{"id":158,"date":"2014-04-28T15:58:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-28T15:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tamaragranthambooks.com\/2014\/04\/a-to-z-challenge-x-is-for-xanthus-and-why-i-am-a-dirty-rotten-book-thief\/"},"modified":"2015-11-13T15:20:46","modified_gmt":"2015-11-13T15:20:46","slug":"a-to-z-challenge-x-is-for-xanthus-and-why-i-am-a-dirty-rotten-book-thief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tamaragrantham.com\/StagingSite\/a-to-z-challenge-x-is-for-xanthus-and-why-i-am-a-dirty-rotten-book-thief\/","title":{"rendered":"A to Z Challenge: X is for Xanthus&#8211;and Why I am a Dirty Rotten Book Thief"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-bFF5X5gMPcM\/U154PyfZiPI\/AAAAAAAAA6w\/eqKyYaMJe6U\/s1600\/Holly+Kelly+and+me.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/tamaragrantham.com\/StagingSite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Holly-Kelly-and-me.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Today&#8217;s post was originally going to be about the character Xanthus from Holly Kelly&#8217;s RISING. But some recent events have taken place that have made me change my mind.<\/p>\n<p>This past weekend I attended the LDStorymakers writing conference in Utah. I was excited to go, but as soon as I left my house, I missed my kids. Missed is actually an understatement. I felt as if I&#8217;d had a limb torn off (four limbs, to be exact.) I was a hot mess the whole time. Any time I saw a baby I fought back tears. It was painful for me, physically painful, to be away from my little ones. But when I got to the conference, I met some wonderful people, went to some great classes, and it helped me forget my pain a little.<\/p>\n<p>On the last day, they had a book signing. There was ONE book that I absolutely had to get signed. RISING by Holly Kelly. I love this book. It has a great story, lovable characters, and a good dose of myth. If you&#8217;ve been following my blog, you know I like that one.<\/p>\n<p>But this was the last day, the last event, and my homesickness had grown into a hard knot in my throat that threatened to burst any time I thought about my kids. And I thought about them a lot&#8211;so much that after I got my book signed, I put it in my bag with my previously purchased books and completely forgot about it.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t remember until I got to my friend&#8217;s house that night and started unpacking. <\/p>\n<p>I am a dirty rotten book thief. I have no excuse. I stole a book from one of my all-time favorite authors, and now I feel like a rotten person. <\/p>\n<p>The worst part&#8211;Holly had, that very same day, admitted to me that she&#8217;d had a whole box of her books stolen. And I stole her very last one. I&#8217;ve messaged her to ask if I can pay her somehow. (If anyone from CTP is reading this, please let me know how I can pay for the book!)<\/p>\n<p>Please help me make it up to her! You&#8211;my reading friends&#8211;can help. I know we all get online to find something fast and fun to read, perhaps something to take our minds of the everyday stresses&#8211;but today you can do something kind AND get your mind off day-to-day stresses at the same time. HOW???<\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-TaSGIg9A24k\/U156SvlZJmI\/AAAAAAAAA68\/r1xs_ghBGRY\/s1600\/RISING.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/tamaragrantham.com\/StagingSite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/RISING.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>\nBUY Holly Kelly&#8217;s book! (And if you download the Kindle version, it&#8217;s absolutely free!) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Rising-The-Series-Holly-Kelly-ebook\/dp\/B00EZRNT5W\/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&#038;qid=1398700321&#038;sr=8-3&#038;keywords=holly+kelly\">http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Rising-The-Series-Holly-Kelly-ebook\/dp\/B00EZRNT5W\/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&#038;qid=1398700321&#038;sr=8-3&#038;keywords=holly+kelly<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s post was originally going to be about the character Xanthus from Holly Kelly&#8217;s RISING. But some recent events have taken place that have made me change my mind. This past weekend I attended the LDStorymakers writing conference in Utah. I was excited to go, but as soon as I left my house, I missed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamaragrantham.com\/StagingSite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamaragrantham.com\/StagingSite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamaragrantham.com\/StagingSite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamaragrantham.com\/StagingSite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamaragrantham.com\/StagingSite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tamaragrantham.com\/StagingSite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1401,"href":"https:\/\/tamaragrantham.com\/StagingSite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions\/1401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamaragrantham.com\/StagingSite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamaragrantham.com\/StagingSite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamaragrantham.com\/StagingSite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamaragrantham.com\/StagingSite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}