Showing posts with label Irish Banana Tours. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Irish Banana Tours. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

ORGANIZE YOUR WAY: Simple Strategies for Every Personality Type (Katie & Kelly McMenamin) + Giveaway!

I'm a bit of an organizing nut, so when Hannah of Irish Banana Tours asked for bloggers to help pimp a book on organizing by personality type, of course I had to share it with my readers! Check out the book below, along with the McMenamin sisters' Top 10 Pixie Tips, and enter to win a copy at the end!

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ABOUT THE BOOK

Organize Your Way: Simple Strategies for Every Personality
Title: Organize Your Way: Simple Strategies for Every Personality Type
Author: Katie & Kelly McMenamin
Pub. Date: March 14, 2017
Publisher: Sterling
Summary:

Stressing over the mess? Discover YOUR personal organizing style—and stay organized forever!

Organization isn’t one-size-fits-all. Different people need different solutions. Fortunately, Katie and Kelly McMenamin—the organizing gurus behind PixiesDidIt!®—have found the key to making organization stick, with strategies that work for every personality.


Whether you’re OCD or a little less fastidious, Katie and Kelly will help you discover your organizational style, using unconventional approaches or sticking to what already works. Along with personality-based solutions for every space in your home, they offer advice on solving strife between different “PixieTypes.” So you can keep the stuff you love . . . and the peace!



PURCHASE LINKS:

THE AUTHORS

Katie McMenamin and Kelly McMenamin are sisters, professional organizers, personality-type experts, and founders of PixieDidIt! Their business is an outgrowth of buttoned-up hedge fund analyst Kelly spending 30-odd years trying and failing to get her messy older sister Katie, a writer, to be more organized. Countless fights ensued until they had an idea: What if there is more than one way to organize? Today, they spend the bulk of their time organizing for clients, writing for their website, and giving talks on how to organize according to your personality type. Kelly lives in NYC with her husband and three sons and Katie lives in their hometown, the Land of Champions, aka Cleveland, OH, with her husband and three daughters.



TOP TEN PIXIE TIPS

1. Knowing who you are is the key to organization mainly because if you’re pretending to be someone else, it’s hard to remember where that pretend person put something!

2. Change is hard, so be honest about organizing tasks. People who never hang up their coats in a closet, probably never will; get a coat rack and call it a day.

3. Perfect isn’t real. Magazine perfection is styled by a professional whose job it is to make everything perfection for the millisecond it takes to snap a photo.

 4. No shame, no blame! You liking clear, spotless surfaces doesn’t make you OCD (it’s not a personality disorder), it’s your personality type.

 5. Later Box It. When you can’t part with a useless item, store it away in a box and revisit that box in a few months (a year), whatever you missed keep, whatever you forgot … dude, let it go.

 6. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Change is hard (see #2!) so if storing TP right next to the toilet works for you, do it, but for heaven’s sake try to make it look nice—unless you live alone on Antarctica then who cares.

 7. Organizing at its core is about retrieval. Period. Can you easily find and get things when you need them. Everything else is an argument about aesthetics.

 8. One-step solutions are golden. Hanging up your coat is a five-step process whereas popping it on a hook is one-step. Light bulb (at least it was for us!)

 9. Be loud & proud. So, you write important To Do’s on your hand in a pinch. Who cares? Don’t apologize, defend it and tell any scolds where they can go.

 10. There’s no best way to organize—just the best one for you!

What's your Pixie Type? Take the quiz here!

GIVEAWAY

a Rafflecopter giveaway
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Monday, January 30, 2017

BOOKBURNERS Excerpt Blitz



A secret black-ops team backed by the Vatican that hunts down dangerous books containing deadly magic? Welcome to BOOKBURNERS, a multi-author collaboration formerly serialized online by Serial Box now finally in print from Saga Press! Check out an excerpt below and then get yourself a copy today!


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An Excerpt from Bookburners Episode 1: Badge, Book, and Candle
He set his hand on the book’s cover. Sal hadn’t noticed before how the leather was discolored: most of it matched Perry’s skin, but a crimson bloom spread beneath his fingers. She heard a sound she couldn’t name: a footfall, maybe, or a whisper, very soft. Goose bumps chased goose bumps up her arms.
“Perry, who are the Bookburners? Do you think someone’s following you?”
“I thought you didn’t want to know.”
 She leaned over the couch, over his shoulder, and checked through the blinds. Street still bare. Red Toyota pickup. Honda Civic. Garbage. E-Z Carpet Cleaner van.
“Please, Sal. They would have nabbed me on the way. They did not. Ergo, I wasn’t followed.”
“What the hell is going on?”
Someone knocked on her door.
“Shit,” Perry said.
“Jesus Christ, Perry.” She grabbed her phone off the living room table. “Who is that?”
 “Aiden. Probably.”
 “Mister Brooks?” The man on the other side of the door was unquestionably not Aiden—too old, too sure, too calm. An accent Sal couldn’t place twined through his words. “Mister Brooks, we’re not here to hurt you. We want to talk.”
“Shit,” Perry repeated, for emphasis.
Sal ran to her bedroom and returned with her gun. “Who are you?”
“I’m looking for Mister Brooks. I know he’s in there.”
“If he is, I doubt he’d want to see you.”
“I must talk with him.”
“Sir, I’m a police officer, and I’m armed. Please step away from the door.”
“Has he opened the book?”
 “What?” She looked into the living room. Perry was standing now, holding the book, fingers clenched around the cover like she’d seen men at bay clutch the handles of knives. “Sir, please leave. I’m calling 9-1-1 now.” She pressed the autodial. The line clicked.
“Stop him from opening the book,” the man said. “Please. If he means anything to you, stop him.”
 “Hello. This is Detective Sally Brooks,” and she rattled off her badge number and address. “I have a man outside my apartment who is refusing to leave—”
Something heavy struck the door. Doorjamb timbers splintered. Sally stumbled back, dropped the phone, both hands on the pistol. She took aim.
The door burst free of the jamb and struck the wall. A human wind blew through.
Later, Sal remembered slivers: a stinging blow to her wrist, her gun knocked back against the wall. A woman’s face—Chinese, she thought. Bob haircut. Her knee slammed into Sal’s solar plexus and she fell, gasping, to the splinter-strewn carpet. The woman turned, in slow-motion almost, to the living room where Perry stood.
He held the open book.
His eyes wept tears of blood, and his smile bared sharp teeth.
He spoke a word that was too big for her mind. She heard the woman roar, and glass break. Then darkness closed around her like a mouth.
© 2017 Max Gladstone, with permission from Saga Press

THE BOOK

Title: Bookburners
Created By: Max Gladstone
Authors: Max Gladstone, Margaret Dunlap, Mur Lafferty, Brian Francis Slattery
Publisher: Saga Press
Pub. Date: January 10, 2017

The critically acclaimed urban fantasy about a secret team of agents that hunts down dangerous books containing deadly magic—previously released serially online by Serial Box, now available in print for the first time!

 Magic is real, and hungry. It’s trapped in ancient texts and artifacts, and only a few who discover it survive to fight back. Detective Sal Brooks is a survivor. She joins a Vatican-backed black-ops anti-magic squad—Team Three of the Societas Librorum Occultorum—and together they stand between humanity and the magical apocalypse. Some call them the Bookburners. They don’t like the label.

 Supernatural meets The Da Vinci Code in a fast-paced, kickass character driven novel chock-full of magic, mystery, and mayhem, written collaboratively by a team of some of the best writers working in fantasy.


PURCHASE LINKS:

THE AUTHORS

MAX GLADSTONE has been thrown from a horse in Mongolia, drank almond milk with monks on Wudang Shan, and wrecked a bicycle in Angkor Wat. Max is also the author of the Craft Sequence of books about undead gods and skeletal law wizards—Full Fathom Five, Three Parts Dead, Two Serpents Rise, and Last First Snow. Max fools everyone by actually writing novels in the coffee shops of Davis Square in Somerville, MA. His dreams are much nicer than you’d expect. He tweets as @maxgladstone. Bookburners, which he wrote with Margaret Dunlap, Mur Lafferty, and Brian Francis Slattery, is available from Saga Press in January.

Before joining the Bookburners, MARGARET DUNLAP wrote for ABC Family’s cult-hit The Middleman in addition to working on SyFy’s Eureka. Most recently, she was a writer and co-executive producer of the Emmy-winning transmedia series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and co-created its sequel Welcome to Sanditon. Her short fiction has previously appeared in Shimmer Magazine. Margaret lives in Los Angeles where she taunts the rest of the team with local weather reports and waits for the earthquake that will finally turn Burbank into oceanfront property. She tweets as @spyscribe. Bookburners, which she wrote with Max Gladstone, Mur Lafferty, and Brian Francis Slattery, is available from Saga Press in January.



MUR LAFFERTY is the author of The Shambling Guides series from Orbit, including the Netfix-optioned The Shambling Guide to New York City and Ghost Train to New Orleans. She has been a podcaster for over 10 years, running award-winning shows such as I Should Be Writing and novellas published via podcast. She has written for RPGs, video games, and short animation. She lives in Durham, NC where she attends Durham Bulls baseball games and regularly pets two dogs. Her family regrets her Dragon Age addiction and wishes for her to get help. She tweets as @mightymur. Bookburners, which she wrote with Max Gladstone, Margaret Dunlap, and Brian Francis Slattery, is available from Saga Press in January.

BRIAN FRANCIS SLATTERY is the author of Spaceman Blues, Liberation, Lost Everything, and The Family Hightower. Lost Everything won the Philip K. Dick Award in 2012. He’s the arts and culture editor for the New Haven Independent, an editor for the New Haven Review, and a freelance editor for a few not-so-secret public policy think tanks. He also plays music constantly with a few different groups in a bunch of different genres. He has settled with his family just outside of New Haven and admits that elevation above sea level was one of the factors he took into account. For one week out of every year, he enjoys living completely without electricity. Bookburners, which he wrote with Max Gladstone, Margaret Dunlap, and Mur Lafferty, is available from Saga Press in January.


Check out the BOOKBURNERS BOOK TOUR!

Week 1:

Week 2:

Week 3:

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Tuesday, January 12, 2016

ZERO DAY Blog Tour: Jan Gangsei's Research Top 10 + Giveaway


Welcome to my stop on the ZERO DAY Blog Tour, presented by Irish Banana Tours! Today author Jan Gangsei shares the Top 10 interesting facts she learned doing ZERO DAY research, all of which I found fascinating and I think you will too! At the end you can enter to win a finished hardcover of this thrilling YA read, and do be sure to check out the rest of the ZERO DAY Blog Tour!
THE BOOK

Zero Day

Title: Zero Day
Author: Jan Gangsei
Release Date: January 12, 2015
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Summary: 

 Eight years ago, Addie Webster was the victim of the most notorious kidnapping case of the decade. Addie vanished—and her high-profile parents were forced to move on.

Mark Webster is now president of the United States, fighting to keep the oval office after a tumultuous first term. Then, the unthinkable happens: the president’s daughter resurfaces. Addie is brought back into her family’s fold, but who is this sixteen-year-old girl with a quiet, burning intelligence now living in the White House? There are those in the president’s political circle who find her timely return suspicious.

When the NSA approaches Darrow Fergusson, Addie’s childhood best friend and the son of the president’s chief of staff, he doesn't know what to think. How could this slip of a girl be a threat to national security? But at the risk of having his own secrets exposed by the powerful government agency, Darrow agrees to spy on Addie.

It soon becomes apparent that Addie is much more than the traumatized victim of a sick political fringe group. Addie has come with a mission. Will she choose to complete it? And what will happen if she does?

THE AUTHOR
Jan Gangsei grew up in small-town Vermont, reading Nancy Drew mysteries, putting on backyard shows with her best friend and dreaming about exploring the world. After college, she landed a job as a newspaper reporter covering politics and the police beat, and was astonished to discover she could actually get paid to write and tell stories. Since then, she's lived in Key West, New York City, DC and Barbados. She's now settled with her family in northern Virginia, where she writes full time with a cup of hazelnut coffee in one hand and a Jack Russell terrier named Watson curled under her legs. Her debut young adult novel, ZERO DAY, publishes with Disney-Hyperion in January, 2016. 

 Some random facts about Jan:

* Soon after she learned to walk she was stuck on a pair of skis (Vermont law), which she promptly removed and watched as they slid down the mountain solo -- likely explaining her future love of physics (and staying safely in the lodge).

* She's a graduate of the DIA's attache program for spouses, where she learned how to properly set a table, wear an evening gown, and disable an attacker with a few well-placed kicks. She suggests you don't ever sneak up on her in a dark alley, especially if she's wearing heels.

* She has tons of favorite authors, but some of her biggest influences growing up include: Judy Blume, Margaret Atwood, Edith Wharton and Kurt Vonnegut. (Also, whoever wrote the copy for the back of her Cheerios box, which she's pretty sure she'd memorized by third grade.)

* She loves meeting new people, and interacting with other readers and writers. Drop her a note and say hello here or on Twitter!
TOP 10
Interesting Facts Jan Gangsei Learned Doing ZERO DAY Research
Ooh, what a great topic! DC is my city, so I’m quite familiar with a lot of the settings in the story (and went on several field trips to make sure I had things right!). But along the way, I learned a number of things I didn’t know. So here they are, in no particular order!

1. It’s actually possible to hack a newer model car’s operating system and, in theory, take control of it. Scary, huh? (Makes me glad to drive a very basic FIAT that I actually have to use a real key to start…)

2. Secret Service code names date back to when electronic communications weren’t encrypted; now they are used more out of tradition than necessity. Generally, the First Family’s names all start with the same letter.

3. Speaking of letters, DC’s streets go from A-W, but there’s no J Street (something I never noticed until I started routing a fictional motorcade through town!). Legend has it the “J” was excluded because DC designer Pierre L’Enfant harbored a deep hatred for Chief Justice John Jay. But no, it was simply because typography hadn’t been standardized yet, and J’s and I’s were often used interchangeably. (I personally think the fictional version is more interesting!)

4. You can also hack into all sorts of medical devices—pacemakers, insulin pumps—just by using a Bluetooth connection, and in theory kill someone with them. (h/t to my doctor brother and his cardiologist best friend for alerting me to this. Also, note to self: BE NICE to doctor brother and cardiologist best friend… ;)

5. If Darrow attended Sidwell Friends (the private Quaker school that serves as the inspiration for Cabot), he’d have to find somewhere else to flex his biceps because there’s no boys crew team at Sidwell, just girls.

6. While living in the White House, the First Family picks up the tab for their own food, toiletries, personal dry cleaning, etc. (the government obviously foots the bill for official functions). Every month, the family is presented with a bill for household expenses (something that has occasionally come as a shock to new White House residents – First Lady Rosalynn Carter was said to be quite put off when she got her first bill and saw how much more expensive DC prices were than back home in Georgia!).

7. The Secret Service has never had a traitor in their ranks—the NSA, CIA and FBI have all been infiltrated by foreign spies, but no member of the protective service has ever been corrupted by an outside government. (One more reason Agent Alvarez rocks!)

8. The White House’s quarter-mile jogging track where Addie runs was installed back in 1993 for then-President Bill Clinton because his frequent off-premise jogs were disrupting DC traffic (as if the constant motorcades and blocked roads around here aren’t enough!).

9. There are rumored to be numerous safe houses scattered around northern Virginia, hidden in plain sight. You really never can tell who your neighbors are around here—as one family discovered when they put their lakefront home “Alvictus” up for sale in 2014. A little digging by their realtor unearthed that the Manassas estate was once a CIA-run safe house, used to hide away Russian defectors during the Cold War. Hopefully hidden cameras and bugs didn’t convey with the washer and dryer…

10. The NSA has already set their sights on the next generation of cryptographers and cyber sleuths – aspiring codemakers (and breakers!) can join the NSA’s CryptoKids program here: https://www.nsa.gov/kids/.

And that’s it! This has been a lot of fun, Skye! Thanks for having me and hope you enjoy ZERO DAY!

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 THE GIVEAWAY
Zero Day

 Enter below for chance to win one of three finished hardcovers of ZERO DAY! US only.

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