My first guest for the Crossroads Tour is author Lucienne Diver . Her second book in the Vamped Series, ReVamped, came out in September. By commenting on this post and following the directions below, you will have an opportunity to win a signed copy of VAMPED. If you haven't read Lucienne's books, go out and get them. They are a fun read and perfect for Halloween.
Description from GoodReads:
Gina Covello's Perks and Pitfalls
of Vamp Life
1. Hello?! Eternal youth and beauty!
2. Free. Designer. Clothes.
3. My hot new boyfriend Bobby went from chess dud to vamp stud.
4. No reflection! First order of business: turn my own stylist to stop the downward spiral from chic to eek.
5. Vampire vixen Mellisande has taken an interest in my boyfriend, and is now transforming the entire high school into her own personal vampire army. If anyone's going to start their own undead entourage it should be me.
I guess I'll just have to save everyone from fashion disasters and other fates worse than death.
Thanks Lucienne for stopping by and sharing with readers some of your Halloween experiences.
Do you have any Halloween Traditions that you continue to celebrate with or have created for you and your family?
Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. I met my husband when we both worked as actors at a haunted house, and I continue to find any excuse to dress up in costume to this day.
I’ve always loved creating. From the time I was old enough to sew, which is as far back as I can remember, I made costumes for my sister and myself. There were no store-bought costumes for us! A bat, a black cat, a horse, a goddess, a butterfly, an alien…we were so many things. Anything we could imagine and I could cobble together.
I trick-or-treated well into college. I had an excuse! I lived in International House, which was a very special floor of one dorm dedicated to students from all over the world and those of us who wanted to live and learn among them. Many of the students had never trick-or-treated or seen snow or done any number of things that we had fun showing them. I’ll never forget the year we took our friend Yukio, from Japan, trick-or-treating. She wore a fabulous traditional kimono and wooden shoes. We wondered how she was ever going to make the rounds without destroying her feet, but she never complained. We hit house after house, garnering some funny looks and questions about whether we weren’t too old for all this, but we persevered and made it back to campus with quite the impressive haul. The next day, I saw Yukio giving the chocolate away! Horrified, I told her that the candy was the whole point of trick-or-treating, but it hadn’t been so for her. In fact, Yukio’s version of delicacies was slightly different than ours—something involving crackers and see-through fish.
Later in college, we found excuses to dress up with alter-ego parties, where you were supposed to come as your polar opposite. (For anyone interested, my recurring character was Butch-the-auto-mechanic. He was scruffy and dirty and yes, he stuffed. He also scratched, spat and swaggered.)
If that wasn’t enough, there were plays, Renaissance Faires, and all kinds of extras. My husband and I even had our own theme wedding, a late fourteenth century medieval affair. My die-hard Roman Catholic family was so relieved we didn’t have our ceremony at the haunted mansion they even dressed up in garb for the big day.
When our son came along, he did so with his very own outré fashion sense. Rarely did he leave the house between the ages of two and six (give or take) without a costume or a cape. Superheroes were his thing…Batman, Robin, Spiderman, Superman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…you name it. He still keeps a costume bin in his room, which gets busted into whenever he has friends over. So, we’ve infected him, raising the next generation fiction fan. We’re very proud.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that I live too much in my head. The appeal of a costume is that you get to live in someone else’s head for awhile. You’re not just wearing a piece of cloth or latex or whatever, you’re wearing a persona. You get away from your everyday worries and responsibilities and you give yourself over to make-believe. As big blue superhero The Tick says, “Reality is just a one-trick pony.” I tend to like taking imagination out for a spin.
You can find her on twitter: @luciennediver
To enter to win a signed copy of VAMPED please fill out the entry form. Here are the rules:
1. Only one entry per person
2. All entrants must be 13 years or older.
3. Contest is open until October 31, 2010 at 11:59 PST
4. Contest is open to international participants.
5. Commenting on the post will earn you an additional entry.
6. Winner must respond within 48 hours of notification or a new winner will be announced.
Good luck and happy reading! The Crossroads Tour is going on until October 31, 2010. Check back to see what other fun giveaways will be happening. Tomorrow author, Tonya Hurley will be stopping in.
