Smugglers Stash and News

Hello, good morning and welcome!

Another week ahead of us and plenty of cool things to come but first….

A Couple of HUGE Announcements:

We have just received some AMAZING news! Joel Sutherland, speculative fiction author extraordinaire, has made the final ballot for the 2009 Stoker Awards. His psychological horror novel, Frozen Blood is up for Superior Achievement in a First Novel (along with David Oppegaard‘s Suicide Collectors, another author we’ve read and interviewed here). We’ve read and loved Joel’s short story work, in Fried! Fast Food, Slow Deaths and The Beast Within, and were blown away by his fantastic debut novel effort with Frozen Blood. And so, we offer our sincere heartfelt congratulations to this new author, and have our fingers, toes, and any other appendages crossed for Joel!

For those interested in giving Joel’s hopefully soon-to-be-award-winning horror novel, it is now available online at Amazon.

In other spectacular news, debut author Carrie Ryan has announced that the movie rights to her zombie young adult novel The Forest of Hands and Teeth have been purchased!!!! Here’s the Publisher’s Weekly tidbit:

Alan Nevins of Renaissance Literary & Talent has just closed film rights on Carrie Ryan’s YA novel, The Forest of Hands and Teeth. Nevins, who brokered the deal on behalf of Jim McCarthy at Dystel Literary, sold the book, which Delacorte Books for Young Readers published in March, to Seven Star Pictures (K-11, forthcoming). Nevins said the book, a zombie thriller set in colonial times about a girl who lives in a religious community in the woods and is equally worried about a zombie invasion and her planned marriage, is in line to “do for zombies what Twilight did for vampires.” Supposedly Seven Star is developing the project for an-as-yet-unnamed A-list starlet, and fast-tracking the project with a first draft of the screenplay already in the works.

Hell. YES.

As The Forest of Hands and Teeth is already one of Thea’s favorite reads of 2009, we couldn’t be more excited for Carrie and for the film. If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading Carrie’s evocative, haunting, soon-to-be-a-hit-movie debut, go forth and do so. Immediately.

Contest Winner

The winner of our recent contest: Keeper of Light and Dust by Natasha Mostert is

Jo, congratulations! Please send your snail mail address to contact AT thebooksmugglers DOT com.

This week on The Book Smugglers

On Monday, Ana will be rambling about her reviewing process in another piece for our series Smugglers Ponderings.

On Tuesday, Ana reviews Always a Scoundrel by Suzanne Enoch

On Wednesday, Thea reviews Diamond Star by Catherine Asaro

On Thursday we will review Strange Angels,the new YA book by Lili St.Crow

And finally on Friday, we will do a joint review of Pride, Prejudice and Zombies:

And finally, a piece of advice:

GO WATCH STAR TREK – WE BEG OF YOU, FOR EVERYTHING THAT IS SACRED AND HOLY.

We can’t even begin to tell you how much we loved the movie and how it is made of awesome. We loved the storyline, the science made sense, the surprises (!!!!!!!) and above all, the acting. Every single one of them was spot on: Spock and Kirk more than anyone else. There is this one scene….no, we shall not tell, but know this: it kicks ass. Plus, Young!Kirk? HOT!!!

That’s it for today folks: we leave you with this message: