Rachel Kovaciny's Blog, page 88

The "Cloaked" Kindle Giveaway!

It's true. I'm giving away three Kindle copies of my book Cloaked right now! Click here to go to the Amazon giveaway page and enter. No purchase necessary, void where prohibited, and only open to US residents because that's what Amazon allows, I'm afraid.

The giveaway runs through November 14, and three winners will find the e-book automatically added to their accounts on November 15.

Need something to read while you travel to visit relatives for Thanksgiving? Looking for something to while awa...

Another LOTR Read-Along: Three is Company (FOTR 1, 3)

Now we hit the place where the book begins to be substantially different than the movie. (Or, really, where the movie began to trim things, though the extended edition does have Frodo and Sam seeing elves at one point.)

And so the adventure really begins! Frodo says goodbye to Bag End (sniffle sniffle), and he sets off for Crickhollow. Is that not the coolest name for a house? I would love to have a house some day near a creek and a hollow so I could name it that.

But I digress. Not only do Fro...

Another LOTR Read-Along: The Shadow of the Past (FOTR 1, 2)

What always surprises me in this chapter is how much time passes between Bilbo leaving and Gandalf figuring out that the ring is, well, The Ring. This is probably because I saw the movie before I read the book, and in the movie, there are maybe a few months between the two, or so it seems to me. But here we learn that it's seventeen years!

Anyway, things start heating up a bit in this chapter. Things are changing in and around The Shire, and we learn all about how the Ring was forged, somethin...

"Flashes of Splashes" by Elizabeth McCleary

Sometimes when I get really busy in Real Life, I don't have time to sink my teeth into a novel, so I grab an anthology of short stories because I know I can read individual stories here and there, as I have time.  If you like doing that too, and you're looking at your calendar for the next couple of months and thinking you're going to be awfully busy... then this might be the book for you.

Flashes of Splashes is a collection of flash-fiction stories, which means they're all VERY shor...

Top Ten Tuesdays: Where You Lead, I Will Follow

This week's TTT topic from The Broke and the Bookish is "Ten Characters Who Would Make Great Leaders."  I'm tweaking that a little to list off my top ten characters who lead so well, I would follow them.  So here we go!

I've put them in order by first name because... I have to have some sort of order.  Also, I spent like twenty minutes trying to decide if I should put Bard or Boromir first, and failing to come to any satisfactory conclusion.

+Aragorn from The Lord of the Ri...

"As You Wish" by Cary Elwes with Joe Layden

I vividly remember the first time I saw The Princess Bride, even if I don't quite know when it was.  I know it was, at the very latest, July of 1992.  My mom, my brother, and I went to visit my aunt at her house one afternoon, just to hang out.  One of my cousins was there, a boy two years older than I was who very kindly did not tend to dismiss me for being younger or for being a girl.  He had made some sort of dessert that involved pudding and crumbled cookies.  For...

Another LOTR Read-Along: A Long-expected Party (FOTR 1, 1)

This chapter delights me. I love learning about the customs and day-to-day life of other cultures, and every culture in Middle Earth is so thoroughly thought-out that they seem completely real. Sometimes I almost forget this is fiction and not a sort of sociologically and linguistically inclined history.

Aren't Hobbits just the best? On their own birthdays, they give other people presents. They know How Not To Be Seen. They're good at gardening and farming. I want to be Hobbit, I admit it. (I...

Another LOTR Read-Along: Prologue: Concerning Hobbits

Welcome to Another LOTR Read-Along!  As you know, I'm adapting these posts from the course I'm teaching my niece for high school.  The truth is, I'm actually using a lot of things from my first LOTR read-along to teach her, so if you compare these posts with those, you'll find a lot of similarities.  But I think I've got almost entirely different people participating here from that original foray, so I'm assuming that won't be a problem :-)
Today, November 1, is also the beginni...

Cover Reveal for "A Sidekick's Tale" by Elisabeth Grace Foley

I've been enjoying Elisabeth Grace Foley's books for years now.  I've read so many of her books:  The Ranch Next Door and Other Stories , Left-Hand Kelly , Wanderlust Creek and Other Stories , Lost Lake House , Mountain of the Wolf , and my personal favorite so far, Corral Nocturne .  She inspired me to pursue writing westerns myself, and she's helped me with all sorts of self-publishing questions.  
Well, today I have the privilege to participate in the cover reveal for her...

"The Illuminated Catechism" Coloring Book by Tony Cook and Susan Spellman

It is HIGH time I reviewed another coloring book, don't you think?  Today I shall highlight The Illuminated Catechism, which pairs words from Martin Luther's Small Catechism with Bible verses and additional explanations by Tony Cook, devotional writing prompts, and gorgeous illustrations by Susan Spellman.  Of course, this is part of my on-going series on both my blogs about things related to the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation beginning.


You know what an "i...