Contest Winner!

The winner of When Twilight Burns Book 4 Of the Gardella Vampire Chronicles by Colleen Gleason was randomly choosen.... and is.....

Erin! Congrats!

True Blood Episode 4

I've been super busy this week with work and wedding stuff and I have been neglecting this here blog. Today is the last day to enter and win When Twilight Burns Book 4 Of the Gardella Vampire Chronicles by Colleen Gleason. I also have a few more vampire goodies to add to the prize! To see more rules and entries see this post.


So last night on True Blood we finally get to meet Eric (go team Eric!) and while I am happy that we will be seeing more of the hunky blond, I am not quite sure is Alexander Skaarsgard will be the perfect Eric. I am definitely willing to give him a chance though. I think he makes a better Eric than who they have for Bill, but that's just my opinion.



Every Sunday a group of us gets together to watch True Blood (because not all of have cable, let alone HBO - and it's fun). Last week, episode 3 "Mine" seemed to deviate the most from the books. This week there is quite different as well, mostly because the show follows several of the characters, not just Sookie. We are learning to put the show and books into different categories. We all loved the books, and the show is fun, but the books are still way better.


We got to see the iside of Fangtasia this episode - which seems a lot different then the books. From what I recalled, Harris' Fangtasia was Hollywood vampire themed - not leather and spikes themed...they played more adult contemporary rock/ classic rock in the books - but I do think the more "club"music for the show is better.

I found it interesting that they had this picture behind the bar...

Not all blood suckers are vamps, eh?

I also made some sugar cookies of Eric and Bill (and other Halloween goodness) that turned out quite cute. I will post pictures and recipes when I get the pictures.

Contest Entries So far

Win When Twilight Burns Book 4 Of the Gardella Vampire Chronicles by Colleen Gleason. I also have a few more vampire goodies to add to the prize!

Comment me or email me either suggestions of vampire books I should read (that I have not read yet) or a song you think would belong on a vampire playlist.

Contest will end Monday, September 29th.

Here are a few entries so far:

Songs:
Rev 22:20 (Dry Martini Mix specifically) by Puscifer
The Root of All Evil by Abney Park
We Ate Eachother by The Robot Ate Me
Oh Oh Oh Sexy Vampire by Fright Ranger

If I was your vampire by Marilyn Manson

Books:
Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith
Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz
Vampire Beach by Alex Duval
Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck by Christopher Moore
Otherworldlies by Jennifer Anne Kogler
City of Bones series by Cassandra Clare
I am Legend (the book, not the movie!!) by Richard Matheson
House of Night series by P.C. Kristen Cast
Peeps and the Last Days by Scott Westerfeld
Vampire High by Douglass Rees

Raven Hart's Savannah Vampire series. First one is The Vampire's Seduction

The Historian

Vampy Tiger Army Lyrics

In the spirit of the Tiger Army concert I will be attending tomorrow, here are some of their lyrics that can be interpreted to be a bit vampy...


Lyrics to Santa Carla Twilight :
Watch the moonrise tonight
The ocean looms past bonfires alight
I am a stranger in this place
And when I see you, I can't turn away

Under this beach lie pirate bones
We stand above them, at long last alone
There's something different in your heart
You're not afraid of the darkness within us all

And we kiss, in the Santa Carla twilight
On the beach, under a Santa Carla moon
I am lost - but I've found you in my arms
And my heart is blacker than the dark ocean

Eternity... belongs to us
Eternally... lasts our love
If you want forever close your eyes and surrender to me
Just remember today was the last that you'll ever see the sun
In Santa Carla

Hear the song of night tide
It's been ages since I felt this alive
At long last I've found you and it ends
The loneliness we feel that they could never understand

And in this land beyond the dusk
A consummation of unholy love
Between two children of the night
As all time dissolves into a crimson dream

Lyrics to What Happens? :
you're walking in the night - you walk alone
the shadows whisper your name...
a stranger beckons you, like none you've seen
you can't ignore his request as he whispers, "come to me..."

i want to show you what happens when we die...
you take a chance and then it's too late when you realize
i want to show you what happens when
i want to show you what's happening
i want to show you what happens when we die

time has come to see beyond now - reach out take my hand
something inside beckons you...
a shiver takes you - delicious thrill
tonight's our destiny, so come and let it be fulfilled

Contest! Win Free Stuff!

Win When Twilight Burns Book 4 Of the Gardella Vampire Chronicles by Colleen Gleason. I also have a few more vampire goodies to add to the prize!

Comment me or email me either suggestions of vampire books I should read (that I have not read yet) or a song you think would belong on a vampire playlist.

Contest will end Monday, September 29th.

Good luck!

This Saturday!

I'm excited to see Tiger Army this weekend, so I thought I would post some videos!

This is one of my favorite songs of theirs... old video, but the song still is awesome:


One of their new songs:


The first song I heard of theirs:

One Quick Bite

All weekend I was gone on a retreat and I was (am) desperately low on books to read. So low, I read One Quick Bite last week. It was the only vampire book I had left in my book bag - plus it was overdue at the library. I was hesitant to read it – I didn’t want it to be one of those cheap and trashy romance novels. After all, Lynsay Sands did write these gems: (there are many more where these came from).







I was actually pleasantly surprised with this book. It was a quick read, but it was fun too. Yes, it was romantic, but it wasn’t overly trashy. Sands’ take on the origins of vampires is pretty unique. The people of Atlantis were technologically advanced and made nanos that would cure their people of disease and make them genetically superior. These nanos are in the bloodstream and require blood as fuel. Since your body is constantly being damaged by the sun, chemicals, and God knows what else, these nanos have to be fueled semi-often. The oldest vampires are the ones that lived in Atlantis, but new vampires can be made by introducing the nanos into their bloodstream – which is very painful.

I thought the book was cute and funny and I will probably give the other one’s in the series a try.

Episode 2 of True Blood "The First Taste"

Although I was slightly disapointed with the True Blood TV series (it can't compare to the books), I still wanted to keep watching the series. I figured that it might get better as the plot goes on, as the characters start to fit in their roles, and we start to separate the TV show from the book. For going from book to TV, the story line is very close to each other. There are some differences though.

The biggest difference between the book and the show is the roles of Sookie’s brother Jason and friend Tara. I understand why the HBO made them more prominent characters though. The books center around Sookie – her thoughts, her actions, her everything. To make the TV show more interesting, there needs to be more prominent characters then just Sookie.

I really liked the grandmother when I first watched the pilot episode. I thought that HBO did a great job casting her. While I watch more and more of the series I am starting to dislike the grandmother more and more. To me she acts like she is not there all the way. She seems like she should be living by herself with 20 cats. In the books Sookie’s grandmother seemed to be a smart old fire cracker. In the TV series, the grandma is more concerned about Sookie and Bill together. In the book, Sookie’s grandma likes Bill and practically shoos them out the door to go on walk together.

My only two other gripes:
Bill doesn’t levitate in the show… why not? He does in the books.
In the beginning Sookie’s blood pattern on her face practically changed every clip – blood on her upper lip, no blood, blood on her chin, no blood.

Oh and one more….
What is up with the vampire with the swiveling eyes (see picture)? I don’t get it.

Even though the books are 100x better, I am still going to watch the series. It’s over-sexed and a little cheesy, but it is also fun. My friends and I are making it a tradition to get together and eat dinner and watch True Blood. Us girls make comments about the differences between books and movie, Marc complains that we are being too critical, and Nichole squeals about how cute Bill is. Even though we know what happens next, we look forward to watching another episode.

New Releases and Coming Soon

The Bride of Casa Dracula is out! This is book 3 in the Casa Dracula series by Marta Acosta at Vampire Wire. You can read my review here.

Curse the Dawn - Cass Palmer number 4 - Will Cass and Mircea finally get together? April 7th 2009.

Still haven't read the fairly new release of the 3rd book - Embrace the Night, which came out in April.

Bone Crossed - Mercy book 4 - More about werewolves but maybe the vamp who drives the scooby van will be back - Feb 2009

When Shadows Fade - Book 5 of the Gardella Vampire Chronicles is set to release March 2009

October 8th - there will be a short Sookie story in the anthology Wolfsbane and Mistletoe.
December 2008 - Usual Suspects is an anthology with a Charlaine Harris story.
Spring 2009 - Dead and Gone - Book 9 of the Sookie Stackhouse series. Eric's story will be told!

Book 6 of the Dark Ones Series- Zen and the Art of Vampires comes out Dec 2008.

One More Bite - Book 5 of the Jaz Parks Series is set to come out Jan 09 - Jennifer Rardin also just got signed to do 3 more books!

Anita Blake movie and tv show? Laurell K Hamilton says:
"Yes, the rumors are true - a movie and a possible TV show based on the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter 16-book series is in the works. Stay tuned ... for updates and details."

Twilight vs. True Blood

I had to take some time tonight to write an entry about Twilight versus True Blood.

Today I noticed I had some people click on my blog from searching about the two different shows. What pushed me to action, however, was the following letter to TV Guide magazine, titled "Blood Related?" -

I was reading about HBO'S True Blood and though: This show sounds an awful lot like the Twilight books. Then when I read the Roush Review [9/1], my thoughts were confirmed. Vamps? Mind reading? Small towns? Are you kidding me? How could no one else have caught this?! - Anais Villa, Maspeth, N.Y.

Well Anais, if you would have left some contact information, I would definitely be writing you some hate mail at this moment. When I read this I became quite enraged. I thought it was absolutely ridiculous. First, let us examine the books these shows were based off of:

Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer was published in 2005
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris was published in 2001.

In no way did Charlaine Harris (or HBO for that matter) copy the Twilight people. If, dear Anais Villa, you did at least one simple Google search, you would have realized this. I might have excepted the argument that HBO was trying to get some of the vampire show profit, but not that True Blood is a copy of Twilight. If you have been following this blog, you know that I am a huge fan of the Sookie Stackhouse books... and I am not too fond of the Twilight series.

I will try and play devil's advocate though, and list some differences and similarities.

Similarities:
Human girl, hunky vampires
I guess we can put Anais' "observations" of small towns and mind reading
There are some werewolves (but only later on in the Harris series, not in the show)

Differences:
Twilight is aimed at a teenage audience
Characters are "high schoolers" in Twilight
Female character is very dependent on male vampire in Twilight
In Twilight, the mind reading is done by vampires, in True Blood, Sookie is the one that does the mind reading
Sookie doesn't want to become a vampire
There is also more sex and action in True Blood because it's audience is meant for the more mature
In True Blood, vampires are out of the closet and drink synthetic blood

These are just a few I feel like listing. If you are interested, you can write TV Guide at Radnor, PA 19088 or email at letters@tvguide.com. Include your name, address, and phone number. I think I will be writing them an email, I would suggest you do the same.

Any one out there have an opinion either way?

EDIT: Just wanted to let you guys know that I have a recent update to this post. YOu can view it here.

More Fun Stuff - For Halloween

I thought I would look around for more Halloween stuff, more is to come I am sure.

I think this wreath by Crafty Dame is super cute, plus it can be altered in all kinds of different ways if you wanted to make something similar:

I recently bought the 4 dollar teeth at Wal-Mart – they are not worth it. They are too big and they fall off easily. Definitely better than a 4 dollar mouth piece, but I would invest in something a little bit more expensive. Maybe this site has higher quality fangs (for about 12 bucks):

I might go for these:

Or pay the 75 cents for the heart box?

Arana Muerta has some pretty crazy Halloween props and decor that she's made. Check it out. Here are some things that were made:

The apothecary jars would be easy to make for a Halloween Party - which is what fellow Craftster NyteRayn is trying to get ideas for in this thread. There are a lot of great ideas - check it out! Here's another link from the thread for Creature Jars:

Another Craftster - Oohmybee's has done an awesome cemetary:

This is also an awesome Halloween Party by craftster Sylvieonabun

Craftster is one of the greatest sights ever, so definitely check it out... especially the Halloween Forum.

For Fun...

My brother just sent this to me. I thought it was pretty funny:

Bitten to Death

Bitten to Death is book 4 of the Jaz Parks series by Jennifer Rardin. Jaz parks is a government secret agent who fights the supernatural bad guys. Her partner is the handsome vampire Vayl. They have been working together to stop the notorious bad vampire guy Samos.

In Bitten to Death Jaz and Vayl, and Jaz’s twin brother set out to work with Vayl’s old vampire trust to try and bring down Samos. Jaz and Vayl are caught by surprise when the Trust’s leader has been killed and they must redo their agreement with the new leader to capture Samos. Vayl has some dark secrets with the new leader and Jaz must learn to trust Vayl in the creepy house that seems to have a power of its own while dealing with her own demons and trying to keep her brother’s demons from compromising the mission.

Jennifer Rardin's books are unique and enjoyable. Jaz is a funny redhead who has been through a lot of traumatizing events because of her line of work. She is constantly trying to overcome her past. She has some supernatural abilities because of her brush with death, which puts her in an ideal position to work against the bad vamps on other supernatural creatures.

Jaz and Vayl’s relationship with each other is still not cemented, but they realize what needs to change in order for them to do great things together. Jaz’s brother is also working harder on his own issues stemming from his past missions, and Jaz is making new friends and starting to let people in a little bit more.

Jaz, Vayl, and her brother think a lot about their personal lives, but that doesn’t mean this book isn’t full of action and danger, or even humor. I laughed out-loud several times, got pissed off when Jaz had her own anger issues, and was eagerly anticipating what would happen next.

Jennifer Rardin’s writing style is also a bit different than the usual; she constantly flashes back to past events and dialogs. I’m not sure if I like this type of writing. Sometimes I find myself reading a flashback and I get a bit confused about what is going on. Jaz also has conversations in her head with her various personalities and her grandmother, sometimes I think it’s interesting and funny, other times I find it a little weird.

Overall I enjoyed Bitten to Death and the rest of the books. Although I get a little frustrated that Vayl and Jaz haven’t really hooked up, I am also thankful that this isn’t a paranormal fiction with all the mushy love stuff, filled with steamy, graphic sex scenes. I like that Jaz is a funny, kick-butt sort of gal, but she is also quite vulnerable to the trauma around her. I would definitely recommend this book series to those who not only love a vampire mystery, but to those who like action and suspense and a take charge heroine.

Book 5 - One More Bite, is set to come out January 09 and I look forward to what will happen next!

True Blood and Vampire Cupcakes

Anyone else out there have a True Blood premier party?

Last night me and a group of my friends got together to watch True Blood. I made those cute vampire cupcakes which ended up not being hard to make at all. I just used boxed cake mix and the wipped frosting in a can. They were a little messy, but they looked great.

Here’s mine:

The "blood" is actually more red and not as pink.

Here's the pic of the original cupcakes, when cut in half:

If you haven’t seen the first episode yet, I would definitely recommend you watch it (or at least read all of the books!). Beware – spoilers below!

I had already seen the original pilot show, which I reviewed here. I had heard that there were some improvements, so I had higher hopes for the premier episode. The show was actually better the second time I saw it, and there were some improvements: The vampire sex scene is toned down a little bit (not enough if you ask me), and the fight scene between Sookie and the “Rats” was changed a little bit too. Oh, and the fangs look a lot better than they were before! The fangs were these tiny little sharp stick things right in the front. I'm glad they altered them!

Now for the review: I've pretty much already reviewed the show, which I linked above. I will add my two cents though. I love the Charlaine Harris books, they are probably my favorite books. I enjoyed watching a show that is based off the books, but True Blood just isn’t as good as the books (which is usually the case). HBO thought it would be a great idea to really sex it up – which I could do without. The plot follows the book pretty well, but there are definitely some differences, mostly involving the character of Tara.

While it really doesn’t matter the color or ethnicity of Tara between the books or the movie, it matters to me that Tara was turned into a crazy witch in the show. In the books she is really not aggressive – in fact she is much more passive to the point of being walked on sometimes. I can understand why she plays a much bigger role in the show than the books, but I don’t see why the need to make her so abrasive.

I still enjoyed the show though, and I am definitely planning on watching it next week. I think that True Blood will get better the more you watch and the more the plot progresses. I also wanted to mention that we all thought Charlaine Harris was hilarious when we where watching the pre-show, show. Her little comments about this and that made us all laugh.

Now that the show has premiered, Bloodcopy is adding to the plot with an interview of Sheriff Dearborne and with Bill.

Interview with the Sheriff:


Interview with the Vampire Bill:


Vampire Rights Amendment Cartoon:

When Twilight Burns

Yesterday I finally got a hold of When Twilight Burns by Colleen Gleason. When Twilight Burns is book 4 of the Gardella Vampire Chronicles. Victoria is a vampire hunter in the 1800’s and although I tend to like the books where the vampires are more sympathetic (and sexy) I still enjoy this series.

Victoria is one of the last vampire hunters in the Gardella line. She has returned to London and is faced with several challenges. There seems to be vampires who can attack during the day, Lilith may have returned to London, her mother wants her to enter back into the ton and find another handsome and rich husband, and that's only mentioning a few problems Victoria has to deal with.

Victoria also must think about how to further the Gardella line, when she is the last one left. To complicate matters even more, she must decide if she loves Sebastian – the mysterious, sexy, and adventurous man who Victoria is definitly physically attracted to, but she is not sure she trust (he gets my vote); or Max, the stubborn, honorable man whose kiss she can’t forget. Her love life may be complicated, but Victoria must also deal with her loneliness, duty, and the dangerous effects of Beauregard’s attack on her in Italy.

WTB is packed full of action and adventure, with a little bit of romance (which I will comment on later). Book four of the series, however, shows more depth into Victoria’s challenges as the last of the Gardella line and the impact her duty is taking on her. There is a classic battle of good vs. evil raging not only outside of Victoria, but inside her as well. Victoria is faced with more complications and harder choices as she grows into her role as Illa Gardella, where she must choose duty over her own self-interests, or she may be lost to the world of evil.

I enjoyed this book; it was a big change from what I have been reading lately. I also am a fan of historical fiction. I was a little disappointed that the cover of the book looked like a competitor for Judge a Book’s Phallic Phridays. It was in the Romance section of Borders, amidst the bodice rippers, yet there was really only one sex scene and it didn’t go into great detail of anyone’s member. The scene was done a bit more classy then what you usually read. The romance scenes in WTB was mostly kissing. I think if it wasn’t for the cover, it would fit better into the general fiction category rather than the “romance section” but that’s just my opinion.

I would defitinetly recommend the Gardella Vampire Chronicles and I look forward to number 5 – When Shadows Fade, which comes out March 2009.

Narcissus in Chains

A quick comment on Narcissus in Chains book 10 of the Anita Blake Series by Laurell K Hamilton:

This is the book where we are introduced to the Ardeur - which can be aurgued as the thing that single-handedly destroyed the Anita Blake series.

Excerpt:
Now, six months have passed since Anita has seen either Jean-Claude or Richard. Six months of celibacy. Six months of indecision. Six months of danger. For her body carries the marks of both vampire and werewolf, and until the truimvariate is consumamated, all three remain vulnerable.

But when a kidnapper targets innocents that Anita has sworn to protect, she needs all the help she can get. In an earth-shattering union, Anita, Jean-Claude and Richard merge the marks- and melt into one another. Suddenly, Anita can harness both their powers. She can feel their hearts...hear their thoughts...know their hungers....

Nothing can save Anita from a twist of fate that draws her ever closer to the brink of humanity-to finally surrender to the bloodlust, the beast and the desire tranforming her body and consuming her soul....

Get Ready for Halloween!

Oriental Trading has some great stuff for Halloween. I think I just may order some goodies.

Candy Blood Bags - The candy probably tastes nasty, but they look awesome.


Vampire Bite Tattoos


Gory Bite Tattoos


Classic Glow in the dark fangs


RIP Gift Bag


And these are just nasty:

Chili Fingers


Edible Bandages