Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Finally! TWISTROSE KEY winners!



These two lovely copies of THE TWISTROSE KEY have been anxiously waiting for me to make a decision on the giveaway contest so they can go to their new homes and be loved. I sometimes hear them whispering to each other in the night, wondering at their fates, and consoling each other. I'm sorry it's taken me this long. It was hard!!! Seriously, just now, I caught myself wondering if maybe somehow I could buy copies for everyone who entered! But there were too many entries for that to be feasible, alas. 

(If you missed that post, you were to tell about a beloved childhood pet for a chance to win a copy of this marvelous book.)

The responses are just so lovely and varied. Thank you everyone for playing! And if you aren't one of the winners, I hope that you will still seek out the book because it is amazing. I'm nearly finished rereading it now and loving it even more than before!

Okay, so. To the pets! 

So many memorable ones! Wild and exotic "pets" seem to garner quirkier names than dogs and cats do. Take Vivian the praying mantis, Mr. Darcy the Siamese fighting fish, and a stick insect name Thor. Atari the barn owl, Gary Rosemary the Helix Aspersa snail, Charlemagne the frog. 

And such sweet stories. Currently petless as we are, it's hard not to rush straight off to amend that situation. It brings to mind the wonderful ad campaign for the Oregon Humane Society: 






END PETLESSNESS indeed! Hopefully soon. Okay. So I struggled with this decision. I am still struggling. I'm just writing along here to forestall having to make a decision ...

[pause to calculate how much 78 copies of the Twistrose Key plus shipping would be ...]

Yeah, no. Sigh. So a decision must be made! In which I am helped out by the author, miss Tone Almhjell herself! She fell in love with BeingPerry's story of baby raccoon adoption, and I must say I did too. So Winner #1 for The Twistrose Key giveaway is: BeingPerry! Thank you BeingPerry!

And the next one is for me to decide. 

Oh god. I still can't. I've got it down to THREE, and even that was very difficult, and possibly arbitrary because I love SO MANY OF THEM. They are:

-- Olesya and Gavrik the Russian Siamese cat who totally took down a rat in grandma's dacha. Woo!

-- Jonquill's kitten-saving dog Buffy, who got between a Rottweiler and a box of abandoned kittens.

(I guess I give points for heroism! I didn't know this about myself!)

-- and lastly, Q's praying mantis, Vivian, because praying mantises are SO COOL, and Vivian is the perfect name, and also because the piece is so well written. (Nice going, Q :-) 


So. What am I going to do here? Am I going to buy two more copies of The Twistrose Key to prevent myself from having to make a final decision? 

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Yes. Yes I am. So there are a surprise FOUR WINNERS to this contest, and I really hope the rest of you will get ahold of the book too! YAY TWISTROSE!!!

(If you want to read the entries, go to comments for this post.)


Honorable mention goes to Mara Rae's mouse Herman, because he reminds me of Rufus from The Twistrose Key, a brother in pocket-riding :-) (You guys are going to love Rufus!)

And lastly, the humor prize (which is an accolade only), goes to this one:

I was raised by a little packet of mini wolves the size of travel toothpaste tubes. Though I was human, they treated me as one of their own and when I was very wee, I was also given a blessing ceremony similar to Magpie's. Apparently, squirrels, ducks, baboons, raccoons, and even a cockroach gave me special powers that combined allow me to swing from trees, smell a herd of mice from nearly two miles away, and survive a nuclear blast, God forbid. My pet was a little ladybug named Ken. He was my childhood companion until I was seven or eight years old. He had the voice of a baby lamb and would snuggle all cozy in the nook of my earlobe's lobe.


 It's anonymous, alas. If only I could figure out who wrote it. *fake puzzle face* (T'was my best friend :-)

I have emails for everyone except Q. Q, shoot me an email with mailing information if you'd like to claim your book!

Thanks again, everyone! Hug your pets :-)






8 comments:

Q said...

WOW! And it's my birthday, too!! I'm glad you liked hearing about Viv. We so loved having her in our lives.

Sending an email in a few minutes. :D

tone almhjell said...

Awesome, awesome winners! But in truth, all the entries were lovely. Thank you so much to everyone who put their animal love and broken hearts into a comment, and thank you to Laini for hosting this wonderful giveaway <3

Olesya said...

Laini, THANK YOU SO MUCH for picking me as one of your winners!!! I can't even express how happy this makes me! And thank you for hosting such a unique, fun, and creative giveaway contest - I loved sharing my memories of Gavrik with you, and I'm so glad you liked my story about him. I sent you my email already, but I think I'll send a follow-up email with some photos of Gavrik that I just found :-) Hope you don't mind!

And thank you Tone - I can't wait to read Twistrose Key! I already know I will love it!

BeingPerry said...

Laini,
Thank you so much! I am so glad both you & Tone enjoyed my post. I am so happy that I am one of the winners. I agree all of the stories were wonderful and I can't help but feeling that mine was in no way particularly stand out-ish compared to all these extremely loved pets. I enjoyed reading about all of them, and don't envy you for having to chose just a handful of winners. This was such a fun giveaway/contest. It was great to take a walk down memory lane with all of you, and I look forward to reading The Twistrose Key.
-Amanda

KarenC said...

I love how you called it the Oregon Human Society. It's believable that Oregon would have such an organization.

Jonquill said...

Thank you so much for picking mine! I loved reading through everyone's stories, and I can't wait to read Twistrose Key! A very cool giveaway indeed, Laini!

Unknown said...

So glad I didn't have to make this decision. The stories were great. Congrats to the winners and thanks for the shout out to Atari the barn owl. God I love that bird. Just not in the way he loves me. LOL

June G said...

I totally loved Rufus!

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