GIVEAWAY: This Duchess of Mine, Fairy Tale Sampler (plus After Midnight) by Eloisa James

Eloisa James and Julia (plus T-Rex) at the signing

June 21st is a big day for us here at The Broke and the Bookish. Three years ago our first review went up! And recently, after it seems like I have been involved in the book world forever, I was able to go to an author event and book signing and was able to cross off someone from my half of the Top Ten Bookish People We'd Like to Meet list.

I was so excited when I saw that not one, but two historical romance authors that I had read and loved were coming to Ohio for an event literally 15 minutes from my house! On the Level of Excitement meter, this fell just around the "Call People to Share Happiness" level which is nestled between "Post or Tweet Happiness" and "Dance Around Singing Made Up Songs About Happiness." Unfortunately due to some crazy airport shenanigans (O'Hare *shakes fist*), Tessa Dare was unable to attend, but Eloisa James did make it and boy was it a good time.

Eloisa is a wonderful speaker! She did a brilliant job telling us about her new book, Once Upon a Tower, and answering a wide variety of questions from the audience. Not only did she play herself, but she told us about Tessa's book as well, at times switching personas by moving to lean on the opposite side of the podium.

The topics discussed ranged from her creative writing process, to "leaving behind" secondary characters, to being a successful woman with a full time job in a field not super populated with women (tenured Shakespeare professor, not romance novelist. That has a hell of a lot of women), working and motherhood, how she came up with the ideas for Once Upon a Tower, etc. My question was about her perception regarding the current shift of as an author having the be involved in the social media/internet blog circuit. It's not an option any more. It's required. All of the Q&A was all really interesting to me, and I took away more than just information about the books. It was an awesome event that I hope CLE has more of soon!

So now what you all care about right? The GIVEAWAY!

A Fairy Tale Sampler + After Midnight Novella & Signed This Duchess of Mine paperback

I have a signed copy of This Duchess of Mine, book 5 in the Desperate Duchesses series, all of which I really enjoyed. This book is awesome, and I had happened to have another copy of it, new and unread. My excess is your benefit!

BUT WAIT! I will also hook you up with Eloisa's A Fairy Tale Sampler which has it's own unique novella and essays introducing snippets of all her fairy tale themed books. These books, by the way are a set of books loosely connected with the fairy tale theme, so you can read them in any order and not miss information. So if you are new to Eloisa James and want to see if she may interest you, this sampler is perfect! The essays in front of each are really interesting as well!

TL;DR:

What: Signed Copy of This Duchess of Mine & A Fairy Tale Sampler booklet with bonus After Midnight novella by Eloisa James

Who: Open internationally to people with an address I can ship to.

How to Enter: Use the Rafflecopter below. If for some reason it will not load for you or is blocked where you live, please email Julia ( bambbles{at}gmail{dot}com) with your name within the span of the giveaway to be entered.

Everyone gets one free entry and if you leave a comment on some entry in this blog, you get one extra :) If your comment doesn't show up right away, no worries. We have moderation on because spam is all over the place.

Have you all been to any great book signings lately? Who was your favorite author that you've ever heard speak? Or, if you were like me, who is the author that you'd most like to hear speak/sign your book/meet?

a Rafflecopter giveaway