Emptying the Nest - September Giveaway!

So, we all have those books sitting on our shelves that we have already read and don't have a use for anymore. It doesn't mean that those books weren't great reads for us once upon a time. However, books are meant to be read so we here at Reading Lark will be giving our readers a chance to give some of our old books a new lease on life. All books are used, but still in good condition. All you have to do to enter is be a Reading Lark follower, tell us which book you'd like to adopt, and fill out the form. The form will also give you some ways to earn extra entries. You can also leave a comment to let us know what you think of this giveaway for +2 entries. This idea was originally inspired by the Secondhand Saturday event at Reading Teen.

Basic Rules:

* You must be 13 years old or older to enter the YA Giveaways.
* You must be 18 years or older to enter the Adult Giveaways.

* You must have a US or Canadian mailing address to enter.

* The September event runs from 9/10-9/17. Winners will be announced on 9/18.


Click here to enter!


Here are the books you could snag in September - You can enter to win as many of them as you'd like. We have TWELVE awesome giveaways for you this month. It will be possible for you to win more than once if you enter for more than one book.

 All summaries from Goodreads.
*Note - Cover art may vary from the edition won.*

Giveaway #1: Checkout Girl by Anna Sam (ARC) - Nonfiction, Adult

Former cashier Anna Sam offers an insider's peek at what really goes on behind the register. In the wise and witty voice of the college-educated, underpaid retail worker, Sam comments on everything from ill-cut uniforms, to drunken customers, to Express Lane tricks. Filled with hilarious and hair-raising observations, Checkout Girl is a great gift for anyone who has ever been, or had an encounter with, a supermarket cashier.


Giveaway #2: Thicker Than Water by Carla Jablonski - Young Adult


Seventeen-year-old Kia barely survived her parents’ divorce several years ago. Now her mom is in the hospital battling cancer and Kia is stuck with her workaholic father, leaving her searching for an escape from the everyday horrors of her life.

She finds this escape with a group of people acting out a dark fantasy. These “vampires” spend all night in dark clubs, wearing gothic outfits, and even baring fake fangs. But when Kia meets Damon, she begins to wonder if maybe a true vampire exists among them, one who could be the answer to all of her problems.

Giveaway #3: The Sweet-Briar Bride (Sweetbriar #2) by Brenda Wilbee - Christian Fiction

Beautiful Louisa Boren, 24 and unmarried, is an unusal woman for the year 1851. And she knows what she wants--David Denny, a man destined to be the founder of Seattle, Washington.

The continuing saga of Sweetbriar, the remarkable love story of Louisa Boren and David Denny, and the growing pains of one of America's greatest cities.The scenes have changed, but the challenges of life are no different today than they were in the mid-1800s. The conflict of human relationships, the struggle for balance in an unbalanced world, the strengthening of love amidst the uncertainties of life.

Giveaway #4: My Soul to Save by Rachel Vincent (Soul Screamers #2) - Young Adult

When Kaylee Cavanaugh screams, someone dies.

So when teen pop star Eden croaks onstage and Kaylee doesn't wail, she knows something is dead wrong. She can't cry for someone who has no soul.

last thing Kaylee needs right now is to be skipping school, breaking her dad's ironclad curfew and putting her too-hot-to-be-real boyfriend's loyalty to the test. But starry-eyed teens are trading their souls: a flickering lifetime of fame and fortune in exchange for eternity in the Netherworld—a consequence they can't possibly understand.

Kaylee can't let that happen, even if trying to save their souls means putting her own at risk….

Giveaway #5: Rachel Caine Duo - Fade Out and Kiss of Death (Morganville Vampires #7 & #8) - Young Adult


Fade Out:

Without the evil vampire Bishop ruling over the town of Morganville, the resident vampires have made major concessions to the human population. With their newfound freedoms, Claire Danvers and her friends are almost starting to feel comfortable again... 

Now Claire can actually concentrate on her studies, and her friend Eve joins the local theatre company. But when one of Eve's castmates goes missing after starting work on a short documentary, Eve suspects the worst. Claire and Eve soon realize that this film project, whose subject is the vampires themselves, is a whole lot bigger-and way more dangerous-than anyone suspected. 


Kiss of Death:


Vampire musician Michael Glass has attracted the attention of a big- time producer who wants to cut a demo and play some gigs-which means Michael will have to enter the human world. For this, he's been assigned escorts that include both a dangerous immortal as well as Michael's all-too-human friends. And with that mix of personalities, this is going to be a road trip from hell...


Giveaway #6: The Dead and Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Last Survivors #2) - Young Adult

Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as We Knew It enthralled and devastated readers with its brutal but hopeful look at an apocalyptic event--an asteroid hitting the moon, setting off a tailspin of horrific climate changes. Now this harrowing companion novel examines the same events as they unfold in New York City, revealed through the eyes of seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican Alex Morales. When Alex's parents disappear in the aftermath of tidal waves, he must care for his two younger sisters, even as Manhattan becomes a deadly wasteland, and food and aid dwindle.
With haunting themes of family, faith, personal change, and courage, this powerful new novel explores how a young man takes on unimaginable responsibilities.


Giveaway #7: Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah - Adult

From the New York Times bestselling author of On Mystic Lake comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . .

In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the world” moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all---beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer’s end they’ve become TullyandKate. Inseparable.

So begins Kristin Hannah’s magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives.

From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness. 

Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn’t know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she’ll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she’ll envy her famous best friend. . . .

For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship---jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they’ve survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test.

Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone’s Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it’s the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It’s about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you---and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you’ll never forget . . . one you’ll want to pass on to your best friend.

Giveaway #8: Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse #5) - Adult

When she is not waitressing or preoccupied with her own amorous adventures, telepath Sookie Stackhouse is tracking down a serial killer of shapeshifters. Her sleuthing is partly altruistic, but she's also trying to save her were-panther brother, Jason, who has become the chief suspect in the crime. A three-ring circus of sexy supernaturalism.


Giveaway #9: King Bongo by Thomas Sanchez - Adult


Thomas Sanchez, the author of the Key West novel Mile Zero , returns to the tropics with King Bongo, a fevered dream of dangerous desires and political treachery amid the glamour, intrigue and corruption of 1950s Havana.

On New Year's Eve 1957, a terrorist bomb rips through Havana's famous Tropicana nightclub. King Bongo, a rogue Cuban American, tortured by a mysterious past and possessed of a mythic musical talent, goes on the hunt for the culprits, and for his sister, known as the Panther, Cuba's most exotic showgirl, who disappeared in the explosion.

Navigating Havana's maze of colonial backstreets, red-light districts, Chinatown alleys, swank country clubs and opulent casinos, Bongo becomes ensnared by other complicated and outrageous lives—American hit men plotting a political assassination, decadent movie stars trolling with their bait of teenage mistresses, prophetic shoeshine boys and hotel maids willing to sacrifice their lives for the right social cause; a beautiful American socialite weaving a web of erotic intrigue—and, more dangerously, by Humberto Zapata, a sinister Machiavellian secret police operative, with whom Bongo will have a final explosive showdown.

Thomas Sanchez reimagines a world of lush sensuality where Cuban and American cultures collide in a riveting novel of graphic power.

Giveaway #10: A Girl Named Willow Krimble by Giuseppe Bianco - Young Adult

So, you’ve just discovered that the person who has tormented, mocked and humiliated you for the past three years is lying in the school parking lot, bleeding internally from a hit and run accident. No one else is around and you need to get to a life-and-death family emergency of your own before it is too late. What would you do? Oh, did I mention you have the secret ability to heal others just by touching them? This is just one of the many situations 13-year-old Willow Krimble must face in this Web Novel, A Girl Named Willow Krimble.

Willow lives with her mother and older brother, Wyatt; she loves hanging out with her best friend, the feisty and sarcastic Razzel Fiora, and she has a close relationship with her grandmother. Seems pretty normal, right? It might be if the two most popular girls in middle school, Shayla Stergus and Snella Burenbine, did not taunt and remind her, on a daily basis, that she was born without her left leg.

Forced to maneuver through obstacles most teenagers would not need to tackle, Willow is suddenly blessed (or cursed?) with the unusual power to heal others through touch. Ever selfless, Willow’s desire to help the injured and sick thrusts her into a world where she is given immense responsibility, putting the needs of others before her own, all the while trying to maintain her secret.

Willow’s adolescent journey takes her through an emotional cyclone where she finds joy and purpose in helping an array of patients from an old man with Alzheimer’s to a mauled animal in a pet store. But Willow soon finds out there are limitations to her ability and, no matter how hard she might try, she cannot save everyone.

Through the intermingling of joy and pain, Willow is repeatedly tested to discover just how strong she can be, how strong she has been her entire life, and how everyone possesses the ability to effect another person’s world, with or without a secret power.

Giveaway #11: Devil of the Highlands by Lynsay Sands (#1 in series) - Adult

They call him the Devil . . .

He is the most notorious laird of Scotland: fierce, cold, deadly . . . and maybe even worse. Yet Evelinde has just agreed to wed him. Anything, she thinks, is better than her cruel stepmother. Though Evelinde should be wary of the rumors, she can't help but be drawn to this warrior . . . for the Devil of the Highlands inspires a heat within her that is unlike anything she has ever known.

They may call him whatever they wish, but Cullen, Laird of Donnachaidh, cares only for the future of his clan. He must find a wife, a woman to bear him sons and heed his commands. He has no need for beauty or grace, but one taste of his lovely bride's sweet lips and the sultry feel of her skin arouse an untamed passion. Perhaps there's more to marriage than he thought . . .

Giveaway #12: Demonkeepers (Final Prophecy #4) by Jessica Andersen - Adult

According to Mayan doomsday prophecy, 12/21/12 marks the end of the world in a global cataclysm that can only be prevented by the Nightkeepers, magical warriors enlisted to fight the rise of the underworld demons. To fulfill the final prophecy the Nightkeepers must find their mates, but when Lucius and Jade are charged with rescuing the Mayan sun god, they try to ignore their growing attraction. Unless they can confront their own demons and accept that love isn't a weakness, even destiny might not be able to save them...