Allyson Roy Virtual Book Tour for Babydoll AND Giveaway!

Allyson Roy Virtual Book Tour for Babydoll

**And NOW a Giveaway!

And the winner is.... Elaine! Congrats Elaine! She has won a signed copy of Babydoll! And a Big Thank You to EVERYone who joined in on the fun!

Please join me in welcoming the "authors" Allyson Roy, to Chick with Books! Allyson Roy translates into Alice & Roy, husband and wife collaborating authors.

Roy, a graduate of the University Of The Arts in Philadelphia, has a background in theater, art and standup comedy. Alice, dancer/choreographer/teacher, double majored in dance and philosophy at the State University of New York. They spent many gypsy years living and working in the different neighborhoods of New York City and Philadelphia. Aside from being marriage and writing partners, they are also best friends, which is reflected in the heartfelt, go-the-distance friendship of their two main characters. And those two main characters are friends Benita Morales and Saylor Oz. The newest chapter in their friendship is Babydoll by Allyson Roy and is a bundle of fun....

About the Book... Combining wacky humor with gritty, urban suspense and a dash of romance, BABYDOLL is the second book in the Madcap Noir Saylor Oz mystery series set in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood. Three dead fashion models. A womanizing agent on the hunt for virgin talent. A daredevil boxer turned high-rise window washer. A burned out porn actress with a grudge. A pretty boy Irish illegal who’s good with a knife. A world famous lawyer with a bad case of self-importance. It would all be just another tabloid headline to Saylor Oz — except the young Nuyorican artist wrongly convicted of the killings is the brother of Benita Morales, her best friend. Height-challenged, warmhearted oddball, Saylor Oz, is convinced someone is reenacting murders from an old, X-rated movie called Bad, Bad Babydoll. But no one else thinks so, not even the sexy PI on the case. In her hunt to find the killer, Saylor ends up being part of a young genius designer’s zany plan to tweak the fashion world — and becomes the killer’s next target.

What Did I Think? I loved Saylor and the book! Saylor is a feisty fun character! How could you not like her- she's a sex therapist who trips over her own words and get's into the most interesting predicaments! And the story was so much fun! Alice & Roy refer to Babydoll as 'Madcap Noir, where crime, comedy and romance meet' and it certainly does! From the opening scene where Saylor tries to have the hunk of a PI watch a porn movie with her strickly for proving her point that it's a clue to the recent murders of 3 top models to her best friend Benita's pet mynah bird, Uncle Petey, reciting some key phrases from that movie, Babydoll is entertaining. The romance is hot, the writing is great and the story is a lot of fun! We really get an "education" along with the great storyline because even though Saylor is on the move to solve these murders to free her friend Benita's accused brother from jail, she just can't shake her day job as a sex therapist which tends to pop up in whatever she's doing! Think of Saylor as Stephanie Plum with added "heat"! This is the second book in the Saylor Oz mysteries. The first was Aphrodisiac, and I look forward to reading that and future books in this series!

Now onto our guests.... Alice and Roy!

When readers find out Allyson Roy translates into a husband and wife team named Alice and Roy they always ask us how we manage to blend two separate personalities into one voice -- and do it without killing each other. But the truth is, we’re all about blending opposites. In our Saylor Oz series we crossbreed suspense with wacky comedy, and we mix urban crime with fun, sexy girl stuff. While our two main characters are strong, confident professional women, they’re also insecure, vulnerable screw-ups who get themselves in over their heads. And, like the two of us, they bicker, banter and blame, but when it comes down to the real stuff they are deeply loyal and willing to put their lives on the line for each other.

In our writing process our opposite strengths and shortcomings fit together nicely. While Alice dreads facing the blank page, Roy is eager to step into it. Roy is inventive and impulsive by nature, so he gets down first draft ideas. Alice has a much longer attention span and an eye for detail and structure, so she moves in next. We’ve dubbed this system: the Marines and the Village Maker. In the final stages we work together and never consider a scene finished until we both approve it. And, yes, we do have areas where one of us dominates. Alice usually writes thex scenes, while Roy handles much of the comic dialogue.

Meanwhile, here’s a short quiz to see if you could write a book with your significant other. Are you ready?

You have a deadline, and the two of you have been working for hours in your home office. You encounter the following situations . . .

1. You’ve motored through all the snacks in the house and there’s only one piece of chocolate left. You say:

a. Go ahead, sweetie. Enjoy.

b. What say we split it?

c. Yo! That’s got my name on it. Touch it and I’ll break your fingers.

2. You’ve been focused on the same difficult scene for so long, Partner A keeps drifting into idle chatter about diverse subjects. You say:

a. You have such a fascinating array of knowledge. It’s one reason I love being around you.

b. Interesting info, honey. How about we save it for break.

c. Back on task, Bonzo. Like I give a rat’s buttocks about your new electronic golf ball retriever.

3. For obvious reasons, writers run the risk of becoming sedentary creatures. So when it’s time to work out, you say:

a. Gee, I love training side by side with you. Couples who sweat together, stick together.

b. Guess we better hit the gym.

c. Tennis time, Fatty. Twenty bucks says I can whip your sorry butt.

4. The section you’ve been working on all week has to be totally revised. You say:

a. Not a problem. We can do it, thanks to our being able to work so efficiently in a state of complete and unspoiled harmonious unity.

b. So we goofed. We’ll hit it out of the park next time at bat.

c. Don’t look at me, Slobbo. That dumbass part was your bogus idea.

Time’s Up! Correct answers found on page 321. Printed in reverse! Use a mirror.

Thanks, Suzanne, for having us as your guests today.

And thank you Alice and Roy for letting us in on how you two work so well together! And creating a fun quiz for us to see if we could work with our significant others!

Like to learn more about Allyson Roy? Visit their website HERE! Like to read an excerpt from Babydoll? Here's a LINK! You'll also find all sorts of fun information at their website HERE. Both Babydoll & Aphrodisiac are now available from your favorite bookstore!

**Guess what?! Allyson Roy, (aka Alice & Roy), decided to treat the readers of Chick with Books with a special giveaway for a signed copy of Babydoll! Thanks Allyson Roy! We love giveaway's here and appreciate the special treatment!

To Enter this Giveaway...

*For one entry leave me a comment with your email address!

*Get an extra entry for following my blog! Just leave a comment letting me know you're a follower! ( Not a follower yet? No problem, sign up by clicking on the 'followers" button! Just let me know you became a new follower!)

*For another entry Blog or tweet about this giveaway and leave me the link.

This giveaway is open to U.S. and Canadian residents! (No P.O. Boxes, please) Contest ends 11:59 pm EST on Sept. 26th. I'll randomly pick the winner the next day and email that person. Please check your email... winner must reply to me within 3 days... Good luck everyone!

The Allyson Roy Virtual Book Tour is organized by Trish of TLC Book Tours! Here are the other stops on the tour:

Tuesday, August 18th: The Eclectic Book Lover

Wednesday, August 19th: Jenn’s Bookshelf

Tuesday, August 25th: Jen’s Book Thoughts

Wednesday, August 26th: Cheryl’s Book Nook

Thursday, August 27th: Reading With Monie

Monday, August 31st: Books on the Brain (guest post)

Thursday, September 3rd: Stephanie’s Confessions of a Book-a-holic

Tuesday, September 8th: GalleySmith

Wednesday, September 9th: Bookgasm

Thursday, September 10th: I’m Booking It

** P.S. Babydoll is Kindle Ready! So is Aphrodisiac!

The Sunday Salon... "Books with Buzz" and a peek at a new eReader!

What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them, and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake.

Summer finally came in Connecticut and by the end of the week the rain came back! But rainy days just give us an excuse to stay inside and crack open a book- without too much guilt...

This week I finished a "spicy" read by Allyson Roy called Babydoll. This wednesday, the husband & wife team of Alice and Roy, who make up the author "team" Allyson Roy, will visit Chick with Books and talk a little about their working relationship. I'll have a review of Babydoll, which they call Madcap Noir, where crime, comedy and romance meet- and such a fun read! Think of it as a Stephanie Plum novel with a bit more "heat"- you see Saylor Oz, our "detective", is a sex therapist who handles the occasional murder... this is the second novel starring Saylor Oz and I'm sure there will be more in this series. Then we can take the fun little quiz Alice & Roy wrote up especially for us here! Wednesday will be a fun guest post to promote the recent release of Babydoll and is part of their virtual book tour!

Gregory Maguire is well known for his adult books, Wicked, Confessions of an Ugly Step Sister and A Lion Among Men, where he re-imagines the stories of well known fictional characters. But he is also a children's author. And recently he published a YA book, Missing Sisters, which I picked up for my Kindle this week. The story of a young 12-year old girl living in an orphanage, not being adopted because of hearing and speech problems, but with a lot of spunk touched me... "Set in 1968, Alice, a 12-year-old beset by hearing and speech impediments, lives in an orphanage run by nuns in upstate New York. After Sister Vincent de Paul, Alice's closest friend and supporter, is severely injured in a fire, no one explains to Alice that the sister has been sent for a long stay in a nursing home. Alice, worrying that Sister Vincent has died, makes a pact with God: until she knows that Sister Vincent will recover, she won't even consider an offer of adoption that has been extended to her--her first. A girl Alice despises gets her place, but Alice has a drama of her own, inadvertently learning that she may have a twin sister. With a mixture of cunning and courage, Alice finds her." I haven't seen too much publicity for this book, but sounds like a wonderful read! Look for a review this coming week...

Last sunday, Marie of The Burton Review recommended Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie. She called it one of her most engrossing reads! She also pointed out that Burnt Shadows is shortlisted for the 2009 Orange Prize... The Orange Prize for Fiction is awarded to the woman who, in the opinion of the judges, has written the best, eligible full-length novel in English and first published in the United Kingdom. Burnt Shadows starts on that fateful day in 1945, when the bomb dropped in Nagasaki and ends in a prison cell in the United Stateds in 2002. "Hiroko Tanaka is 21 and in love with the man she is to marry, Konrad Weiss. As she steps onto her veranda, wrapped in a kimono with three black cranes swooping across her back, her world is suddenly and irrevocably altered. In the numbing aftermath of the atomic bomb that obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the bird-shaped burns on her back, an indelible reminder of the world that she has lost. From here she starts her search for new beginnings..." An epic tale that touches on a tragedy and the way our own histories can be transformed by one... I picked it up this week and opened it up to find Kamila Shamsies writing to be simply wonderful. Not only is the writing beautiful, but so it the cover! This is a book that should not disappoint! Thanks Marie for the recommendation!

And now a peek at a new eReader that just came out this week... Sony just released 2 new eReaders- The Sony Reader Touch, and the Sony Reader Pocket Edition. I had the opportunity to look at both this week and was impressed with the Pocket Edition that Sony released. It's just shy of being the size of a mass market paperback. It's easily held in one hand, although you need to click the wheel to turn the pages with the other hand, and it's slim. The text has a nice contrast- one of the problems Sony has been dealing with in it's development of their eReaders. There is no wireless connection with this eReader, but it's easy enough to download books from your computer. The Sony eReaders also work with ePub format, which Google just announced that it was going to use with it's book downloads and also quite a few text book publishers announced that it was going to use. Although I'm still a Kindle girl, this eReader is a temptation. And it might tempt other people as well because the Pocket Edition is about $100 less expensive than the Kindle 2.

Ok, that's what I've been reading and reading about this week, what about you?! What books have you read?! Don't be shy, share what you've been reading this week! Or let me know what you think of this week's "Books with Buzz"!

Happy Reading.... Suzanne