Basically...

First and foremost, I'd like to apologize for my lack of blogging lately... or should I say my absence?  I've been going through a tough time with my health again and I'm going to try to make up for me not being here this week.  I've got SO many things coming up!  Really...  You'll be amazed.  But, I really wanted to take a minute just to say "Thank You" to all of you that have emailed, sent a mail through the contact button, called and tweeted just to say "Hello", wondering how I am doing, and wishing me well.  I can't tell you just how touched I am.  The book blogging community is filled with SO many truly wonderful, caring and sweet people ... really, I am over-whelmed with the out pouring of support and kindess.  If there were only more people in the world like all of you.  I have really amazing readers!  So, I'll stop being sappy and teary-eyed now, say a HUGE "Thank You" and  go on with what's coming up! OK?

Up next is the LONG Awaited Contest for the Kindle or Sony e-reader! The Winner will get their choice courtesy of author Matthew Carter (Liquid Soul).  I've got the rules on how you can win that one coming up! So, the button over there to the right...is wrong...it WILL be replaced! You do NOT want to miss being a part of this! Also, for those of you that missed the "Never Slow Dance with a Zombie" Twitter Contest hosted by me and sponsored by the author of that wonderful book E. Van Lowe (your prizes will be out to you THIS week) I have a copy of "Never Slow Dance with a Zombie" and the cutest "Zombie Love" T-Shirt EVER and I do mean EVER! Make sure you keep an eye out for that.  If I don't list it...I decided to keep it for me, it's that Adorable!  Me likey!  : )

For those of you that don't know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month!  So, I have some Pink items and another special giveaway for this wonderful cause.  The American Cancer Society is VERY Near and Dear to Me! I love that they are the "Official Sponsor of Birthdays" and I'm happy to say that ONE of those birthdays are MINE! While I did not have breast cancer, I feel that a person dealing with any type of this disease can relate to just how important it is to stay positive, keep fighting and to never give up! We WILL One Day Find a Cure!  I have an adorable Pink Curling Iron and Straightening Iron from Barbar coming up that I will review and then ONE Lucky Reader will have the very same item that I received.  If you'd like to know what it looks like, just check HERE!  There will be other items up this month, be sure to look for those!

Now because October is also time for Halloween, I have quite a few spooktacular book reviews and giveaways coming up!  One includes a HAUNTINGLY HUGE HALLOWEEN GIVEAWAY sponsored by Hachette Book Group which includes FIVE Spooky Books for each of THREE Very Lucky Winners!  With that Giveaway, your name will be put in a drawing, and you could be one of 20 people that will  also be receiveing a SIXTH Book which is an ARC of "The Bride Collector" by Ted Dekker! What are the other five? Watch for the Giveaway!

Enough right?  After those, you don't want ANY more Giveaways.... right? I mean, you must be all giveawayed-out! NO! I'm Shocked! Well then, good thing because I've got MORE! 

I'm SO sorry I've been away and I will be making it up to all of you, but I did miss being able to write and talk with all of you!  I'm going to TRY (key word) to post at least one post daily.  If not, it's probably because I'm just not feeling too well that day but I WILL post as I can.

I do have one *little* thing that I'd like to address because I did have a problem with this.  For the MOST part, I (as in ME, Personally) am VERY Rarely responsible for sending out Prizes! With that said, I am also not responsible for any prizes that are NOT received by you once I submit your name to the specific publishers, companes, and/or PR companies. OK?  I am SURE they will ALL send what's promised to you.  Just give them a little time. If you feel you've been waiting a LONG time (like 8-10 weeks) then feel free to drop me a line about a prize and I'll see what I can do.  I have never come across a company that didn't send the prize.  I just thought I'd add that as my *disclaimer* to all of you lucky lucky prize winners!  In other words, I put up my HONEST review based on either the book/product that I recieved and then I pass along the books and products that are promised in a giveaway to you!  Most of the time this only includes me sending your name along. IF FOR SOME REASON I (as in ME, Personally) HAVE THE PRIZE HERE - I WILL MAIL THAT OUT TO YOU AS SOON AS I CAN!  If I'm a late, I do apologize, but things come up and the day it gets mailed out to you, I promise you will get an email from me! If I have the prize you WILL have your prize!  Now that all that has been discussed, it will not be brought up again...it's listed on the "Giveaway Policy" Page which is tabbed at the top of my blog!

I hope you're ready to WIN...because I'm getting ready for the holidays which are my favorite time of the year and THIS PRINCESS is in the GIVING MOOD!  Thank you ALL again!  I'm a *bit late* with "Saturday Spotlight" but I'll see if I can get it up! If not, I do have some winners!  Sorry for the long-winded post, it was MUCH needed!

If YOU have any questions, comments and/or concerns, PLEASE feel free to contact me! I'm always ONE CLICK AWAY! After all, without your input, this blog cannot continue to grow! So -- Preach to the Princess!!  Also, I want to suggest - that means strongly but you don't have to do it - that you sign up for email subscriptions or my feed so you don't miss your name when you win and important posts that are listed.  I have some ROYAL GIVEAWAYS coming up that are NOT TO BE MISSED!!

That's all for now! I'll be back with THREE Big Winners!! (and possibly a Saturday Spotlight!)



KISSES & TOODLES!

The Giveaways that are Closing Soon! (Hurry)

* Important Reminder*

This is basically just a reminder of all the contests that are closing in the next two days. More will be added in their place (not to worry). But, I wanted to make sure everyone had a fair chance ...


You have until Midnight tonight (which is VERY soon) EST to enter:

Seduce Me by: Robyn DeHart - Five Copies / Five Winners!

And you will have until Midnight tomorrow night (August 31st) EST to enter these next two. One is the $50.00 Lizzy Bleu Gift Certificate! (Which Lizzy has generously offered to do here MONTHLY! So, I'll be setting up Next Month's Giveaway after this draw! Be sure to check out Lizzy Bleu's shop and make a Wish List!!

Also, on top of my upcoming announcement, Lizzy also offered to do a special Christmas Giveaway just for US. SO..We're both pretty excited about that and can't wait to tell ALL about it. Lizzy will also make an "appearance" here within the next few weeks to introduce herself and her craft talents to you! You'll LOVE her! She's such a DOLL! What a genuine, caring and giving woman. I can't say enough about her!

So...again, ending at Midnight EST tomorrow August 31st -

Damas, Drama and Ana Ruiz by Belinda Acosta (One Winner)

$50.00 Gift Certificate to Lizzy Bleu's Gift Shop!

Good Luck and Have Fun!!

I'm just as excited as you are to find out who the winners will be!!

Also, check out this PAGE for more Giveaways that are going on!

KISSES ~ XXX

Royal Giveaway (*Update* and Questions Answered)

Hi Everyone!

I've been getting A LOT of emails about the contest/giveaway and I'll try to answer a few of the most asked here and update a few things!

1. If you follow before the day that I actually put up the post with the list of prizes and how it is EXACTLY going to go that is a PLUS TEN for following before hand on the BLOG and a PLUS FIVE if you already follow on Twitter.

2. After the contest is posted, if you BLOG about it (that's a PLUS THREE) if you tweet about it (PLUS TWO) (I'm trying to decide if multiple tweets will count as a plus two each time or not still...only because of the amount of work. UNLESS, you keep track of your tweets by posting. That could work because I need a link obviously!

3. Who is it open to? Anyone! Yes, world-wide! So, let's have fun with this! It's about FRIENDS (OLD and NEW) and following and finding NEW Blogs!

4. Prizes ... My favorite! The winner is going to get a Bracelet done by LIZZY BLEU at her Etsy Shop. You can have it made like the one below or anyway you'd like (maybe, your name?) Like one of mine that I will picture below as well! Now...after we get 100 followers, for every FIFTY, I will add something...I'm thinking a gift-certificate to you favorite book store (or Amazon) and you may buy what you'd like! I'm also talking with Lizzy Bleu to see if she will also add an extra gift certificate to her shop for maybe $25, $50, or up to $100.00 depending on the amount of followers. Because I am doing the buying amount myself (except for the bracelet that LIZZY BLEU is making and donating which is a OOAK and VERY UNIQUE and ORIGINAL!) Sound good? So the more you spread the word and the more followers I get, the more prizes that are added on until the end of the month! I will make a sticky post soon with all the details and that is where you can start by making your initial post which is your first PLUS ONE.








5. If your name is in someone's post as the referral point, then that is also a PLUS for you!

I will keep putting updates here...if you're confused (and that's most-likely MY fault, no joke...lol OK, it's funny) than you can find your answers here. Just post the question or email me at IAmHiMaintenance(at)aol(dot)com!

Have fun! That's it for now!

KISSES ~ XXX

THE PRINCESS

THIS IS GOING TO TAKE ME A WHILE TO ADD UP EVERYONE'S PLUS POINTS WHEN THIS STARTS! SO, IF YOU KEEP TRACK AS WELL, AND KEEP IT IN YOUR POSTS, IT MAY BE EASIEST. BUT, THAT'S UP TO YOU!

Oh and don't forget to check out LIZZY BLEU'S Typewriter Jewelry and she's even going to make us a special BOOK MARK! : ) Lizzy Bleu...I love you!

And The Award Goes To...

AMY and her BE-U-TEE-FULL BLOG!

That's Right! Amy's Blog won one of J.Kaye's Blogger Awards! You can find the post about it (and you'll all be very proud of me for being able to do this OR you SHOULD be anyway) right here:J. Kaye's Book Blog: Blog Awards! Not bad huh? AND it only took me about 3 weeks to learn that one too! Go ME!

Oh right, this is about AMY and HER BE-U-TEE-FULL BLOG. The criteria to be part of this award is pretty steep too. There are five points that it must meet. Which means we are going to have to be on our toes to keep up until THE PRINCESS herself is back to take over. And the points are:

• Fun Place to Visit


• Cool Reviews


• Neat Graphics/Photos


• Unique


• Fun Place to Visit
  

Now, if you ever knew just how shy Amy is in person, you'd laugh to know she could even keep up her blog! So, this is quite an honor for her. Trust me, I do know! So a BIG THANK YOU to J.Kay for the award. which I will put up right here in the middle of the post for now, until I know how to get it to stay on the side!

I encourage you all to stop by J.Kaye's book blog! She's got a lot going on over there herself! I'm sure it gets a FIVE CROWN RATING from AMY any day of the week! J.Kaye has cool reviews/interviews, raffles, Maxine and challenges up the ying-yang (Amy is going to kill me for using this language in the castle...she is). SO JUST ENJOY IT WHILE YA' CAN. 'Cuz when she's back - OH this is all deleted fo' sho'!

While we're on the subject of my most favoritest friend, who I will update you on in the next post, there will probably be three more today and this is already the second, I just have to do this for her. We miss her so much and this is important to her/therefore it's important to us.

Since we can't figure out her password yet and we've all tried so many things, we can not get a hold of all reviews, interviews and everything else of importance. She even reviews for a few online sites that I'm trying to forward reviews to. I feel so worthless and then when we see her, it's a feeling of being helpless. So, as I was saying, since we can't find all the reviews, we'll do what we can and fill you in on how she's doing, plus try to get up some interviews and we think it will be fun to tell you funny/interesting stories about Amy that you do not know. I hope it's alright with all of you. We've just known her so long and this part of her is new to us so we're going to give you a part of her that's new to you. Fair? FAIR! Also, Amy offered to help a wonderful woman named Lisa advertise her Etsy shop here, so I'm going to try to get in touch with her and help her do that and also there is an author that has done so much for Amy that we're going to get her book posted or banner up for advertisement as well and her name is Sandy Patsy. I'm sure you remember her from her review. We were planning an interview with her as well, but I think she wants to wait until Amy gets back and that's fine with the three of us.

Thank you again J.Kaye for such an honor. You really are a great friend to Amy and anyone that takes care of her is so special in our book. Although, we may have to stop by your blog as well, we want a chance at your wonderful raffles and serious reviews you do. If you haven't seen her review system, you should stop by. It's really unique. On top of that, she's doing every challenge under the sun, I have know idea how she has time for it all. It really is a great blog! J.Kaye, if we have any questions, would you mind us stopping by? You can answer in the comments . In turn, we'd really like to pass this type of blog award on to others, so we'll see what we can do!

The last thing for this post is this...for the last week, we've been lurking, visiting Amy's friends on their blogs and we have to say what a great place to be! You all have exciting, different and unique topics and blogs! We really know now why Amy loves this so. She does have quite a few books that she's gotten in and they are at the hospital with her. It's what she calls her "Comfort Reading" and she started writing reviews about eight years ago just to give back to her favorite authors that had gotten her through some serious tough times medically. In return, she will do just about anything to be part of a book that she loves success. We can't wait for her to be better. We miss our weekends together and our dinners out at least once a week. Get well my dear dear friend. I LOVE YOU!

I think that's all for now from us.

Respectfully - Your Resident Royal Reviewers

Vanessa, Kim and Dawn