Tomorrow is the last day to enter and win a Casa Dracula book by Marta Acosta (your choice) .  Just leave a comment telling us your favorite or least favorite fictional vampire.  Click Here to enter.

 

To Rate or Not to Rate…

A lot of sites and bloggers use rating systems with their reviews, and conversely, a lot do not.  So I have two questions:

1. Do you find them helpful?  I haven’t included any ratings so far on my reviews yet, but if you guys want them as a quick way of evaluating a book, I will seriously consider adding a system.
2. What kind of rating system do you like?  Numbers, letters, symbols etc.? 

Scratch that, I guess I have more than two questions.  I always include a Sexual Content section in my reviews.  I don’t know about you guys, but I appreciate knowing if there is a graphic sex scene etc. before jumping into a book.

1. Is this helpful?  Do you want more/less specifics?
2. Do you want a specific rating system for sexual content similar to All About Romance’s Sensuality Ratings Guide?

 

Thanks for your input,

 

“We have guest authors every day, a scavenger hunt to win signed books daily, and other prizes all week!  It's going to be a very busy week.  The posts will be long but filled with info, fun and prizes, so be sure to stop in every day because you have to enter daily to win the prizes offered that day.  A grand prize will be given away on Saturday, and you'll be eligible for that merely by commenting during the week either to win or on a guest's post.”

Stop by for a bite and check out the plug for All Things Urban Fantasy!

Vampire Wars: Who's the Best Evil (Yet Hot) Vampire? by Jennifer Godwin (Eonline.com)

UPN; Steven Lippman/HBO; Andrew Eccles / The CW

"And you’re what, shocked and disappointed? I’m evil." —Spike

Vampire Wars continues! As we explained earlier this week, we've decided that, structurally speaking, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood and The Vampire Diaries are all the same show. Girl meets soft-hearted vampire, girl enters bizarre world of the occult, girl gets mixed up in some stuff, girl hooks up with hard-bodied other vampire, wackiness (and bloody good scandal) ensues.

But which of those wicked, supersexy vamps is the best? It's time to decide who's the best evil (yet hot) TV series vampire, and you have to make the nearly impossible choice between James Marsters' bitingly funny Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alex Skarsgård's Viking vampire Eric Northman on True Blood, and Ian Somerhalder's devilish Damon on The Vampire Diaries.

So...who do you love? Tell us in the poll below! –Eonline.com

Head over to eonline.com and vote.  When I voted earlier, Spike only had a 4% lead on Eric.  Go vote!

In general, I’m not a huge fan of book blog  memes.  I don’t think you really care what books I got mailed to me on a particular day or which ones I’m waiting for etc (If I'm wrong, let me know).  Don’t get me wrong, there are some good memes out there, but the majority just seem like lazy posts to me. So far, Throwdown Thursday is the only one I’m doing, but that one is basically just an excuse to bring up/contrast something I wanted to talk about anyway. 

I am thinking, however, about adding one more—again because there is something I wanted to share anyway.  This blog is All About Urban Fantasy books, but occasionally, I do step outside the genre, and even less frequently, I read something that I can’t wait to pass along to a friend, regardless of their previous interest (or lack thereof) in the genre.  So, without further ado, I’m introducing:

Genre Swap Saturday

   Genre Swap Saturday is a regular post (not necessarily every week) hosted by All Things Urban Fantasy, that will highlight books outside of our focused genre that I think will appeal to you.  Every Genre Swap Saturday book suggestion will include:

• Why you, an urban fantasy lover, might like this book:
• Why you, an urban fantasy lover, might not like this book: 
   

---

There was no doubt in my mind as to which book I wanted to highlight first:

 

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Book Description: The year is 1945 and Claire Beauchamp Randall, a former British combat nurse, is on holiday in Scotland with her husband, looking forward to becoming reacquainted after the war's long separation. Like most practical women, Claire hardly expects her curiosity to get the better of her. But an ancient stone circle near her lodgings holds an eerie fascination, and when she innocently touches one of the giant boulders, she's hurtled backward in time more than two hundred years, to 1743. Alone where no lady should be alone, and far from the familiar comforts of her other life, Claire's usual resourcefulness is tested to the limit. The merciless garrison captain so feared by others bears an uncanny resemblance to the husband she has just left behind. Her own odd circumstances expose her to accusations of witchcraft. And the strands of a political intrigue she doesn't understand threaten to ensnare her at every turn.But of all the perils her new life holds, none is more disquieting than her growing feelings for James Fraser, the gallant young Scot she is forced to marry for her own protection. Sworn by his wedding vows to keep her from harm, Jamie's passion for Claire goes beyond duty. As she struggles with the memories of another lifetime, she is forced to make an agonizing and fateful choice, and learns ultimately that a man's instinct to protect the woman he loves is as old as time.

My Thoughts: There are precious few books that make you want to flip right back to the first page the instant you've finished reading the last. Outlander is on the top of that very short list. This is my second time reading through this novel and its even better than I remembered; a feat I scarcely thought possible. I have never cared for two characters that way I care about Claire and Jamie. Diana Gabaldon is such a gifted writer that it is easy to lose yourself in her Scottish Highlands and find yourself breathing that same air as Claire and Jamie; a wonderful if sometimes upsetting experience as Gabaldon doesn't hide anything from her readers: blood, sex, war, death and even rape; they are all laid bare before us. Blending the best elements of true love and romance, action and adventure, history and war, fantasy and a hint of magic, this genre defying novel is an instant classic. And unless I count the rest of the series, I have yet to read its equal.

Why you, an urban fantasy lover, might like this book:

1. Claire is a modern woman thrown into a world that is completely different from her own. 
2. A richly detailed world that you’ll swear you can taste, feel, and breathe. 
3. Claire and Jamie together: Epic love in a way Bella and Edward cannot even imagine.

Why you, an urban fantasy lover, might not like this book: 

1. While defying genre categorization, there isn’t anything urban about Outlander
2. The love story of Jamie and Claire is the focus of this story
3. Not a vampire, or werewolf to be seen (but there is a witch…)
   

Outlander Series:
1. Outlander aka Cross Stitch (1991)
2. Dragonfly in Amber (1991)
3. Voyager (1993)
4. The Drums of Autumn (1996)
5. The Fiery Cross (2001)
6. A Breath of Snow and Ashes (2005)
7. An Echo in the Bone (2009)

Product Details

 

• Paperback: 656 pages
• Publisher: Delta
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385319959
• ISBN-13: 978-0385319959
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.6 inches