1) If you’re a fan of Amanda Stevens’s Graveyard Queen series (The Abandoned [ebook], The Restorer, The Kingdom and The Prophet) you’ll be excited to know that Amanda will be writing 3 more books starring graveyard restorer Amelia Gray! Amanda announced the news on the Harlequin Blog last week.

2) Author Laurie London is giving away 5 copies of her next Sweetblood series novel Seduced by Blood at Goodreads.

3) The internet was buzzing earlier this week with the unveiling of the cover for J.R. Ward’s fourth Fallen Angels book, Rapture. What do you think of it?

4) Congratulations to Kaitlyn Schulz, HQN’s newest author! She just sold a new paranormal romance series about a network of international supernatural hunters, to be published in 2013.

Do you have any news from the world of paranormal romance you’d like to share? Feel free to leave a comment!

What goes best with a Steel Corset? A Clockwork Collar!

Today kicks off a new Harlequin Teen blog tour in honour of Kady Cross‘s The Girl in the Clockwork Collar, the second novel in The Steampunk Chronicles series and sequel to The Girl in the Steel Corset. This blog tour is a ‘quote’ tour, with each stop featuring a new snippet from The Girl in the Clockwork Collar, as well as a book giveaway.

The blog tour also has an awesome grand prize: the ‘clockwork collar’ itself, a replica of the one on The Girl in the Clockwork Collar cover! Enter to win at the Harlequin Teen Facebook page from Monday, May 14 (the form will open later today ) until Friday June 1.

The blog tour will officially visit Harlequin’s Paranormal Romance Blog on Wednesday with a new quote (and chance to win the book!). Here is the entire The Girl in the Clockwork Collar quote tour schedule:

• Monday, May 14th – Story Siren
• Wednesday, May 16th – Harlequin Paranormal Blog
• Friday, May 18th – Letters Inside Out
• Monday, May 21st – Hippies, Beauty and Books…Oh, My!
• Wednesday, May 23rd – The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia
• Friday, May 25th – My Shelf Confessions
• Monday, May 28th – A Book and a Latte
• Tuesday, May 29th -Book Birthday! – Alice Marvels
• Wednesday, May 30th – Seeing Night Book Reviews
• Friday, June 1st – Read Me, Bookmark Me, Love Me

p.s. If you have not read The Girl in the Steel Corset, look for the brand-new paperback version in stores now. It also includes a prequel novella, The Strange Case of Finley Jayne, previously only available in ebook.

The Immortal Rules blog tour has come to a close, but we have one more reason to celebrate–the winner for the grand prize of a Kindle Touch with Immortal Rules cover has been chosen! Congratulations to: Luana S.!

To learn more about The Immortal Rules by author Julie Kagawa (Harlequin Teen), visit BloodofEden.com.

About The Immortal Rules:

In a future world, vampires reign. Humans are blood cattle. And one girl will search for the key to save humanity.

Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten.

Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them. The vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself is attacked—and given the ultimate choice. Die…or become one of the monsters.

Faced with her own mortality, Allie becomes what she despises most. To survive, she must learn the rules of being immortal, including the most important: go long enough without human blood, and you will go mad.

Then Allie is forced to flee into the unknown, outside her city walls. There she joins a ragged band of humans who are seeking a legend—a possible cure to the disease that killed off most of humankind and created the rabids, the mindless creatures who threaten humans and vampires alike.

But it isn’t easy to pass for human. Especially not around Zeke, who might see past the monster inside her. And Allie soon must decide what—and who—is worth dying for.

Harlequin TEEN author Aimée Carter released her debut title, The Goddess Test, in May 2011. The much-anticipated second book in this series, Goddess Interrupted, followed in April 2012. If you plan to do any reading this summer, these two divine books are a must-add to your reading list.

What better way to relax than bringing out your inner goddess. To help, Aimée Carter will be taking you on a Goddess Interrupted summer blog tour, which includes summer wisdom and a goddess-worthy giveaway at every stop!

The giveaway includes:

• 1 copy of The Goddess Test
• 1 copy of Goddess Interrupted
• Goddess French tote bag
• Goddess sunscreen
• Goddess beach ball
• $5 iTunes gift card

Just check out that picture of the prize pack! Who wouldn’t want to win that swag and gear up for summer???

Plus, don’t miss the rest of the stops in the Goddess Interrupted tour for more chances to win great prizes and learn all about Aimée Carter’s modern reimagining of the Greek gods:

• Stop #1 – Monday, May 7 – A Good Addiction
• Stop #2 – Tuesday, May 8 –  I am A Reader, Not a Writer
• Stop #3 – Wednesday, May 9 –   I Just Wanna Sit Here and Read
• Stop #4 – Thursday, May 10 – Confessions of a Total Bookaholic
• Stop #5 – Friday, May 11 – Books Complete Me
• Stop #6 – Saturday, May 12 – Katie’s Book Blog
• Stop #7 – Sunday, May 13 – Page Turners
• Stop #8 – Monday, May 14 –  I Read Banned Books
• Stop #9 – Tuesday May 15 –  Once Upon a Twilight
• Stop #10 – Wednesday, May 16 – Mundie Moms
• Stop #11 – Thursday, May 17 – Allison Can Read
• Stop #12 – Friday, May 18 – All things urban fantasy

Giveaway information: To enter today’s giveaway, please leave a comment telling us if you were a goddess or god, what power would you want to have? Contest is open to residents of the United States and Canada. Entries must be received by 11:59 pm EST on May 10. A winner will be chosen from the comments by random number draw and announced on May 11. For full official rules, click here. UPDATE: The contest is now closed and the winner is — TracyH!

To learn more about the series, visit The Goddess Test tab on Harlequin TEEN’s Facebook page — includes bonus scenes, background info and tons more exclusive content!

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We’ve got a TON of news today about New York Times bestselling author Julie Kagawa’s new series, Blood of Eden! It’s the official launch of BloodofEden.com and book trailer for the first novel, The Immortal Rules. Be sure to pay close attention to the book trailer, too, to unlock hidden content on the site….

Today also starts a blog tour with author Julie Kagawa to celebrate the upcoming release of The Immortal Rules! Harlequin’s Paranormal Romance blog is thrilled to be the first stop on the tour AND the place where you can enter to win the tour’s grand prize of a Kindle Touch with with a special Immortal Rules cover.

Keep reading for a message from Julie herself to kick things off, information about the blog tour schedule (which will have book giveaways at each stop), and the contest entry form. Good luck! ~Amy

* * *

Hello, readers!

So, today is the start of a brand new blog tour for The Immortal Rules, and I couldn’t be more excited for it.  On the tour stops, we will follow protagonist Allison Sekemoto as she transforms from human to vampire and asks herself, what does it mean to be immortal, to be separate from the rules of the living?  We will also discover her world–New Covington, the Fringe, the wilderness beyond, and all the dangers that lurk therein.  We will glimpse the most terrifying aspect of this new reality–the rabids–and hope that we escape with our lives.  And we will meet some of the other characters of The Immortal Rules–Kanin, Zeke, Jebbadiah, Sarren–and see just how they fit into Allison’s life.

Someone once asked me if it was very different switching from writing about faeries to writing vampires, and I have to say yes, it most certainly was.  The Immortal Rules proved to be an even darker tale than Meghan’s story in The Iron King.  Allie’s world is filled with monsters, and each day is a fight for survival, but her greatest enemy isn’t the rabids or the vampires or even the humans who despise vampires and want her dead.  Her greatest enemy is herself.  Especially as she tries to cling to her humanity, to fight the Hunger within, to not become a monster.  This is her story.  I hope you will join us for the ride!

- Julie Kagawa

* * *

Thanks for blogging us with today, Julie!

So where else will The Immortals Rules blog tour go next? Here’s the schedule below — and remember, each stop will have a unique look at a different aspect of the Blood of Eden series AND a giveaway!

• Tuesday, April 17 –  I Read Banned Books
• Wednesday, April 18 –   I Just Wanna Sit Here and Read
• Thursday, April 19 –Supernatural Snark
• Friday, April 20 – Mundie Moms
• Saturday, April 21 – Books Complete Me
• Sunday, April 22 – I am a Reader, Not a Writer
• Monday, April 23 –  Reading Teen
• Tuesday April 24 – 4 stops to celebrate release day for The Immortal Rules! — Electrifying Reviews, Waste Paper Prose, Page Turners and Bookalicious
• Wednesday, April 25 – Tynga’s Reviews
• Thursday, April 26 – Once Upon a Twilight
• Friday, April 27 – All things urban fantasy
• Saturday, April 28 – Total bookaholic
• Sunday, April 29 – A good addition
• Monday, April 30 – Reading Angel
• Tuesday, May 1 – Taming the Bookshelf
• Wednesday, May 2 – Teens Read and Write

Now for OUR giveaway! Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter to win a Kindle Touch with an Immortal Rules cover. You can also get additional entries by doing the following:

1. Add The Immortal Rules to you ‘to read’ on Goodreads (or if you’ve read it already, rate the book)
2. ‘Like’ Julie Kagawa on Facebook
3. ‘Like’ HarlequinTEEN on Facebook
4. Become a ‘fan’ of Julie on Goodreads
5. Follow @HarlequinTEEN on Twitter

Details: Open to residents of the US and Canada (excluding Quebec) only. Must be 13 years of age or older. Contest closes at 11:59 PM (EST) on May 2, 2012. Please read full contest rules here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Julie Kagawa, New York Times bestselling author of the Iron Fey series, goes from fairies to vampires with her next book The Immortal Rules (book 1 of the Blood of Eden series). Set in a future where vampires have taken control, heroine Allison Sekemoto fights to survive — until she’s attacked and faces an unthinkable choice: Die… or become one of the vampires she despises.

Want to learn more? Take a look at the UK book trailer:

Plus, here’s a cool animated cover!

Look for The Immortal Rules on sale April 24, 2012 wherever books are ebooks are sold.

What do you think? Are you excited to read Julie’s take on futuristic vampires?

Harlequin Teen and author Cara Lynn Shultz are celebrating the release of Spellcaster, book two of of the Spellbound series, with a blog tour.

And there’s something a little different about this tour — it’s music themed! One reader will even have a change to win an iPod nano at the end of tour, in additional to giveaways of Spellcaster at each tour stop (US and Canada only).

Here’s the schedule:

• Monday  March, 19th – My Cute Bookshelf - Featuring Emma
• Wednesday, March, 21st – Mundie Mom’s
• Friday, March, 23rd –  VerbVixen
• Monday, March 26th – Book and A Latte
• Wednesday, March 28th – Miss Page Turner’s City of Books
• Thursday, March 29th - Read Me, Bookmark Me, Love Me
• Friday, March 30th – writers write, right?
• Monday April 2nd – Alice Marvel’s
• Wednesday, April 4th- Paranormal Wastelands
• Friday, April 6th – Fiktshun

More about Spellcaster:

Finding your eternal soulmate – easy.

Stopping a true-love-hungry evil – not so much…

After breaking a centuries-old romantic curse, Emma Connor is (almost) glad to get back to normal problems. Although…it’s not easy dealing with the jealous cliques and gossip that rule her exclusive Upper East Side prep, even for a sixteen-year-old newbie witch. Having the most-wanted boy in school as her eternal soul mate sure helps ease the pain-especially since wealthy, rocker-hot Brendan Salinger is very good at staying irresistibly close….

But something dark and hungry is using Emma and Brendan’s deepest fears to reveal damaging secrets and destroy their trust in each other. And Emma’s crash course in über-spells may not be enough to keep them safe…or to stop an inhuman force bent on making their unsuspected power its own.

Look for Spellcaster wherever books are sold on March 27, 2012.

1) USA Today‘s Happy Ever After blog has an interview with authors Gena Showalter and Jill Monroe about their book Dating the Undead.

2) Three Harlequin paranormal romances and fantasy titles are in the running for Romantic Times Magazine’s best book cover of the month poll:

• Deadly is the Kiss by Rhyannon Byrd (released in April)
• The Darkest Seduction by Gena Showalter
• Allegiance by Cayla Kluver

Which cover is your favorite?

3) Allegiance was also a finalist for RT’s March Seal of Excellence! Congratulations, Cayla!

4) Harlequin’s Facebook page revealed the cover for The Prophet by Amanda Stevens on Thursday. (We reveal covers and exclusive sneak peeks every week for Cover Thursday on Facebook. Click here to like us!)

5) Author Laurie London is doing a blog tour for her new Sweetblood series novel, Tempted by Blood. Visit her blog for a schedule and links.

6) And last but not least, fans of Julie Kagawa’s Iron Fey series got a special treat last month — a special short story An Iron Fey Valentine about Meghan and Ash’s first Valentine’s Day together. Visit TheIronFey.com to read it (click the big pink button under the Extras section).

Edited to add: 7) Therese Meyers is also on a blog tour for her Nocturne novel The Half-Breed Vampire. See the schedule here.

To celebrate the release of Allegiance by Cayla Kluver, book 2 of the Legacy Trilogy, Harlequin Teen is holding a blog tour with daily giveaways and a final grand prize of a Kindle Touch with an Allegiance cover art skin! See the blog tour schedule below for details, or click the blog tour badge above for more info.

As today’s stop on the tour, Harlequin’s Paranormal Romance blog is giving you a look at the two kingdoms featured in the Legacy trilogy — the Kingdom of Hytanica and the Empire of Cokyri (and click on the cool maps for larger images). We’d also like to hear which kingdom you’d rather live in, so please vote in our poll at the bottom of the kingdom descriptions or leave a comment

The Kingdom of Hytanica:

The Land: About 15,000 people live within the city; another 2,500 in the country. The countryside is split into farmland and forests, while the city is divided into the Market District and the Business District.

Royal Family and Line of Succession: Only men can rule.  A female heir can be crowned Queen but not ruler, and as such plays no part in the actual governing of the kingdom. 

Family and Social Life: The father is the undisputed head of the family. Girls are considered to be of courting age at fifteen, though marriage before the age of eighteen is generally discouraged.

Lavish parties that include food, drink and dancing are held in the Royal Ballroom. The people of Hytanica can also enjoy a number of feasts, festivals and tournaments.

Education: The traditional subjects for girls are etiquette, movement, household management, embroidery and music.  Most are also taught to read and write and do basic math.  At the age of 14, all boys enter the Military Academy for four years of training.

The Empire of Cokyri

The Land: Much of Cokyri is desert. The Empire’s wealth comes from mining jewels and precious metals, but the arid landscape means they must trade with other kingdoms for crops.

Cokyri is also a land of ingenuity and invention, with advancements that other kingdoms have yet to discover including advancements in weaponry, lighting and plumbing.

Rulers and Line of Succession: Cokyri has historically been ruled by an Empress who has both political and magical power.  These powers are passed to the Empress’s first-born daughter, but the Empress gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, and divided their powers so Cokyri is currently ruled by the High Priestess and the Overlord.

Family Life: A woman chooses a man, and if he accepts, he is marked with a tattoo around his forearm. Fathers are not trusted to raise their children in Cokyri; rather, children are raised in a communal environment by their mothers and a group of maidens. Both women and men can own property and inherit wealth.  Many businesses are owned and run by women.

Education: Males and females receive very similar educations, including instruction in reading, writing, math, science, and history.  In addition, everyone is given military training beginning at a young age.

So now that you know a little about Hytanica and Cokyri, which place sounds the most desirable (though we think we know which most people will choose!):

* * * *

Follow the rest of the Allegiance blog tour!

• Monday, February 20th – YA Bibliophile
• Wednesday, February 22nd – For Those About To Read
• Friday, February 24th – Books With Bite
• Monday, February 27th – Harlequin Blog
• Tuesday, February 28th (Book Birthday!!) – Hippies Beauty & Books
• Wednesday, February 29th – Starting The Next Chapter
• Friday, March 2nd – A Cupcake and A Latte
• Monday, March 5th – Electrifying Reviews
• Wednesday, March 7th – Kindle Fever
• Friday, March 9th – Unabridged Andrea

Other stops on the tour feature a tournament between characters Lord Narian and Lord Steldor and Cokyri and Hytanica. For a chance to win the Grand Prize of a Kindle Touch, guess which Champion won the tournament at the last tour stop at Unabridged Andrea. Open to residents of USA and Canada. See full contest rules here.

And connect with Cayla online at:

Cayla website: http://www.caylakluver.com

Cayla’s twitter: @CaylaKL or https://twitter.com/#!/CaylaKL

Cayla’s Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cayla-Kluver/49026582415

About Allegiance:

AN EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD QUEEN IN LOVE WITH THE ENEMY AS THEIR COUNTRIES PASS THE POINT OF NO RETURN…

Bound to a man she cannot love, Queen Alera of Hytanica must forget Narian, the young man who holds her heart. For Narian is destined to conquer Hytanica at the behest of his master, the powerful magic-user known as the Overlord. Alera doesn’t truly believe Narian will fight against Hytanica—until Cokyrian troops attack with Narian commanding the charge.

Faced with the greatest betrayal a heart can know, Alera must set aside personal feelings and lead her kingdom through its darkest time. And when all hope, will and courage seem lost, she must find strength and remember that even the blackest night must have a dawn….

Edited: Today’s blog does not have a daily giveaway, but check the other stops on the tour for a chance to win a copies of Allegiance.

CataRomance.com has announced their 2011 Reviewers’ Choice Award Winners — congratulations to the two winners for Harlequin Nocturne!

Harlequin Nocturne: Fallen by Michele Hauf