Winner of The Glass Wives + more about What She Left Us

 

Hey All, I will have a new book up for you in a couple of days but I wanted to announce the winner of The Glass Wives now. Congrats to Jess Blair who will be receiving a copy of Amy Sue Nathan's book The Glass Wives. Please send me your address so I can get the book out to you. Email me at stephanieelliot@gmail.com

A new book will be featured probably Wed or Thursday -- just waiting on some logistics from the author. It's been busy here at the Manic house. My youngest son Luke, who has epilepsy, left for camp on Sunday -- my first child to ever go to sleepaway camp! Waaahhhh! But I did not cry until MONDAY! It was really strange because I'm so happy for him, I know he's having a blast and doing a ton of great things (here he is ziplining on his first day!), but still, he's my baby and I miss him.

I woke up in the middle of the night the first night he was gone, because I WAS CONVINCED he was standing over me, tapping my leg, trying to wake me up as he does sometimes when he's not feeling well, so of course, I laid there awake, thinking, "Oh my gosh, he's awake at camp, not able to sleep, missing me, not feeling well..." And then that's when I got sad.

But, he's fine, I'm sure, and there's nothing to be freaked about. Right? Right.

So, I told myself before he left that I should use this time to concentrate on editing my next book and working on PR for WHAT SHE LEFT US, and what did I do all day today? Slept. Not very productive. But if you haven't yet read my novel, WHAT SHE LEFT US, it's available on KINDLE for less than a grande latte these days, at just $3.99, and here are a few links from some nice peeps who had some nice things to say:


Chick Lit Central's Review

The Book Chick

The Book Bag

Chick Lit is Not Dead

Even Tracey Garvis Graves, who wrote On The Island and the upcoming Covet, which I LOVED, has read What She Left Us had this to say about it: "This book kept me turning pages because the author does a great job of raising questions I wanted the answer to. It also highlights - beautifully - the relationship between two sisters, and how much they rely on and support each other." 

So, if you haven't yet downloaded What She Left Us and are looking for a book for your kindle, why not check it out? You can get it by clicking here! Thanks for your support and I'll have a bunch more books featured for you here coming soon! XO!

ON THE ISLAND by Tracey Garvis Graves

Congrats to Accidental Gypsy!

On the Island

By Tracey Garvis Graves

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I know you're all going to be excited about this book and this is one that I really cannot stop talking about. Or thinking about! On the Island is a smash-hit runaway book that the debut author decided to self-publish after targeting a core group of agents she thought would be perfect for her book. They all sent her back form rejections. Not even bothering with a personal note of why they thought the book wasn't right for them or the market. 

What do they know? 

When none of them bit, she took publishing matters into her own hands, and now she is a true publishing superstar! The self-published edition of On the Island sold more than 350,000 copies and got the attention of movie-makers, agents and publishers and landed on the New York Times bestseller list. All because Tracey believed in her book and her story!

People love this book. It's got a great catch to it -- two people are stranded on a deserted island -- a 16-year-old boy who's in remission from cancer, and his 30-year-old tutor. And yep, they get BUSY! But, Tracey doesn't get all Fifty Shades of Grey on us … however, I can guarantee there is some steamy scenes and you'll definitely be thinking about TJ and Anna long after you close the pages of On the Island! 

Two people stranded on an island struggle to survive—and slowly fall in love—in the runaway New York Times bestseller, now available with a reading group guide and a letter from the author

Anna Emerson is a thirty-year-old English teacher desperately in need of adventure. Worn down by the cold Chicago winters and a relationship that’s going nowhere, she jumps at the chance to spend the summer on a tropical island tutoring sixteen-year-old T.J.

T.J. Callahan has no desire to go anywhere. His cancer is in remission and he wants to get back to his normal life. But his parents are insisting he spend the summer in the Maldives catching up on all the school he missed last year.

Anna and T.J. board a private plane headed to the Callahan’s summer home, and as they fly over the Maldives’ twelve hundred islands, the unthinkable happens. Their plane crashes in shark-infested waters. They make it to shore, but soon discover that they’re stranded on an uninhabited island.

At first, their only thought is survival. But as the days turn to weeks, and then months, the castaways encounter plenty of other obstacles, including violent tropical storms, the many dangers lurking in the sea, and the possibility that T.J.’s cancer could return. As T.J. celebrates yet another birthday on the island, Anna begins to wonder if the biggest challenge of all might be living with a boy who is gradually becoming a man.

Learn more from Tracey:

So, if you'd like to win a copy of On the Island, you have to act like a COUGAR for this one and tell me who you'd want to be stuck on an island with, cougar-style -- pick someone YOUNGER than you are, but of course, LEGAL! Hahah. I'm choosing ZAC EFFRON for my Island LOVER!!

PS.  

The Cell Phone Lot is now available on Smashwords if you weren't able to get it previously because you didn't have a Kindle, you can now download it here for 99 cents, and an excerpt to my full-length women's fiction is also included!

PSS. 

Don't forget to head over to enter to win What I Did if you haven't already, and remember, US or Canadian residents only! Thanks readers! And be on the lookout for Emily Giffin's WHERE WE BELONG later this week too!

LOTS OF WINNERS RIGHT NOW!!!!

Everybody! It's time to announce some winners, shall we already!

So, in June I posted every day for actually 28 different authors -- almost daily! I took Sundays off and I started at the end of May. I'm SOOO grateful to the authors and publicists who helped make this happen - I was able to give away some AWESOME books! If you were a winner and didn't get your book and it's been three weeks since you gave me your address, please let me know! If you didn't win, I'm sorry, I wish I could give every one of you a book. Keep coming back, I have seen persistence pay off here! I'm a FIRM believer in persistence paying off in life! : )

As promised, there is ONE Grand Prize winner. I also chose a second place winner who will receive a bundle of books as well. 

The Grand Prize winner will receive these books (in no particular order, I'm just yanking them from my floor!): 

The Arrivals by Meg Mitchell Moore

So Far Away by Meg Mitchell Moore

The Rock Star in Seat 3A by Jill Kargman

Keepsake by Kristina Riggle

I Never Promised You a Goodie Bag by Jennifer Gilbert

The Art of Forgetting by Camille Noe Pagan

Can I Get an Amen by Sarah Healy

Head Over Heels by Rain Mitchell

The First Husband by Laura Dave

Wallflower in Bloom by Claire Cook

In The Bag by Katie Klise

Between You and Me by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

Picture This by Jacquelin Sheehan

Skinnydipping by Bethenny Frankel

There are a bunch of books for the second prize winner but I'm not listing them all so you will just have to be surprised. I have a bunch of books left over so I may just run a random giveaway at the end of the summer. I LOVE SHARING BOOKS WITH YOU ALL!

As for The Cell Phone Lot contest where I asked you to please check out my enovella, The Cell Phone Lot, thank YOU to all who have supported my own writing. I have been REALLY depressed lately on my own publishing journey and I need to focus on that. I won't stop sharing great authors here though, that's a promise I'm going to keep. I'm just hoping that my "pay it forward" will someday come back to good karma for me. So thanks for taking the time to read my work too. I will also list that winner's name below too, and you will receive a gift card for $15 of your choice: Starbucks, Target or iTunes - just let me know!

The winner for Jennifer Weiner's The Next Best Thing is also listed below -- she is the one whom I owe this blog to - through her blog A Moment of Jen, I was inspired to start the original Manic Mommy, which was called Manic Mommy's Mental Myriads. Or something along those lines. There is an archive somewhere. I was really open about my family and my life. Really open. Now it's just books most of the time.

If you don't follow me on Facebook, or on Twitter please, please do! I am ALWAYS letting you know when I have a new post up and when I announce winners. And if you do follow me on Facebook already and haven't seen any updates, it might be because of Zuckerberg effing around with his little system. So go to my Facebook page and hit like or leave a comment on my page to activate it - just to let the people at Facebook know that you're interested in my newsfeed so they'll make sure you get the information ON YOUR NEWSFEED. Why does that guy have to make it sooo difficult for us to read about the friends we want to know about? Sometimes I think his last name should start with an "F!"

Coming up I have INCREDIBLE BOOKS FOR YOU! I have just finished ON THE ISLAND by Tracey Garvis Graves which is an incredible novel about a 30-year-old woman and a 16-year-old boy who are castaways on a deserted island - they fall in love - it's steamy and romantic and OH.SO.HOT!

And then I read WHAT I DID by Christopher Wakling - it's narrated by 6-year-old Billy who disobeys his dad one morning and sets the whole story in motion. You'll compare it to ROOM by Emma Donoghue in that they both have young boys as narrators but that's where the comparisons end and this one is another I could not put down. 

And my good real life friend, Amy Sprenger, also known as Snarky Mommy (can you imagine hanging out with MaNiC MoMMy and Snarky Mommy in one room together?) ... well, Snarky Mommy's debut novel came out yesterday and I'll be sharing THAT with you. It's called Baby Bumps, and the subtitle has the word BAT SHIT in it, if that's any indication of what kind of hilarity that will ensue when ready this sort-of-made-up-totally-true-fictional-memoir! Yep, that's what I'm calling Amy's book from here on out -- Baby Bumps, the sort-of-made-up-totally-true-fictional-memoir! 

Damn, I LOVE READING! I've often thought, "put me in a jail cell for just six months so I can catch up on my reading. Oh, and finish up this manuscript I am working on." Also, it feels so good to 'talk' to you all for once about my feelings, and not just report on books. Because you know, I have feelings too! Damn. I kind of miss my old style blogging. I wonder what would happen if I started another blog of just personal stuff... 

OK OK, get to the winner's names ALREADY...

OK, enough of that, here are the winner's names, and if yours is listed, please email me at stephanieelliot@gmail.com and please be specific in your email as to what you have won.

The winner of THE NEXT BEST THING by Jennifer Weiner is: Rebecca E.

The winner of $15 gift card of your choice is: Janet Stec.

The SECOND PLACE winner of the June Book Giveaway is: Books & Reviews blogger

And the Grand Prize winner of all the books listed above is: Carol5814

Congratulations to you all, and look for the next Booking with Manic book hopefully later this week!

Peace to you all! Happy Summer! Be safe and well!