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Jun 4, 2012

Armchair BEA~ Introductions First ~ Day 1

It's Day One of the Getting to the other Bloggers participating in Armchair BEA.. and I welcome newcomers to my home on the web!

Instead of interviews this year, we answer a few questions about us with a networking blog hop.

Pasted from the main site:
"All we ask is that you answer five of them and spend the rest of the time meeting others. After all, getting to know one another is the most important part of this process! Here are the possible questions:
  1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?
  2. What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2012?
  3. Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you.
  4. What is your favorite feature on your blog (i.e. author interviews, memes, something specific to your blog)?
  5. Where do you see your blog in five years?
  6. Which is your favorite post that you have written that you want everyone to read?
  7. If you could eat dinner with any author or character, who would it be and why?
  8. What literary location would you most like to visit? Why?
  9. What is your favorite part about the book blogging community? Is there anything that you would like to see change in the coming years?
  10. Have your reading tastes changed since you started blogging? How?"
1.  ABOUT ME
Hello! I'm married with two kiddos and I work full-time. In my precious spare time I love to read, of course! I read historical fiction and it's sub-genres such as Christian Historical Fiction. I review for the Historical Novel Society but my main goal is to get caught up with review books so that I can read some of the books I've collected over the past almost four years of blogging/reviewing.

2. FAVE BOOK OF 2012
I have read some fabulous books so far! Sneak peeks of my Best of 2012 list would include The Maid of Fairbourne Hall by Julie Klassen (upstairs/downstairs/Austen-feel) and Where Lilacs Still Bloom by Jane Kirkpatrick (an unexpected fabulous story of a woman, family, faith, and flowers). A surprise favorite would be Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein.

5. BLOG IN 5 YEARS?
At the currrent pace, I would guess that my blog in five years would be linked to about 500 of my historical book reviews!! I have about 198 right now, a master list of them linked to the reviews can be found here. I would still see myself still reading primarily historical fiction, but perhaps with a bit more Christian Historical than what I started with. I have wanted to branch out of England a bit and read more French Revolution and American Revolution reads, we'll see if I can make that happen.

8. LITERARY LOCATION
I read a lot of historical fiction set in England. The Wars of the Roses with the Plantagenets who came before Henry VIII (The Tudors) are one of my favorite topics, as well as the Medieval Era. I would love to go on a literary tour that followed along some of the important families of British history, such as the Nevilles, the Beauforts and Montforts; and of course Henry II and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine. A summer abroad researching all these families sounds like heaven.

9. FAVE PART OF BLOGGING & CHANGES
I love how bloggers are not afraid of speaking their opinions, and they do it in the nicest of ways! (Most of them, anyway, I'll ignore the trolls for now). The community of bloggers is vast among the different genres, and I love taking a peek inside some of the young adult reviewers' communities because they have so much enthusiasm. There are so many bloggers out there, and I cannot keep up as much as I would like to since I have limited free time. It is so different than what it was four years ago, though, with the ease of creating blogs there are quite a few book bloggers now.
And now with Twitter and Facebook, it is so much easier to connect with author and publishers, in ways that I never thought possible.

Another fave part of blogging are the guest posts or interviews that I get to do with favorite authors. Those are a lot of fun to do when it is about a historical topic that I am passionate about.

As far as changes go, I would love to see more book conferences being held closer to Dallas, TX. I'm sure there are other bloggers who live in places where bookish events do not normally reach them, and they would agree that more bookish events held locally would be awesome.

I would like to see publishers making the effort to reach their readers with conferences other than New York or California. How about somewhere in the middle?! As far as BEA, why is it always New York? I understand the publishers' corporate offices are located there, but it seems every now and then they can spread the love.

And I'll be spreading the love tomorrow, with book giveaways! Be sure to stop back in to enter, the giveaways are located here! I will be following along my fellow Armchair BEA bloggers, so I will see you on the web!


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