Birthday giveaway!

Source: James Rhinehelder

It's my birthday today! *sound fanfare* I'm not just blogging about it because I expect hundreds of comments wishing me many happy returns (but if there aren't, I'll be sad, and you wouldn't want to see a sad Welshman. It's not pretty).

In true Hobbit-style, I'm taking this opportunity to give a present to one of you. Hodder & Stoughton have kindly given me a copy of Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor to giveaway to one of you fine people. Here's the blurb:

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Errand requiring immediate attention. Come.

The note was on vellum, pierced by the talons of the almost-crow that delivered it. Karou read the message. 'He never says please', she sighed, but she gathered up her things.

When Brimstone called, she always came.

In general, Karou has managed to keep her two lives in balance. On the one hand, she's a seventeen-year-old art student in Prague; on the other, errand-girl to a monstrous creature who is the closest thing she has to family. Raised half in our world, half in 'Elsewhere', she has never understood Brimstone's dark work - buying teeth from hunters and murderers - nor how she came into his keeping. She is a secret even to herself, plagued by the sensation that she isn't whole.

Now the doors to Elsewhere are closing, and Karou must choose between the safety of her human life and the dangers of a war-ravaged world that may hold the answers she has always sought.

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I'll post my review of Daughter of Smoke and Bone this weekend, but I'll just say that it's definitely worth reading. If you want a chance at getting a copy, just pop a comment here and you'll be entered. As always, bonus points for snark and wit. I'll keep this giveaway open until October 27th, and I'll announce the winner on Hallowe'en. The giveaway is available to the UK and Ireland only (sorry everyone else).

In either case, I'd appreciate it a hell of a lot if you all could blog, tweet and post up on Facebook about the giveaway. My UK readers are voracious yet small in number, so the more exposure it gets the better.

I will now accept your presents, cake and cries of adulation.