Reading Road Trip – Florida

I’m so excited to be hosting the Florida stop on the Reading Road Trip! For more information see www.ilikethesebooks.com & www.iceybooks.com. You can also click on the graphical representation of the schedule to the left for a full listing. (Yes, they pretty much covered up my entire state except for the part we refer to as “Lower Alabama” and “not really Florida” but I’m not going to hold it against them because I realize they’re just jealous that I get to represent such an AWESOME state. )

In addition to the giveaway (below), I wanted to put together a listing of books that take place in Florida or were written by someone who lives/d in Florida.  And in true Florida Resident style, I’m actively ignoring anybody who only has a vacation house in our beautiful state. Also, most of these will be YA because – hey, write what you know, right? In no particular order:

• Jenny Torres Sanchez – The Downside of Being Charlie
• Jessica Martinez – Virtuosity
• J.A. Souders – Renegade (Coming November 2012)
• Karen Amanda Hooper – Tangled Tides, Grasping at Eternity
• Diana Peterfreund – Rampant, For Darkness Shows the Stars & more!
• Lucienne Diver – Vamped series, Latter-day Olympians series
• Kate DiCamillo – Because of Winn Dixie
• Edward Bloor – Tangerine, London Calling, Story Time, Taken, Crusader, A Plague Year, Memory Lane
• Bia Tanos – Moonlit Destiny
• Alex Flinn – Cloaked, A Kiss in Time, Beastly & more
• Tera Lynn Childs – Forgive My Fins, Fins Are Forever, Just For Fins
• Trish Doller – Something Like Normal
• John Green – Paper Towns
• Carl Hiaasen – Chomp, Hoot, Flush, & many many many more
• J Gabriel Gates – The Sleepwalkers
• Sarah M Ross – Awaken, Echo of an Earth Angel
• Jennifer L. Holm – Turtle in Paradise
• Sable Grace – Bedeviled, Ascension, Before the Fall
• Nancy Haddock – Oldest City Vampire Series
• Tim Dorsey – Pineapple Grenade, When Elves Attack, Electric Barracuda & many more
• Heather Graham – Phantom Evil, Ghost Moon, Deadly Harvest & many more
• Randy Wayne White – The Doc Ford Series & more
• Steve Berry – The Columbus Affair, The Jefferson Key and like 8 billion others
• C.L. Wilson – Crown of Crystal Flame, King of Sword and Sky, Queen of Song and Souls & more
• Kristen Painter – House of Camarre series & more
• Crissa-Jean Chappell – Narc
• Kristen Simmons – Article 5
• Heather Burch – Halflings

(I also didn’t indicate whether the author was from FL or the book was set in FL or both because – hey, I’m busy! I definitely want to put together a more permanent list of authors currently living in Florida in the future, though. I started a Twitter list here.)

Feel free to add any Florida book/author suggestions in the comments!

HM, what should I give away?? You may or may not know this about me, but I like to give away books by authors who have been nice to me. (I think it’s a good, simple guideline). Unfortunately for me, there are A LOT of those authors on this list!! And I’m not rich. So I’m just going to pick two. (Don’t worry, I love the rest of you too!!)

This first author probably doesn’t even remember meeting me, but I met her at the massive signing at RWA 2010. It was my first big, national conference and I was so freaking nervous I was shaking. But she was so nice to me and asked me what I wrote and invited me to a YA RWA meetup later in the conference (which I unfortunately couldn’t attend).

The Fins series takes place in Florida, but I don’t want to limit the winner in case he/she already owns the series. So if you win this giveaway, you can pick any paperback from Tera Lynn Childs available from www.bookdepository.com. This giveaway is open to any country BD ships to. If you live in the US, I will order it from Barnes & Noble.

I honestly didn’t realize the similarities between these two authors until just now. I also met the second author at RWA 2010 (after interacting with her on Twitter), but we have stayed in contact. She also wrote a mermaid book. She also has three names. And she’s also awesome & sweet.

Karen Amanda Hooper is from Florida! If you win this giveaway, you can choose a Kindle copy of Grasping at Eternity or Tangled Tides, or a nook copy of Grasping at Eternity. This giveaway is open to anyone I can gift a Kindle or nook book to. I have no idea who that is, so it’s up to you to determine that :-)

UPDATE: Author Heather Burch found out about the list and contest and has graciously offered up a copy of HALFLINGS to one winner. Heather is another author from Florida!

I’ve also added one more way to enter: Spread the word about the giveaway!

Enter using the Rafflecopter below! You’re not required to do anything extra to enter, but there are extra entries!

a Rafflecopter giveaway