Rachel R. Smith's Blog, page 10

Lord of the Libraries

One more video in honor of National Library Week, this one’s for the fantasy lovers!

Free Book Promo Today! (4/12)

Records of the Ohanzee Book 1

Records of the Ohanzee Book 3

The series of promos leading up to the release of book 3 continues! Today (4/12) until midnight PDT, the ebook version of Reflection: The Stranger in the Mirror (Records of the Ohanzee Book 1) will be available for free on Amazon. Click here to go to the Amazon product page.

Note sure if the series is one you’d be interested in? Check out the reviews on Amazon and Goodreads or read a preview excerpt here to get a taste of the story!

 

Happy National Library Week!

Happy National Library week!

I came across this video marking the occasion and had to share. “Don’t feel guilty. Just read!”

 

PS-For those of you who love manga and libraries, I highly recommend you check out the series Library Wars by Kiiro Yumi and Hiro Arikawa.

 

Nail Polish Sunday #10, Sumo, Giveaway Reminder, and an Upcoming Promo (Oh my!)

It’s time for Nail Polish Sunday! This week I want to start out by sharing a story. It may not seem relevant to nail polish at first, but stick with me and you’ll see the connection.

Doughnuts. (Almost) everybody loves them. They are a sweet temptation for most people. I love them too, “doughnut” get me wrong. But when there’s a box of fresh Krispy Kremes, Dunkin’, or name-your-local-doughnut-place in the room, I feel no temptation to eat one whatsoever. Why? It’s not that those other places don’t make yummy doughnuts. It’s because, in my heart, there is only one doughnut in the world worth eating: the vanilla cream-filled doughnut from the little shop in the town where I grew up. I’ve tried the others, and even though they are delicious, they just aren’t the same. It’s like a mouthful of sugary disappointment in comparison.

And now I’ve found the vanilla cream-filled doughnut of the nail polish world: Fun Lacquer’s Siberian Squill. (I got my bottle from Live, Love, Polish…where else? ^_-) The only downside about it is that now the rest of my polish colors pale in comparison. It’s a blue/purple duochrome holographic polish with tiny holographic glitter. Admittedly, the color change in this duochrome is not anywhere near as vibrant as it is in Blessing. That doesn’t matter.

Once again, photographs do not do the color justice. There’s far more depth and sparkle than my phone’s camera can capture. Looking at this polish makes me understand why dragons hoard treasure.

That said, wearing it in well-lit areas or patches of sunlight is a tiny bit dangerous for me since I have a tendency to stare in rapt awe at my nails instead of paying attention to where I’m going. It happens when I wear shiny shoes too. It’s a risk I’ve learned to live with. If you like nail polish, you need to have this in your collection. Just give me a few minutes to order 100 backup bottles for myself first…

As a side note, I realized that I’ve been remiss in posting pictures of Sumo lately. Sumo’s most recent adventure was to accompany me on Friday to pick up my mom (Sumo says it’s like fetch for people). He had just finished a fun and tiring day at the doggy spa. It would be an understatement to say that he was ready for a nap, but he loves riding in the car. He was clearly torn between his exhaustion and his excitement and this was the result:

That really doesn’t look comfortable.
When you’re so tired you just want to go to sleep, but you still want to see where you’re going.

 

A quick reminder too: the Goodreads giveaway for a paperback copy of Reflection: The Stranger in the Mirror is still going on. You have until April 14 to enter!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Reflection: The Stranger in the Mirror

by Rachel R. Smith

Giveaway ends April 14, 2016.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads. (Open to US only)

Click Here to Enter Giveaway

Also, some advance notice for my blog readers: On Tuesday, April 12, there will be a free promo day for the ebook version of Reflection: The Stranger in the Mirror on Amazon. I’ll post a reminder on Tuesday as well!

 

 

Goodreads Giveaway!

The release of Reflection: Thorn of the White Rose (Records of the Ohanzee Book 3) is rapidly approaching! And what better way is there to prepare for the next book in the series than to run a series of giveaways? (See what I did there? ^_-)

For all the book lovers out there, today is the beginning of the second Goodreads Giveaway for a paperback copy of Reflection: The Stranger in the Mirror (Records of the Ohanzee Book 1). Login in to your Goodreads account between now and April 14 to enter! Links and additional info below:

 

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Reflection: The Stranger in the Mirror

by Rachel R. Smith

Giveaway ends April 14, 2016.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads. (Open to US only)

Click Here to Enter Giveaway

Look What I Found at the Library!

Yesterday, I paid a visit to the main branch of the Cincinnati Public Library. As most people are when they go to the library, I was on a mission to find a couple of books. New arrivals, specifically. After paying $10 for parking (then promptly discovering there was a $2 garage on the opposite side of the building), I made my way into the Popular Library area.

Lo and behold, what did I find sitting on the shelves in the fantasy section?

Do you see it too, lurking there among the “S” authors?

How about now?

Yes! There it is! Reflection: The Stranger in the Mirror has been added to the library’s catalog. ^_^

But it looks so lonely all by itself. Where’s its companion, Harbinger?

Let’s take a trip to the New Arrivals! Somewhere around here, perhaps?

Take a closer look…

And there it is! But why are they shelved in different places? As it turns out, the library added two copies of each book (one set in each section), but one copy of each has already been checked out! Don’t worry though. If you want to check out the remaining copies for yourself, now you know exactly where to look! ^_-

Nail Polish Sunday #9

Happy Easter! It’s time again for Nail Polish Sunday. Today’s polish is another gem I found through Live, Love, Polish. Their site is becoming an obsession for me. Seriously–I’ve bought 10 bottles from them since January. After the most recent shipment, I remembered to exercise restraint and took pictures before shredding through the packaging like the Tasmanian devil.

Here’s the cozy little treasure chest the gems arrive in. It even came with a nice, handwritten thank you note. No, Live, Love, Polish–thank you.

These are the lovelies that awaited inside the boxes. I’ll be showing the others in later posts, but for today I’ll be focusing on the pink shade on the left.

Here’s a close-up shot of the bottle–Femme Fatale’s Love Potion. Looks straightforward enough in the bottle, right? Sure it does, because the magic happens after you put it on…color changing magic. (Click images below to see enlarged.)

Room Temp

Cold Hands

Warm Hands

Apply two coats of polish as normal, and voila, the easiest french manicure ever (at room temperature at least). I’ve tried other color-changing polishes in the past, but never got the kind of distinct shades that you see here. Unfortunately, Love Potion has already sold out, but Femme Fatale makes other color changes too.

Now I must be off. I have an urgent meeting with a chocolate bunny.

A Sensitive Topic (And how it relates to my true feelings on pizza)

I’m sure every reader has heard of the most infamously popular trope of all tropes: the love triangle. Feelings on the concept vary, but it seems that few reside in the middle ground. I didn’t realize just how polarized the topic was until I saw concerns about one potentially developing in some reviews for my books.

So, I’m taking the opportunity to make a BSA (Book Service Announcement) to allay those concerns. It’s true–triangles appear as symbols throughout the Records of the Ohanzee series, some in obvious ways, some in subtle ways.

But there’s one kind of triangle you’re not going to see (hint, hint).

I want this t-shirt! (lookhuman.com)

What are your thoughts? Do you love/hate love triangles?

Something Green (Book 3 Cover Reveal!)

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! As I promised earlier this month, today I have something green to share with all of you: the cover for book 3, Reflection: Thorn of the White Rose (featuring our favorite “white rose,” Raysel).

Look for Reflection: Thorn of the White Rose (Records of the Ohanzee Book 3) in mid/late May! I’ll have a more firm release date once the manuscript is through editing and proofreading.

If you want to stay up to date on the promos and giveaways leading up to the release of Book 3, be sure to follow this blog or follow the series on Facebook!

Disaster Strikes! (Or maybe it was just rabbits…)

Just when I finally thought it was safe to declare that the pansies had survived the winter, Mother Nature sends her cotton-tailed minions of doom to visit the pansy buffet!

Before (Monday):

After (Wednesday):

All the flowers have been munched and some were ripped out of the ground roots and all, leaving sad little holes behind. It’s official–the adorable local woodland creatures are colluding to ruin my garden. At least they leave my roses alone. If those got eaten, my head might explode. XD No, seriously. I like rabbits, but you mess with my roses and I’m calling in Elmer Fudd.

Any gardeners out there with repellent suggestions? I don’t want to hurt the little guys, just “gently” encourage them to visit the nearby buffets instead. (Don’t tell my neighbors I said that…^_-) I hear lavender works as a repellent, but is that really true?

PS-The real irony here is that today I’m working on revisions for Chapter 10, which is aptly titled “Nightmares of Rabbits and Wolves.” Talk about art imitating life!