Posts Tagged: free book

Mom’s Monday-Shannon Hale Series

07 Jun, 2010 by in river secrets, Shannon Hale 36 comments


Today’s Mom’s Monday book choice is a series by Utah author Shannon Hale. I first picked up The Goose Girl about a year ago at our local library and haven’t put down her writing ever since. The Books Of Bayern take us through the journey of peasant to princess and into the forest where the commoners of the kingdom live. They are full of fairy tale themes and laughs a plenty. Shannon Hale has a gift for spinning stories and has become one of my very favorite authors.

” Shannon’s mother says she was a storyteller from birth, jabbering endlessly in nonsensical baby-talk. Once she could speak, she made up stories and bribed younger siblings to perform them in mini-plays until, thankfully, an elementary school teacher introduced her to the wonder of written fiction. At age 10, she began to write books, mostly fantasy stories where she was the heroine.

She continued to write secretly for years while pursuing acting in television, stage, and improv comedy. After detours studying in Mexico, the UK, and a year and a half as a volunteer missionary in Paraguay, Shannon earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Utah. She was finally forced out of the writers’ closet when she received her Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Montana.

The goose girl, her critically acclaimed first book, is an ALA Teens’ Top Ten and Josette Frank Award winner. enna burning, river secrets, and forest born continue the Books of Bayern series. princess academy is a Newbery Honor winner and a New York Times best seller. book of a thousand days received a Cybils award and is featured on several best of the year lists. austenland, a romantic comedy, was her first book for adults, followed by the actor and the housewife. She and her husband Dean co-wrote the graphic novels Rapunzel’s revenge, which was selected by Today’s Al Roker for Al’s Book Club for Kids, and cal
Calamity jack. ” Shannon makes her home near Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, with her super-human husband, their young son and daughter, and their pet, a small plastic pig. -Taken from Shannon’s Website

To start off your reading we are giving away book number three in the Books of Bayern…
River Secrets


Razo–short, funny and not a great soldier–is sure it’s out of pity that his captain asks him to join an elite mission–escorting the ambassador into Tira, Bayern’s great enemy.

But when the Bayern arrive in the strange southern country, it’s Razo who discovers the first dead body. He’s the only Bayern able to befriend both the high and low born, people who can provide information about the ever-increasing murders. And he’s the one who must embrace his own talents in order to get the Bayern soldiers home again, alive.

Newbery–Honor winner Shannon Hale returns the reader to the intrigue and magic of Bayern, introduced in her critically acclaimed novels, The Goose Girl and Enna Burning. In River Secrets, readers revisit a world where even those with no special magical skills find in themselves something they never imagined.

To Enter to Win
River Secrets: leave your name and email address below

Contest ends July 7, 2010 and is open internationally

Austenland by Shannon Hale Giveway

24 Mar, 2010 by in Shannon Hale 10 comments

Hardback: 208 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; Reprint edition (May 27, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1596912863

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School—Thirty-three-year-old Jane Hayes, who has a fairly serious addiction to the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice, inherits a trip to Pembrook Park, Kent, England, the location of a resort where guests dress, talk, think, and act in ways that Jane Austen would approve. Refusing to lie about her age, even on vacation in a place right out of Austen’s England, Jane finds herself quickly overcoming the obsession with Mr. Darcy that may very well have jeopardized her 13 “relationships” over the years. Left to walk in last to dinner, mildly obsessed with one of the hotel’s gardeners, and annoyed by another guest’s overeager attempts to bag a man, Jane is eager to return to Manhattan. Then she decides to give it all one more chance, since Great-Aunt Carolyn did see fit to pay for the entire vacation. Hale does a lovely job with the tale of a single woman who would appreciate a genuine shot at love. The book is well written, quite readable, and the myriad characters, especially those working at the resort, are quirkily funny. Given the immense popularity of Jane Austen’s novels among teen girls, this book definitely has cross-over appeal.—Sarah Krygier, Solano County Library, Fairfield, CA

Shannon has done it again, Austenland was one of my favorite reads of 2009. I absolutely loved this book! It is refreshing and without any questionable filler. Makes me want to rent Pride and Prejudice with Collin Firth! Hale’s plot had me guessing until the end. Austenland is a gem. Thanks so much to Shannon Hale @haleshannon for tweeting this 🙂 You are the best… I gave this soon to be movie Five stars!

To Enter to win the hardback
: leave your name below+3 entries for each dollar donated to our Chile relief fund via Paypal to heatoddgardner@yahoo.com

Winner will be drawn Monday March 29th and it is open to International Entries.

WOW- Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

17 Feb, 2010 by in penguin USA 35 comments

Bitterblue (The Seven Kingdoms Trilogy, Book 3)
by Kristin Cashore

published 2011 by Dial

details Hardcover

isbn 0547248059

Not quite sure how long we will be waiting for this one, but it will be WELL worth the wait…Taken from Kristin Cashore’s blog “Book 3, tentatively titled Bitterblue and currently in progress, is a companion book to both Graceling and Fire and takes place in the seven kingdoms six years after Graceling. As you may have gathered, the protagonist is Bitterblue. Yes, Katsa, Po, and others from Graceling whom I’m not yet willing to name do appear in the book. I don’t know yet when it’ll be coming out, and heartily invite you not to ask ^_^. That’s all I can say about it at this point.

EDIT 3/9/09: If you notice on Amazon that Bitterblue is cancelled, don’t worry! The Harcourt edition is cancelled, but only because the book has moved to Penguin. Once Bitterblue is written, it’ll be published by the Penguin imprint Dial Books for Young Readers.

In the meantime enjoy her first book Graceling on us…
You will fall head over heels for Po!

To enter to win the hardback: Simply leave us your name and email address!

Open Internationally and contest will end March 3rd, 2010