Authors Are Rockstars Tour: Gina Damico (+ Giveaway!)

I am SO honored to be hosting the fantastic Gina Damico on my blog today! She is just an amazing writer and person! Her debut novel, Croak (which I absolutely adored!), is about a teenage girl who is taught by her uncle Mort the tricks and trades of becoming a reaper (as in GRIM reaper!) Then people are dropping dead all around and Lex and her new friends must stop this murdering reaper. But this book was just GREAT! It almost literally had me laughing every other page! And the fact that Gina can make something so morbid into something so much FUN to read, makes her a rockstar! And not only that, but her online presence is just so much fun to stalk be around! Her blog posts are both random and funny, and always manage to put a smile on our faces. And her drawings? Love them!

Gina is a genuinely a kind and very silly person with amazing writerly talents that you cannot get enough of. Gina Damico is, without a doubt, a rockstar author.

About Gina Damico: I grew up under four feet of snow in Syracuse, New York. I received a degree in theater and sociology from Boston College, where I was active with the Committee for Creative Enactments, a murder mystery improv comedy troupe, which may or may not have sparked an interest in wildly improbable bloodshed. I have since worked as a tour guide, transcriptionist, theater house manager, scenic artist, movie extra, office troll, retail monkey, yarn hawker and breadmonger. Croak was my first novel, Scorch is my second, and the third and final book in the trilogy, Rogue, will be out September 10th, 2013. I live outside Boston with my husband, two cats, one dog, and a closet full of black hoodies.

You can find Gina here: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr | Goodreads

So, I asked Gina what top 5 book settings she wouldn't mind living in, and she answered...

1) Lyra's world in the His Dark Materials trilogy; by Philip Pullman
Two words: Armored bears. Fourteen more words: your soul in the form of an animal who is also your best friend. This world has everything! Cuddly little daemons! Polar bear fights! Crossdimensional travel! Okay, so it has its fair share of problems with kidnappings and experimenting on innocent children by ripping them apart from their souls, but honestly, who hasn't been imprisoned in an Arctic island off the coast of Norway at least once in their life?

2) Zamonia, in The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear and The City of Dreaming Books, among others, although those are my favorites; by Walter Moers
I've never met another person who has read these books, but I adore them, mostly because of the staggering amount of imagination it must take for Walter Moers to come up with that bass-ackwards fantasy world of his (complete with illustrations!). A partial list of its denizens includes: Minipirates, Roving Reptilian Rescuers, the Fearsome Booklings, Alpine Imps, Troglotrolls, and Shark Grubs. You'd need several lifetimes to explore it completely, but I'd never last more than a couple days before getting swept up into a giant tornado and making a new life inside the city within. THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS THERE.

3) Westeros, in the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin
Okay, hear me out. I know Westeros is basically the worst possible place to be a human being, and that your chances of getting beheaded, disemboweled, tortured, flayed, raped, covered in molten gold, or eaten by dragons are about 100%, but let me just say this. A couple of years ago, Tom Colicchio put together a menu of Game of Thrones style-food and served it for free out of food trucks in Manhattan, and you know what? That roasted rabbit and those lemoncakes are exactly as delicious as they sound in the books. So I say it's worth it for the food, even if you get a little eviscerated now and then.

4) Fairyland, in The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making; by Catherynne M. Valente
I'm not normally one to hang with the fae, but I would be willing to put up with their nonsense and their cruel, confusing world if it meant I could find myself a companion like A-Through-L, a charming dragon-like creature who is half wyvern, half library. (He was raised in a library, you see. It's complicated and adorable.) Plus, the capital of Fairyland, Pandemonium, is made completely of fabric, which is just so cool I can't even stand it.

And finally...
5) Harry Potter
Because come on. Obviously.

About Croak: Fed up with her wild behavior, sixteen-year-old Lex's parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape.

But Uncle Mort's true occupation is much dirtier than shoveling manure. He's a Grim Reaper. And he's going to teach Lex the family business.

She quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next. But Lex can't stop her desire for justice - or is it vengeance? - whenever she encounters a murder victim, craving to stop the attackers before they can strike again.

Will she ditch Croak and go rogue with her reaper skills?

Books 2 and 3:

Find these books on: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

AND you can find my 5 star review of Croak here! (Currently reading Scorch and LOVING it!)

And for the giveaway, our Rockstar author Gina Damico is offering up a copy of Rogue, book 3 in the Croak series, to a lucky winner in the US or Canada!

The Rules and Other-Important-Stuff-You-Should-Probably-Read:

• This giveaway is US/Canada only.
• This giveaway is author hosted.
• The winner will be notified by e-mail on August 28th and will have 48 hours to claim the prize, otherwise a new winner will be chosen. (So please, when you sign in to the Rafflecopter form, use an e-mail you check often and double check that it is correct.)
• Must be 16 or older to enter or have parent's permission.
• 1 entry per person. Duplicate entries will be deleted and participant will be disqualified from this giveaway. The only exception is the "once a day" entries.
• All entries will be verified. If any are falsified, all entries for that participant will be deleted, and the participant will be disqualified from this giveaway.
• Void where prohibited by law.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today and reading about this rockstar author! Good luck to everyone who enters the giveaway! And now I'll just leave you with the brand new Rogue trailer! Enjoy!