Our Holiday Giveaway Winner – Tiera

Congratulations to our winner, Tiera!

Our Holiday Giveaway was designed to offer current listeners new options or provide a complete listening package to a new listener. Today, we decided to share not only our winner Tiera’s package choice but a little about her, as a fellow listener as well.

We’ll start with her response to our email telling her she was the winner of our Holiday Giveaway.

“OMG! I’ve never won anything. Thank you. What a nice holiday surprise.”

And then her selection followed:

“I’ve been struggling with which package is the most appealing. I even consulted with my sister who first introduced me to your website. Even though I usually listen to books on my iPod and I have an old Kindle (not Whispersync ready), I think #4 – the Hands Free for Your Phone Listening is the most appealing because it is a different means to listen, plus the added bonus of the 14 audiobooks…”

Her package included:

– GOgroove AirBand Bluetooth headset

– iOttie HLCRIO102 One Touch phone holder for your car

– GOgroove Advanced Wireless In-Car Bluetooth FM Transmitter with Charging.

– Fourteen (14) audiobooks of your choice – two books per month* – January – July 2015 at Audible or Downpour

Brenda made sure she received her package via Amazon Prime shipping within two days. We were delighted to hear from Tiera once her package arrived.

“My prize was waiting for me when I came home from work. Thank you so much. I am gobsmacked which is a much better word than stunned, surprised or shocked. I’m still working on my book selection. I know one of them will be Kaleidoscope by Kristen Ashley and I know I would like the next Kristen Callihan book in the Darkest Night series, Soulbound, which comes out in February (hopefully in audio, too). But I need to think about my second January book. My sister is coming to my house on Boxing Day, and she and I are big audio fans, so I want to get some ideas from her. 

I’m heading out to my car to play around with the Bluetooth transmitter and my cell phone. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I don’t get many surprises anymore and yours was a big one for me.” 

We enjoyed talking with Tiera over the course of getting her package to her and setting up the framework for her future audiobook selections. We asked her to share a little about her audio listens with our readers and she graciously agreed. We so love hearing audio listeners stories that we decided we’ll share this type of story from time to time in the future!

Tiera’s Tale of Audio Listening

“I started listening to recorded books in the late 80’s when I was a sales rep for Busch Gardens and Sea World. I had a large territory and often drove long distances in a day to get to my accounts. I went from cassette to CDs and finally had the bright idea to transfer them to iTunes so I could have more than one book with me at a time. The library was my best friend. I still have a total of seven library cards for all of the counties in my area, which includes two states and the District of Columbia. 

I started keeping a list of books I’ve listened to because I have a hard time keeping track of some of the series when the next book takes a long time to be released. I just counted my list for 2014 and found I’d listened to over 150 books since March.

 

I used to listen to only historical romances but have really been able to buy into the paranormal romances (if that’s a category). I’ve been enjoying Christine Warren’s Other series, Kristen Callihan’s Darkest London series and Laurann Dohner’s New Species series, although I really loved her Cyborg books and can’t wait until the next one. I look at these books as a kind of adult fairy tale. I’ve also enjoyed Kristen Ashley’s books – the Rock Chick series was fun, although I rolled my eyes a few times, but I loved the last book in the series, Rock Chick Revolution. I thought that was the best one. Another favorite series is the In Death by J.D. Robb. I’m up to date on Eve Dallas and always listen as soon as a new one comes out. Susan Erickson does an amazing job.

 

Although, the reviews aren’t so great on Kaleidoscope by Kristen Ashley,  Emma Taylor is a very good narrator and I am choosing that book for one of my January books and I’d like Dark Taste of Rapture by Gena Showalter as my second book, all because Sebastian York is the narrator. I loved him in Twisted and Tied. If I hadn’t already listened to all of the Ilona Andrews books, I would have chosen one of those because of Renee Raudman.

 

I listen to books all of the time, but usually when I’m doing mindless chores, like driving, folding laundry, gardening, and running errands. My sister can sit and listen to a book but I find that puts me to sleep, so I have to keep my hands busy. I’ve also been known to enjoy listening when I am sewing a cross stitch pattern.

I am still getting used to using the Bluetooth adapter in my car, but really like the idea of only having one mobile device instead of my phone and an iPod. Once again, I am a happy listener and am very happy to have been the big winner of the Holiday Sweepstakes.” Tiera

Thanks Tiera for sharing your story with us!

 

Lea Hensley