I've been reading books by American writers for a looooog time now, and as I'm British, I often find some things get 'lost in translation'. (Which no doubt happens on occasion when someone who isn't British reads one of my books *g*).
One thing that always made me curious was 'grits'; everyone seemed to eat it, and I hadn't a clue what it was (this was before the internet was around to give me a million and one explanations ;p). But even when I did discover grits was a sort of corn porridge, it still seemed weird that it was eaten with savoury food. (The porridge I'm used to is eaten with salt or sugar, and sometimes cream! Oh, and a splash of whisky for those special brekkies!Yummy! :-)) So it wasn't till Mr Mc and I holidayed in Florida, 4 or so years ago, that I got the chance to try grits. (I liked it :-))
For those who don't know what grits are, this is from the font of all webby knowledge: Wikipedia. ;p
Grits is a food of Native American origin that is common in the Southern United States, mainly used in breakfast. It consists of coarsely ground corn . . . [and] is similar to other thick maize-based porridges from around the world, such as polenta (which I also hadn't tried till a few years ago :-D).
So, keeping grits in mind . . . We're now on week # 13 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) (I know, you all know that, and thanks to everyone who's bought, read, and hopefully loved it, but hey, I thought I'd just point it out . . . One. More. Time!) *g*
So, on with this week's giveaway. It's for the 11th book in the fantastic Sookie Stackhouse series:
Dead Reckoning* by one of my all time writerly heroes, the wonderful and gracious Charlaine Harris. Out in the
US
and the
UK
on 3rd May.
Cover blurb from Amazon:
'With her knack for being in trouble's way, Sookie witnesses the firebombing of Merlotte's, the bar where she works. Since Sam Merlotte is now known to be two-natured, suspicion falls immediately on the anti-shifters in the area. Sookie suspects otherwise, but her attention is divided when she realizes that her lover Eric Northman and his "child" Pam are plotting to kill the vampire who is now their master. Gradually, Sookie is drawn into the plot-which is much more complicated than she knows...'
Oooooh! I'm sooooo glad we only have to wait a couple more weeks for this! Sooooo looking forward to reading it! I LOVE the Sookie books with a passion (Okay, I'll admit it, a good chunk of that passion does belong to Eric! But then he's always been my favourite vamp *fans herself* *g*)
And just to give you whiplash from drooling over Eric, to hopefully
not drooling over grits, here's what you need to do to be in with a chance of winning Dead Reckoning. Leave me a comment telling me what food/thing/whatever you've read about in a book that's made you curious.
How to enter:
Leave a comment about what food/thing/whatever you've read in a book that's made you curious.
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) 14th 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).
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.
*or winner's choice of an earlier book in the Sookie Stackhouse series.
x/posted to LJ. Comment here or
there. One entry per person.
with an attack of the jealously 
