Giveaway 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.
I do believe in ghosts. I think some peoples souls get lost. Or maybe all of our souls float around out there like the Matrix. Everything we think we see is an illusion. Its really our souls drifting. We just so happen to actually see whats real every once in a while.
I would be happy to review the book for you. You could get it off my blog: willowjames.blogspot.com or I can email you it.
Yes, I believe in ghosts. And can’t wait to read the latest Crusie!
I absolutley believe in ghosts and I have had many encounters of the not so scarey kind. Many of them in the last 10 years while living in an old 40’s era apartment complex in San Antonio.
At the moment I have a pet ghost cat. Seriously. I guess it could be a small dog but my instinct says cat. The very first night I moved into my then apartment I was laying in bed with my covers nicely tucked around me and I was reading a book. As I was reading I felt a substantial weight hop up on the bed and pad up my led to settle at my hip. I of course thought it was MY cat, so I just lowered my hand from the book and was going to pet her. My hand met with blanket. I looked to see if she had moved and there was NOTHING there. I could still feel the weight at my hip but there was NO indention on the blankets at all. Slightly freaked I got up and looked for Rita (the cat) and found her at the bottom of the stairs asleep on the window sill. Couldn’t have been her. Since then my ghost cat, Spooky, still visits me every now and then. I quit enjoy our time together.
Same apartment. I was home alone and sitting at my computer desk in my bedroom late late late one night. All is quiet, I dont even have the radio on in the background. My computer desk was against the wall that leads to my living room so I know no one was in the next room and my downstairs neighbor is an old lady that I never hear a peep from. As I’m sitting at my desk on the internet all of a sudden something I’ll identify as the size of a person SMASHES into the wall directly in front of me. The wall shakes, my computer wobbles and I am startled out of my chair. I freaked and grabbed my mace and bat thinking someone had broken in and was gonna kill me. As I’m scrambling to grab the bat I hear a little girl crying as if someone is beating her. Freaking EVEN MORE, I run out there and there is NOTHING AGAIN. That one made me leave the apartment at 3am and get my guy neighbor out of bed to come search with me. Nothing still.
I have a few other stories but those are my favs. I no longer live in that specific apartment but I do live in the complex still. I will say that the “vibe” I got in the old apartment was intense compared to the “psychic calm” of my current place. It’s weird but I know there is nothing in this place.
:0) BTW, LOVE CRUSIE!! I hope I win. :0)
I don’t believe but could be convinced if I had an experience with one.
Crusie is my favorite author, I would so love to have this book.
I believe in ghosts. I used to work in a law office in an old building that was formerly a brothel. Rumor had it that the building was haunted by a prostitute who had died in the building during childbirth. One of the attorneys claimed that said ‘ho used to wander around the building late at night, slamming doors and crying. The only way this attorney would work nights or weekends was if I was right there next to her. One particular weekend we heard a loud crashing noise downstairs and then creaking noises on the back stairs, as if someone was walking up the steps to see us. We were the only ones in the building – had locked all of the doors, closed the metal shutters and made sure no one had access. Scared the holy bajeezus right out of me! Needless to say, I refused to work after hours after that and eventually found another paralegal job.
Can’t wait for Crusie’s new book!! I’m one of her biggest fans. Pick me! Pick me!
While I can’t say with firm conviction that I believe in ghosts, I’m to be open to the idea of them. Since I’ve never had an experience with one, it’s easier be skeptical (especially when looking at the paranormal section of the bookstore), but I’d like to keep myself open to the possibilities. “There are more things in heaven and earth,” and so forth. 😉
Either way, they make for great stories! I keep thinking of the scene in Anne of Green Gables where Anne & Diana have to walk through the haunted wood at dusk, and Anne twists her ankle and starts recounting all the ghost encounters she’s ever heard of. good times. ^_^
I love Jenny Crusie’s books and am looking forward to getting my hands on this one. 😀
Ghoulies and ghasties and things that go bump in the night? I don’t believe per se, but there’s a small bit of me that kinda wishes the ‘impression loop’ theory was real science, not pseudo-science.
On t’other hand, I used to work at a yard where a lad hung himself from the rafters in the indoor school. Horses universally used to spook at the spot, despite there being nothing there but a patch of sand. No rattly doors or mirrors or odd viewing angles or anything explicable. This was loose, ridden, in-hand and at all times of day/year. Had nothing to do with whether the handler knew the history either. Generally wore off after they’d been through the spot a few times.
However, no-one human ( other than few hysterical teens) ever reacted to it.
I believe, and as the first anniversary of my dad’s passing approaches, he has sent reassuring vibes to several of us in the family, inc my 3 yeard old niece who has said several specific things that would have to have come from him.
I’d have to send a review back to you, I keep a low internet profle.
I don’t believe in ghosts, but I don’t actively disbelieve in them either. I basically feel the same about ghosts as I do about heaven, reincarnation, and every other theory concerning what happens after we die. I know some people will think this is a cop out, but after a great deal of reflection I decided that it is impossible to know for sure so it is pointless to speculate and there is no sense in worrying about it. I know i have the life I am living now so the smart thing for me to do is to live it the best I can and that way, whatever happens or doesn’t happen after I die, at least I’ll have no regrets about how I lived.
Ghosts? Could be. I open to the idea. Reviewing the book? Absolutely.
Please count me in.
Absolutely I believe in ghosts! Too damn many things go bump in the night for any other explanation.
Review? Hmmm.
Delighted to hear there is a new Crusie coming out—when she is good, she is GREAT!
I once lived in a haunted house and I could tell many stories of flying knives and scared witless friends, but the main thing that stays in my mind is a memory of me and the dog and cat sitting frozen on a bean bag clutching each other and staring at the door leading into the hallway, just knowing something was there. When they sensed the ghost or whatever, the animals would arch their backs and I am sure all the hairs on all of us stuck straight up. Even when there was no ghostly presence the three of us took to running down the hallway. Needless to say, the DH would have loved to have had the experience we had, but musn’t have been haunt-worthy.
I do believe in ghosts. You would think my experience with them would have happened when I lived in Salem, MA, in a 250 year old house.
But no, that house was not haunted. It was the apartment above a carpet store in Derry NH, that was the creepiest place I have ever lived. Faucets turned on, radios came to life unexpectedly. Whispers from the next room, random cold spots. I once had a glass smash in a room that no one was in, and it didn’t just fall off the counter, i found it’s remains in the middle of the floor. The worst though, was the feeling of unease that you couldn’t get away from. Almost everyone that came over to visit, commented on the creepiness of the place. I didn’t have to see a ghost, I knew some unfriendly presence was there. I was constantly turning on all the lights and looking over my shoulder. I had a night-light in my bedroom! I avoided being alone there as much as possible.
When I think back to when the landlord made us sign the lease, he kept reminding us that we would be charged if we broke it early. No matter what the reason. That was the longest year of my life. I looked for reasons to stay at friends houses, sometimes purposely getting drunk off my ass so they would be forced to have me over.
It’s funny, I drive by it every now and then and point it out to people, solemnly telling them how scary it is. They just look at me like I’m crazy and say something like, “really? the carpet store is the scariest place you ever lived? Really?!?”
I would be honored to review the book. I don’t have a website, and my writing skills are weak, but I would do my best.
Probably not believing in the ghosts. But that won’t stop me from thinking there’s one around the corner if I ever spend the night alone in a deserted mansion.
I put my reviews up on goodreads, and would be happy to share.
Love Crusie’s novels! And though I’m a skeptic by nature, my brother’s experiences wrt ghosts have given me pause….
1. I don’t believe in ghosts, even after a weird nightshift experience. My friend Lynn and I were working with another nurse on a ward that had a TV room between the main block of patient rooms and the first four-bed bay. One of Lynn’s patients buzzed at around 1AM, just as the three of us were about to do something, so Prue and I stood in the corridor outside the storeroom, waiting for Lynn to finish with her patient. About ten minutes later we saw Lynn come out of the room, look up and down the corridor, walk to the lobby, come back, then head down toward a closed patient bay. She turned to us and said “Okay, where did my patient go?”
We had no idea what she was talking about – we’d been looking down the corridor the entire time she’d been gone and only saw her enter the room and come back out ten minutes later.
She swears she escorted her patient to the loo, waited in the adjacent pan room, and then heard limping footstep walk from the patient room to the corridor. Her patient was blind, and Lynn assumed he tried to go back to bed on his own but got disoriented and headed in the wrong direction. When, after speaking to us, she went back to the bathroom she found him still there; her other three patients were all still asleep and in case bed-bound.
2. Not only will I review the book on my blog, I co-review with Lynn, so you’ll get two reviews for one easy shipment to Australia 🙂 We both love Crusie, and Lynn loves ghost stories (and is looking at a PhD that incorporates them)!
I’m undecided when it comes to ghosts – I certainly believe that violent death can leave a negative impact on an area that we can pick up and may attribute to ghosts. But fully sentinent shades tasked with delivering one last important message to their loved ones? Not so much.
I do review books but only within my bookclub – I don’t publish anywhere but would be happy to write up and share for an ARC.
I believe in ghosts. After all, I believe in God and the soul – it stands to reason there are other things that we cannot explain, including ghosts.
I don’t do book reviews unless they REALLY suck and then I go on Amazon to do it.
I’ve always thought that ghosts exist; however, I’ve been a true believer in ghosts ever since my sister and I saw what we believe to be an apparition of an older woman while at a chorus rehearsal We both noticed the woman watching the rehearsal in the back of the auditorium and commented on it to others present. No one else noticed her and she stayed for the entire time! She was the only one sitting out in the hall so it was obvious to us that she was out of place. The other members of the chorus thought we were making her up, but she was so strange we’re sure she was a ghost!
I usually just praise or rail against romance novels over the phone with my best friend. 🙂 But I would love to write a review of the book if I win it!
For a Cruisie ARC I would put down the chocolate and bite the bullet instead and do a real book review.
Regarding ghosts; hell yeah! I’ve been haunted by the ghost of my innocence for years!
Not sure if I believe in ghosts, per se, but I definitely believe in those we’ve lost having a lingering presence in our lives. I lost both of my grandparents within three months of each other, and both before I gave birth to my first child—we named him after my granddad, and there have been times when I just KNOW that he would have been really proud of his namesake, and that he’s keeping an eye on us somehow, 🙂
I believe in the possibility of ghosts, but I don’t have any first hand stories to confirm that belief. I do, however, know the exorcist of a Catholic religious order, and he had some pretty bizarre stories to tell, some of which definitely seemed more ghost-like than devil/demon-like.
I would review, and for a copy I would actually post that review online, at my blog or on GoodReads (or both).
I’m not sure if I believe in ghosts or not. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence, but hard science? Not so much.
On the other hand. I know I believe in Crusie!
Heck, yeah. My grandmother haunted my mother’s house for awhile, opening doors and throwing dishes. And my mother visited my sister’s kids shortly after she died.
I’ll be glad to review the book. While I like her collaborations, there’s nothing like pure Crusie!
I believe in ghosts in romance fiction. That plot works for me. I would review on Amazon and advertise and participate in the Cherry Forums Book Club for MTT. 🙂
Yes, I think i do believe in ghosts. This is my story.
It starts in a hospital, my hospital. I work as a nurse and one of the first things you learn when you start working is that almost every nurse has had some sort of unexplained experience. It is common knowledge among us for instance that when people are nearing their end, a good sign is that they start talking about or seeing their deceased relatives.
We had been caring for a comatose patient whose family had finally consented to stop all life sustaining measures. It’s not like on TV, patients do not immediately pass away if they are able to breathe on their own and so we try to keep them as comfortable as possible until they do. His family spent weeks at his bedside, playing him music, talking to him, watching over him. They were a very close nit family.
Night shifts on a hospital unit can be a very stressful experience because staffing is much lower. You are often run off your feet trying to attend to patient needs, dealing with minor and major emergencies. On this particular night, it was strangely calm. The occasional patient would call but mostly we were able to take care of paperwork and relax a little.
At about 3 a.m. the bell in room 12 rang. Thinking it was his mother, calling to turn and reposition her son, we went to the room. Once there, we noted that it was the bell in the bathroom and not the one at his bedside that was lit. The mother said she had not pressed the call button. We turned off the light and left the room. We got back to the nursing station only to have the call bell in room 12 ring again. Back to the room we went, only to have his mother tell us she had not rung. This happened 3 or 4 more times until the 5th time when his mother did call us to tell us her son’s breathing had changed. When he died, the emergency bell started going off every five minutes or so for about an hour. It kept doing this all the while his family sat at his bedside. When eventually his body was removed it all stopped and hasn’t happened since.
I guess it could all be coincidence but I like to believe he was trying to let us know it was time.
That’s my story…I have others but this one turned out longer than I’d intended. I’m really looking forward to Crusie’s new book. She brings dialogue to a whole new level and I can’t wait to immerse myself in it again. Hopefully I’ll get to review it for you!
Unlike the first commenter, I have never seen a ghost in Orlando in all of the years I have lived here. (I”ll spend the rest of my evening wondering where the Disney ghosts hang out? Haunted Mansion?)
I don’t believe in ghost, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.
I simultaneously do and don’t believe in ghosts! When I was on my honeymoon, we stayed in a place that my partner was sure was haunted by malevolent spirits. The closet door kept coming open, even though we latched it, and he noticed a dark, cold spot on the stairs (I didn’t). We had dinner with the owner and, entirely unprompted, she told us that the place had been haunted for years and she’d had exorcists from three different faiths in.
He said, “Well, you need more.”
I believe he sensed those things, I even believe all the creepy stories (I know some very respectable people who have had spectral run-ins), but I’m also an atheist. Somehow I manage to hold both these ideas in my head at the same time.
I have not ever seen a ghost but I never say never – scary ghost stories really freak me out! I would love to do a review – a stand alone Crusie would be a nice change.
I believe in ghosts—though I’ve never really seen or experienced one, I find it comforting that we can still reach our loved ones after they have passed on.
I would review Maybe this time at my sorely neglected book blog, fancifulreader.com
I definitely believe in ghosts. We had several at the college I went to (old girl’s “seminary”). I used to say I didn’t believe but there was one day in my dorm room where I swear I saw a young woman standing behind me in the mirror reflection. I was totally freaked. I also felt my hair being played with at night and there was no guy around to do so. Totally creepy.
I don’t have a website to review on, but would be happy to email one to you 🙂
I love ghost stories and believe in the *possibility* of ghosts, but I’ve never seen one myself and don’t want to!
Thanks for the giveaway! I’m excited about this new Crusie book!
I have a hard time believing in ghosts but I have had some experiences that lead me to believe that spooky things happen.
I would love to review this book!
I don’t believe in ghosts; I’m a pretty hard line atheist. I think they make for a great story, though. I love my romances with ghosts in them. (Well, as long as it’s not a historical. Everyone has their preferences, after all.) I’m trying to remember what the last one was that I read…I want to say it was a story in the middle of a series about some bizarrely attractive brothers who ran a bar. And the girl shows up to a Halloween party and one of the brothers can hear her thoughts. It might have been a Lori Foster?
Bah, if only my brain worked.
(Heh. My captcha is “appear33”. Ooo, spooky! Appearances!)
In theory I don’t believe in ghosts but really…well I probably do. I know in my old house- a 150 year old mansion, 2 kitchens, 3 bathrooms, widow’s walk etc (a lot of us lived there. I’m not an heiress, alas)- we heard things, and I never questioned (much) the idea that it was…well, not any of us. And at my partners old place there was a really mischievous presence that really defied explanation. So, I guess, yes.
I would be delighted to review this book, and promise to do so in much more grammatically correct and articulate fashion than the above muddle.
Yes, I believe in ghosts, but I’m not much on how they are usually portrayed. I believe that the spirit can, and often does, hang around after death. How that spirit is manifested to the living varies according to what the particular (living) person can/will recognize.
As far as reviews, I’d put one up on my blog, where exactly 4 people might see it. 🙂
I wanna believe in ghosts, I really, really do. Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Patrick Swayze in Ghost, any number of hot, sexy ghosts. Who doesn’t want to feel a chill ripple down their spine and a ghostly caress? But alas, after living in my ancestral home where many relatives went to their eternal rest, I have never had an spectral evidence to support ghosts. But a girl can still fantasize, can’t she?
I’d love to review the book and post said review on my blog!
Ghosts. Yes. Definitely, yes. I went to 125 year old women’s college in Missouri, and one story gets passed from generation to generation: the story of the Bell Tower in Senior Hall.
Cliff notes version: During the civil war, a wounded soldier found his way into Senior Hall. Of course after the initial shock of finding a man, a young girl took pity on the solider and nursed him back to health. Through her gentle care, he became healthy, and they fell in love. However, he was in the Confederate Army on Union territory, so they knew that his escape would almost be impossible. Sadly, he was discovered and killed. The girl being inconsolable climbed to the bell tower one night and hung herself. And now, it is a wildly known fact the young lovers haunt the halls to be reunited in their love.
While I was a student, I spent many hours practicing there, and being busy, I could usually squeeze in practice late at night. I never really cared for ghost stories, so I thought the story of the young lovers was more romantic and a ruse to add some flair to campus. But I also couldn’t deny that I got sudden chills from the building from time to time: the chills signaling me to get out quick. One night while I was practicing I started to hear footsteps coming from above me in beat to my playing. Now, I was on the third floor, the highest floor in the building…other than the bell tower. Then like clockwork the sudden wave of chills. When I told my friends about the incident, they told me it was probably the lovers dancing to my music. Apparently, they dance in time if they like it and stomp around if they don’t (which in a weird way kind of flattered me…) Thus, combine the chills and the footsteps and I was then convinced of ghosts.
During my time at Stephens, other stories were passed to me through friends and teachers who have stayed in Senior Hall late at night: sheets of music being tossed to the ground, various sightings of the lovers and the continual stomping. With more than one account for what I felt and heard, I knew ghosts were real, and the lovers had reunited.
As a silent reader of romance for years now, I know it’s time for me to express my feelings. I guess that’s my way of saying I’m coming out of the closet to declare I READ ROMANCE NOVELS. Which is another roundabout way of me saying, yes I’d love to review a book and actually have people agree, disagree, comment and debate on what I say and what they felt about the book. As I am new at this, I would be able to send my review. Plus, it’s Crusie…One of the loves of my life.
I believe in ghosts, though I’ve never seen one myself. I’ve witnessed events that may have occured due to ghosts, so I think they probably do exist.
I will review the book, not sure where, probably Amazon? Maybe my website or FB?
Can’t wait to read it! Go, Crusie!!
Why is the idea of ghosts so absolutely outrageous? Who says your spirit cannot hang on after death? I absolutely believe in ghosts (but have no ghost story to share, unfortunately)!
Also, I will absolutely review! I don’t have a personal blog, so I will make sure to send it to Smart Bitches!