Haunted Gingerbread winners!

And the results are in! We got four entries in the Haunted Gingerbread contest, and I love them all. And that's why I've decided to award four prizes--three category winners, and one grand prize. Here they are:



First up is this one from ticeyx, which wins the prize for "Most Colorful." I love the red! Ticeyx, how did you do that? Fruit rollups? I also love all the little pumpkins and skulls. Please comment and tell us how you did those, as well as the ghosts on the roof!

Ticeyx wins a signed copy of Alpha!



Hannah sent in this gingerbread lighthouse, which wins the "Most Unique" category. Love the spiders, and the lighthouse actually lights up!

Hannah wins a signed copy of Alpha!




Jemma sent in the adorable house above, which takes the prize for "Most Traditional." My favorite feature from it is the frosting spider and web, hanging over the front door. Nice work!

Jenna wins a signed copy of Alpha!



And the Grand Prize winner (a signed copy of Alpha and the Godiva chocolate lollipops) is this gingerbread model of the Lazy S Ranch! But for the record, it was chosen not for the subject matter but for the detail! Red barn, circle drive, green frosting grass, windows with bars, Lazy S gate made of Tootsie Rolls, and even the licorice werecats (Faythe and Marc, I'm told) sharing their Halloween pumpkin. Number 1 and I love it!

Thanks to all those who entered, and if you wish you'd had time, you might get a second chance. I'm thinking of doing another one this winter. ;)

Winners, please email me (contestsATrachelvincentDOTcom) with your shipping information, and I'll put your prizes in the mail...

This is how we do it...

[Note: today's the last day to send in your entry in the Haunted Gingerbread contest! I'll be posting them and announcing a winner tonight!]

This will probably come as no surprise, but I like Halloween. It's a great excuse to dress up and make creepy treats. I don't cook, but I do bake. And carve. And toast. And frost.

Here's some of what we did for Halloween this year!

This is what my yard looks like this year. You can see that the skeleton kicked out part of the flower bed border when he clawed his way up from the earth. ;)

This year's pumpkins! It's always hard to get a good shot of them lit. Mine is on the left, and #1's is on the right. Mine is from a pattern, his is freehand. What do you think?

And, of course, we cleaned and toasted the pumpkin seeds using this recipe.

I got the meringue bones recipe here, but I forgot to take a picture of them baked, and now they're all gone! They taste like a cross between cotton candy and toasted marshmallows--so good! And they melt in your mouth, after the initial crunch. I'm making some meringue ghosts this afternoon. ;)

And, of course, our gingerbread house. It's homemade and the design is original (courtesy of #1). People have been asking about the frosting I use. Confession: I make a very simple frosting of powdered sugar and milk, and I make it thick. It doesn't taste very good, but we're not going to eat it anyway, and it holds well. We apply it with a cookie press frosting tip attachment, then smooth the "mortar" with a finger.

These are our blood clot cupcakes. The frosting is supposed to be tinted to look like gray matter, but we forgot to do that. So #1 added the veins! The recipe is here. Gross, huh? ;)

Interviews and giveaways...

First, there're still two more days to enter the Haunted Gingerbread contest! Click here for details.

Second, here's a list of the recent guest blogs I've done, and several of these contain questions I haven't answered before, while others are glimpses of how I spend my spare time, and what books/movies scare me (ya know, 'cause of Halloween).

• I Want To Read That
• Ink And Paper
• Bookbabblers

And...I just got Australian copies of Rogue! So I'll be giving those away soon. But even before that...

Next week, after I announce the winner of the Haunted Gingerbread contest, I'll be giving away ONE ARC of My Soul To Steal. And it'll be a plain, old, fill-out-the-form giveaway, super easy. So get ready!

FYI

Blogging as an author is an interesting challenge. Some days there's nothing going on. Some days, there's so much going on that I'm afraid of overwhelming people with one long, rambling post full of updates. But more often, there's something going on, but I'm not yet free to share or comfortable with sharing it online.

This has been the case a lot lately. So I've been pretty quiet online, but between real life, the Alpha release, and starting my new adult series, things have been pretty chaotic behind the scenes.

So I'm going to take this opportunity to answer the two questions I'm getting most often. Then I may ramble a bit. ;)

Q. Will you write any more Shifters books?

A. I honestly don't know. I hadn't planned on it, even after getting many, many requests for more. (So glad people want more, though!) And I can say for sure that Faythe's story is over. I know a lot of people wanted to see her settle down with her chosen mate and start a family, but the thing is this: that was never the point of the novels for me.

Do I see her doing that after the final page of Alpha is closed? Yes. Maybe not immediately, and maybe not in the stay-at-home capacity, but yes. I do eventually see her with a family of her own. But I don't want to write it. The story I envisioned for Faythe has reached its conclusion, and I'm very happy with it. So please feel free to picture her in your head as the world's most bada$$ mom ever. I know I am. ;)

On the other hand, I have not decided against a spin off. But I haven't decided in favor of one either. I do have an idea for one, but I have not proposed it to my publisher, for a couple of reasons. First, I don't have time to write a spin off series right now. I'm pretty swamped, at least for the next few months. And second, I need to know that I can make it in adult fiction without the Shifters series. I don't want to be that proverbial one-trick pony. (I'm counting the Soul Screamers series as a separate one-trick pony because it's YA.) I need to know that I can do something else.

Q. Why haven't you told us what your new adult series is about?

A. Because I'm not very far into it yet. The Shifters and Soul Screamers series both sold with books already written. (Stray and Rogue, for Shifters, MSTTake and an outline of MSTSave for Soul Screamers). But this new series sold based on...nothing. Well, nothing but the theory that I could come up with another adult series idea, based on the fact that I'd done it before.

And I did come up with another adult series concept. The concept was approved by my publisher months ago, the release has been scheduled, the back cover synopsis has been written, and cover design has already begun. But because of Soul Screamers deadlines, I just started the manuscript for this new book a couple of weeks ago. And it's been slow going so far, because I'm getting to know brand new characters and a brand new world (it's our world, plus some).

I've spent a lot of time rewriting what I'd already written, refining the characters and expanding the world building. I've been figuring out details that were vague in the concept proposal but now need supporting details. This stage of the process for me is very time consuming, yet shows little quantifiable progress. Which is very frustrating.

So, hopefully it's obvious that until now, it's been too early for me to tell you about this book. That would have been like trying to tell you what pattern a kaleidoscope shows, only to have it change on the next turn. And the confusion from that would have been magnified by the fact that news spreads very quickly on the internet, and it seems to evolve with each retelling, like that "telephone" game we played as kids.

But I'm now waiting for the official green light on my latest (and hopefully last) big concept adjustment, and when (and if) that comes, I'll do a whole post about this new series. Shouldn't be long. Unless my publisher doesn't like it. And if that's the case...well, you won't see much of me for a while, because I'll look a bit like a mad scientist, only with an ergonomic keyboard, rather than test tubes and beakers. ;)

Monster House 2010

Okay, here, finally, is Monster House 2010:



We actually finished it last week, but I wanted to wait until the last week of October to post it. Features of note/ingredients:

• candy corn roof tiles
• Tootsie Toll fence
• fall colored M&Ms and Reeces Pieces leaves on a gingerbread tree
• licorice trim
• marshmallow creme pumpkin patch
• Cocoa Rice Crispy treat molded into place for the "fall lawn"
• ghost Peep occupants

The house's eyes/front windows are made from yellow Tootsie Rolls rolled flat and cut into shape.

From the side, you can see the family graveyard on the hill, and the ghost currently haunting it. ;)



And here's a close-up of the tree. The design was #1's and I'm so glad it worked! It fit together like a puzzle with minimum trimming and stood up perfectly!

Above are the two parts of the 3-D puzzle tree (plus tombstones) before they were baked.

And, of course, the naked gingerbread, which makes it easier to see the design. ;)

So, how's your haunted gingerbread coming? There's still one more week to enter the contest!

Censorship vs. Spoilers

[Warning: this note contains complete honesty]

I hate censorship and hate deleting comments (even when people track me down and comment here just to tell me they hated my book; yes, it happens, and I have no idea how I'm expected to respond). But I hate spoilers even more, so in the past couple of weeks, I've had to delete several comments from my blog, and several more from Facebook, because they contained spoilers.

If you want your comment to appear here, don't put spoilers in it. This is Official Blog Policy, people. I should probably write that in the sidebar somewhere...

So, for the record, anonymous poster from this morning, your comment wasn't rejected because you were disappointed in Alpha (that's your right, and this is me making sure your voice was heard), but because you mentioned half the plot points in the book. That's not fair to people who haven't read it yet.

Okay, now let's move on to the fun stuff!

Two new blog tour stops, this time from the UK blog tour my UK publicist set up:

• Fluttering Butterflies has a guest post from me in which I list my favorite horror films (suitable for Hallowee viewing!), complete with pictures! Yes, horror movie images. Don't click if you don't want to see...
• Book Chick City has a guest post from me, wherein I talk about black cats and Halloween, and she gives away 5 shiny copies of Alpha (unsigned, straight from the publisher, I believe). So if you haven't gotten your copy yet, head on over! You could win one!

Gingerbread update

I seem to have stumbled into some kind of alternate reality wherein time...disappears. Or runs too fast, or something. Is this the Netherworld? Have the monsters been replaced with deadlines, interviews, guest blogs, and email? Not that any of those things are monstrous, but sometimes they pile together to form one big, scary creature called Obligation, which devours time (not just free time, but All Time) and leaves nothing but a vague blur of recollection.

Seriously, though I have no idea how it got to be mid-October, and even though I've already turned in two books, a novella, and two short stories this year, and promoted four novel releases, I feel like I've accomplished nothing. And I still have one book to go this calendar year.
Anyway, while I fight to get caught up, here are a few updates:

Foreign releases:

• Pride comes out in Australia on November 1.
• My Soul To Keep comes out in France on November 20 (Sauve mon âme! - dès le 20 novembre). No cover yet. If you've seen the cover for Sauve mon ame, please let me know!
• My Soul To Steal comes out in Australia on Dec. 1, though I haven't actually been able to find a link for this one.
• My Soul To Take comes out in the UK on Jan 1, 2011, but again, no link.

Gingerbread update:

My Haunted Gingerbread House construction has begun! Yes, it's a long process, because...did I mention I'm short on time? ;)



As usual, the design is by #1. Here's a shot of his original sketch and the cardboard mockup. The mockup is to make sure that the pieces will fit together like we think they will. And after it's together, he takes it apart, and we use the pieces as templates for the dough. (Note, we don't actually eat the gingerbread, so we're not too worried about germs. ;))



This is naked gingerbread. AKA, the assembled, but still undecorated house. This year, it sits on a "fall lawn" made of chocolate rice crispy treat, molded to the custom wooden platform. There's a tree, but it's not assembled yet. I'm holding my breath on the tree this year, because it looks kinda fragile. I'll post more pictures when the whole thing is done.

Also, don't forget the Haunted Gingerbread contest, going on until Halloween!

And...just 'cause...here's a picture of my front flowerbed, all decorated for Halloween. Note how the skeleton has busted through the brick border. And yes, that's the tombstone that usually sits in my office. ;)

Pride in Australia!

Looks like Pride comes out in Australia next month! Like Stray and Rogue, it'll be in trade paperback. And like Stray and Rogue, they've used the same cover art, but with a different crop and a solid black background. What do you think?

Australian editions

US editions

Also, if you haven't already, click here to see if you won an Italian or Australian copy of Stray (only one has been claimed so far), and click here to check out the Haunted Gingerbread contest!

Haunted Gingerbread contest!

I'm not sure how October has rolled around so quickly this year (probably because I've been buried in deadlines and travel for the past few months), but it's here, and you know what that means...!

Gingerbread! No, it's not just for Christmas!

Every year, #1 and I make a Haunted Gingerbread House (except for last year, when we were still busy unpacking from the move to San Antonio) in October and a traditional gingerbread house in December. As you can see from the pictures below, we started off with some pretty simple designs and progressed to our current level of crazy.

2006, our first Halloween themed house. More like a shack, right?

2007. By then, we'd really gotten into the spirit. Number one was drawing blueprints and etching patterns into the dough. And cutting custom platforms for the house.

2008's house was a gingerbread replica of the Amityville Horror house. I think we over decorated it, so I'm posting a picture of it in the nude, so you can see the architecture.

I made this year's gingerbread dough on Monday and it's in my fridge right now, waiting to be rolled out, cut, and baked tonight. The plans are drawn up, and there's a cardboard model of the house sitting on my kitchen counter. (#1 takes his gingerbread design seriously. ;))

So...how 'bout a contest?

Send me a picture of your Halloween-themed gingerbread house, and you'll be entered to win a signed copy of Alpha and a three-piece set of Godiva chocolate lollipops.

Rules

-The gingerbread house does not have to be complicated, but it cannot come from a kit.

-Everything in the picture must be edible (but you don't have to actually eat it)

-Pictures must be received by October 30, 2010

-Pictures (max=2 per entry) should be sent to contestsATrachelvincentDOTcom

Pictures of all entries will be posted on Halloween day, along with the winner's name. (Winner to be chosen by #1)

Now, I realize this contest requires a little work, and I know that means we probably won't get many entries. But for me, that's a win/win. If no one enters, I get to keep the chocolate! ;)

Italian and Australian copy winners!

First, let me apologize for the delay in posting the winners of the US and Australian versions of Stray. I turned in IF I DIE last week and have been mostly offline since then, trying to recuperate enough to start the first book in my new adult series. This deadline is pretty tight (though I should get a pretty good break after that), as was the last one, and I'm trying to make sure I do some pretty serious relaxing between books, to avoid burnout.

But, I'm back now, with some winners' names and a new contest!

First, the two Italian version winners are:

Annarella, who wrote,
"I am Italian and would be nice to review the Italian release :)"

And...

Felly, who wrote,
"this year i recently made friends with a forgein exchange student from italy..."

And the two Australian version winners are:

van_pham who wrote,
"I would love to win an Australian edition!"

And...

BreiaB, who wrote,

"I would love the Aus edition. I wish I could speak Italian but alas I do not."

Winners, please email me (rachelkvincentATgmailDOTcom) with your shipping information. I have a big pile of stuff to mail this afternoon, so if you get your info to me today, your prize will probably go out today.

To avoid confusion, I'm going to post the new contest in a new post, so be sure to check that out too!

Anyone speak Italian?

Thie contest has now closed. The winners will be announced this afternoon!

I have some foreign editions of various books that I need to give away. I always keep one copy of each, but right now, I have two extra Italian editions of Stray, two extra Australian editions of Stray, and two extra Australian editions each of MSTTake, MSTSave, and MSTKeep.

I'm saving the YAs for giveaways closer to the release of MSTSteal in January, but I'd like to give the copies of Stray away now. So if you're interested, please let me know in the comments which edition you'd like, Italian or Australian. And please, if you want the Italian editions, let me know if you actually speak Italian or intend to give it to someone who does. Or if you're an Italian-language reviewer or intend to give it to an Italian-language reviewer. I'd really like those two to go to someone who can actually read them. ;)

The content of the Australian copies is the same as the US/UK copies, but the format is very different. For comparison, here's the Australian edition next to a US edition. The AU book is trade size (as opposed to mass market) and very, very sturdy, with good-size print. But it won't match the US editions of the books.

So, if you want one, comment here and let me know which one you want. Except for trying to find people who speak Italian, the winners will be chosen at random. I'll draw two winners for each edition and announce them here on Friday!

Alpha winner!

I'm sorry about the delay in posting the blog tour contest winner. This has been a crazy-buzy week for me, and I'm still on a couple of deadlines, so I'll be scarce for a couple more days. But then I'll be back, and blogging with renewed vigor. That's the plan, anyway. ;)

But for now, the winner is:

Victoria, whose favorite quote was:
"I was expected, of course, but apparently I was expected to come crawling on my hands and knees, bleeding and scared, begging for mercy." From pg 247 of Alpha

Victoria, please email me (rachelkvincentATgmailDOTcom) with your shipping info, and I'll put your book in the mail, along with several other things I still owe people.

The blog tour isn't quite over, and I still owe a couple of people guest posts. I'm so sorry they're late, and I can't thank everyone enough for being patient with me. I've never been quite so swamped before, and I'm looking forward to a very short break before I dive into the first book in my new adult series (details to come soon!).

Also, if I can just say, so far the reviews for Alpha are awesome! Overall, the best I've ever gotten. I'm getting tons of emails, messages, and tweets, and I can't thank you all enough for your enthusiasm. It's overwhelming, in the most amazing way. I'm so thrilled and relieved that people seem to like the way I've ended the series. Thank you all so much!

Okay, back to work...!