I made a video.

I did a video chat with spoilers from the Soul Screamers series. It’s 70 minutes long. You can watch it here.

 

So many winners!

I have to say, I am stunned by the entries in the Soul Screamers relationship flowchart contest. You guys went above and beyond! I love them all! Which is why I’m giving multiple prizes.

(Note: I had technical difficulties with 3 of the entries, and if I’m able to add them to this post later, I will, so you might want to check back for the full list.)

I think you can click on these images to see larger versions, but please be aware that if you haven’t read the whole series yet, you may find spoilers from If I Die and/or Before I Wake. If you have read the whole series, I highly recommend looking at the larger versions, because they have some awesome details!

Katy (above) wins for the Clearest Digital Flowchart, for her ease of readability!

Kat (above) wins for Largest Flowchart! Wow!

Lisa R. (above) wins for Best Original Art! (These drawings are dead-on, even the clothes! Also, I love her Hellion Removal Device!)

Lisa H. (above) wins for Most Detailed Hand-drawn Flowchart!

Joanne Stapley (above) wins for Most Detailed Digital Flowchart! (Holy cow, look at all those relationship details!)

Debbie (above) wins for Simplest Flowchart! (I love her symbols!)

And the grand prize winner, because I simply can’t stop looking at these gorgeous, detailed, visually stunning charts, is Veronica! Veronica did two charts, one for the relationships as they stand at the end of If I Die, and one as they stand at the end of Before I Wake. I love the traditional bean sidhe in the middle, as well as the integration of the cover art itself. And her key is simple and clear, yet allows for details (the two-tone hearts and circles). And she included the dogs!!!

Veronica, you’ve won a complete set of signed, personalized Soul Screamers books, Vol 1- Before I Wake.

Debbie, Joanne, Lisa, Lisa, Kat, and Katy, you’ve won one Rachel Vincent book of your choice (any US edition other than My Soul To Take (which I’m out of) or anything from the prize book list.

Winners, please email me at Admin1ATrachelvincentDOTcom with your shipping information and your choice of prize, where applicable.

Thanks so much to everyone who entered! And if you like the charts above, feel free to tell their creators in the comments!

If I Die spoiler chat (+ new contest!)

I have a fun new contest to announce, but first, there’s this!

The final Soul Screamers Reading Challenge spoiler chat will be this Sunday, June 24, at 3 pm Eastern/12 pm (noon) pacific. Those of you in other time zones, fire up your timezone calculators so you don’t miss this one. We’ll be discussing the first five books of the Soul Screamers series and all 3 novellas/2 short stories, and you can ask me anything about the series (except for BIW spoilers).

Thanks so much to Fiktshun, who put the SSRC together all on her own. I know it was a ton of work and took up a ton of her time, and I can’t even express how much all of that means to me. She is truly beyond awesome!

There will be one final spoiler chat (not officially part of the SSRC) next month, when people have had a chance to read Before I Wake, so be on the lookout for that in mid-July.

—–

Now for the new contest!

Today’s stop on the Before I Wake blog tour is a crazy little stream-of-consciousness post I wrote about the tangled up relationships in the Soul Screamers series, and how I like the complexity of the character connections. But by the end of the post, I realized I really wanted to add a fun graphic for clarity. A graphic that doesn’t exist. So, of course, my next thought went something like, “How can I con my readers into creating that graphic for me?” Which led me to the idea for this contest.

The graphic I wanted but didn’t have is a Soul Screamers relationship flow chart.

I happen to lack both artistic ability and graphic manipulation skills, but I know that many, many of my readers are gifted in this area. And even those who aren’t should be able to do something fun with this contest.

[Not familiar with flow charts? Do a search for "relationship flow chart" images and look around. There are tons of great examples, which I can't post here, because I don't have permission to use the images.]

Contest details:

What’s up for grabs? A complete (so far) set of signed, personalized Soul Screamers novels (US editions, Omnibus vol 1 through Before I Wake).

How can I enter? Create a Soul Screamers relationship flow chart illustrating the relationships between the central characters.

• The chart must include Kaylee, Tod, Nash, and Sabine, at a minimum, but can also include Emma, Sophie, Aiden, Brendon, Harmony, and as many of the others as you’d like.
• Your chart can be current through the events in either If I Die or Before I Wake (because we know not everyone will have a copy of BIW yet), but please label your chart accordingly, because relationships DO change a little between the two books.
• Your chart can include images or original illustrations for the characters, or simple descriptions, or both.
• Your chart can be hand-drawn or created on your computer.

How can I submit my entry? Email your image as an attachment to [EDITED with correct address]: admin1ATrachelvincentDOTcom, with the subject line “SS relationship flow chart.”

How will the winner be chosen? If there are more than ten entries, No. 1 and I will pick our top five favorites and will post them here for an open vote. If there are ten or fewer entries, we will pick our favorite and post it here as the winner.

The legalities:

• Entries must be received by [EDITED with new deadline] 11:59 pm central on Sunday, July, 1
• There are no geographical restrictions (if UPS will ship to you, you may enter)
• There are no age restrictions, but those under 18 must have a parent/guardian’s permission to enter and to provide a shipping address if you win
• Feel free to let your own personality shine through, but all entries must be G-rated (no adult-only content or profanity)
• Please allow two weeks for shipping within the continental US and four weeks for shipping outside the continental US
• This contest is void where prohibited

Questions? Leave them in the comments, and I’ll update this post as necessary. Feel free to check back for updates and to spread the word about this contest.

Live Chat!

As promised, this Saturday will be the My Soul To Keep spoiler live chat! And yes, you may discuss Nash and his issues (within the context of this one book)! Feel free to post the graphic below, which has the details. The link to the chatroom will go live here on my blog 30 minutes early and you’re welcome to come hang while I get everything ready. Don’t panic if you can’t post immediately, because I have to give you a “voice” first. But that doesn’t take long.

And, if you haven’t already seen it, don’t forget to enter the Before I Wake contest found here. But please read the entire entry for the details first.

In other news, I’m hard at work writing the synopsis for WITH ALL MY SOUL, the seventh and final Soul Screamers novel, which should be out in the spring of 2013 in the US. There’s a LOT going on in this final book, and I’m pretty emotional about bringing everything to a close. But I’m determined to do it right. There will be a happy ending (at least for some characters) and all the loose threads will be tied. You have my word.

Win an early copy of BEFORE I WAKE!

I know, I’m terribly behind on all kinds of promo and blog posting stuff, and I still haven’t contacted the winner of the Shadow Bound giveaway. I’m sorry. I have some family/personal stuff going on (including a visit from my sister tonight!!!).

But, I’m popping into announce the first Before I Wake contest. If you’re reading this on my WordPress blog, notice that I’ve made the new contest a page of its own, which will stay up until the contest closes. Just scroll up to the top and click the “BIW Contest” link.

If you’re reading this anywhere else, click here for the contest announcement and rules.

If you have any questions about the contest, please leave them here (the WordPress version of this post) rather than in the contest post itself, which will be reserved for entries. But please do not ask questions that are already answered in the contest post.

Thanks!

And good luck!

If I Die interviews (+ winner)

Before I get to this week’s winners, I want to mention a couple of things. First of all, this is the last week of the first month of the Soul Screamers reading challenge. That means that if you’re participating in Fiktshun’s challenge, you should be almost done reading (or re-reading) My Soul To Take.

If you haven’t joined yet, it’s not too late. Actually, it won’t be too late, until the whole thing’s over. You can join any time. Fiktshun has a couple of interesting prizes to announce soon, and sometime next week (I think) we’ll be holding the My Soul To Take spoiler livechat, where you can discuss/argue/ask me anything about the first book in the series.

Second, today is day seven of the UK If I Die blog tour, and I’ve listed all of the stops so far below, for your convenience. Some stops have reviews, some have interviews, most have both. Some also have giveaways. And don’t forget that next month we’ll be posting the back cover description of Before I Wake!

Here are the blog tour stops so far:

• Book Passion For Life
• Bookaholic’s Book Club
• Bookbabblers
• Girls Without a Bookshelf
• Endlessly Bookish
• I Want To Read That (This one has great questions about how far in advance I planned the events in If I Die)
• Dead Book Darling (This one also has a couple of great Qs about Nash, and what you can expect in Before I Wake)

And…now for this week’s randomly drawn winner:

Erin (@parnormbooknook), who wrote, “My favorite genre is YA paranormal romance. Thanks for the giveaway!”

Erin, please email me (rachelkvincentATgmailDOTcom) with your choice of prizes from the prize list, and I’ll put your books in the mail.

Everyone else, check back next week for the next giveaway and for chapter 2 of Shadow Bound!

UK Blog Tour! (+ giveaway)

So. It looks like I’m going to be doing a blog tour for the UK release of If I Die! (Feb 3, 2012) See?

I’ve answered about half of the questions, and I’m pleased to say that several of them gave me a great excuse to talk about things I haven’t discussed much. I ALWAYS love talking about the characters. And I’m truly excited about this release, because (aside from the obvious), once the UK readers have had a chance to read the book, I can post the back cover synopsis for Before I Wake  (which contains two very big spoilers from If I Die).

Anyway, even if you’re not in the UK, be sure to follow the tour, because I’ve answered some questions for this tour that I don’t think I’ve been asked before.

—–

If you didn’t see this last week, I’ve made a fun little Soul Screamers quiz. I didn’t have any luck getting the widget to post, but you can click here to take the quiz!

—–

Now, the part you’ve probably been waiting for. To enter this week’s International Edition Giveaway, leave me comment in the post telling me whether or not you’ve ever imported a book from another country, because it wasn’t available in yours. If so, what was the most recent book you imported?

The list of available prize books is here, but please don’t leave your entry in that post. That is a static page, which will be updated as books are chosen or donated to libraries.

The rules:

• One entry per person
• This contest is open to international entries
• This contest is void where prohibited
• If you’re under 18 yrs of age, you must have a parent’s permission to enter and to provide your shipping information if you win
• Please allow 2-4 weeks for shipping
• You must come back to this blog on Friday to see if you’ve won and claim your prize
• Prizes not claimed within two weeks will be awarded to a redrawn winner’s name

Okay…go!

Match the Netherworld pets to their owners!

[Scroll down to the next entry if you haven't seen this week's winner!]

I felt like having a little fun this afternoon, so I created a totally unfair Soul Screamers quiz. I’m not having any luck getting the quiz widget to post, but you should be able to take this link to access the quiz. Let me know your score!

 

Ready…set…read!

Soul Screamers Reading Challenge starts today, and Fiktshu has posted the first month’s details here! I’m excited! To my knowledge, no one’s ever created a reading challenge for one of my series before, and I’m thrilled to be following along, giving stuff away, and hosting spoiler chats every month of the challenge for the Soul Screamers book of that month.

The reading challenge is Rachel C.’s (Fiktshun) brain child, and she’s really set up a fantastic list of prizes. Click here for details, and to sign up if you haven’t already.

In case you’ve been thinking about it, but haven’t yet decided, here are some answers to a few of the most common Qs about the challenge:

• You don’t have to be a first-time Soul Screamers reader to enter–rereads are fine.
• You don’t have to have a blog or a FB page to participate. Fiktshun has started a blog just for this challenge and those who have nowhere to post a review/opinion can post as guests there.
• You don’t have to read all of the books to participate. Read as many or as few Soul Screamers books/novellas as you’re able.

I’ve heard that there’s also a Goodreads group for this challenge, and that one’s not hosted by either me or Fiktshun, however, you’re more than welcome to join that group or any other to meet fellow participants and discuss the books, the challenge, or…the color of the sky at dawn. Whatever. All are welcome.

I’ll also be posting a thread in my discussion group for any  members who would like to discuss the challenge/books there.

So…happy reading!!!

Challenge!

I’m buried in copy edits for Before I Wake, but I’m taking a short break to show you this:

Rachel Clarke (Fiktshun) is hosting a truly awesome Soul Screamers reading challenge, scheduled to wrap up just as Before I Wake is released. So if you’ve been meaning to read the series, or you’d like to re-read the series (all, or any part of it), or if you’ve been trying to get a friend to read it with you, you have to check this out. You can see the challenge post for details, but here are the basics: you read (or reread) one Soul Screamers book per month, then post your review or opinion wherever you post things (You don’t need a blog. FB is fine.) to be entered to win prizes. There are bonus points for reading the online novellas.

There are a ton of prizes (some from me, some from Fiktshun), and I’m so excited about this challenge that at the end of each month, I’ll be hosting a spoiler live chat where we can talk spoilers from that month’s book without fear of spoiling the book for anyone. Then, at the end, we’ll all read book six, Before I Wake, together and discuss that one too.

I’ll be keeping up with the challenge, and I hope to see you there!