Winners! Is it you?

Time to announce the winners of my Kate Morton give away. I loved reading your replies about who you read and why, and now I have more authors books to devour myself. Yay! These books arrived yesterday and they are beautiful. I cannot wait to read one myself. Please email me at feistierkel @ gmail (dot) com with your address if you are named below. Thank you again to the wonderful onions at Allen & Unwin for giving us all an early look at a fantastic book.

Belinda H (from her tweet reply)
Lib
Truly Blessed Life
Atticus

Love books? Love to #win? Looky here!

My favouritest (is so a word :P ) book publishers in Australia, Allen & Unwin, have kindly allowed me to give away some copies of The Secret Keeper. The new and not-even-on-shelves-until-November book from Aussie author Kate Morton. Kate has 3 bestsellers under her belt already, and The Secret Keeper will be no different.


In a bucolic English summer at the end of the 1960s, a young girl witnesses a shocking crime. Fifty years later, she sets out to find out the truth, uncovering layers of mystery and deception. Moving from London during the Blitz to the present day, this is classic Kate Morton: a compulsively-readable, entrancing mystery with a long held secret to be uncovered at its heart.

1961: On a sweltering summer's day, while her family picnics by the stream on their Suffolk farm, sixteen-year-old Laurel hides out in her childhood tree house dreaming of a boy called Billy, a move to London, and the bright future she can't wait to seize. But before the idyllic afternoon is over, Laurel will have witnessed a shocking crime that changes everything.

2011: Now a much-loved actress, Laurel finds herself overwhelmed by shades of the past. Haunted by memories, and the mystery of what she saw that day, she returns to her family home and begins to piece together a secret history. A tale of three strangers from vastly different worlds - Dorothy, Vivien and Jimmy - who are brought together by chance in wartime London and whose lives become fiercely and fatefully entwined.
Shifting between the 1930s, the 1960s and the present, The Secret Keeper is a spellbinding story of mysteries and secrets, theatre and thievery, murder and enduring love.

I don't know about you, but that's enough to have me completely drawn in. Cannot wait to devour this one. Want to join me and win your own copy? I have 4 copies to give away! Simply comment and tell me your favorite Allen & Unwin author/s  and why (click through to a list!) Don't forget to like my facebook page here. Good luck!

Note: Open to Australian residents only

Here. Sort of.

Just busy with uni and school and stuff. Will do an update soon I promise!

ETA: Emma is offering free digi-scrapping projects (including forum & blog stuff, and photo xmas cards etc). She does amazing work (just see her blog banner and posts for samples - awesome!). Get some while its free, she will be able to charge the earth soon!! See her blog entry HERE for details.

Good day!

Firstly, that cat video, I still piss myself laughing at the last one: "Why I eyes ya..." oh my god, I literally have tears EVERY time. rofl. Ok, breathe..

So, ever had one of those days that keeps getting better and better?! Allow me to brag. Firstly, I got an email from an old uni friend. Second one this week! I went to that schoolfriends site, and I am too cheap to pay to contact people so the 2 people I genuinely wanted to chat to again, I left these free buzz things... I dont know, theyre just a little standard message for free. Anyway, I also snuck my email address slyly into my profile, as did the guy I was contacting so I emailed him and had a bit of a catch up via email and msn. The memories flood back as though it was yesterday we were all living together on campus. They were definitely some of the best times of my life, for sure. Such brilliant memories, first time I smoked pot (and second and third...); berocca in vodka, hungover in lectures, climbing the Fletcher Jones tower, walking all the way from the gal (nightclub) back to uni because we had no taxi money....

Today I heard from one of the best girlfriends I had at the time, who I always thought was a top chick. So far just a quick one to check it was my email address, but hopefully will hear more from her soon, I can't wait to see what she has been up to the last eleven years! The piece of writing I have been concentrating on from last semester is set in that time and prompted it, so I really do feel like that time has just evaporated and I am going to wake up in room 5, manor 4 all over again!

Then I got my final piece of work for the semester back. My creative piece for my Fiction unit which was worth a whopping 70% of my grade (!) I had been having yet another crisis of faith in my ability, so was thrilled to see I got an HD. That gives me a HD overall for that unit too. Bloody brilliant!! I got kickarse comments too:

Kelly, a powerful, moving story, beautifully written and crafted and containing profound insights. this narrative is brave, daring and speaks what is often not spoken - and for many (including me) this is a quality that draws them to the reading of fiction: we want to read what doesn't get said in every day communication. In this respect, this work makes an achievement and does so in an aesthetically pleasing way.

Seriously - tf?!!? Thats such amazing feedback, am so excited! Inspiring, and the things that were highlighted for improvement I agreed with and knew something was not right with, so that was encouraging too.

THEN... a package was delivered. I thought it was something from ebay, but opened up a digital camera. I was emailing J and asking if he had bought it or what the? Thought it must be an ebay stuff up or something amiss... Found the envelope that came with it and J had won us a digital camera in some competition that came with the plasma. How funny, its better than the one we had! Stoked!! Takes a brilliant piccy! It also has a rechargable battery, meaning I don't have to spend a fortune on batteries anymore either. Bonus!

Great day!