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Congrats to Zanara, who won The Wish (2nd ed) by Eden Winters! The Wish is being released today by Dreamspinner Press. And don’t forget that a new edition of Valentine Wish (Wish #3) is available as a free read today!

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Congrats to Majken, who won A Better Man by RJ Scott and Jaime Reese! A Better Man will be released by Silver Publishing on July 21.

Congrats to Erica, who won Daddio (Horizons #3) by Mickie B. Ashling! Daddio will be released by Dreamspinner Press on July 23.

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Contests

• Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words is giving away an ebook copy of Primal Red (Bellingham Mysteries #1) by Nicole Kimberling. Winner selected July 22.

• Joyfully Jay is giving away the following ebooks: your choice from Katey Hawthorne’s Supowerpowered Love series; your choice of Ava March’s Bound series or her Convincing series; or Player and the Prude (Holsum College #4) by Daisy Harris. All contests close at 11:59 pm EDT, July 22.

• Pants Off Reviews is giving away an ebook of your choice. Closes 11:59 pm EDT, July 22.

• Tracy’s giving away an ebook copy of Cold Steel and Hot Lead (How the West Was Done) by Karen Mercury. Closes 7 pm PDT, July 24.

• Pants Off Reviews is giving away an ebook copy of A Life Without You (Boston Boys #1) by Erica Pike. Closes 11:59 pm EDT, July 24.

• Pants Off Reviews is also giving away an ebook copy of Lucius’ Bite (Family of Misfits #1) by K-Lee Klein. Closes 11:59 pm EDT, July 25.

• And Pants Off Reviews is giving away three ebooks from the backlist of Josephine Myles. Closes 11:59 pm EDT, July 26.

• Blodeuedd’s giving away a copy of The Officer Says, “I Do” by Jeanette Murray. Closes August 1. US & Canada.

Bookity

• New releases and more: Literary Escapism (UF/PNR), Fiction Vixen (romances), AAR (romances), and  Book Lovers Inc (romance etc).

• Book and publishing news from Dear Author.

• Dear Author on the wider implications of the “Stop the GRs Bullies” site. Some humor about the whole mess from Carolyn Jewel (via Kate) and Anime June (via Experiment BL626).

• Melanie posted about her favorite series covers and cover artists.

• LA Witt on why she despises the term “mommy p0rn”.

• Make a bedside smartphone dock out of an old book.

• Berlin uses fallen tree trunks to hold books for a free book exchange program. (Thanks, Kate!)

• Five meals from literature. (via The Kitchn)

• There really was a Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin. (via The Mary Sue)

• Better book title for Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye.

• Jennifer Armintrout has started her snarky chapter-by-chapter review of 50 Shades Darker.

• Will someone pass the brain bleach, please?

Ebookity

• Root a Nook Simple Touch and turn it into a superpowered ebook reader/eInk Android tablet.

• Make a “boom” for handsfree ereader or tablet reading.

• Part one of Dear Author’s series on privacy and ereading.

• Because readers of ebooks have so many choices (and tend to accumulate ebooks faster than we can read them), mainstream publishers threatening to release new books as paper only for the first several months doesn’t necessarily matter to us – we have plenty of other things to read.

Do, Think, Make, Learn

• “On politics: The logic of the illogical“.

• Chick fil-A’s company president has taken a very public stance against gay marriage. You can make your own Chick fil-A sandwiches at home instead of supporting hate.

• “How much Force power can Yoda output?“

• How Adam Savage of Mythbusters works.

• Splitting an Amazon Prime membership four ways (with your “family” members) makes it a lot more palatable…

• The Time of London is demanding it stop raining in the UK. Looks like they have a valid point! (via Yarnerinas)

• The FDA has approved the first drug that helps prevent HIV.

• Foods you should avoid eating during heatwaves. (via The Kitchn)

• Canadians – don’t leave your plastic money in a hot car!

• Make your own sprinkler using PVC pipe.

• Don’t forget to clean the filters in your air conditioner or dehumidifier!

• It’s the 30-year anniversary of the clamshell computer. (via Liliputing)

• “The truth about semen“.

• “15 crazy ideas to make your life saner“.

Gluten-Free

• GF lasagna.

• GF pizza.

• GF blueberry muffins.

• Granita.

Cookity

• Roasted vegetable curry. (via The Kitchn)

• Lettuce wraps with ginger, carrots, & shredded tofu. (via The Kitchn)

• Grilled tofu spring rolls with peanut dipping sauce. (via The Kitchn)

• Chopped salad with soba noodles. (via The Kitchn)

• Avocado hummus.

• Classic guacamole.

• Bacon and tomato guacamole. (via A Caffeinated Yarn)

• Thai-style turkey burgers. (via The Kitchn)

• Brownie cookies with salted caramel creme filling. (via The Kitchn)

• Almond Joy shortbread bars. (via Bron’s Pinterest)

• Snickers bars. (via MrsPao)

• Pink lemonade bars. (via The Kitchn)

• 5 fruit salsas.

• 6 mayo-free potato salads.

• 10 recipes for cooking with beer. You can use gluten-free beer… 🙂

• 15 recipes using peaches.

• Gin rickey.

Crafty

• Crocheted porch pouf. (via CRAFT)

Cool

• Quote from Neil DeGrasse Tyson on keeping religion out of science classrooms.

• Quote from Bill Maher on what atheism is.

• Northern Lights over Duluth and the North Shore. (Thanks to Jeanne for the second link!)

• 200,000 piece LEGO model of the Roman Colosseum.

• Some LEGOs from The Dark Knight Rises.

• Painting a 150-foot tall Batman.

• The perfect car for the zombie apocalypse. (via The Mary Sue)

• Mr. Tea Infuser.

• I think we all need one of these! 🙂

Cool or Wha…?

• Musical wine glasses.

• Maze tumbler.

• Sushi bazooka.

• Layered-door refrigerator.

Wha…?

• Products that cannot possibly work. (Thanks, Jase!)

• Crotch flask.

• TSA does extra crotch screening on man with world’s longest penis…

• Spanx for men?

• Air-conditioned pants.

• Custom furniture that you can use as a coffin when you’re dead…

• Knitted hangover mask.

• Cars with built-in espresso machines.

• Rooftop dining set. (via Gizmodo)

• Refrigerator for your bathroom.

• Malt-flavored Mountain Dew.

• R2-D2 football.

• The new town of Bikinis, Texas.

LOL

• 10 “reasons” to oppose marriage equality. (Thanks, Jeanne!)

• Best drugstore promo?

• Amazon Yesterday.

• “The actual cast of Star Wars sings ‘Call Me Maybe’“. Then watch the cast of Doctor Who sing “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

• Very NSFW m/m photo story enacted with action figures and more…

• Be careful who you do geology with! (hover your mouse pointer for additional text)

• Internet argument victory. (again with the hovering)

• How people from around the world react to a 64F forecast (with sunshine).

• Animals with misleading names.

• Animal instincts.

• Make the internet more cat friendly with Meowbify. (Thanks, Jase!)

• Star Wars scenes done with cats.

• What I really do… the cat edition.

• Yes. Yes they will.

• Cat house.

• Cat tree.

• I hear ya, Cynical Cat.

• The power of kitties.

• Some feline spider-hunting humor.

• Chaos wouldn’t be this polite.

• Chaos again.

Teh Cute

• Kittens! Baby panda! Baby tigers! Baby moose! Kitten! Egret and babies! Baby tigers! Black kitten! Tiger! Baby black panthers! Baby tigers! Tiger and baby! Tiger! Lion and baby! Lioness and baby! Cheetah and baby! Tiger! Baby snow leopard! Baby lion! Baby tigers! Baby lions! Baby cheetah! Stompers! Baby spoon-billed sandpipers! Kittens! Baby penguin! Flamingos and baby! Kitten! Kitten! Snow leopard! Kitten butt!

Reading Update
Red-Eye Dawn (Turbulence #3) by Jordan Castillo Price. free ebook short. Very good installment of the serial in which Paul starts to freak out about their situation, but gains calm from an unexpected source.
Temporal Driftwood by Stephen Osborne. ebook short. Cute short m/m romance about a guy who’s shown two possible futures for himself… Can he believe he deserves the good one?
An Oral Fixation by Piper Vaughn. free ebook short. Cute short m/m romance about a college student who’s had a crush on his bisexual roommate for years, but the timing hasn’t worked out to say anything about it.
Naked Truth (Sun, Sea & Submission #3) by Kim Dare. ebook short. Good short kinky m/m romance about a nudist who seems determined to disrupt the (closeted at work) life of the Pendragon Hotel’s manager.
Final Atonement (Doug Orlando #1) by Steve Neil Johnson. Good gay mystery set in NYC in the early 90s about a cop, ostracized by his peers for trying to do the right thing, who’s trying to figure out who murdered a universally disliked rabbi.
Player and the Prude (Men of Holsum College #4) by Daisy Harris. ebook. Good m/m romance about a wealthy and slutty business major who takes a bet from a friend to seduce a gawky, repressed film student.
Skin Deep (Gray Zone #3) by Adrienne Wilder. ebook. Pretty good paranormal m/m romance about a guy who returns home one day to discover that his boyfriend is very, very sick… and is then plunged into a nightmarish world he can barely comprehend. This was a very mixed read for me – it’s a Bittersweet Dreams title, so it doesn’t exactly end happily. And I couldn’t quite relate to the main character – many of his actions seemed TSTL to me.
Come Cuddle Me by Missy Welsh. ebook short. Ok short m/m romance about a naive young man who posts his address along with an invitation to “come cuddle me” and is rescued from his foolishness by the bearish neighbor he’s been crushing on.

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“I can’t believe you called me a thug, Mom. Look at how sophisticated and refined I am!” -Chaos