Scott Tracey's Blog, page 2

WITCH EYES on the YALSA Popular Paperback 2014 List!

It has been FOREVER since I’ve done anything on the blog! But this is a bit of awesome news!  WITCH EYES was listed on YALSA’s 2014 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults. There’s a ton of fantastic books on this list, and I’m honored to be a part of it.

Be sure to check out the rest of the lists from this year. I know there’s a bunch of books I haven’t gotten around to yet that I’m now reminded I need to read! And thanks to everyone on the committee, and all the librarians involved!

 

 

The Great Book Giveaway

(I apologize for the alliteration in that title. I couldn’t help myself)

A couple of years ago, there was a blog post that I thought was such a genius idea, and such a great moment of outreach, that I’ve thought of it often over the past few years. It’s Malinda Lo’s post offering up copies of her phenomenal book ASH to libraries, GSAs, community centers, etc. I’ve always wanted to do something similar, and after receiving another case full of final copies, I decided it was time. There are too many books and not enough shelves in my house!.

When I first started writing the book that became WITCH EYES, my goal was to tell the story of a gay teenager who wasn’t defined by the fact that he was gay. A character who had already come out, and his adventures had nothing to do with his sexuality.  The kind of book that I would have wanted to read at sixteen.

So here’s the situation: I have many copies of all three books in the WITCH EYES trilogy, as well as the first book in the MOONSET series (which features a gay character as well, although he is not the narrator of that book).  And I want to put those books into the hands of people in the community.

Are you a school or public librarian looking for books for LGBTQ teens?

Do you advise or participate in a school’s Gay Straight Alliance that has a lending library? Or are you staff or volunteer at a local LGBTQ community center?  Do you interact with LGBTQ youth in a way that I didn’t cover? 

If the answer is yes, I would like to give you free books! Well, my books specifically. I think it would be weird if I did this whole outreach thing and then gave you someone else’s books.  It would be like asking if you liked ice cream and then giving you cheese fries.

Mmm, cheese fries.

Anyway, if you fit the above criteria, please email me at scottshouldbewriting at gmail dot com. Please put some form of ‘Giveaway’  in your subject line so I can keep all the requests together!  Also, if you have a professional email address, that would help significantly.

In the email itself, please let me know 1) what it is that you do with LGBTQ youth. 2) What you plan to do with the copies (lending library or a book club maybe?) and 3) what I can provide for you.  If you already have some of my books, great! If you don’t, even greater! Let me know so I can supplement your supply.

If you know someone who fits one of the above criteria, please send them this way.  Please note that this giveaway is meant for groups and organizations. There will be other giveaways for personal copies of my books, I’m sure, but this is not one of them.

I have many copies I would like to get out there.  Depending on the reaction, I may not be able to fulfill all requests, but I will do my best to fulfill as many as I can.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me or leave them in the comments. I will update this post as needed.

 

 

The Great Gay Giveaway

(I apologize for the alliteration in that title. I couldn’t help myself)

A couple of years ago, there was a blog post that I thought was such a genius idea, and such a great moment of outreach, that I’ve thought of it often over the past few years. It’s Malinda Lo’s post offering up copies of her phenomenal book ASH to libraries, GSAs, community centers, etc. I’ve always wanted to do something similar, and after receiving another case full of final copies, I decided it was time. There are too many books and not enough shelves in my house!.

When I first started writing the book that became WITCH EYES, my goal was to tell the story of a gay teenager who wasn’t defined by the fact that he was gay. A character who had already come out, and his adventures had nothing to do with his sexuality.  The kind of book that I would have wanted to read at sixteen.

So here’s the situation: I have many copies of all three books in the WITCH EYES trilogy, as well as the first book in the MOONSET series (which features a gay character as well, although he is not the narrator of that book).  And I want to put those books into the hands of people in the community.

Are you a school or public librarian looking for books for LGBTQ teens?

Do you advise or participate in a school’s Gay Straight Alliance that has a lending library? Or are you staff or volunteer at a local LGBTQ community center?  Do you interact with LGBTQ youth in a way that I didn’t cover? 

If the answer is yes, I would like to give you free books! Well, my books specifically. I think it would be weird if I did this whole outreach thing and then gave you someone else’s books.  It would be like asking if you liked ice cream and then giving you cheese fries.

Mmm, cheese fries.

Anyway, if you fit the above criteria, please email me at scottshouldbewriting at gmail dot com. Please put some form of ‘Giveaway’  in your subject line so I can keep all the requests together!  Also, if you have a professional email address, that would help significantly.

In the email itself, please let me know 1) what it is that you do with LGBTQ youth. 2) What you plan to do with the copies (lending library or a book club maybe?) and 3) what I can provide for you.  If you already have some of my books, great! If you don’t, even greater! Let me know so I can supplement your supply.

If you know someone who fits one of the above criteria, please send them this way.  Please note that this giveaway is meant for groups and organizations. There will be other giveaways for personal copies of my books, I’m sure, but this is not one of them.

I have many copies I would like to get out there.  Depending on the reaction, I may not be able to fulfill all requests, but I will do my best to fulfill as many as I can.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me or leave them in the comments. I will update this post as needed.

 

 

DARKBOUND Cover! And summary!

So I’ve been meaning to post about this for awhile.  You may have seen this cover floating around recently, so this may not be a surprise or anything.  DARKBOUND is the second book in the Moonset series, and follows Malcolm’s struggles in Carrow Mill in the aftermath of the first book.  I’m a bit partial to it.

And I’m insanely in love with the cover! How awesome is that? And the tag line?  It’s perfectly fitting for the second book.

Here’s a little more about what takes place in DARKBOUND:

Malcolm has seven days to unravel a twenty year old mystery, find a body, capture a killer and keep a demon at arm’s length.

No one hates being a witch quite like Malcolm. But if there’s one thing worse than being a witch, it’s being a Moonset witch. There are very few things in his life that he can control, and after a fight with his siblings, he’s losing his grip on what he’s got left.

A creature as old as Hamelin has crept out of the Abyss, and its siren song has infected the teenagers of Carrow Mill compelling them, at first, to simply be swept away in love. But love soon turns dangerous, as passion turns to violence and an army of sociopaths is born.

The Pied Piper isn’t just a story, and he’s got his eyes set on Malcolm, promising a life of freedom from magic and the shackles of the Moonset bond. As Carrow Mill burns, Malcolm must make the hardest choice of his life: family? Or freedom?

DARKBOUND will be released in the spring of 2014.

MOONSET is available now!

It’s MOONSET’s release day!

You can find links to purchase the book online up above under the Moonset tab.  If your local bookseller doesn’t HAVE Moonset in stock, consider asking them to pick up a few copies!  And if you’ve read and enjoyed the book, please think about posting a review.  Bookstores and reviews are crucial for the care and feeding of all authors.

Be sure to check out the stops on the blog tour, which you can find over on the Rock Star Book Tours site!

In honor of the book’s release, I put together a little playlist of songs that either inspired scenes in the book, or were heavily in rotation as I wrote. (Assuming I can get Spotify to make the playlist work).

 

YA Scavenger Hunt

 

Welcome to YA Scavenger Hunt! This tri-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 TWO 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 for a chance to win a whole different set of twenty-five 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 homepage.

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 blue 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 April 7th, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.

SCAVENGER HUNT POST


Today, I am hosting the FAB Gretchen McNeil for the YA Scavenger Hunt!

Author of YA horror novels POSSESS, TEN and 3:59 (Fall 2013) as well as the upcoming YA mystery/suspense series Don’t Get Mad, beginning in 2014 with GET EVEN and continuing in 2015 with GET DIRTY. Gretchen also contributed an essay to the Dear Teen Me anthology from Zest Books.

Gretchen is a former coloratura soprano, the voice of Mary on G4′s Code Monkeys and she sings with the LA-based circus troupe Cirque Berzerk. Gretchen blogs with The Enchanted Inkpot and is a founding member of the vlog group the YARebels. She is repped by Ginger Clark of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

Find out more information by checking out Gretchen’s website , or find more info about 3:59 here!




 3:59

Sci fi horror about Josie and Jo, two girls who are the same girl in parallel universes, who discover that their worlds connect every twelve hours for exactly one minute at 3:59. Lured by Jo’s seemingly perfect life, Josie jumps at the chance to switch places for a day, but what she finds is a dark, brutal life where nothing is as it seems. To make matters worse, Jo has sealed the portal, trapping Josie in this dangerous world. Can she figure out a way home before it’s too late?

From master of suspense Gretchen McNeil comes a riveting and deliciously eerie story about the lives we wish we had – and how they just might kill you.

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And now, a sneak peek at the AMAZING 3:59:

Maybe Nick was right. Maybe Josie was partially to blame. Maybe she did need to take a look at herself. Josie turned away from the window toward the old mirror.

Only Josie didn’t see her own reflection.

From where she stood at the window, the antique mirror reflected her bed. And there, snuggled under the same blue-and-white floral comforter cover, was a girl. She wore a sleep mask, but even with it obscuring part of her face, in the bright lights of the room, Josie realized she was staring at someone who looked exactly like her. A doppelgänger asleep in her bed.

Josie glanced at her bed. Nope, it was empty, the covers and pillows a disheveled mess, just the way she’d left them that morning. But there, in the mirror, she could clearly see the image of herself sound asleep in her room.

Was it her room? The girl, the bedclothes, even the nightstand were the same. But the room in the reflection clearly wasn’t Josie’s. The floor was different—lush, cream-colored carpet where the hardwood floors in Josie’s room were covered in worn, striped throw rugs. The giant print of Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte that hung above Josie’s bed wasn’t in the reflection, replaced by a black-and-white panorama photo of Paris. And the alarm clock on the nightstand wasn’t Josie’s old hand-me-down from her mom, but a sleek, modern clock with solid blue numbers that cut through the brightly lit room.

Numbers? Josie took a step closer to the mirror and squinted at the clock. The numbers were backward, so it took her brain a moment to register the time it showed. It dawned on her slowly. 3:59.

Wait, didn’t she just have this exact same dream? But in reverse? Josie whipped her head around to look at her own alarm clock and caught the readout just as it clicked over to four o’clock. 3:59? Again?

Josie turned back to the mirror.

The girl in the bed was gone.

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Creepy, right?

Trust me, you WANT to check out 3:59.

Don’t forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of signed books by me, Gretchen, and more! To enter, you need to know that my favorite number is 13. Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the Red team and you’ll have the secret code to enter for the grand prize!

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But wait!  Want to win signed ARCs of Gretchen’s TEN, Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Boys, and Aimée Carter’s Goddess Interrupted?  Enter the Rafflecopter below.  For an extra entry, leave a comment on this blog post telling me the creepiest thing that’s ever happened to YOU!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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CONTINUE THE HUNT
 
To keep going on your quest for the hunt, you need to check out the next author! 

 
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Moonset Monday – Meet Cole

Wow, I really fell off the radar with this one.  Me and blogging…best frenemies forever.

Name: Cole Sutter

Cole’s difficult for me to picture in my head, so I did a search for “blonde teen model” and picked one of the boys who looked close.  Right from the start all I knew about him was that he was awkward looking as a kid (big ears) and he’d just recently started growing into them.

What’s his deal:

Cole is the trouble maker, the prankster.  In any other family, he would be the leading source of trouble, but with Jenna in the mix, Cole takes on a backseat role.  In ways he’s one of the most child-like – Justin, Jenna and Mal have always done their best to protect Cole and Bailey as much as they can, trying not to make them grow up too fast.  Cole acts before he thinks, and even when he thinks something through first, he’s not considering the consequences.  He likes to be funny, he likes for people to pay attention to him, so partnering up with Jenna gets him opportunities for both.

But he’s also got a dark side.  Cole lets the things he’s feeling bottle up, and take over.  Sometimes he sinks into a depression that no one can seem to shake him out of, and then just as quickly it will vanish like it was never there.

Excerpt: 

“Am I supposed to be scared of you?” Cole laughed—laughed!—at the wraith. “You should see Jenna without makeup. That’s scary.”

“Cole, shut up!” Jenna and I shouted as one.

The wraith growled, the next chain flying a little sloppier, a little less fierce.

“You look like Betty White’s grandmother,” Cole called. “And you smell like a Kardashian.”

Senior Superlatives:  Most likely to get arrested during graduation, Prank War Champion, Class Clown

How his siblings would describe him:

Justin:  Challenging.

Jenna: Protege.

Malcolm: Seriously?

Bailey: Funny.

MOONSET comes out next Monday, April 8th.

Moonset Monday – Meet Malcolm!

Name: Malcolm Denton

When I first started working on Moonset, I did a lot of internet searches to kind of define in my head what all the characters looked like.  This was the picture I found that defined Malcolm for me.  Model pretty, and cast in black and white.

What’s his deal:Malcolm is the oldest, and in a normal family, that might make him the leader.  There’s only one problem.  A childhood spent trying to shelter and protect his ‘family’ has left a bad taste in Mal’s mouth, and he’s not a fan of magic.  It causes too much trouble, and gives people too much reason to treat each other like crap.  He’s the moodiest and the most isolated of the siblings, preferring to be on his own.  He’s openly gay, although with as often as the kids are relocated, it’s not like he has a public coming out in every new city.  People find out, or don’t, naturally.

If Jenna represents one extreme among the kids, Malcolm represents her polar opposite.  He’s cautious where she’s impulsive, kind where she’s cruel.  But he’s also the first one to go toe to toe with her and put her in her place.  He’s not averse to trouble himself, but it takes a lot to get him involved. He finds his curiosity getting the best of him sometimes, which never ends well. Mal’s also considered the ‘hot’ one, which isn’t helped by his stoic nature or loner outlook.  He gets objectified fairly often, and feeds into it even if he doesn’t mean to.  He’s a bit of an adrenaline junkie in training, and works out obsessively.

Excerpt:

“Hey, check it out,” Malcolm said, nudging me and pointing back towards the entrance.

Through the glass I saw a man stumbling through the parking lot.  He wore a mechanic’s jumpsuit, stained from something more than just dirt- thick, dripping streaks splashed across his middle.  His long hair hung limp and scraggly around a face that hadn’t seen a razor in weeks, and a shower in twice that.

I couldn’t decide if he looked more like a serial killer or a homeless person.  “Crap, stop staring,” Mal said.  I focused, realizing the man was staring directly at us, and headed right for the door.

“What’d you have to stare at him for,” Mal whispered furiously.

“Me? You were the one who pointed him out.”

“I can’t take you anywhere,” Mal said with an embarassed huff.

Brothers are so overrated.

Senior Superlatives: Best Dressed, Most Likely to Succeed, Best Brooder, Most Likely to be Stalked.

Party of Five Sibling he’s Least Like: Charlie, played by Matthew Fox.  Sure, they’re both the oldest, but Charlie steps up to take care of his siblings, and Mal’s just not comfortable with that.  He let’s Justin take the lead, and only steps in when things get too far (i.e. any time Jenna has any fun at all).

Theme song: Tricky thing, Mal has a theme song, but it’s more for book 2 than for the first book.  I’d have to go with “Everybody loves me” by One Republic.

How his siblings would describe him:

Justin: Trustworthy.

Jenna: …bitch.

Cole: Vanilla, but cool.  Like french vanilla.

Bailey: Dad-like.

Moonset Monday: New Cover Copy, Blog Tour, and a Teaser

First off, I’ve seen the final cover copy for Moonset, and I love it.  Flux always does such a great job with these.    Without further ado:

Moonset, a coven of such promise . . .

Until they turned to the darkness.

After the terrorist witch coven known as Moonset was destroyed fifteen years ago—during a secret war against the witch Congress—five children were left behind, saddled with a legacy of darkness. Sixteen-year-old Justin Daggett, son of a powerful Moonset warlock, has been raised alongside the other orphans by the witch Congress, who fear the children will one day continue the destruction their parents started.

A deadly assault by a wraith, claiming to work for Moonset’s most dangerous disciple, Cullen Bridger, forces the five teens to be evacuated to Carrow Mill. But when dark magic wreaks havoc in their new hometown, Justin and his siblings are immediately suspected. Justin sets out to discover if someone is trying to frame the Moonset orphans…or if Bridger has finally come out of hiding to reclaim the legacy of Moonset. He learns there are secrets in Carrow Mill connected to Moonset’s origins, and keeping the orphans safe isn’t the only reason the Congress relocated them…

Next up, the lovely ladies over at Rockstar Book Tours are organizing a blog tour for Moonset, and there will be lots of shenanigans afoot.  If you’re a blogger and interested in participating, click the banner or the link to get involved!

There is also a book blast being organized by the fantastic Amber over at Me, My Shelf, and I that will have some awesome prizes when it goes live.  So bloggers, make sure to check it out!

And finally, a teaser just because I’m struggling for a third thing to include this week!

The mortar between the bricks was crumbling down into sand, spilling out from between the stones like a broken hourglass. In places, larger chunks were breaking free, no bigger than pebbles, and bouncing off the tiled floor where they struck.

Something swept over me, a feeling, or a warning, and I grabbed Cole and pulled him closer.

“Honestly, there’s nothing to be scared of,” Miss Virago said, her mouth barely able to express such an incredible amount of contempt. “You’re all being ridiculous.”

The front of the school exploded inward, just to prove her wrong.

 

Moonset Monday – The Theme song

Please forget the last month where I was totally intending to do regular Moonset Monday posts, and then got caught up in Christmas, New Year’s, laziness, and distraction.

This week, I thought I’d talk a little bit about what I listened to while I was writing Moonset, and specifically the song that I connect most to the book.  I’m one of those writers who has to have a specific song for every project.  Each book has one song that encompasses the entirety of it as far as I’m concerned.  I may switch between several playlists as I write – actual songs, movie scores, violins, and even the occasional white noise machine, but first I have to have that one song that makes everything make sense.

The Birthday Massacre is this electronic-synth-rock band from Canada, and they’re epic. I first heard of them while watching the Vampire Diaries, which was right about the time I started working on Moonset.  From the first song I was hooked, and I listened to them extensively all while drafting the novel.  One song in particular really seemed to resonate with me, and it is literally the most played song on my iTunes next to the song I listened to while writing Witch Eyes.

“Kill the Lights” is ostensibly about performers – whether they be actors on a stage, musicians, ballet performers, or even members of a circus.  They’re on a stage, whoever they are.  And it’s all about how when the lights go down, they put on a show, but once the show is over, everything is revealed as a lie.  They’re just performers pretending to be something they’re not.

For me, the song is perfect for the Moonset kids.  There is a build up and expectation to who they are – people expect that they know exactly what they’re getting into just because of what they’ve heard about them.  That because they’ve heard about what Jenna was like, they know what she’s capable of.  They know who she is.  As though the kids are just performers on a stage, acting out roles that have already been defined for them when they couldn’t be farther from that.  Everyone thinks that they know who the kids are, but the kids don’t even know who they are, so how could anyone else.