New Members - Introduce Yourself! > Likes and Comments

Introduce yourself to the Book Loving Kiwis. Where are you from? What do you like to read? What is your most recent read? Welcome.

Welcome Ursula! Are you taking part in the May Reading Challenge?

Hi there,
Figured I'd better drop a note in this thread seeing as I'm posting all over the place :-)
I've just today finished reading Mortal Fear, which I started 2 1/2 years ago, and finally re-picked up last week. I also finished listening to The Black Echo, as I like to have an audiobook on the go in the car as well as what I'm reading. This may make you think I'm a crime/suspense fan, but that's not really the case.

Hi.
My name is Colleen Mitchell and I live in Levin NZ. I'm glad to see a Kiwi group on this site and would love to be a part of it.
I have written a time-travel novel, Isabelle's Locket, set in Foxton in 1910/2010. It was published this year in the USA, and is available in NZ on TradeMe for $10 with free postage.
My reading interests are varied, I tend to like historical fiction most of all, but whatever I read has to be reasonably fast-paced to keep my interest. I hate it when authors write two pages about how a room looks when two paragraphs would suffice.
Anyhow, I'm glad to be a part of the group.

Thank you for joining our group, Colleen. We truly appreciate being able to discuss books with their authors. Please encourage any of your author friends who you think would be interested in promoting their books to join our group also. I hope you get the chance to join in with some of our reading challenges too.

My name is Rose Daly and I am a New Zealand author. My first novel, Moonfire, will be available around October this year from Thistlewood Publishing. The novel is not set in NZ, it is set in the Carribean in the slave-trading days and features Piracy, Slavery, Bravery and Treachery.
My fellow Thistlewood author, Colleen Mitchell, suggested I join this group. My reading tastes are mostly historical fiction, but I also like contemporary fiction. I hate vampire or zombie books.I hope I can contribute to group discussions, and will try to keep up with group reads.

Thanks for joining our group, Rose. I look forward to reading your book, and I hope you will be able to join in on some of our group reads. I've just started reading 'The Larnachs' and so far it is really entertaining and interesting. Like you, I am not a fan of vampire or zombie books, but witches and wizards are all good. Loved Harry Potter, but the Twilight series just does not appeal at all.

Hello everyone! My name is Deborah and I do not live in NZ. I live in Connecticut BUT I did go on a study abroad to NZ my junior year of high school for 6 weeks and I loved it. I stayed in the north island only but now I have another excuse to go back and see the south island. My favorite place I visited was Napier because I love the cool architecture, shopping and scenery. :)

Welcome Deb. I hope you are able to join us in reading some NZ books. I'm a South Islander so I obviously think the South Island is the best! I hope you get back to experience it one day.

Rose wrote: "My name is Rose Daly and I am a New Zealand author. My first novel, Moonfire, will be available around October this year from Thistlewood Publishing. The novel is not set in NZ, it is set in the Ca..."

Welcome Rose!
Can't wait for your book to come out.

Welcome Deb.
If you do come back to NZ you will LOVE the South Island. It's so beautiful. Of course the North Island is pretty darn good too!

Hi All,

My name is Lara, and I live in Christchurch. Bit new to all of this, but love reading and finding new authors and books to enjoy. I have just finished "The Hypnotist" by Lars Kepler, which I enjoyed.

Hi Lara. Thanks for joining the Book Loving Kiwis. Hopefully you'll be able to join some of our group reads. Great to have you along.

My name is Julie and I am an author. I have uploaded two ebooks to Amazon and Smashwords and they are selling reasonably well for a first timer! I live in Cambridge, having moved there from Auckland in May.

My novel is called 'The Secret Keeper' and is partly contemporary fiction and partly historical fiction, in WWII. It took 7 years to research and write.

And I have a book of Short Stories up as well, some are quirky and some are really touching. The title story "Stirred Not Shaken" is a spy spoof, featuring Marlow, Poirot, Bond, Marple etc. And another story is based on my Dad's diary as he sailed from NZ to England to be a Spitfire pilot in 1940.

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/vie...

http://www.amazon.com/Julie-Thomas/e/...

I am currently reading "The Lady Elizabeth" by Alison Weir, I enjoy rereading the classics and historical fiction and crime/thriller/spy fiction most, but will read anything that is well written. Also not at all a vampire,horror,fantasy kinda girl. Looking forward to joining in the discussions.

Thanks for joining Book Loving Kiwis, Julie. It is great to have so many authors as part of the group. I'm certainly finding it a huge benefit to be able to ask the authors questions. Make sure you nominate one of your books for our November group read when I organise the voting next month.

Angie

Thanks for the welcome and I will make sure I do that. It will have to be Category two as it is not set in NZ or about NZers. But it is historical fiction, based in fact.
And I have just been notified that "THe Secret Keeper" has been accepted for Smashwords Premiere catalogue, which gives me access to the world's main ebook retailers. Very happy!

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...

Cheers

Julie

Hey Julie,

Are you a New Zealander? If so, your book can be nominated for Challenge 1. Challenge 1 is for books written by a NZer, about NZ or a NZer, or set in NZ. If not, nominate it for Challenge 2. Congratulations on your acceptance for the Smashwords Premiere Catalogue. You will be stoked.

Angie

By the way, I just checked out your link and The Secret Keeper sounds fantastic. I love historical fiction.

Yes, I am born and bred. OK, Challenge 1 it is, then. Thank you, I am delighted about Smashwords because of the exposure and because it gives another sense of value to the book as well.
And thank you for the commnent about the book too, it took a long time to come to fruition and I am passionate about the subject matter and the characters, so I hope people enjoy it.

I have just found out that my book of short stories has been accepted to the Smashwords Premium Catalogue too. Goodness. It's free and worth twice the price!!

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...

Colleen wrote: "Hi.
My name is Colleen Mitchell and I live in Levin NZ. I'm glad to see a Kiwi group on this site and would love to be a part of it.
I have written a time-travel novel, Isabelle's Locket, set in..."

Nice to meet you. How do you manage to sell your book at such a cheap price? I've had to sell my latest (published through Xlibris) at $25 a copy just to break even.
(Thomas W Devine)

You got me.
I don't make any money at all. In fact I lose money. I just want people to read my book!

Hi Thomas. Thanks for joining our group. You might like to check out Marita's folder - My Writer's Q & A under General on the group home page. It is a very interesting insight into the publishing/marketing of books etc. Hopefully you'll find it useful. Have you nominated your book for the November group reads? If not, please do so.

Hi Thomas,

Forget Xlibris, a nasty rip off. Same goes for Lulu. If you want to self-publish and have your books at reasonable price but top notch quality, you need to go to CreateSpace (part of Amazon) or Lightning Source (much harder to get set up).
I land a 364 page novel on NZ for about $10 a copy when ordering 50 books with a reasonably fast freight service.

Hi my name is Laura and I live in Wellington and i've just finished reading The Future Homemakers of America. Looking forward to lots of reading!

Welcome Laura! Thank you for getting involved in some of the discussions as well. Please vote in our November group read polls if you haven't already. One of the great things about this group is the number of members that are NZ authors. It is fantastic being able to ask them questions and to discuss their books with them. Enjoy!

Laura wrote: "Hi my name is Laura and I live in Wellington and i've just finished reading The Future Homemakers of America. Looking forward to lots of reading!"

Hi Laura.
We're almost neighbours!
I live in Levin.
Welcome to the group.

Don't forget to introduce yourself if you are new to the group :)

Hi, my name is Melinda and I live in Auckland, NZ. I'm new to Goodreads but have been writing for about ten years and reading books avidly ever since I learnt how. I'm published here in NZ - picture books (The Were-Nana, The House That Went to Sea), short stories (in Best Mates, Pick 'n' Mix anthologies +) and novels (Jack the Viking, The Half Life of Ryan Davis) for children and teens. Have been recently reading book 2 in Holly Black's Curse Worker trilogy and Horowitz's House of Silk. I'm a big fan of Harry Potter but not so much the Twilight Books. Looking forward to talking books...

Hi Melinda.
Always nice to meet another Kiwi Author.
I see you write childrens books.
I write novels, but I have recently completed a book for children about pixies on an adventure to save their injured friend Fantail. It's with the editor now, hopefully it will be off to the printer next week and available for Christmas.
This is my first childrens book and it has been fun writing it and working with my sister to illustrate it.
I will check out your books.

Welcome Melinda. I asked The National Library to send out some sophisticated picture books for my class last year and The Were-Nana was amongst them. It is a very cool book. The kids (and me) loved it! I'll check and see if our school library has any of your novels. If not, I'll get the librarian to buy some. It is always nice to recommend a NZ author to the kids.

Hey thank you guys :) Its great to meet more book-loving kiwis.

Whoops - forgot to come over to this bit and say hello. From the look of this thread there are a lot of very talented people in this group. the Were-Nana sounds particularly fantastic!

I live in Kerikeri and like reading all kinds of books, but usually end up with YA because I like to write within that genre too. My ultimate favourite is the Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. For me, he always crafts the most beautiful, poignant endings.

I'm currently reading a manuscript for a friend -'That Scroundrel, Emile Dubois' which is the most amazing blend of Georgian manners, time-travel and vampires set in Wales and Paris during the French Revolution. It's real escapism, just as books should be.

Thanks very much for letting me join.

It is really great to have you in this group, Jo. I'm looking forward to reading your manuscript and am glad that you are into Young Adult books as well. I can't wait until you have read The Knife of Never Letting Go. It will be nice to discuss it with someone.

Thank you, Angie. I certainly will discuss it with you. Are you tempted to read the rest of the trilogy? I've asked for all three.

I find Young Adult books to be much more full of life and a mix of different ideas. Once you get into adult books, the genres seem to separate and each genre becomes quite definite and constricting. Also, like Colleen said, way back near the top of the discussion, with some adult books come the long descriptions where it takes three pages to describe a sandwich. I hate those too, Colleen. Grrrr!

Hi Laura, Melinda and Jo
Isn't it great to see how many people are writing and the wide range of what is being read?
I'm interested in your children's books, Colleen and Melinda. I have a five year old who has just mastered the art of reading full sentences and is devouring everything he can find. He absolutely adores anything about dinosaurs, volcanoes, pirates, pixies and anything supernatural. He's very keen for me to read him Harry Potter but I think he's still a bit young for some of it, he doesn't think he scares easily, but sometimes he does. Any comment?
Cheers
Julie

Oh Julie - I have just the story for your boy. Its only a manuscript and is around 8000 words so would need to be read to him probably but its about pirates and its not too scary at all. You are most welcome to have a read if you fancy.

cheers
Melinda

Kia ora everyone :)
My name is Catherine and I live in Tauranga in the beautiful Bay of Plenty. I am a qualified primary school teacher with a huge passion for literature and have "Write a children's book" on my bucket list. In a bit of a book "lull" at the moment got half way through 'Ashling' by australian author Isobelle Carmody (book 3 of 9(?) she's still writing the last 2 I believe). Was originally on 'Virtual Bookshelf' on facebook and was told to move here before it shut down.

Welcome to Book-Loving Kiwis, Catherine! I hope you achieve your goal of writing a children's book one day. There are plenty of authors in this group if you have questions. Check out our polls for December group reads. You might find something that takes your fancy to dig you out of that book lull. Enjoy!

So sorry Melinda for not replying, I didn't see your comment. Yes, I would love to have a read and I'm sure Lucas would love it!

Hi Julie - email me at melinda@tale-spin.com and let me know if you would prefer the story emailed or a print-off posted. Cheers
Melinda

Thanks Melinda
I will!
Julie

Hello!

I've been a member a while but it's time I jumped right in! My name is Adam Christopher, and I'm a New Zealand author now based in the UK. My debut novel, Empire State, is coming out from Angry Robot in January 2012, and I have a second novel from AR - Seven Wonders - coming out in August the same year.

It's nice to meet a group of Kiwi book fans/readers/writers!

Wow, just looked up Empire State and it looks amazingly cool. Welcome, Adam!

Darkpool wrote: "Wow, just looked up Empire State and it looks amazingly cool. Welcome, Adam!"
Thanks!

Actually some sample chapters went online yesterday, if anyone wants a taster

'Cool' is definitely the word! Love that cover.

Welcome Adam. So great to have another NZ author on board!

Hi, I've just joined this site, still finding my way around. I've lived in Warkworth for the past 5 years, and in Auckland before that. I have had one book published - Family OE, a kiwi guide to travelling with children. I mostly like contemporary fiction, but I can't resist a great coffee table book with large format colour photographs. Some of my fave books of all time are Dirt Music by Tim Winton, Kerri Hulme's "The Bone People", and The Old Man and the Sea, Hemmingway.

Thanks for choosing to join this group, Karen. If you have any questions, just ask. Many of the members are authors and it is great to be able to read their books. Hopefully you can join in with some of our challenges. Vote on our polls for January too.

Hello Karen. I'm a Hemingway fan. I love the sparseness of his writing. Haven't read the Bone People yet, but after hearing so many good things about it, it's going on my list.