New book!

I'm so excited! I've waited a long time to share my new book with you! It's YA gothic. It's dark and twisted. It's set in Cologne! There are Walpurgisnight revels, dark underground bars in Cologne, there's blood and magic and romance and death and everything in between.
Do you want to know what it's called?
The title is...

Between the Shadow and the Soul

Here's the summary:

21st Century Cologne
On the day of her sixteenth birthday Nela receives her Binding – a tattoo that’ll punish even the thought of magic with burning pain. In a world where the Brotherhood still burns witches at the stake, Nela has learned to fear her magical powers. But her powers are growing and refuse to be ignored. When Nela meets Darko, he shows her a hidden world of magic she can’t resist. 

Darko hates the Brotherhood with blind fervor for destroying his life. Except for revenge, there’s only one thing that keeps him going: the wish to bring his dead sister back to life. The only way to gain the necessary power is by summoning a demon with the help of a Necromancer and absorbing its demonic power. When his Master tells Darko that Nela is what they need for the ritual, Darko doesn’t hesitate to gain her trust. A trust he’ll have to betray. 

As Nela meets witches in the underground bars of Cologne and celebrates Walpurgisnight with magical folk from all over the world, she realizes that she doesn’t want to bow to the Brotherhood’s rules anymore. She wants to be free to live as a witch. Defying the Brotherhood could mean death by fire, but as Nela is pulled deeper into Darko’s world, she realizes that his darkness might be the true danger.

It's the first in a duology and it'll be out in December, probably Dec. 15th. 

You can add it on goodreads. And you can pre-order it.

The cover reveal is next week! I can't even put into words how gorgeous the cover is! 

Books I read in 2011

I managed to read 72 books in 2011 which is a big improvement from the 45 I had last year, so yeah!
Here are the books I read:

Susanne's bookshelf: read

Have you read any of the books above? Or do you really want to read one those books?

Winners!!!

It's time to announce the winners of my blogversary contest!

*drum roll*

erica_henry

and

Hannah (quixotic_girl on twitter)

Please contact me at books@susannewinnacker.com and let me know your book choice and address. I'll be on vacation in London where I'll meet my agent and editor (YAY!!!!) in the next week and I'll depart on March 9th, so it would be good if you could contact me as soon as possible.

Blogversary contest!

I started this blog almost a year ago on March 5^th 2010. That's a reason for celebration! And there's no better way to celebrate than a contest!

As a 2012 debut author, I want to support this year's debut authors. That's why I'm giving away 2011 debuts.

There'll be two winners. Each winner can choose one of the following books:

Unearthly by Cynthia Hand
XVI by Julia Karr

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Timeless by Alexandra Monir

Warped by Maurissa Guibord

So Shelly by Ty Roth

Clarity by Kim Harrington

The Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney

Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer

Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton

The Liar Society by Lisa and Laura Roecker

A Touch Mortal by Leah Clifford

The contest is open internationally. Contest ends March 5^th (the anniversary of my first blogpost!). Winners will be announced on March 6th 2011.

Comment +1 entry
New blog follower + 1 / Old blog follower + 2
Twitter follower +1 (please let me know your twitter name)

Facebook friend + 1 (please let me know your facebook name)
tweet about contest + 2 (please tell me your twitter name or leave a link)
blog about contest + 3 (Please leave the link in the comments)

Maximum: 10 entries

Review: XVI by Julia Karr

I read this book as part of the Debut Author Challenge 2011.

Publication date: January 6th, 2011

Summary: Every girl gets one. An XVI tattoo on the wrist -- sixteen. They say they're there for protection.

Some girls can't wait to be sixteen, to be legal. Nina is not one of them. Even though, she has no choice in the matter, she knows that so long as her life continues as normal, everything will be okay. Then, with one brutal strike, Nina's normal is shattered; and she discovers that nothing that she believed about her life is true. But there's one boy who can help - and he may just hold the key to her past.

But with the line between attraction and danger as thin as whisper, one thing is for sure...

for Nina, turning sixteen promises to be anything but sweet.

Review:

A glance at the cover already tells you that turning sixteen and the tattoo accompanying that age aren't all sunshine and roses. In Nina's world when you turn sixteen you're allowed to have sex and that makes girls vulnerable to sexual predators who just have take a look at your wrist to determine if they'll have to face repercussions for assaulting you.

XVI is set in a future where Mars and Moon are colonized, people are vegetarians, commercials (verts how it's called in the book) blurt from speakers at every corner and the population is divided into tiers ( a modern caste system).

I love the dystopian world Julia Karr created, though I'd hate to live in it. Girls with the XVI on their wrist are like prey - feminism is dead. As a reader I was constantly worried for Nina. I felt her fear of getting the XVI tattoo and it added to the suspense.

It took me a few pages to get used to the slang Julia Karr created for her dystopian world but then I was so immersed in her world that words like FeLS, trannie, mannebots or NonCon became second nature to me.

XVI is a suspenseful read that makes you turn page after page. If you love dystopians, then this is a must-read. I can't wait for the sequel (I hope there'll be one!!).

Have you read XVI yet?

Shopping Spree

I couldn't resist...once again. I think I might be addicted to books. I can't help it. Here's the result of my two latest shopping sprees:

I bought Timeless, Warped and Across the Universe about two weeks ago. Because of my ridiculous to read pile I haven't even found the time to read them yet!

But that didn't stop me from buying even more books!

The Lightning Thief

A Northern Light

Raised by Wolves

Plain Kate

A Certain Slant of Slight

Shadow Hills

Tell me a secret

The Ghost and the Goth

The Tension of Opposites

Perfect Chemistry

and

Crescendo

arrived today. So many great books. And the cover of A Certain Slant of Light is deliciously creepy.

I started XVI by Julia Karr from my to-read pile yesterday but I've got no clue what to read after that.

Did you read any of the books I bought? Any favorites?

Review: Entangled by Cat Clarke

Read as a part of the Debut Author Challenge 2011

Publication Date: January 6th 2011

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Summary:

The same questions whirl round and round in my head:
What does he want from me?
How could I have let this happen?
AM I GOING TO DIE?

17-year-old Grace wakes up in a white room, with a table, pens and paper - and no clue how she got here.

As Grace pours her tangled life onto the page, she is forced to remember everything she's tried to forget. There's falling hopelessly in love with the gorgeous Nat, and the unravelling of her relationship with her best friend Sal. But there's something missing. As hard as she's trying to remember, is there something she just can't see?

Grace must face the most important question of all. Why is she here?

A story of dark secrets, intense friendship and electrifying attraction.

Review:

I picked up Entangled because of its gorgeous cover. The red of the girl's hair and her white skin and the way she looks at you...Gorgeous. Needless to say that I would have bought Entangled even if the plot hadn't interested me.

But Entangled is more than a beautiful cover. So much more.

I loved it.

It made me cry and I don't cry often and almost never because of a book. But Entangled made my vision all blurry and the only reason I didn't start bawling was my husband who sat beside me on the sofa and who would have gotten a shock if I'd cried over a book.

But back to why I loved Entangled:

Grace.

I was nothing like her when I was a teen and I don't understand her actions and I don't support them, but nothing of that matters.

What matters is:

Grace is a character that feels real. She's got flaws. She does stupid things – lots of stupid things. And sometimes I wanted to shake or maybe slap her. And sometimes I wanted to hug her. And sometimes I wanted to cry with her because her worries and pain and insecurities felt so real.

She's someone who'll stay with me even after I've put down the book. I certainly won't forget her name any time soon.

Cat Clarke did a fabulous job telling Grace's story and I loved the way she did it. I loved how we found out more about Grace's life through her writing, how she wrote down her emotions and experiences and how she learned about herself through it.

I don't want to give away too much of the plot, so I'll stop here.

Just one more thing: Go, buy the book!

New books!

Nothing is better than new books. If you live in Germany and love to read books in English buying books isn't as easy as it sounds. I can't just walk into a bookstore and buy or order all the lovely new books. I have to wait weeks for debuts like Across the Universe, or Warped or Timeless (*glares at bookdepository*)

But sometimes my local bookstore surprises me with a small but nice selection and then I can't resist and simply have to buy every book I might want to read. I'm still waiting for three debut novels that I ordered a few WEEKS ago but bookdepository is taking their time. *sigh*

Right now I'm reading Graceling by Kristin Cashore and A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. Of course I'm already wondering what to read next. On the photo are the books that I bought this week. They are all awesome and I love the cover of Entangled, but I don't know which book to read next.

So what do you think? Have you read some or all of the books?

Contest Winners!

First of all: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Now it's time for some winners!

Since I'm a traditional kind of girl, I chose the old fashioned way to determine the winners of my contest.

That's my hand writing down all of your names. It took a while and my intention to use my best handwriting was soon abandoned... ;)

Here I'm cutting the paper into nice little pieces.

Then I put them into a nice cookie bowl and mixed everything up.

You can't see it but my eyes were closed as I pulled one of your names from the bowl.

And here's the first winner: Lori O'Connell!! Congrats!

My husband volunteered to find the second winner! That's his arm (that's pretty obvious, imo. My arms aren't quite as hairy. LOL)! :D

And the second winner is: Kathy Bradey!! Congrats!

I'll contact you soon and then you can tell me which book you'd like to get.

Lori, I don't have your email, so please contact me at books(at)susannewinnacker(dot)com.

Congrats to the winners!

And for those who didn't win, don't be too sad. I have another contest in the planning for my blogoversary in March and many more exciting things as I prepare for the publication of The Other Life in 2012!

2011 Resolutions

2011 is only a few days away and it's time for New Year's resolutions.

Here are mine:

Reading

• Read the 21 books I listed for the Debut Author Challenge 2011.

• Read more books than in 2010 (more than 45). This resolution might interfere with the two following resolutions...

Writing

• Write the sequel to THE OTHER LIFE

• Write secret novel. Let's call it ALOMF. (I'm soooo excited about that one)

Personal

• Clean the house more often (yeah, as if that will happen...)

• Use my Wii fit plus to get fit. My current fitness age is 43. 43!!! FYI, I'm 25. I REALLY need to work out more often. Though, that will have to wait for a while because I slipped on the wet floor and now have a bruise the size of an orange on my upper thigh. It hurts like hell.

So what are your resolutions for 2011?

2010-Farewell-Contest

My first contest!! And of course I'm giving away books.



2010 was a good year for me.


I wrote The Other Life. I found amazing writer friends on Absolute Write. I signed with my fabulous agent Julia Churchill of Greenhouse Literary Agency. I got a book deal! I found two wonderful crit partners (Thanks Shari and Tracy!). So many good things happened and that's why I want to give 2010 the farewell that it deserves.

And there's no better way to do that than a contest!

There'll be two winners. Each winner can choose one of the following books. (in case a winner has them all, then I'm sure we'll find another book for you!)

The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff

Matched by Ally Condie

Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Personal Demons by Lisa Desrochers

Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

The contest is open internationally. Contest ends December 31^st. Winners will be announced on January 1^st, 2011.

Comment +1 entry

New blog follower + 1 / Old blog follower + 2

tweet about contest + 2 (please tell me your twitter name or leave a link)

blog about contest + 3 (Please leave the link in the comments)

Clarity ARC giveaway

Author Kim Harrington is giving away an ARC of her book CLARITY. It comes out March 1st, so if you don't want to wait 3 months you should enter her contest!

Beth Revis' Epic contest of Epic

Beth Revis (author of Across the Universe, but you knew that, didn't you?) is hosting a mind-blowing contest: The Epic contest of Epic.
There are 100 prizes!
Signed ARCs of Across the Universe, watches, pin-buttons, bookmarks and so much more.
A giveaway you don't want to miss!

Vacation, snow and books

Hubby and I spent the last few days in Bavaria. I needed some relaxation before starting my revisions on The Other Life. It was beautiful. And relaxing. The pic shows the view from the roof terrace of our hotel room.

Another pic showing the view. If it hadn't been so cold, I would have sat on the roof terrace with my laptop to write. At home I don't have such a gorgeous view.

That's the view after heavy snowfall.

That's a pic of Berchtesgaden (a small town near the Alps). Hubby and I were enjoying the small but cozy Christmas Market there. We also enjoyed the Christmas Markets in Munich, Salzburg and Nuremberg, that's why I gained about four pounds during our vacation. *sigh*

No good vacation without books, right? Right. Sadly, I forgot to pack books into my suitcase. *gasp*

Of course, there was only one solution: I had to buy new books.

I was relieved when I found a little English bookstore in Munich with a nice selection of young adult books. After I read the first two chapters of Matched by Ally Condie and Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly I knew I had to have those books. Now I just need to find the time to finish them... (even my bunnies love books as you can see on the pic. Well, they love them a bit too much, especially the taste...)

Last but not least: My doggie Balu in our garden enjoying the snow! Isn't he cute?