#BloodbornBirthdayBash Day 3 - Karen Talks Birthdays

Welcome to day 3 of our Bloodborn Birthday Bash.  Today we'll take it easy on you since we know you're all hard at work on your cover remakes.  We have a guest blog from Karen, she talks about her birthdays and how they have been book-related. And leave a comment below (and be sure we have a way to contact you, either leave your email in the comments or be sure your email is linked to your blogger profile) - a comment earns you 1 entry into our Bloodborn Birthday Bash Giveaway.

If you knew me, you would think that every one of my birthdays was overflowing with books. If you knew me really well, you would know better than to buy me a book for my birthday. Chances are, I already have it, or I will soon. Now, when I was but a wee brat, a very long time ago, I do remember getting a specific book for my birthday. I don’t remember how old I was at the time, I’d have to ask my mom, but I remember the book: it was Matilda by Roald Dahl. If you can believe it, I had never read a Roald Dahl book before. I remember being fascinated by the shiny raised letters of the title. I had never read a book with shiny raised letters either, and somehow equated it with fancy adult bestsellers sold in airport bookstores. I was mature! At last!


Anyway, I actually read Matilda, and I loved it. Dahl has a wicked sense of humor, and isn’t afraid to gleefully make his characters suffer. As a kid, I ate it up. I then promptly read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The BFG, The Giant Peach, and pretty much every other Dahl book in existence, even his autobiography about flying in the Royal Air Force in WWII, though I’m not sure that much of it made sense to me at the time. I was obsessed. Roald Dahl became a sort of authorial idol, all because of a birthday book.


Now, you might be wondering how many of these other Dahl books were birthday presents. To be honest, I can’t remember, because all the birthday books and Christmas books and library books and random books have blurred together. When my sisters and I were kids, our mom believed in lots of books and lots of reading. We had a huge home library filled with all sorts of nonfiction, most of it educational for homeschooling purposes, and bookcases by our beds overburdened with books. Speaking of overburdened bookcases, once, in an earthquake, the tall wicker bookshelf on the wall by my bed came crashing down and puked books all over my quilt and pillow. Luckily I wasn’t asleep, being a night owl. That’s the only time I thought maybe it could be harmful for my health to read so much.


Fast forward to today. My birthday was on September 1, and my book, Bloodborn, releases officially on September 8. We very nearly had the same birthday, but then the release date got tweaked a bit for publishing reasons. But I will still happily share my birthday week with my book, and we can eat cake together and compare birthday wishes from Facebook friends—ahem. Well, I will be eating cake, anyway. This is my excuse to buy a giant one for the launch party. But you know what would be the best birthday present? Knowing that readers love Bloodborn. And no, I’m not being saccharine, though I may have just eaten a lot of frosting recently.