Feature and Follow Friday #198

Welcome to the Feature & Follow

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Gain new followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! If this is your first time here, welcome! You are about to make some new friends and gain new followers -- but you have to know -- the point of this hop is to follow other bloggers also. I follow you, you follow me.

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it'll allow us to show off more new blogs!

How does this work? First you leave your name here on this post, (using the linky tools -- keep scrolling!) then you create a post on your own blog that links back to this post (easiest way is to just grab the code under the #FF picture and put it in your post) and then you visit as many blogs as you can and tell them "hi" in their comments (on the post that has the #FF image). You follow them, they follow you. Win. Win. Just make sure to follow back if someone follows you!

What sets this Hop apart from others, is our Feature. Each week we will showcase a Featured Blogger, from all different genres and areas. Who is our Feature today? Find out below. Just remember it is required, if you participate, to follow our Features and you must follow the hosts (Parajunkee & Alison Can Read) as a courtesy. How do you follow someone? Well, if you have a preference, state it in your #FF post. A lot of blogs are transitioning to Wordpress in which they do not have the luxury of GFC, so an RSS subscription is appreciated or if you choose an email subscription. If you don't have GFC please state in your post how you would like to be followed.

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How To Become a Featured Blog?

We pick our featured blogs randomly each week from the blogs who participated the week before.

Please be sure to feature your e-mail address clearly on your blog. Either on the main blog, on a Contact page, or on an About Me page. If I can't find your email easily, I will choose a different blog to feature.

Our Feature - Literary Escapism

1. When did you start blogging?

A couple of friends introduced me to blogging in 2005 by getting me to review for them. Since I had just discovered the urban fantasy genre, I was all about talking about GUILTY PLEASURES by Laurell K Hamilton, DARK LOVER by JR Ward, DEAD WITCH WALKING by Kim Harrison and all the other gems I kept finding.

When they decided to go on break, I kept posting reviews on my own blog and eventually turned it into Literary Escapism. By this point, my son was 10 months old and it was helping me keep my sanity. After moving to a new city while 8 months pregnant, not having a car since the hubby took it to work, and being in an apartment with absolutely nothing around, finding the book blogging community and everyone associated with it was so what I needed. It gave me an outlet to continue discussing books and some much needed social interaction. While I've been experiencing a little of the burnout a lot of bloggers get once they hit 5+ years (or so it seems), I've been trying to push through it since I've missed that aspect of blogging.

2. What is your favorite part of book blogging?

The connections I've made with authors, other bloggers, and readers in general. I love going to author signings and conventions, knowing I can just walk up to anyone and start talking about the latest release from any number of authors. I love being able to jump on Twitter or Facebook and find someone who has read what I just did and wants to talk about it. I have very few friends who love urban fantasy and paranormal romance as much as I do - I fully admit I'm way more geeky than I ever thought I was - and I've noticed that I don't have the excitement I once did. I get so inspired after getting together with other readers.

3. What type of books do you mainly blog about?

I'm an urban fantasy and paranormal junkee. While I'll read romance, I have a hard time reviewing it since I've been reading it since I was 13 (or that's what I'll admit to), and in twenty years, it's hard to find anything really original. I need something to spice the story up, so I look to fantasy to do that. While romance has a lot of stereotypical tropes, you throw a supernatural or fantasy element in there and it's a whole new ballgame. Of course, this is my opinion, so if there is a romance out there that seems to deviate, please let me know. I'm always looking for something new and excited.

But I should also mention that while I focus on urban fantasy and paranormal romance, I'm not the only one blogging at LE either. There are five others - Nicole, Casey, Nikki, Natassia, and Courtney - and between all of us we tend to cover quite a bit of the genre spectrum. Nicole has really been into contemporary romance of late; Casey seems to be on a paranormal kick, but I never know with her some times; Natassia is our fantasy and science fiction guru; and Nikki and Courtney have been in a slump. They're needing something new too. *grin*

4. What are your favorite books?

Seriously? A favorite book? Adding the "s" doesn't change the fact that asking a book blogger that question is like opening a can of worms. There's a better analogy there, I'm sure, but it's late and I'm winging this. *grin*

As of right now, some of my favorite books are: the Hollows series by Kim Harrison (why oh why must she end it?!); the Psy-Changeling series by Nalini Singh (the books just keep getting better and better); I'm really excited about the new Merry Gentry book, A SHIVER OF LIGHT, by Laurell K. Hamilton; and I'm eagerly awaiting Ilona Andrew's next Kate Daniels book, MAGIC BREAKS (especially after how MAGIC RISES ended). If you want to know all of my favorite books, then I would say to click here: http://www.literaryescapism.com/33740/what-jackie-would-recommend-v3-0. In fact, you can find what all of us at LE consider our favorites here (http://www.literaryescapism.com/category/features/le-recommends).

5. What has been the best thing that has happened to you because of book blogging?

The best thing that has happened to me? I honestly don't know if I could pinpoint one thing. I've met some amazing authors through Literary Escapism that I probably wouldn't have met just by reading their books. Not to mention the numerous bloggers, readers, and publicists I've had the immense pleasure of meeting. I probably never would have been to a single book convention either - I didn't know about them before I started blogging. In the 7 years LE has been live, I've been lucky enough to attend RT Booklovers twice (I was even on a panel at RT12 in Chicago), this will be my fourth year attending Lori Foster's Annual Reader Author Get Together (and I'm heading up a blogger track, the first for RAGT), and I made it to Authors After Dark last year in Savannah. I think the best thing that has happened to me is it gave me a direction that I was missing. I have a bachelors degree in International Relations and Spanish - can I tell you how useful that is right now? It's not, and I've been floundering trying to figure out what I want to do once both of my boys are in school full time. The more I work with other authors, bloggers, and publicists, the more I realize that this is what I want to do.

Question of the Week: Have any pets? Tell us or show us.

*First thing:  A reminder that if you want to be chosen as the Feature for #FF, please have your email address somewhere on your blog. I know there are other ways to contact people including Twitter and contact forms, but I've set up my #FF system in such a way that I need an email address. So for better or worse, that's the requirement for now.

I have two pets:

A cat named Ahwatukee - generally known as Tukee or Tukles or Tookle-wookles, who is 10 years old. Her hobbies include sitting on the stairs hoping one of us will trip over her, plotting the dog's death, and licking the insides of my ears.

While I'm fond of the cat, my dog is my baby boy. His name is Snowbird. He's a basset hound / labrador mix. He's about 7 years old. His hobbies include napping in my lap, becoming "friends" with squirrels, chewing on his favorite toys, and worrying about his next meal. He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he is the nicest, gentlest, cutest dog ever and he adores me (although not when I dress him up for Christmas and Halloween).

Bow ties are cool. If only I had a dog sized fez or Stetson.

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Now for the Follow Fun!

With GFC going the way of the dodo bird for many bloggers, there is no better time to start following blogs via RSS feed. If you use a reader, it would be great if you followed my RSS directly.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

We have a new button, so update your blogs if you are used to doing this meme!

RULES

To join the fun and make new book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. (Required) Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts {Parajunkee & Alison Can Read}
2. (Required) Follow our Featured Bloggers
3. Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing. You can also grab the code if you would like to insert it into your posts.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say "hi" in your comments and that they are now following you.
5. If you are using WordPress or another CMS that doesn't have GFC (Google Friends Connect) state in your posts how you would like to be followed
6. Follow Follow Follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "HI"
7. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love...and the followers
8. If you're new to the Follow Friday hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

Next Week's Question:

Share! Tell us about one of your hobbies that is NOT reading.

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