Hand Me Down has been out in the world for five months now. Can you believe it? I can’t. What an adventure releasing this book has been. I hope to share more of the experience with you now that my travels are (almost) over, and I will be posting photos from my readings and outings in some of the places we visited: Portland (waterfalls! greenery! books!), Seattle (Space Needle from our balcony!), LA (oh, the palm trees and warm air), Santa Barbara (beach path+dolphins+perfect weather), and more. It’s been a busy five months!
I do have one more event, on October 12 at the College of Southern Maryland, with my friend and fellow UCD alum Melinda Moustakis. It will be my only east coast stop on the hardcover tour so if you’re anywhere near DC, I would love to see you! I haven’t been to the east coast in more than fifteen years, and it would be wonderful to have a warm welcome back. Come say hi!
In celebration of Hand Me Down‘s five month birthday, I am doing a giveaway! My first-ever giveaway, of the complete audiobook, narrated by Ali Ahn, who has also narrated books by Sarah Dessen and Gary Shteyngart.
I know that back-to-school means moms are in the car driving kids to and from school, and teachers are commuting to their classes again, and that also means it’s time for books on tape, or, er, books on iPods! So I thought the audio version of Hand Me Down would be an appropriate prize for a lucky someone. Of course, if you don’t want to wait, you can get the audiobook free with a thirty day free trial membership to Audible.com, a database that would be great for those of you who love to listen to your literature.
To enter to win a CD set of the audio version of Hand Me Down in my giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post. You can say anything you want, but I’d love to hear about a book you enjoyed recently. Word of mouth is really the best advertising any book can get, so if a piece of writing really speaks to you, tell you friends, write reviews, and spread the word!
If you want an extra entry, you can like me, or, at least pretend to, though my insecure childhood self is crying and asking why you don’t like her for real, but she’ll get over it. The point is, if you like my Facebook page, just tell me in your comment below and I’ll give you two virtual raffle tickets. Easy as that. If you have already liked my Facebook page—which is very much appreciated, thank you, lovely person—then tell me that below, too. Shares and tweets of this giveaway get another entry, and new Twitter followers, too (@mthorneauthor). Just let me know what you’ve done and I’ll put all your tickets in the hat. I’ll do a random drawing after all the comments come in, and the winner will receive a pretty boxed set of audiobook goodness. Deadline for entering your comment is 11:59 pm next Friday, September 21st.
If you’re still not sure you want to read Hand Me Down, you can read an excerpt, or read reviews, including my most recent review in which Wren Doloro gave the book 4/5 stars, and said of the audio version, “Excellent narration for the book on tape. Definitely a nice car ride read—it got me to stick around in the car when I arrived home. That’s a great sign. The different character voices were well done.”
So, happy birthday to my little book baby, happy back to school to all the real-life babies who are entering a new year, and happy fall reading whether your book is on tape or not.
Melanie Thorne 
I love this book and love books on tape for commutes, and for when I have housework that I don’t want to do.
Thanks, Jill!
Hey, I liked you. You can like me too, if you like liking things (and winning things) because I’m doing a similar thing on my FB Author page. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dashka-Slater/85310238963?sk=app_237202476309340&utm_source=buffer&buffer_share=b4a9a. Like the page allows you to enter the raffle.
I’ll check it out! Thanks!
Wonderful book Melanie! Hard to put down…..And I do like your FB page too!
Thanks so much, Victoria!
Melanie,
It’s awesome that you’ve got an audio version of your book. While I’m usually not comfortable discussing how much I’ve liked books that I’m still in the middle of, I have been enjoying the new Murakami novel IQ84 and I’m 680 pages in. It’s the least experimental thing I’ve been reading recently, and so the only one I’d be likely to recommend (as much as I loved the Georges Perec novel Life: A User’s Manual, I can see how it would be a slog for most people). I hadn’t read much Murakami before but I appreciate how grounded the magical realism is in this book. The world feels very much like ours and is focalized through characters who are equally confused about the magic as the reader, so it has a solid footing. I like that it has a strong female lead, even if she is pining over a man she knew 20 years ago when he was a boy (and seems to be making terrible decisions because of that). I don’t really know your tastes, but Will might like it. Anyhow, congratulations again on the audiobook. It’s great to see UCD alums do so well.
Best,
Nathan
Thanks, Nathan! And thank you for your thoughts on the Murakami book. Definitely more along the lines of what Will reads, but I feel like I should give it a shot, and your description here helps. I hope all is well with you.
Melanie, your book sounds terrific! I’m here through John Lescroart’s retweet of your offer, and I’ve liked you on Facebook.
A book I recently read and absolutely loved was Hank Phillippi Ryan’s THE OTHER WOMAN, dynamite political thriller. Right now, I’m reading a book of short stories that won the Miguel Marmol Prize–Toni Margarita Plummer’s THE BOLERO OF ANDI ROWE. Excellent, so far!
Thanks, Linda! Glad you found me and my book! Great suggestions as well, thank you. I will check them out.
So I totally missed the deadline for posting (lame, I know), but I do want to hear the audiobook version of the book. Who’s the author who narrates? It makes such a huge difference for the listener and it’s not so much the narration as it is the dialogue. It’s hard for an author to pull off a dialogue between two characters so that nobody’s confused who’s speaking and nobody groans at how comical the exchange sounds (unless that’s the intention, of course.
Sorry, I mean, who’s the actor who narrates?
It’s Ali Ahn, she narrated Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story. I haven’t listened to many books on tape, but you’re right about dialogue even in readings. I imagine it could be hard to listen to for a whole book if not done well. So far, reviews of this audiobook have been good!