ARC Winners

 

Here are the winners of the Totally Awesome Random Giveaway.  Winners receive an advanced reading copy of TIGER'S VOYAGE.

Heather (heathercrook)
Lenae (SeaGlass)
Ruthie (Ruthie)
Kriss (catgurrl)
Ashlee (yin/yang)
Joanna (jwalker1)

 

If you won a copy please contact my sister-in-law Suki at contests@colleenhouck.com to give her your address. We want to send the books out ASAP!  Thanks to all of you who wrote me.  It was great reading your entries and I wish I had enough books to give one to each of you.  

 

If you entered the Goodreads giveaway, the winners are posted on Goodreads HERE and if you entered the Halloween giveaway Suki will announce winners at the end of the month.



I know that many of you are getting a hold of Voyage early so thank you for not posting spoilers yet since many others are still waiting until November.  I was hoping to announce my tour today but I still don't have the information.  Thank you for your patience with that.  I will do a blog post as soon as I get all the details.

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Curio


I wanted to show you all my cool new curio cabinet.



My mom has been working non-stop for the last few months to create a Tiger's Curse toy collection.  She's done with phase one and we've moved the toys to my house.  She is currently working on some things for book four but I thought I'd show you what she's done so far.



 



On the top floor are the larger sized dragons and the medium sized Ren and Kishan as tigers. One level down you will find all the toys she's finished so far.  Most of these are toys that she's painted.  For example, "Ren" is actually Flynn Rider with white clothes.  Kishan and Durga were once fairies that were modified to look like my characters.  The middle shelf has my kissing statue, a large Ren and Kishan, and a large red dragon.  The fourth one down has a Barbie collection of dolls from India that I think look like my characters and on the bottom you will see motorcycles, a Jeep, and a Hummer that we haven't painted yet.



Here are some close ups.



 
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And here are the dragons.  There are small ones on the toy shelf too but these are fancier. 



 





She did a great job didn't she? My mom is crazy awesome.
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INSPIRATION CORNER
 
FANINDRA


I knew almost immediately that I wanted to do something with snakes in my book.  When I discovered that Durga actually had a snake on one of her arms the idea for Fanindra coming to life took shape.  While looking up pictures of golden cobras, I found this picture and thought it would be totally awesome to have Durga's snake become jewelry.  It's creepy and cool at the same time.  



 



I came up with the name for Fanindra by looking up Indian baby names.  The name is more commonly used for boys than girls but it sounds more feminine to me.  The name means "snake guardian" or "Queen of the Snakes."



 



I have become very attached to Fanindra since Tiger's Curse and I now own lots of snake themed jewelry.  My movie producer, Raffi, even named his golden boa Fanindra and I got to hold her when I went to visit last year.



 



In TIGER'S VOYAGE we learn that Fanindra can change into a sea snake.  In fact, she can transform into any type of snake and has power over all the snakes in the world.  You'll get to see a little of that later in the series.



That's it for now.  Have a great week and don't forget to keep checking back for tour dates!



Colleen