Gargoyle Loving Giveaway!

Yay! We've reached week # 12 of my 16 weeks of giveaways to celebrate the the upcoming US release of book 2  The Cold Kiss of Death (out 26th April), and the UK release of book 3 The Bitter Seed of Magic (Out Now and available from The Book Depository with Free WorldWide Del) *insert yet another shameless self-promo plug* *g*  Huge thanks to eveyone who's bought it! I hope you're all enjoying the read! And a big Gargoyle Loving Welcome to all you new blog followers and visitors!

Yay! On with the celebrations. And if you haven't guessed already, the 'Gargoyle Loving Welcome' is a clue for this week's giveaway, which is for Magic on the Hunt (Allie Beckstrom #6) by the awesome Devon Monk, one of my all time fav authors! It's officially out in the US 5th April, but I've heard rumours it's already out in some stores now! UK peeps can buy from The Book Depository :-)

When I read (and re-read) the Allie Beckstrom books, I always love it when Stone, the gargoyle, appears on the page. Stone for me is a wonderful character and exactly what I think of when I picture a gargoyle. Just like the one above, which is one of a pair a gargoyles who live in my garden. Legend has it that gargoyles are said to scare off and protect from any evil or harmful spirits.

But when it comes to buildings, gargoyles are carved stone heads usually made to drain rainwater of roofs – appropriately out of their mouths – as the term gargoyle comes from the French gargouille, meaning "throat" or "gullet"*. Though not all gargoyles are waterspouts, some are just decorative; they’re called grotesques. But waterspout or not, some gargoyles, like those on the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, are how I imagine the archetypal gargoyles to be, but others can be anything from grinning faces, snarling animals, and there’s even a fantastic Darth Vader one on Washington National Cathedral. Yay! *geeks out*

You can read an excerpt here for Magic on the Hunt, or if you don't want to spoil yourself, then here's the short blurb from Amazon.


"In the secret lockup of the Authority, the council that decides what can and can't be done with magic, an undead magic user has possessed one of the prisoners. He wants his freedom-and then some. Now Allie Beckstrom and her lover, Zayvion, are the first line of defense against the chaos he's about to unleash on the city of Portland..." 

I can't wait to read, and find out what Stone gets up to next! (Oh, and Zay too! *fans herself*). And if you want your very own Stone, and you're of a crafty nature, you can knit him from the pattern here on Devon's site.

Now, if you want to win a copy of Magic on the Hunt*, here's what you need to do: remember my two gargoyles who protect my garden? Well, they don't have any names, so to enter leave me a comment suggesting either one or two names for my garden pets :-)


How to enter:

Leave a comment with either one or two name suggestions for my garden gargoyles.

Please leave a way to contact you (email in comment: Please remember to replace @ with [at] to forestall spam - or your twitter name - no way to contact you - no entry).

Giveaway is international and closes end of day (GMT time) 7th April 2011.

Full General Terms and Rules at the bottom of this post here.

You can get an extra entry by tweeting about the giveaway. Leave the link to the tweet as an extra comment.

And don't forget to check out the Giveaway Schedule here. And so you don't miss out on a chance of winning any of the wonderful books in the coming weeks, why not follow me? (following is not a condition of entry).

ETA: There's more chances to win a copy of Magic on the Hunt over at Devon's blog - she's giving away 3 copies to 3 lucky commentators between now and 3rd April! And there's a snippet (which I haven't read, as I'm saving myself for the book *g*).

Please note: My usual blog policy is that I try to reply to all comments on the blog, but for ease of admin I won't be replying to any comments made on any of the giveaway posts during the 16 weeks. Sorry, but it makes it much harder to sort out the winner. However I do read and enjoy all the comments, and will, of course, continue to reply to comments on any other post, so if you have a question for me, leave it on one of those, thank you :-)

All book links lead to Amazon (UK/US) or the Book Depository, and contain affiliate links. I've decided to go affiliate as I love giving books away (and not just as a way of shameless self-promo), but boy, does it get expensive.

x/posted to LJ. Comment here or there. One entry per person.

Don't forget to check the blog's sidebar for more chances to win my books, and the opportunity to help those in Japan through the British Red Cross at Genre for Japan, where you can bid for the chance to have your name as a character in my next book, or a critique of your writing by me, closes 3rd April. Plus there's over a hundred other wonderful donations, and new ones recently added, so why not go and check them out!

* Thank you, Wikipedia *g*
*or your choice of one of the earlier books in the Allie Beckstrom series