Welcome to the YA Scavenger Hunt! This bi-annual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors…and a chance to win some awesome prizes! At this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize–one lucky winner will receive one signed book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours!
Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are EIGHT contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the RED TEAM–but there is also a blue team, a gold team, a green team, an orange team, a pink team, and purple team for a chance to win a whole different set of signed books!
If you’d like to find out more about the hunt, see links to all the authors participating, and see the full list of prizes up for grabs, go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page.
SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE
Directions: Below, you’ll notice that I’ve listed my favorite number. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the RED TEAM, and then add them up (don’t worry, you can use a calculator!).
Entry Form: Once you’ve added up all the numbers, make sure you fill out the form here to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the correct number will qualify.
Rules: Open internationally, anyone below the age of 18 should have a parent or guardian’s permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4th, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.
SCAVENGER HUNT POST
Today, I have the great pleasure of hosting Chandler Baker on my website. Chandler Baker grew up in Florida, went to college in Pennsylvania, and studied law in Texas, where she now lives with her family and an evergrowing pile of books. Although she loves spinning tales with a touch of horror, she is a much bigger scaredycat than her stories would lead you to believe. In addition to ALIVE, Chandler is the author of the High School Horror series.
Find out more information by checking out Chandler’s website or find more about her books here!
Take a look at her latest release, ALIVE:
Stella Cross’s heart is poisoned. After years on the transplant waiting list, she’s running out of hope that she’ll ever see her eighteenth birthday. Then, miraculously, Stella receives the transplant she needs to survive.
Determined to embrace everything she came so close to losing, Stella throws herself into her new life. But her recovery is marred with strange side effects: Nightmares. Hallucinations. A recurring pain that flares every day at the exact same moment. Then Stella meets Levi Zin, the new boy on everyone’s radar at her Seattle prep school. Stella has never felt more drawn to anyone in her life, and soon she and Levi can barely stand to be apart.
Stella is convinced that Levi is her soul mate. Why else would she literally ache for him when they are apart?
After all, the heart never lies…does it?
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
Now let’s take an exclusive sneak peek at a deleted scene from ALIVE:
I dig out the lab sheet from my backpack while Lydia doles out toothpicks for the two of us. I’m not sure what they’re for, but they’re on the supply list, so I set mine aside in a neat pile. “‘Step One: Locate the aorta,’” I readch from the sheet. That should be easy enough, I think, remembering what it looks like from our textbook. “‘Step two: Locate the vVeins.’” Okay, slightly more difficult. “‘Step Three: Cut the heart in half to expose the chamber. . . .’ …Shall we?”
She shrugs and we both remove the lids from our containers, revealing the sad, limp, yellowed hearts. I wrinkle my nose at the smell and pull plastic gloves over my hands.
Gently, I poke my finger against what I think must be the aorta and then walk my fingertips over to the different veins, making chicken- scratch notes in my black-and-white speckled composition book about each of their locations—interventricular, sulcus, brachiocsephalic. —They’reeach embedded in the fleshy heart like shallow grooves in a shriveled-up brain.
Pinching the scalpel between two fingers, I roll the heart onto its side and pick the spot closest to the center. “‘Cut the heart down the center to reveal the chambers,’” I read under my breath. The scalpel sinks into the organ. There’s a glitch in my vision and the world in front of me rocks, knocking me off balance. The blade narrowly misses my fingers as it slices vertically all the way through. Cradling my forehead, I shake my wrist out, alarmed at what a close call it’d been.
That’s when I notice slick, red liquid leaking onto my gloved hands.
I choke once. This time the lab table in front of me seems to jump sideways. I stumble right, then stagger back. It’s lLike trying to walk in a fun house.
As I hHolding onto the black countertop for balance, my head swims. I rub my eyes. It’s fine. Totally fine. Deep breath. The scalpel sinks deeper. Metal through puffy flesh.
Blood sprays up at my face. Several droplets dangle in my line of vision. They cling to my hair. Gagging, I cover my mouth.
Only, my wet fingers slip across my skin, leaving warm patches of blood on my face. Blood that pours out onto the table.
Quickly, I flip the pages of my textbook to the diagram. Bloody fingerprints appear on the white pages. My ears fill with a singular, high-pitched ringing. At the beginning of the chapter is an illustration of a pig heart side -by -side with a human’s. The shape of the human organ is abstract, an odd, irregularly contoured, like an asymmetrical trapezoid. But the pig heart has the familiar curves of a vValentine.
I look from the page to the flimsy tray then back again. Even though the textbook has only a drawing, the scholarly version bears no resemblance to the gaping organ in front of me.
My chest contracts like a little kid has slapped his hands on either side of a blown-up plastic baggie causing the air to burst out in one, loud clap. Impulsively, my hand clutches at the spot over my heart.
As if in return, the bleeding arteries throb. Another round of hoarse gasps. The classroom’s spinning so fast now, I’m certain I’ll hurl.
Pain shoots through me like tree branches. I double over. “No,” I mutter. Not my heart.
Light flashes off the lethal point clutched tight in my plastic-gloved hand. The heart sputters for life out of every open orifice. Gushing and burbling, droplets cascade to the floor. Bile burns at the back of my throat.
I hear a scream.
Spots sneak up around the edges of my vision.
I try pressing my nails into my wrist, but my head’s floating, high over my shoulders, and the screaming won’t stop. It pushes through into a splitting headache and I’m horizontal now. How did I get this way? Down on the floor, I see faces converge around me.
Hands reach for me. Reach into me. I try blinking. The spots multiply.
More screaming. The sounds stretches out, spirals.
“Stella?” The voice is Aauto-Ttuned, fake. “Stella?”
It’s only at the last second that I realize where the screaming is coming from.
Me.
And by then, it’s too late.
Whew! I don’t know about you but I love reading deleted scenes. This was a great one. Thanks, Chandler! Now, don’t forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of signed books by me, Lea Nolan, and more! To enter, you need to know that my favorite number is NINE (9). Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the RED TEAM and you’ll have all the secret code to enter for the grand prize!
EXTRA CHANCE TO WIN!
Before you go, don’t forget to enter for an extra chance to win. To celebrate the upcoming release of my newest book, ILLUSION, the third and final book in my Hoodoo Apprentice series which comes out Monday, October 5, 2015, and the brand spankin’ new covers for the first two books, CONJURE and ALLURE, I’ve got an extra special give away just for YASH players. Take a gander at the three books together, aren’t they gorgeous?
I love them! And because I’m so excited, I’m giving away paper back copies of CONJURE and ALLURE to one lucky winner! To enter to win simply click the link to the Rafflecopter form below:
CONTINUE THE HUNT
To keep going on your quest for the hunt, you need to check out the next author Janet Lee Carey! You can visit her site here.
Be sure to spread your love for the YA Scavenger Hunt with a Tweet #YASH
Good luck to all who enter…and go RED TEAM go!!!
