Manar Amr French Lit. & Historical Fiction	Lanna Anderson Non-Fiction & Sci-Fi/Fantasy	Mrs. BookFreak Spiritual/Self Help & Mystery	Amy Fine Sci-Fi/Fantasy & Mainstream
Julie Goucher Memoirs/Biographies	Karina Knightingale Paranormal Fiction & Fantasy	Rebecca Perlow Urban Fantasy & Mystery	LA Rhodes Write Romance & Drama

 

 

 

Manar Amr, French Literature & Historical Fiction

Manar is a 24 year-old Moroccan currently living in Casablanca. She is a software engineer and an aspiring bookworm. To her, just like writing, reading is therapeutic. She has always enjoyed reading all sort of books, but the cadence increased after she graduated — the feeling of being able to read whatever and whenever had a liberating effect.



Manar’s favorite writers include Amin Maalouf, Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen. She also loves poetry, music and movies.

Follow Manar (@manaarr) on Twitter and visit her blog, My Journey….

 

Lanna, Non-Fiction & Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Lanna is addicted to reading and gets physically uncomfortable if there is no written material handy. She even reads all the magazines and emergency instructions located in seat pockets of airplanes and trains.

Lanna was one of those kids who walked to school with her nose in a book. Her elementary school library is to blame for an early and enduring appreciation of fantasy novels via David Eddings and several illustrated anthologies of world mythology. Science fiction was a more mature, but equally strong love. Current favorites include Greg Bear, China Mieville, Haruki Murakami, Neil Gaiman and Michael Moorcock.

Historical and social non-fiction are Lanna’s favored method of trying to cope with her astounding ignorance of the world. Elizabeth Abbott and Mary Roach are numeros uno/dos right now.

She lives in Toronto and works at a day job in communications where she gets to write interesting stories about interesting people in her uninteresting cubicle. She also writes in her off-hours and is working on a fantasy trilogy about the end of the world.

Follow Lanna (@randombooksread) on Twitter and visit her blog, Random Books Read.

 

Mrs. BookFreak, Spiritual/Self Help & Crime/Mystery

"So many books, so little time," — Original quote, Mrs. BookFreak


Mrs. Book Freak currently lives in the beautiful, rolling hills of North Carolina with her husband, five children and five dogs. Her enjoyment of the written word is unmatched by most as she is an avid reader of all genres of writing but is particularly drawn to horror, science, spirituality, metaphysical and self-help books. Some of her all time favorite authors are H.P Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, Guy De Maupassant, Henry Hans Christian Anderson, The Marquis De Sade (did you know he wrote gothic stories?) Laurel K. Hamilton, L Ron Hubbard, Poppy Z. Brite and Stephen King. Her favorite book is Far From the Madding Crowd by Joseph Conrad.


Mrs. Book Freak also enjoys writing and has written since the tender age of 9. She has written many works in the genre of horror and science fiction. She has also written several movie scripts, which she will be producing as movies with her own fledgling movie production company – Scaredy Cat Productions. In addition, Mrs. Book freak works as a freelance writer on the internet and has enjoyed many writing jobs such as working as a book reviewer, ghost writer, a creative writer, an ad writer, and an article writer. She is currently working on her own anthology of short stories to be published soon.


"If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write." -Stephen King

 

Amy Fine, Sci-Fi/Fantasy & Mainstream

Amy is a mother of two teenage girls and believes that life makes the best stories — but, nothing is better than getting lost in a good book! She is hooked on paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, and mystery. One of her all-time favorite books is The Secret Garden. Amy started blogging to share her favorite books and hopefully inspire others to try something new.


Follow Amy (@t2dfine1) on Twitter, find her on Facebook and visit her blog, Fine’s Fantasies.

 

Julie Goucher, Memoirs/Biographies

Julie is forty something, and lives in the South West of England with her husband. She has a career in retail pharmacy management, but her real passion is reading and history.


Julie has a history degree and a passion for all things historical including genealogy and is currently working on a selection of genealogical type projects.


She reads mainly novels, but does enjoy cosy mysteries and memoirs, naturally those with a genealogical slant. Her favorite books being The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon and The Elm Creek series by Jennifer Chiaverini. All these books reflect the diversity of Julie’s reading material!



Once, Julie was so engrossed in reading A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute that she boarded a train without her luggage!


Follow @JulieGoucher on Twitter and visit her blog, Angler’s Rest.

 

Karina Knightingale, Paranormal Fiction & Fantasy

Karina Knightingale has always been passionate about Paranormal Fiction, and as soon as it started coming back into fashion about five or six years ago she went on her quest spreading the love with the help of her blog.


She graduated from the University in Russia as a specialist in International Relations and moved into good old England, where between sightseeing the old castles and stately manors, dancing flamenco and sweating through yoga, she managed to work for a few years in a pharmacy dealing with mental health patients.


Tired of the Bedlam, she spent few months traveling around South East Asia, which appeared to be even crazier than her old job. Coming back to her senses Karina returned to the serene British shores, into the beautiful Staffordshire Moorlands where she now resides with her beloved husband.


Karina dabbles in translation and reviews urban fantasy, paranormal romance, young adult literature and occasional steampunk – all of which can be described as Paranormal Fantasy.

 

Rebecca Perlow, Urban Fantasy & Mystery

Rebecca Perlow is a fiction writer, blogger and crafter living and working in Chicago, Illinois. She recently received an MA in Writing and Publishing from DePaul University. Her work has appeared in Gertrude Press and the Gay Authors Anthology. When she’s not reading books on her Union Jack e-reader (lovingly named “War”) or wrangling art students, she can be found in any of several coffee shops downtown, scribbling in notebooks or sewing geeky dolls. 

Someone asked her once which authors helped shape her reading development and were important to her. She answered Lewis Carroll, Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King, Mick Farren, Thomas Harris, Patrick Califia and Neil Gaiman. She carried her first edition copy of “Hannibal” around with her for most of her junior year of high school and wants to be buried with her paperback of “Macho Sluts.”

Ms. Perlow would like readers to know the world is a dark and extraordinary place. Sometimes there are vampires, sometimes there are faeries. And sometimes they drink in the same local bar.

Follow Rebecca (@trickstertara) on Twitter, and visit her blogs, Gods and Monsters and Black Mood Craft.

 

LA Rhodes Write, Romance & Drama

LA Rhodes is a 32 year-old mother of 1 from London, England. Her passions are reading, writing short stories and poetry, watching films, travelling (day trips and if she can find the time—longer trips abroad,) photography and lastly food! Mainly eating it. She also loves music and other arts such as drama and dance.

Her days are taken up teaching dance and drama in a primary school and sometimes for my sins covering for other class teachers and taking their math and English lessons. Her weakness is her love for cake—velvet cupcakes especially!

My twitter handle is



Follow LA Rhodes (@musicleerhodes) on Twitter and visit her blog, Life. It’s Great!