Welcome to my first annual birthday blowout celebration! :)  This year just seemed like the right time to celebrate, and celebrate BIG. It’s not a landmark year or age (unless you count surviving the zombie apocalypse. LOL), but as a lot of you know, the last couple years have not been easy for me at all. This year was particularly tough, because everything seemed to happen all at once, and/or one after another before I even had a chance to catch my breath from the thing before. So with that said, and despite how I might be feeling these days, I’m just happy to be celebrating another birthday at all!

If you’ve been with me & LITERAL ADDICTION from the beginning, you know the kind of person I am… I’m a book addict, a paranormal junkie, a music aficionado, & a sports fanatic.  I happily embrace my dark side, as well as my individuality and crazy kind of funk, and most times (admittedly not all), no matter what, you will see [or read/hear] me smiling.  I’m OCD, I generally take on way too much but refuse to stop until it’s all achieved, I have issues delegating, and I’m stubborn as all get out, which makes things VERY difficult when my heart and mind tell me I want and need to do all of these wonderful & different things to satisfy my muse, but my body just doesn’t cooperate.

You don’t even have to have been around since the beginning to have probably noticed that I’m extremely passionate, that LITERAL ADDICTION is my baby, and that YOU, my bookish friends, are most definitely my other family – you know…the people you choose, not those who are chosen for you. Those like-minded people who always seem to pick you up without doing much at all, and who completely accept you, for you, when others would quickly and easily throw around labels and give you ‘that look’.  I am VERY proud to ‘know’ you all, and HAPPILY do as much as I possibly can for you and for L.A!  

You may have heard the story, &/or watched my contest winning video slideshow about how Maggie Shayne’s WINGS IN THE NIGHT series got me through what was then the worst patch of my life a few years back, by providing an outlet and letting me escape the pain & things & allowing me to escape and live in phantasy (yes that’s a WitN spelling) for awhile. I called Maggie my “author lifesaver” for the longest time (in homage to her daughter’s company Author’s Lifesaver, and of course as a representation of what she & the series mean to me!). Those feelings haven’t 

changed; they have only grown, and now include a larger and more personal support system - a net of love and light that I never dreamt I’d have when I decided to take my hobby and love of reading and books and run with it.  I have this vast network of amazing individuals who I can feel pulling for me, & who I know appreciate me, for me; even when I’m quiet and awful about responding to messages, or when I just can’t do it all & end up falling short on my commitments (then of course I beat myself up because I feel like I SHOULD be able to do it all, and HATE letting anyone down).  The bottom line is that I am honored, blessed, and humbled by the support & friendship I have received from people that I consider my rock stars (the authors), as well as the acceptance, friendship & support of the best group of friends a girl could have that I’ve never actually met (that’d be all of you!). :)

So… now that I’ve rambled & written a novel for my intro (something else my regulars are probably very used to by now. LOL), let’s get to the reason for this post:  I decided I wanted to celebrate life this year by giving away a bunch of stuff as a thank you for helping me get through these tough times and giving me an anchor, a distraction, and an escape. 

I couldn’t have pulled it all together without the help of those amazing rock stars of mine that I mentioned earlier though; they’re absolutely incredible! 

You all know that I like to get weirdly creative when I come up with big contests, so I had all of these cool ideas, had some pretty awesome stuff in the prize vault already that I had been collecting for awhile and knew I was going to use, bought some other stuff and worked some things out to make them even better, and set a lofty goal of having 37 prizes to give away for the BDay bash.  I sent out an email to a group of LITERAL ADDICTION V.l.Ps to see how many extra prizes I might be able to scare up & add to what I had on hand, and knew that I’d be happy with whatever I ultimately ended up with regardless.  After just that 1 email, the response was utterly fantastic and I’m still completely blown away and feeling a bit undeserving of all the love.  

You can see for yourself what the combination of those donations and my collections amounted to. Talk about a kick-ass virtual birthday party!!  :) So, without further ado…  go and enter to win, win, win.

Just follow the directions on the Rafflecopter widgets for each of the prizes you wish to enter for, take action, and mark them as ‘Done’. 

Make sure to check the Terms and Conditions in the widget to see if that prize is open to U.S and International entries though. Some prizes are coming directly from the authors and are U.S Only mailing. 

Also, make sure that your Rafflecopter email is correct & one that you check regularly. I will not be sending out multiple emails to get your info or trying to track you down. If I don’t get a response within 4 days, the prize will go to someone else.

Lastly, if the prize is from an author that’s new to you (or even if it’s not!), make sure to check in with them using the information provided in the little associated promo post to keep up-to-date on their latest news and releases. After all, this is what brought us all together in the first place.

And of course, and as always…  HAPPY READING!!!!!

Thank you, good luck, and love you all,

~Your proud Pack Alpha - Chelle