Pages

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Amanda Ashby: Fairy Bad Day competition

Phew, yesterday was a pretty hectic day! I've got a book coming out, I'm revising another book as well as trying to organize our upcoming move from New Zealand back to Australia. Oh, and then there was the small matter of my eight year old son who has spent most of last night in a wild tantrum because his Halo/MegaBloks toy wouldn't stay together. Seriously, give me Lego any day of the week.

Thankfully the toy problem has now been solved thanks to some careful instruction reading, but I'm not so sure that the other things on my list will be quite so easy to manage! Which is why, in a lieu of doing a proper blog post, I thought I'd give away a copy of my latest young adult book, Fairy Bad Day to a Tote Bags 'n' Blogs reader! Especially since my hectic day was nothing compared to what happens to my heroine, Emma Jones.

I actually wrote this book about two years ago so it's quite strange to think that it's finally coming out. It's even stranger to think that my editor let me write a book that involved giant killer fairies, a hero on crutches and a whole lot of Skittles. Still, the good news is that so far the reviews have been nice. I've received one from Publisher's Weekly and I even passed my first Kirkus review without any visible scarring!

Fairy Bad Day by Amanda Ashby coming 9th June 2011

While most students at Burtonwood Academy get to kill demons and goblins, fifteen-year-old Emma gets to rid the world of little annoying fairies with glittery wings and a hipster fashion sense. She was destined to be a dragon slayer, but cute and charming Curtis stole her spot. Then she sees a giant killer fairy - and it's invisible to everyone but her! If Emma has any chance of stopping this evil fairy, she's going to need help. Unfortunately, the only person who can help is Curtis. And now, not only has he stolen her dragon-slayer spot, but maybe her heart as well! Why does she think it's going to be a fairy bad day?

"The exciting plot, humor throughout—often provided by the little fairies—and relatively innocent romance between characters will grab readers and keep them involved. " Kirkus Reviews

"In a fun mashup of the modern and the magical, Ashby (Zombie Queen of Newbury High) creates nicely developed characters and supports them with strong plotting and zippy writing. Laced with humor, danger, and romance, this book will have readers smiling all the way to the last page." Publisher's Weekly

So to be in with a chance to win all you need is to tell me what has been your craziest day! This is an international competition and I will send you a copy once the book releases on the 9th of June!

16 comments:

Bron said...

Hi Amanda

I love the premise. This book sounds amazing. I would love to win a copy.

My craziest day was the day my friend was supposed to fly out of London for a new job in the Caribbean. He'd been staying at my place and he suddenly realized he'd lost his passport as we were driving to the airport. I pulled over on the side of the motorway (freeway).The car and luggage was torn apart. The passport was under the seat of the car. Where he'd hidden it, in case it got stolen - MEN!

romance at bronwenevans dot com

Amanda Ashby said...

Bron -that is so funny! And actually I have done something VERY similar to that. First I caught the tube in the wrong direction on the way to the airport and then when we got to Heathrow I couldn't find my passport and made my room mate go home from work and look for it all while I was standing at the check in counter. Then I found it in my bag despite having looked through it a zillion times. Major red face!!!!

Gracie ONeil said...

Hi Amanda!

It sounds like great fun!

I've been trying to select my craziest day, but as I have so many of them and most of them can't be shared in a public forum I thought I'd just comment and let you know I'm looking forward to buying and reading Fairy Bad Day when it comes out.

And, speaking of crazy days, I now have hot water after two weeks without it (yay!) and my washing machine has just thrown a wobbly (boo!) so I'd better go and sort it out!

Here's hoping Fairy Bad Day will sell Fairy Well:-)

Amanda Ashby said...

Gracie - eek on no hot water and even bigger eek on badly behaved washing machines!!!!!!! Hope you can just give it a stern talking to and don't need to get it fixed!

donnas said...

Congrats on the release! Cant wait to read it.

I have been trying to think of my craziest day. And I can come up with a bunch of little things but they never happen all on one day. Its kind of a revolving cycle of crazy.

Scarlet Wilson said...

Congrats on your fairy book, it sounds fab.
Crazy day? Trying to get to my first ever RNA conference last year. The train from my local station into Glasgow Central was stopped due to a cow on the line. I was frantic I'd miss my connection to London and asked the train driver if I could move the cow - he wouldn't let me out the train but I was allowed to bang on the windows and make enough noise to scare it! Got to Glasgow and as I ran along the platform the wheel came off my new suitcase and landed on another line! Did I get to London? You bet I did!

desere_steenberg said...

The book sounds amazing! Congrats !

I cant think of a day where a so many crazy things have happened as they all seem to happen on various days and all though I am use to my days being crazy and sometimes nasty surprizes popping up I still never really expect the next thing!

From no water and no power to dry my hair to my son unexpectally being sick, to a flat tyre and traffic lights being out to forgotten holidays you name it ,it all happens to me all the time !

Thank you so much for a great giveaway and it is really wonderful of you to have the contest be international I thrilled! I would be honored to win a copy !

Take Care
Desere

Jo's Daughter said...

Sounds like a great book! Would love to read it.

One of the craziest days I had was when I agreed to babysit my friends 2 young sons. They came to MY house so I could watch them play and do some work at the same time. Great idea.... Not.

You wouldn't believe what just 2 little boys can do in a 4 hour period. They screamed NON STOP.
The chased each other round the coffee table. Destroying a vase with pretty flowers and the table top. They chased the cat, who in return destroyed my curtains by climbing them. Something he had never done before.

They started fighting. Hitting, spitting and yes MORE screaming.

I didn't get any work done. Was completely worn out. After they left I went to bed, stared up at the ceiling and could STILL hear them screaming. I thought I went insane that day.

Even the next day I was exhausted!!! and when I saw the ruined coffee table & curtains when I came downstairs, I myself did some screaming.

Eleni Konstantine said...

Crazy day? Too many to name, Amanda. But I did have a crazy few weeks last year where there were appointments galore. Over four weeks, I had 20 of them. No wonder I was so tired at the end of it!

Happy upcoming release day!

Kylie Griffin said...

Hi Amanda - not long now until RELEASE DAY!!! Woohoo!

I do know a teenager who would love a copy of FAIRY BAD DAY (after I get the chance to sneak a read your book, of course :-D).

Crazy days? Hmm, how about my first day of teaching. I had a composite Kinder/Grade 1 & 2. All of 19 students.

To settle the new kinders in while parents snuck out to go home, I decided to play nursery rhymes on the piano. I'm a one fingered piano player.

Here I am reading the sheet music for Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, singing the words with those who knew them when one of my Second Graders interrupts with, "Excuse me, Miss Short, but Joshua just left the room."

Joshua being one of my new kinders. I looked around to find that the little blond tyke was indeed gone. You can imagine my panic - envisage newspaper article "Teacher loses student on first day of career".

So I pelted out the door after him and saw he'd already reached the front gate. Luckily, one of the other parents was there and managed to stop him from leaving school grounds and running all the way home (and he would have - in the years proceeding Joshua became our district cross country champion!). LOL

My job was saved but I never played songs on the piano again on the first day of school for new kinders!

Melanie Milburne said...

Great to hear you are coming back to Australia, Alison!
Good luck with the book release. It sounds fab!

traveler said...

Congratulations on this book release. SOunds wonderful. Many crazy days. Power outage, leaks, appointments and household breakdowns.

Unknown said...

3 children and 2 granchildren, lotssssssss of crazy days. actually, not really sure what is and what isnt normal crazy day

Amanda Ashby said...

Donnas - hehe - I like that saying that you've got a revolving cycle of crazy! I might have to adopt it!!!

Scarlet - now I would pay money to see someone trying to scare a cow off a train track!! But I'm glad you succeeded! I lived in England for a few years and went to three RNA conferences. They are the best fun ever!!!

Jo's Daughter - unfortunately I know first hand just how much chaos and destruction 2 year old boys can do. My daughter lulled us into a false sense of security so it wasn't until my son came along that I truly realized how exhausting kids can be!!!!

Eleni - that seriously IS crazy! I'm glad things have settled down a bit!

Desere - hahaha - sounds like you've got a collection! And I figure since I live so far away, it doesn't really matter where I post a book to!

Kylie - argh - that is definitely trial by fire. It's crazy how fast kids can move, so I'm glad you caught him!

Melanie - thank you! I'm so excited about moving back. It's been way too long!

Traveler - it's so funny that sometimes a simple household disaster won't even register on the radar and other times, when they come in threes, it can be a total nightmare!

Blackroze - great to see you here!!!!!

Amanda Ashby said...

Thanks for all the great answers, the winner is Kylie Griffin! Kylie, I'll email you to get your postal details and then as soon as I get my copies, Fairy will be winging its way to you!

Kylie Griffin said...

Thank you, Amanda! I'm so looking forward to reading FBD! And sharing the love around with some teens who I know will love your book - cant wait to get them hooked! :-)