Peeking Between the Pages

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GIVEAWAY – 10 copies of Broken to be Won!

by

I am so excited to announce that courtesy of Book Club Girl I’m having a huge giveaway of 10 copies of Broken by Daniel Clay to share with 10 of my lucky readers! You can read my review here and see just why I’m so passionate about Daniel Clay’s debut novel.

There are a few places you can visit to learn more about Daniel Clay and his book. By clicking here you will be taken directly to a link for the book, by clicking here you will be taken directly to Daniel’s author page. However, if you’re looking for more and let’s face we’re always looking for more, you can click here and be taken into the P.S. section that Harper Collins has on some of its paper backs when they come out. I love it because we can learn more about Daniel Clay and the book. We can whet our appetites and read Chapter 1 and just a note-I was hooked on this novel right from the first page. There’s also a conversation with Daniel Clay in this section along with the books he feels shaped his life. It’s really informative and I enjoyed delving more into why and how the book was formed.

So, here are the rules:

  • comment here for 1 entry

  • blog about this giveaway and recieve 2 entries

  • and just for fun this time around tell me a story about a crazy neighbor you have or have had and I’ll throw in 3 entries for you

I will use random.org to pick my winners. If your name appears more than once in the top 10 I will go to the next name on the list to keep it fair. This contest is open to U.S. and Canadian residents only and I will draw for the winner on Saturday, September 20, 2008. Please leave me an email or a webpage when you enter to ensure that I have a way to get a hold of you if you win.

Good Luck Everyone!

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  1. Enter me Dar!! (please).

    I've got a crazy neighbor story for you. I married my crazy neighbor! When I lived in College Station going to Texas A&M, this guy, Scott, moved in next door. We became immediate friends despite the fact that I had a boyfriend. Scott only lived next-door for about 2 months before he moved away. It was another 2 years before we lived in the same town again, but because we were still such good friends we moved in together for 6 months (my last semester and I needed a roommate). It wasn't until then that we officially dated and now we are two years happily ever after (with some stuff in the middle).

    I don't think that's the kind of "crazy" you're looking for–but it's the best neighbor story I have. 🙂

  2. Okay – I’m in . . . please! 🙂 Sounds like a book I’d enjoy.

    A crazy neighbor story??? Well, I don’t know if you would think this is crazy, but we have a neighbor that walks both of his cats – with leashes! Also, a kind of creepy part is that the cats keep changing. I mean literally. One year we see 2 cats, then a year or two later we see 1 or 2 different cats! And it happens year after year! We found out that he adopts them at an older age (some special siamese breed), so apparently they literally have died, so he keeps replacing them. At first we thought we were going crazy, trying to figure out if these were the same cats or not. Anyway, we feel that the “catman” is a bit of a crazy neighbor.

  3. No need to enter me, Dar. I’m just dropping in to say thanks for the e-mail about this contest. I’ve got it posted over at Win a Book.

  5. Ooh, I want to play.

    We actually call our neighbor across the street Crazy Mary. She’s sweet as pie when I run into her in the grocery store (which is entirely too often and where she says things like, “Mitch sure left for work early this morning”), but mean as a snake behind our backs. She has complained to my mom about our (formerly) dead front yard (in our defense, we had lived there about 6 months and hadn’t yet gotten to the lawn part of the remodel…she thought that was “tacky”), she grills our neighbors about our marital status, she has complained to our renters about the dump trailer we parked in front of our rental (what, she wants the remodel debris in the street?) and that she would have to be standing in the middle of the street to even see, and she loathes Gunther (Mitch’s surf van) who is parked on the street in front of our house…directly in her line of site. Our street is filled with retired couples…since we both work and are a good 30 years younger than the average age on the street and all of our vehicles don’t fit neatly in the garage, we stick out like a sore thumb… and evidently she doesn’t like that.

  6. Wow, great giveaway, Dar! I’m definitely interested. I’ll blog about it on my blog under “Other Blog Contests.”

    Hmm…a crazy neighbor story, eh? Well, I currently have a crazy neighbor. He’s a poor, lonely guy, and he gets obsessed with the strangest things. Once he told us not to park to close to the curb, or let our front tire touch the curb when we park. He said this will cause the air in the tire to deflate. I thanked him for his concern. Typically, I don’t park that close to the curb. The one time I did…he knocked on our front door and suggested we back up a few inches so the tire doesn’t deflate! Also, he works from home so has crazy hours. He typically doesn’t get up until around noon and is up very late. So it’s common for him to knock on our door after 9 pm (note we have kids!) to tell us something or ask us a question.

  7. I would love to win a copy of this book!

    For the most part I have been fortunate enough to have great neighbors, with the exception of the very first apartment I lived in. The walls were paper thin, and the lady that lived above us used to set her alarm for 5am and then hit the snooze button every ten minutes for two hours straight. On any normal day it wouldn’t have been so bad, but she did this on the weekends when we were trying to sleep in. Did I mention I’m a light sleeper? We moved soon after that.

  13. Oh, this sounds like a great book!!

    The only really crazy neighbor story I can share is the people who live upstairs from me sound like a herd of elephants running around. It’s pretty annoying, but not really crazy. Then there were the gunshots that rang out in my complex a couple weeks ago. They might definitely be crazy!!

  15. This sounds like such a good read, please enter me in this contest. I’ve also left a link of this at my blog, it’s off to the side.

    Thanks!

    ~ Popin

  16. I saw this book on your site, looked it up and thought it looked great…and your review made me think so even more, so I’d definitely love to win this so I can read it sooner!!!

    I blogged about it here:

    http://shootingstarsmag.blogspot.com/2008/09/win-it-wednesday-update.html

    As for a crazy neighbor, when I was about three years old…a friend of mine and I were outside playing and the older lady next door yelled to us that if we didn’t shut up, she’d call the cops!!!

    -Lauren
    lauren51990@aol.com

  17. oh me¡¡¡ (please)

    okay, crazy neighbor. I have never had a really bad crazy neighbor. But when we were little our neighbor woudl feed us veggies all the time. We would sit and talk with her and she would tell us about her life as a kid. We loved visiting her and we would spend hours every day taking from our balcony to hers. (this was in spain)

  19. This sounds like a wonderful book — I love stories from a child’s point of view. I hope this qualifies as a crazy neighbor story — they were us! My father had so many plantings in our yard, the kids referred to it as “the jungle.” We kept our driveway blockaded so no one could use it to turn around in. My dad also rigged up several outdoor speakers and blasted opera all weekend long — very uncool in the 60s and 70s! Once he had a surplus of maroon paint, so he used it for everything — trash cans, porch chairs, tools. There were more kids in my family than any others on the street, and things were often pretty noisy and rowdy. We were definitely the oddballs, but somehow we all survived. Hey, thanks for the chance to win this book — it’ll go on my TBR list no matter what!
    geebee.reads AT gmail DOT com

  20. Hi Dar,

    Please enter me & I'll be back later with a neighbor story.

    Thank you,
    Susan B.

    sbussey AT windstream.net

  21. man, i wish i had a crazy neighbor story but i don’t not really all i can say is our old neighbors moved away along with my best buddy 🙁 but that’s sad not funny

    lc_intocable at yahoo dot com

  22. I would love to be entered for a copy. Thanks!

    So, crazy neighbor story…you know I don’t really have one. We are probably considered the crazy neighbors. 🙂 We are the youngest people on our street, most here are 10+ years older than us. We have parties, at times. We are out of town a lot. We aren’t the most social.

    But that is is, not too crazy.

  23. hey dar.. thanks for the giveaway.. and do enter me for the giveaway..
    and i must say that the 3rd question was a cool idea.. i have had fun reading all the other comments above mine..:)

    well, our current neigbors are actually more annoying than crazy coz they keep fighting all the time (and in REALLY loud voices!).. sometimes, i tend to find it funny though..:) i hate to admit it, but i can clearly hear everything they have to say through the walls in our apt.. and sometimes it IS funny!:)

  25. This book sounds great! I really liked your review. As for a crazy neighbor, we have always had really nice ones, but one was in her 70’s and invited me to her coffee group one morning. I went with her to be nice and they were all in their 70’s and only talked about medication and their ailments. he he.
    bookroomreviews@hotmail.com

  27. No need to enter me, but I wanted you to know I will be posting about this book on my blog. What an awesome giveaway!

  28. Dar,

    Add my name to the giveaway. This sounds like a book I would enjoy.

    I’ll blog about it soon.

    I’m enjoying reading the crazy neighbor stories!

    Here’s mine…we were living in a rental and the houses were pretty close to each other. An older couple lived next door rely spoke to us. They were very particular about their lawn. The ownners of our house had their son plow our driveway in the winter to clear the snow. They had these long sticks to mark the driveway. The son must have torn up the lawn but the lady was mad. Every time we backed out of the driveway she would open her front door and stand and glare at us while we backed out. I guess the glaring was supposed to scare us into staying on the drive and not tearing up their lawn! It was creepy to be watched and stared at all the time!!

  29. This book sounds good.

    So my neighbor story, when I moved in to my apartment complex that I currently live in, my neighbor knocked on my door to introduce himself. However, he was very drunk and rambled for 30 or so minutes. During that time he called me the son of God (not Jesus, the other one) and kept calling my Paul. Every time I asked his name, he changed the subject. When I finally got rid of him, he comes back later with a can of nuts as a welcome gift and to apologize for being so drunk.. Then he continued to ramble some more.

  31. Hello, When I was growing up, my best friend lived across the street from me. She and her younger brother had the unfortunate circumstances to have a mom and dad that had mental problems! The mom was so mentally disturbed that she was institutionalized off and on. The dad was left to raise them. In later years, their dad would sit in the cover of his grapevines with binoculars and watch everything going on at our home. Very strange, indeed! Please enter me in your drawing. Thanks, Cindi
    jchoppes[at]hotmail[dot]com

  32. Hiya,
    Please enter me in the contest. I also posted this contest on my blog.

    Then if we are talking crazy neighbors. I neighbor of many years ago would love to go to all the garage sales in the ‘hood. Then have her own garage sales with the prices highly increased. She was a bit off and would love to dress her dog as a child and taken “tiny” on baby carriage rides around the block and ask people questions about child rearing???? The last I saw her, she was streaking down our neighborhood claiming that there evil spirits in her clothes that she bought at a garage sale and we never heard from her again.

    Sad actually…..

  33. I just realized I never got back here to comment! I’ll blog about the giveaway so sign me up :~) My email’s in my profile. Darn! No crazy neighbors… I wonder if that means I’M the crazy neighbor!!!

  35. I would love to be entered into your contest for this book.

    Here’s my crazy neighbor story. Our upstairs neighbor in our current apartment complex came to borrow two dollars from me one afternoon so she could get some milk. I thought nothing of it, but then everytime I saw her she reminded me that she owed me $2 and that she would get it to me soon. Well, it doesn’t end here. She was always a jittery woman and I never paid much attention until one night at about 3am, someone was banging on our apartment door. Now, the first thing going through my mind is that there is a fire and our alarm didn’t go off. Well, it wasn’t a fire, it was our neighbor pounding on our door, pacing back and forth, and muttering to herself that she needed to get money and get the “stuff.” I never opened the door, but saw all of this through the peephole and hearing her through the closed door…she was muttering loudly. Soon after this incident, I didn’t see her, but her live-in boyfriend cam down another afternoon to offer me some clothes that he said would fit and he would give them to me for $25. Gee I wonder…I told him no thank you and shut the door. I think six months later they were finally evicted. :)) Talk about Crazy!

  36. Please enter me!

    We have since moved becuase of this crazy neighbor, but this young couple moved into the house next door to us. I was preggo with my second child and this guy and his wife had “swinger” parties all night long, that began at 10pm and went on until 5am.

    After the baby was born, I would be up every hour to nurse because their loud carrying on kept waking up the baby! I even went over there, with the baby in my arms and asked them to knock it off and they continued to have these parties at least twice a month.

    I had to get the city and the sherrif’s dept involved, along with a petition signed by all of my neighbors to get this guy to knock it off! Then, when he did not, and we decided to sell the house, we had to DISCLOSE this problem!!

    It was not fun!

  40. Sounds like a compelling book. I would love to win a copy.

    So here is my little story. Now, this man lived in my neighbourhood, just the next street over. Whenever my family would drive by, we would see him out and about. Once we saw him knocking on the mailbox, yelling at it, telling someone to “Come Out!” Another time he brought all this junk and garbage out to his front yard and made some sort of fort with it. The last time we saw him, he was up on his roof, and knocked down the chimney. After that, the owner who was subletting the house to him kicked him out. So that’s my crazy neighbour story i guess. haha.

    Anyways, please enter me in the giveaway. I also blogged about it here:
    http://c-alexis.livejournal.com/16968.html

    Just wanted to take this chance to also say “thank you” for coming to my page and reading my little reviews. It’s nice to know that i’m not just writing them for myself to read. haha. =)

    – Carmen T

  41. Wow! This one sounds incredible. I can see how you were hooked from the first sentence.

    As for a neighbor story, the last house we lived in we had a neighbor behind us who was very, very odd but worse yet, he did no maintenance. It looked fine when we moved in but then he got a divorce and his wife moved out. It all went downhill from there. His grass got to be about a foot before he would mow it and when his fence fell down, he just left it like that which meant we had a direct line of view into his backyard which was even worse than the front. His house had junk everywhere outside, paint was peeling, it was awful. If he couldn’t afford to make repairs, I might have some sympathy for him but he had a great job. He just didn’t care. It took us 9 months to sell our house and I’m positive that having him for a neighbor was the problem.

  42. Fun contest! Well my crazy neighbors let their chickens run loose and it seemed that they always liked our yard better than their own. Last year they almost destroyed my garden, pecking holes in my tomatoes and even jalapeno peppers. Luckily they decided to build a pen for them after we got a dog, must have figured he’d have a taste for fresh chicken!

  43. Please enter me!

    As for Crazy neighbor stories, I will tell you my favorite one of my MOM’s. We had a neighbor couple that were both psychiatrist. One day my Mom looked out the window and there was Mr Pickerel standing in the middle of his front yard with a sprinkler on his head… My mom always said that they were the craziest people she ever met.

  44. I’d love to be in your drawing!

    Not sure if this counts as a crazy neighbor story but….I live on a small city lot. My neighbors on one side have EIGHT, yes 8, small dogs, that bark at me whenever I’m outside. Even after 8 years living here. On the other side, my neighbors are building an enourmous 3 car detached garage that is about as big as their house. And construction has been going on for one year. It’s a bit tiring to look at.

  46. Oh, Book Club Girl must love you! Based on your review, I would love to win a copy. Thanks for hosting!

  47. Please enter me, Dar. I don’t have any crazy neighbors (thank God)! I’m pretty sure they think I’m the crazy one!

  48. This sounds neat, throw me in there!

    Current crazy neighbor. Well not really, we’ve never had a REALLY crazy neighbor, or have even ever known a particularly loco person. Anyways, She’s a hippy-like school teacher, smart as, on and off vegetarian, cat person, and she is always over here giving us her food! She’s single and makes too much for one person, according to her. Good food anyway. She plays WoW, and laughs way too much whenever she eats even alittle sugar, she gets high off it..

    Not that crazy, as I said, but odd, I think. In a good way though.

  49. I’d love to be entered!

    I had a crazy neighbor a couple years ago. He and his family eventually moved, thank God! I used to leave for work at 5 am and he’d be out there between the door to my unit and the door to his in his underwear with a cigarette and a beer in his hand. He was always roaming the sidewalks drunkenly. Then again, I think he was more creepy than crazy.

    diaryofaneccentric[at]hotmail[dot]com

  52. I’d love an entry!

    I’d tell you about my crazy neighbors, but they might be trolling the Internet and I still have to live next to them, so shhhh!

  53. Count me in! What an intro for the book!!

    crazy neighbor…hhhmmm.

    Let's see. The only one I can think of is your neighbor's (and friend) son-in-law. He lives on the street behind us, and walks over every day to her house across the street. Along the way he like to antagonize the dogs…hitting fences with his walking stick, barking back, etc…he's even kicked dirt at our dogs. OOOO…did I let into him the one time I caught him. He doesn't do that anymore to our dog.

    *mumbles* &^%^%#^&@!! When my Coco was alive, I so wanted to let him loose to take a chunk outta him!

  54. This looks like a very interesting book.

    I’m a country girl, so I’ve been far enough removed from most of my neighbours that their craziness hasn’t affected me much – we know in a general sense who’s crazy, but we don’t see them all the time.

    One notable exception to this was a lady who lived a little ways down the road. We had a bit more contact with her because she was sort of friends with my mom (whose tolerance level for weird behaviour is higher than mine). Sometimes she’d be very friendly, and if you saw her at her job she was always friendly and professional, but other times I’d be walking along the road and she’d be walking the other way and she wouldn’t even respond when I said hello.

  55. This sounds like a good book! Thank you for the chance to win it!

    My neighbors are pretty normal, darn it! lol The only thing I can remember is one neighbor always coming home with a different car at the end of the day. We finally learned that he ran a used car lot. Guess he was trying out the cars! lol

    mittens0831 AT aol DOT com

  56. Dar, I don’t remember having a crazy neighbor. Except when I was little. My parents had a dispute with our next door neighbor. I don’t remember what it was about.
    But I will never forget that our dog was a beagle. She had a large big pot filled with boiling hot water. I kid you not, the rest of the story. She through hot water over our dog named Skipper. I think our dog was ok, because I don’t think he or us were traumatized by it.

  60. Count me in as well! I don’t really have any crazy neighbors, just some annoying ones…

    ylin.061[at]yahoo.com

  61. sounds like my kind of book,my crazy neighbor story

    When I was a little girl we lived close to a old lady who,back then they didnt call it alztimers,they called her crazy,she would see people who werent there antalk to them,espically at night,many a nite my dad would go an tell her to go back inside,she would be standing on her porch with a gun!this was 35 yrs ago,so calling the police wasnt a option back in such a rural place,we werent allowed to go near her house at all,my folks called it sundowners disease,it happened mostly after the sun went down,but that was our crazy neighbor,an finally we moved an dont know what happened to the poor old soul

  62. Please enter me in the giveaway for Broken.
    I used to live across the street from neighbors who violently objected to my son parking by the sidewalk on their side of the street. People always parked in front of my house without me having a fit. But the neighbor would say this parking is mine–I pay taxes. We did not park over there much except when extra company would come –they were strange and a little funny (the city law in my town says curbside parking is not the property of the home owner by the way).
    pintolinda (at) hotmail (dot) com

  63. Enter me please. When I was about 9, we had a lady who lived next door in a very large victorian house in a suburb of southern CA. I imagined that at one time it was the original house for the whole block. She took care of her elderly mother and their house was full of cats. But not just cats, most of the cats had kittens. There were dozens!!!!! She also had an aviary of canaries in her back yard and a huge german shepard that used to jump against the fence and bark at us when we took the garbage out. Despite all this, she was a sweet, sweet lady. jckillen(at)comcast(dot)net

  65. My crazy neighbor story would have to be old man Benson. (years later my mom told me he was only 25) If any of the kids happened to step on his lawn he would come running out of the house and chase them down the street screaming. Of course that made the kids want to torment him and would step on his grass on purpose. He sure was mean though.
    judybrittle(at)aol(dot)com

  66. well this is popular! well done. put my name in, please!

    and a story about my crazy neighbor? the psycho next door refuses to mow the strip of grass between our landlord’s property and her row of trees. (the property lines are clearly delineated by surveyor’s stakes.) there’s a dandelion growth of going on four months there now. I keep smiling at her, but she always scowls back. I don’t know why; she’s not picking our dandelion seeds out of her garden…

  70. love that cover…would love to read the book…your review was great!!

    crazy neighbor?? my current neighbors are crazy annoying…they slam their door when the leave…and they do it a minimum of 20 times an hour. seriously…it rattles everything in my house and makes me CRAZY!

  72. Count me in!
    My crazy neighbor story…….He was an artist. He painted the registration sticker for his license plate to give him another year since it had expired!He also called in and quit a job to stay home because his video game did not save where he left off and he did not want to start it over.

  73. This book sounds great-I would love to be entered! I had a neighbor so crazy that we had to move to get away from him. He was mean, he set out cat traps and threw the cats to his mean dogs. He attacked one of our other neighbors with a shovel for backing up in his driveway. He would sit at the window with a rifle.Hw would whistle and make sexual comments to all the women. He eventually went to jail for kidnapping!

  74. I would love to be entered in your contest!
    I have a crazy neighbor and i know she’s not on blogging sites so i can write this. She’s a very sweet person and that’s how she lures you in and once she has you it’s not over untill she says it is. Like conversations I think she has a extra lung to talk so much. She’ll ask me over for a pepsi and just to talk a bit and she she’s no one eles is home so what’s my excuse I’ve already used them up visit’s are usually 2 hours at the least and i’ve gone threw every excuse to i have something on the stove and i forgot about it lol! One day it was 101 degrees out side and my dog’s water had turned over and i noticed she was out side, we have a privacey fence between us but she can see me when i’m on my deck we’ll so she wouldn’t see me I crawled out on the porch and of coarse my 2 st.benard dogs thinks this is amusing i crawl down the steps and to the fascet to fill the buckets up and on the way back I see her husband looking from his porch hollering at his wife that he thinks i’ve fallen because i’m on the groung OMG how embassasing!!!! they rushed over to the fence all concerned and i told them not to worry just turned over my ankle. I’ve moved the buckets of coarse but my husband laughed so hard when i told him this oh by the way i’m a grown woman that done this 43 at that. Desperation has no age does it?
    photoquest(at)bellsouth(dot)net

  75. I’d love to enter!

    aleareads @ gmail dot com

    The neighbor wasn’t the crazy one, but someone the neighbor knew… it was maybe 1-2 am and I heard these really loud bangs outside our apartment building. I looked out the window from the second floor and down on the ground was a guy, probably drunk, throwing rocks at the neighbor’s window, which is right next to my window. I told him to stop and he said no I’m trying to get so and so’s attention, I told him well she obviously doesn’t want to talk to you. He then wanted me to try calling her and I told him no so he said he’d just keep doing it. I was tired so I told him he was pathetic and shut the window. I think someone finally let him in because it soon stopped. Crazy!

  76. Thank you for the review! I would love to add this to my growing collection of must reads, thank you again!!
    natasha_sacopaso[at]hotmail[dot]com

  77. As for crazy neighbor stories, there is one lady on our block who is retired and getting older in her years. Apparently she has way too much time on her hands, as she seems to know the affairs of the WHOLE neighborhood! For example, we were casually talking one day and somehow she got on the topic of a car that parks in front of our house sometimes. I had no idea who it belonged to, nor did I really care – we park in back. She knew everything about the car (times/days that it parked there and for how long, etc) and all the gossip behind it (which neighbor lady was receiving visits)…I was shocked at her knowledge of neighborhood gossip, and mildly worried about what she might be telling others of me o.0…after all, I don’t always promptly mow our lawn, lol. Nothing really ‘crazy,’ but I still find it really creepy to think that I’m being watched!
    natasha_sacopaso[at]hotmail[dot]com

  78. I very much would love to read this book so enter me please.

    Crazy neighbor across the back alley who won’t talk to us or especially me. I worked for her and her boyfriend in their Bargain Store and we used to go out as couples for supper quite often. Something happened at work, a little disagreement, and she hasn’t talked to me in app. 2 years. The funny part is when we first met I commented on how I hated having neighbors who you couldn’t wave to or say hi to at least when both of you are out in the back yard. THIS is exactly what happened here- she won’t give a sec if her life depended on it. Go figure.

  79. This is so great Dar – very exciting giveaway and the book looks really, really good. In fact, this is a book I would immediately read when I got it, letting it bypass my daunting TBR pile.
    I had crazy upstairs neighbors in college. They were from asia somewhere and slept all day and chopped vegetables all night long very loudly. I never saw them and I don’t know when they went to class.

  80. How did I miss this contest! We have a crazy neighbor now. She goes through everyone’s garbage and recycling late at night. No one can figure out what she’s looking for, though. Please enter me.

  83. OOh, count me in!! And have I got crazy neighbors for YOU! When we were kids, we had neighbors who raised turkeys (!) and these birds were loud and ugly and awful, but our neighbors treated them like some people treat their cats. They’d come out and coo at them and get mad at us kids for poking our fingers through the fence to see if we could snatch them back before a turkey bit us. I’m not sure what these people did when they had to sell/slaughter a turkey, I kind of think they never did and that ‘raising turkeys’ was just code for ‘has many turkeys as pets.’

  88. this sounds great i need a good book to read .I will tell you about my crazy neighbour they rent the house next door and there young kids stole beer that was sitting there for a month no lie out of our driveway there really kinda strange i seen him because at the time i was washing dishes and seen him running off with it i got a good laugh