldn’t believe I felt safe living there.

    I’d wondered, off and on, why he killed himself, because his ghost didn’t feel tragic. Just lost and maybe confused.

    Some months later, the sister of a new boyfriend (who ended up being a short-term husband, but that’s another story) stopped by for some reason. She was completely freaked out. She’d known the guy who’d killed himself. I told her about the ghost and asked if she knew why he’d done it. She told me he’d been working at a factory with a lot of fumes and they’d slowly driven him crazy.

    There have been other incidents as well, but this is long enough. Now, assuming you can believe that I’m telling the truth as I’ve experienced it, you’ve got to understand why I’m a believer. Right?

  28. zvi says:

    I’d love to review the book and put the review on my blog.

    As for ghosts, I don’t believe in them. If they were real, I don’t think there would be a question about their existence. There’d be lots of them all over the place and everyone would know some ancestors or something, since so many people have died on the planet so far.

  29. AnimeJune says:

    I would love to review the new Jennifer Crusie! Sounds like a contemporary version of The Turn of the Screw, actually.

    I’m not a big believer in ghosts, but that’s maybe because I’ve spent the greater part of my existence growing up in a brand-new house that never belonged to anyone else. Doubtless if I’d be raised in some Victorian-style mansion I might have different ideas, LOL.

    If I got a chance to read it, I would definitely review it at Gossamer Obsessions.

  30. Maria says:

    P.S. I almost always review a book after I’ve read it, either at Barnes & Noble, or the site I bought it from if it’s an e-book, sometimes both if there aren’t already a lot of reviews. So, yes, I’d love the opportunity!

  31. Kaelie says:

    I do believe in ghosts, I”m not quite sure why, various reasons I guess.

    Have a creepy Japanese ghost story:
    A business man checked into an old hotel and as the desk clerk gave him his room key she told him that there was a room at the end of the hall he should avoid at all costs. The man was confused, but agreed that he would. Once he got to his room however, his curiously was insistent that he figure out what was up with that room. So he put his bags in his room and then went to the room at the end of the hall. He crouched down and peered into the keyhole. The whole room was white, except for a middle-aged woman sitting in the corner. She wasn’t moving at all, just sitting. Now the man was unnerved, but didn’t understand why he should avoid this room, and soon went back to his own room.
    The weekend passed with meetings with friends and fellow business men and he soon forgot about the room. That is until he had packed up and closed the door to his room for the final time. Telling himself that one more peek wouldn’t hurt he went back to the room and peered into the keyhole once more. This time he didn’t see a white room and a woman sitting in the corner, all he saw was red. Just red. The business man found he was even more unnerved and decided to ask the desk clerk about it. So as he was checking out he did and she told him that the previous owner of the hotel had killed his wife in that room and that she still haunted it. But what was really strange, the clerk went on to tell him, was that the woman didn’t have black or brown eyes like most Japanese people did, her eyes were blood red.

    word: Mother84. Well I’m sorry but my mother isn’t 84, and neither is my grandmother.

  32. Liz says:

    I absolutely believe in ghosts, much to my mother’s consternation.  When I was 6, my family moved into my dad’s stepfather’s house to take care of him after my grandmother died.  Not long after moving there, I started having weird dreams about my grandmother.  I can still remember the first one quite clearly.  In it my baby brother (3 at the time) and I woke up and our parents told us to go downstairs and that they would be down in a couple of minutes.  As we got to the stairs we heard growling from the living room.  Then, my grandmother came floating out of the living room accompanied by two vicious looking dogs.  She started yelling at us, and told us not to come down stairs. 

    When I woke up, I was facing my open bedroom door (at the time I wasn’t allowed to sleep with the door closed), which showed the wall adjacent to our bathroom.  I frequently faced this wall, which until that night had been pristine.  When I looked up at the wall that night there was a “stain” on it that looked like an avenging angel.  I told my parents, but they had no idea how it got there, and after months of me complaining that it freaked me out, my dad attempted to paint over it.  Of course nothing worked, and I imagine that the stain is still there 18 years later.  (btw, a few years ago, my mother finally told me that my grandmother had died in that living room.)

    Another freaky, supernatural occurrence happened when I was 13.  By this time, my family had moved out of my dad’s stepfather’s house and into my maternal grandmother’s house.  One night, about 5 months after the move, I woke up feeling like someone was watching me.  I turned over (I had been sleeping on my side), and saw what looked like my dad (he was and still is alive and well) standing at the foot of my bed.  He was wearing his coat (despite the fact that is was summer), and he kept saying that he was leaving.  The next morning, I asked my dad if he had been in my room the night before, and of course he hadn’t.  That following February, my dad sat my brother and me down, and told us that he was moving out.  When he left, he was wearing the same coat that he had on that night in my room.

    If I were to get a copy of the book, I would be more than happy to review it.  I have reviewed a couple of books on my blog (usually the ones that annoyed me to no end), but I can review them anywhere you like.

  33. dreadpiraterachel says:

    I don’t believe in ghosts, but I love a good ghost story. “The Turn of the Screw,” on which this one is based, is one of my all-time favorite stories. I remember reading it for the first time when I was about fourteen. I started it at 9:00 one night, and I was up all night long finishing it (and then being too terrified to sleep).

    I adore Jennifer Crusie. I’d have no problem reviewing this book, but my website is not exactly suited to book reviews, as it’s a wedding tips blog! I’d be happy to email it to you, though.

  34. Lauren D says:

    Oh man, I have a desperate NEED to read this book as soon as humanly possible! I would definitely review it too. I have a blog I’m just getting into the swing of using, so I could write it there, or send it in. Either is good for me. As for ghosts, I believe that pretty much anything is possible. I think I believe more in a presence of someones spirit than boogey men moving things around, although I’ve had experiences that could be both. Recently the sister of an old friend of mine died. When we were kids, like 8 and 5 years old, we were playing outside of their house one day when we were approached by a Mormon missionary. This woman launched into her whole spiel for and it was just a really bizarre experience (you maybe had to be there…) Anyways, the morning after I found out the girl died, I was heading to work, and a pamphlet fell off of my front door. It was left there by Mormon missionaries, and mine was the only door in my immediate area that had one on it.

  35. CT says:

    I am a Scientist with a capital S, but I do admit to weird experiences that I can’t explain.  Three times in my life, I have seen an old woman walking by the side of the road, dressed in black, just prior to a death in the family. The first time I was twelve, and I asked my mother why she didn’t stop and offer her a ride, as we lived in a small town and often did so for neighbors.  She asked “Who?” and, once I described the woman, told me to be quiet and not speak anymore of it outside.  Once home, she told me of the bean sidhe, or “banshee,” the harbinger of death.  My grandfather died unexpectedly that week.

    I saw her again before my father and my mother’s deaths.  Is she a ghost?  I don’t know. Coincidence?  Maybe.  But I have never seen her otherwise, and my mother asked me to keep silent on the matter.

    I would certainly review a new JC book.  Love her work!

  36. Yes, I believe in ghosts. From age 2 – 7 I lived in a pre-Civil War era farmhouse in rural Ohio. During tornadoes we hid in the old root cellar, which had allegedly been a stop on the Underground Railroad. While many places claim this distinction, the area around Cincinnati was very much a part of the RR – the Underground RR museum is actually located in Cincinnati for that reason.

    The RR isn’t part of the story – just tells you how old the house was. The oldest section, the farm kitchen and twisty back (original) stairs and bedroom above the kitchen (mine) were the only parts of the house the ghost visited. The previous owner had even published a series of children’s books based on our friendly little cook-ghost. My mother saw her a couple times. She was a very small older lady who moved things in the kitchen. She always left cupboards and drawers open – ones that were hard for us to open b/c the wood stuck – and she liked to lock off the back steps, presumably to protect my baby sister (the era before baby gates were common). A good ghost, all in all. That was a great house. 

    I will absolutely post a review at Damned Scribbling Women.

  37. Phyllis says:

    I don’t really believe in ghosts. (Says my rational side). But weird things happen and if you can’t find out why… Well, I’d have to have proof they existed, but it’s an interesting supposition.

    And ghosts in fiction? I’m all over that.

    Jennifer Crusie? I’ve already pre-ordered, baybeeee! (But think an ARC would be awesome anyway)

  38. Phyllis says:

    And OH YES I would review it. I’ll probably just fangirl squee or something, at least on the first reading

  39. Donna S says:

    I totally believe in ghosts.  Various members of my family have all seen or interacted with one at some time or another.  And Ive seen one in the house where I grew up.  Nothing scarey at least.

    Yes, on my blog and on goodreads.

  40. LSUReader says:

    Unexplainable things happen, so yes, I believe in ghosts.  I’d be willing to send in a review, though I don’t have a blog.

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