Launch month is drawing to a close, but there’s still a few days left to get a freebie – check out our posts 01.05.10 and 07.05.10 if you want to know more. Our review panel will shortly be forming, and we already have The Mile Long Bookshelf’s Amber on board, who has sent us this review:

Swapped By A Kiss – Luisa Plaja

I wish I wasn’t myself anymore. I wish I was her.I wish I was Jo. Rachel hates her life. When her on/off boyfriend David goes to a music festival she decides to surprise him – but she gets a shock of her own. Not only does she find David kissing someone else, but it’s their friend Jo! Super-lovely, super-loved, all-round-perfect Jo. Rachel runs away, wishing she could leave her life behind – and she suddenly finds herself in Jo’s body! Can she keep this swap a secret? Can she unravel what’s really going on? Can she get to grips with Jo’s out-of-control curly hair? And if she discovers that being in someone else’s shoes isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, can she ever be herself again? I was very excited when – after reading Split By a Kiss – I was told that there would be another book in the series – Swapped By a Kiss! And I was right to be excited, because I think that this is Luisa’s best book yet.

The cover is brilliant. The cover actually pretty much sums up the story which I think is good, and as I said in one of my past reviews – you can’t go wrong with a purple, shiny cover! I also like the way that all Luisa’s book covers are similar; you can always tell it’s one of her books without having to look for her name on it. The illustrator is Louise Wilkinson, and I have to say – she has done a very good job!

I loved this novel, it’s amazingly fanbrillitastic! My rating for this book? 5/5 – definitely!

Luisa Plaja has written two other novels as well. ‘Extreme Kissing’ which is a book about two best friends who go Extreme Travelling together in London, but with an unexpected secret twist. It can be read alone and isn’t part of a series. ‘Split By a Kiss’ is the first book in the Kiss series, and I think you should read that before reading ‘Swapped By A Kiss.’ Luckily Luisa is writing another book at the moment, which isn’t part of a series. I can’t wait for it to come out!

Thanks, Amber! Remember, you can win this book as part of our freebie month, too.

The Moonstone Legacy’s blog tour has now begun. As we mentioned, it will be coming to Bookbabblers 16th June, where we’ll feature our review and put your questions to the authors. Want to get a question asked? Just post it in our ‘over to you’ forum section or on our Facebook discussion wall and we’ll get it over to them. Perhaps visit the other stops on the tour, get a feel for what they’re doing and what the book’s about, and questions are bound to pop into your heads! The tour is as follows:

25th May – Alma Bloggerel

27th May – Lizzy’s Literary Life

31st May – MarjoleinBookBlog

1st June – Pretty Little YA Books

3rd June – Writing From The Tub

5th June – J’Adore

7th June – The Truth About Lies

8th June – Once Upon A Bookcase

10th June – Narratively Speaking

11th June – So Many Books, So Little Time

14th June – Magic Bean Review

15th June – Nayu’s Reading Corner

16th June – Bookbabblers!!

17th June – Book Reviews by Sarah

And finally, with June just around the corner, thought we’d give you a heads up on what we’ll be reading for the month. It’ll be Michael Morpurgo’s ‘The Butterfly Lion’, Eva Ibbotson’s ‘The Dragonfly Pool’ and ‘The Star Shack’ by Lila Castle. We’ll bring you more information on all three in our next post, and we’ve added them to our shop now.

Happy reading!

OK, it’s the post we’re very excited about sharing with you! The time has come to get the word out that we’re here. We have ‘subscribe to our blog’ options, a Facebook page, we’re on Twitter, and this month we have plans to tell the world about Bookbabblers, so this is where the fun begins.

To celebrate our launch and to thank you for joining in nice and early, we have lots of freebies for you! We have:

5 signed copies of Jane Airhead – Kay Woodward

A bit about it – ‘What’s not to love about Jane Eyre? Gothic and passionate, it features the ultimate male hero – Mr Rochester. And that gives Charlotte a top idea: she’ll look for a new Mr Rochester for her lovely mum. So when Charlotte finds the ideal man, she can’t believe her luck. He’s dark, brooding and mysterious. He’s PERFECT. But the real-life romantic hero also turns out to be sarcastic and rude. Does Charlotte really want her mum marrying him? Perhaps it would have been better if Mr Rochester had stayed between the covers of Charlotte’s favourite novel…?’

5 copies of Castle of Shadows – Ellen Renner

A bit about it – ‘”No clue about why the Queen vanished had ever been found. Until now…”

The day Charlie discovers a scrap of paper that could solve the dark mystery of her mother’s disappearance, her world changes. Forever.
Charlie and her friend, Toby, must race against time on a dangerous mission to uncover the sinister truth. But in this shadowy world of secrets and lies, there is more to fear than they can possibly imagine…’

2 Sets of Split by a Kiss & Swapped by a Kiss – Luisa Plaja

Split by a Kiss

It’s the story of a British girl who goes to live in the USA for a year and faces some big challenges and choices, mostly to do with snogging a certain ultra-hot boy. After the kiss, she splits into two girls and goes down two paths at the same time. On one path she is in with the coolest of the cool, and on the other she… isn’t.
Does either route lead to happiness? And how will she ever be herself again?

Swapped By a Kiss

When Rachel’s on/off boyfriend goes to a music festival in England, she jumps on a plane to surprise him. But when she gets there, she sees him kissing someone else – their friend Jo. Super-lovely, super-loved, all-round-perfect Jo. Rachel runs away, wishing she could leave her life behind – and she suddenly finds herself in Jo’s body! Can she keep this swap a secret? Can she unravel what’s really going on? Can she get to grips with Jo’s out-of-control curly hair? And if she discovers that being in someone else’s shoes isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, can she ever be herself again?

As well as a chance to win these books, we’ve also arranged for three lucky members to put their questions to Kay, Ellen and Luisa. We’ll then post the Q&A in our blogs for you all to read. So this is a chance for budding writers or just those who love reading to get some answers! Thanks, Kay, Luisa and Ellen! In the meantime, for more information, visit www.ellenrenner.com, www.luisaplaja.com and www.kaywoodward.co.uk

And there’s more!!

Just out, we have 1 signed set of Keith Brumpton’s Dino FC titles – ‘Terror on the Training Ground’ and ‘The Missing Fans’, and an unsigned set, too!

Terror on the Training Ground - Dino FC- the craziest team in the Jurassic world! It’s crunch time for Dino FC. Their results have been rubbish this season, and relegation is staring them in the face like a big hungry tyrannosaurus. So their chairman decides to bring in a tough new trainer to lick the team into shape. Can they beat the flab and avoid the drop? Life as a Dino FC player is about to get a whole lot tougher…

The Missing Fans - Dino FC’s manager, Terry Triceratops, wants to buy a sizzling young striker to help catapult the team to the top of the Dinosaur Premier League. But they’ve been doing so badly that their fans have deserted them and the club’s strapped for cash. Terry’s got great plans to attract new supporters… if only the rest of the players could remember his instructions!

You can follow Dino FC Manager, Terry Triceratops, on twitter now to see what the team are getting up to.

5 copies of The Dresskeeper – Mary Naylus

A bit about it, from the author’s blog – When teenager Picky Robinson dons an old frock found in an ancient chest in her Gran’s attic, she embarks on a time-travelling journey of a lifetime, which takes her to 17th century London where she confronts the devilish plans of a ruthless murderer.

Visit Mary Naylus’ blog to find out more and get an insight into her new book coming soon, The Plaguemaker.

3 sets of The Littlest Detective in London and The Littlest Detective in Paris – Suzy Brownlee

The Littlest Detective in London - The Littlest Detective in London follows Clementine Cordelia Bird’s mission to locate her missing mother. At the same time, a wealthy crime princess from fictitious Slakistan – the evil, designer-clad teenager Natasha Commonov – attempts to free her father from prison. Somehow, the two become inextricably linked – Natasha knows something about Clemmy’s mother but refuses to say. And Clemmy manages, often accidentally, to thwart Natasha’s nasty plans. Other characters include the food-loving retired spy, Mrs Mackleberry, a paper-folding Japanese policeman, Origami Pete, and a rather unfortunate creature called Ratcat.

The Littlest Detective in Paris - (not even out until the end of May!) The second in the “Littlest Detective” series, this new title finds Clemmy, Mrs Mac and the evil Natasha Commonov back together, this time in Paris. As Clemmy continues the search for her missing mother with the help of Freddy La Fromage, Natasha plots to break her father out of a Paris jail, Mrs Mac overindulges in pastries once again, and Hench is outsmarted by practically everyone in Paris. Meanwhile, Origami Pete is running out of time in London, for back in Tokyo, the most annoying person on the planet, Eunice Yuko, is ready to marry him, and Knock The Henchman, Hench’s brother, accidentally frightens one of the retired spies to death. Or does he?

Whew! – Enough freebies for you?? How do you get your hands on these goodies? We want to make it as easy as possible to thank you for joining in, so it’s as simple as this:

For every person that registers on the site and joins us (it’s totally free!) they will get an entry into the draw. We then want to thank people for their contributions in getting this group going, so if you submit a review to us that we feature, you get another entry (this is limitless – 5 good reviews to us, 5 more entries for you). For every genuine forum post you get another entry – again limitless, but the posts must be relevant and not pointless or spam, otherwise they won’t count. So what we’re saying is the more you put into the group, the more we want to thank you, so the more chances you have of winning stuff!! Why are you still reading this?? Get registering, posting in the forum and emailing your reviews!!!

The draw for all prizes will take place at the end of May, and we’ll then email winners (UK based only!). You’ll be notified that you’re a winner and we’ll ask you what prize you want, and this will be a first come, first served basis – we’re hoping you don’t all want the very same prize!! If you’re under 16, just tell us that when we email and we’ll just need your parents/guardians email address to confirm your prize and where to send it to. We’ll let everyone know the winners on this blog as soon as they’ve been drawn, and following shortly after that you’ll get to see the Q&A’s with Kay, Ellen and Luisa.

Do keep checking back, as we plan to have a few more offers coming your way this month…

May is all about us growing and starting to babble together. Now, we set ourselves a target just last week of doubling our Twitter followers to 40 by the end of May – we’re very excited to say we’ve already done it!! So our new targets? We still want to double it, so 80 twitter followers by the end of May it is! We’d also love to get a few of you ‘liking’ our FB page and we’d love to have 30 Bookbabblers by the end of the month, with a few of you enjoying our ‘book of the month’ reads with us and chatting away in the forum. It’s all very ambitious we know, but we’ve always been the sunny optimist types so come with us and help us achieve it – join, tell your friends and babble!!!