Amy Plum's Blog, page 35

Dropped text from UNTIL I DIE (read it or watch it!)

Only five months to go until Un-DIE is released! And a very few Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) have begun to be sent out to sales reps and book reviewers in the United States. However, it was discovered after-the-fact that a 1 1/2 page section was accidentally dropped in the printing process.

Of course the problem will be fixed by the time the actual book is published in May. But in the meantime I got special permission from HarperCollins to reveal the dropped text here on my blog. And to celebrate the fact that I am actually allowed to share a sizable section of text, I made a video of me reading it which you can see just below the passage.

And here is your sneak peek at (what starts as) an everyday scene with Kate and Vincent. For those who have an ARC, this begins at the beginning of Chapter 6.

***

Before meeting Vincent, my days all seemed to speed by like one of those passage-of-time visual metaphors in movies that show pages falling off a calendar. But lately, every day seemed significant: The first time Vincent met my grandparents. The first movie date (Holy Grail, where Vincent earned major points by quoting the best bits in English right along with me). Our first New Year's together.

Today was my last day of freedom before school resumed post-holidays, marking exactly one year and one semester to go before my high school education was officially over. Which made it another significant day. So of course I planned on spending it doing the thing I loved most.

I flitted down our building's creaky wooden staircase with a feeling of elation buoying my footsteps. The whole day stretched out in front of me like a new country to explore. With my favorite person.

I caught sight of him as soon as I stepped out the door. Shaking my head in disbelief, I jogged to the park across the street and pushed through the metal gate.

"What are you doing? I thought we were going out for breakfast," I laughed, pointing at the picnic blanket he was lying on, with wicker basket and thermos by his side.

"You can't get much more 'out' than this," Vincent responded, his eyes hidden by mirrored sunglasses.

His languid smile did its regular job on me: It was as if an invisible hand took my insides and squeezed. Hard. It happened every time. And it made me wish that I could freeze-frame the moment and stand there feeling that delicious, squeezy feeling for the rest of my life.

Inhale and then exhale, I reminded myself. I tore my gaze away from his face and noticed that he was cocooned in a warm coat, wool scarf, and knitted cap, with his dark hair waving out from underneath. He lay back on his elbows, propped on the blanket that was spread across the frozen grass.

"Let me get this right. We're having a picnic in January in the freezing cold?" My breath came out in a warm puff of mist as I stood above him, hands on my hips.

He pulled off his glasses, and the amusement in his eyes warmed me more efficiently than a bonfire. "I thought we could have a day of doing things we've never done before. I've never had a picnic in January. Have you?"

I shook my head and, bemused, sank down onto the blanket next to him.

"Perfect," he concluded. "Since it has to be something that neither of us has ever done, this totally counts."

I glanced at the people walking by: mainly businesspeople carrying briefcases and backpack-wearing tourists out for an early start. They all stared at us as if the park was a circus and we were its freak-show headliners, and a few laughed out loud. Vincent said, "I hope you don't mind spectators," and then leaned forward and took my face in his hands, kissing me.

"I think I can deal." I grinned, and then shivered as he let me go.

HUGE NEWS from Deutschland

I did a cover reveal of Loewe's German cover of DIE FOR ME a couple of weeks ago on FB and Twitter. Here is it in all of its Art Nouveau glory:

I mean gorgeous, right? For me, it is swoonworthy. I am totally in love. So imagine my surprise when someone sent me the cover of Loewe's 2012 catalog today. Wanna see?

Hmm…looks kinda familiar, non?

And then you open the catalog and right after the editorial there is a 6-page spread on DIE FOR ME! It just so happens to be THE FEATURED BOOK in their 2012 catalog!  !!! !!!!!! (If those aren't enough exclamation points to fully convey my feelings, then you might just want to stick your head out the window. That distant squeeing you hear? It's coming from my little corner of France.)

Here's the spread:

And, as if that's not enough excitement for one day, there is a FREAKING MINI-BOOK that they're going to be giving out in stores! You can see it in all of its gorgeousness here.

This is where I faint. Smelling salts, anyone?

Vincent's birthday present

Today is Kate's birthday! And I thought that I would share with you one of Vincent's presents to her.

In my alternate DIE FOR ME universe, Kate wakes up this morning, looks at her phone, and sees a text message telling her to look in her bag. She pulls out a red envelope, and inside is a poem hand-copied in Vincent's script with the inscription, "Happy birthday Kate, my own cherry tree."

from EVERY DAY YOU PLAY

(by Pablo Neruda, from "Twenty Love Poems and a song of despair")

Every day you play with the light of the universe.

Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.

You are more than this white head that I hold tightly

as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you.

Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.

Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?

Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,

and even your breasts smell of it.

While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies

I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me.

my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.

So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,

and over our heads the grey light unwind in turning fans.

My words rained over you, stroking you.

A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.

I go so far as to think that you own the universe.

I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,

dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.

I want

to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

Road to Publication, Mile 2: Getting my agent

I began looking for my agent in 2008, after writing my first book, an unpublished memoir called A YEAR IN THE VINES.

My first step was buying the indispensable tome, WRITER'S MARKET. I started with their "Query Letter Clinic". There's a pretty specific formula to use when writing query letters, and I worked on my letter for days before coming up with something I felt was presentable.

Now, when I read the first incarnation of that letter, I cringe. The first sentence—the "hook"—was something like, "How do you say 'up shit creek without a paddle' in French?" Oh, the shame. Luckily, only one agent got that letter. She never answered, and I don't blame her one bit.

What was frustrating to me was knowing that, for most agents, the query letter was all they would ever see of my writing. Unless specifically requested, you don't enclose a sample of the manuscript with your query letter. I thought this was terribly unfair, since I didn't feel skilled in self-promotion, but rather in writing whimsical descriptions mixed with funny anecdotes.

I learned that you have to be able to do both. Too bad if you don't think of yourself as an ad-man. You have to get good enough at it to get that foot in the door, or in this case, that manuscript in front of the agent. Just bite the bullet and do it.

After I had my query letter, I flipped back to WRITER'S MARKET's chapter on literary agents and made a list of the ones who accepted memoirs. I then cross-referenced my short-list with a few Internet sites that gave "grades" to agents and agencies. One site was "Predators and Editors." I can't remember the others. But there is a lot of information out there, and you can benefit from the experiences of other writers who have gone through the same process.

I then went to each of my chosen agencies' websites and read their submission guidelines. You have to find an agent that accepts unsolicited manuscripts. You should find someone who is searching for manuscripts in your field. (Don't send a memoir if they only work with science fiction. Unless your life has been extremely weird.) And then you should choose one person in the agency that you think is your best bet and tailor your letter to fit them. (Many sites have agent bios or blurbs.)

From my research, I chose my top ten "dream" agents or agencies—the ones I didn't have a hope in hell of getting—and decided to start with them. Why not start big? I thought.

I had read that agents don't like you to flood the marketplace with your queries. They want something fresh that hasn't been shopped around to everyone and her brother. So I limited my first queries, sending them out two at a time. After waiting a week for the first two, I suddenly realized that they might never respond, and I would just be sitting here in the middle of the French countryside twiddling my thumbs. So I sent two more out, waited a week, and then sent another two. I got one rejection back right away. The others took months to respond.

The one agent that I felt the very best about was with Dystel & Goderich. My memoir was about an American mom living abroad, and this agent's bio said that she had kids and had lived in Spain. Perfect! I thought. Someone who will understand me.

I emailed her my query letter and my five-page prologue, as specified in her agency's submission guidelines. And an hour and a half later I got a return email asking for the entire manuscript. She said she would read it "promptly." I had no idea what "promptly" meant to agents, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt, stopped sending out queries, and waited for her response.

Exactly two weeks later, I received an email from Stacey Glick, another agent at Dystel. She said, "[My colleague] shared your memoir with me and I had a chance to read it this weekend. I really enjoyed it and would love to discuss it with you."

During our phone conversation she told me she loved the book and wanted to represent me. She DID ask how many other people I had sent it to, at which point I was honestly able to say "just a handful." And the next morning I had a contract sitting in my Inbox.

I realize that this is a dream story. That things aren't usually this easy and don't move this fast. A friend who now has three books published wrote over two hundred agents before signing. What I think helped me, though, was:

Advice from a few people who had already gone through the process and learned the hard way.
Banging away at the query letter (and getting several qualified opinions on it).
Being extremely picky with the agents that I approached.
Choosing one agent out of each agency to concentrate on and tailoring my query letter for that individual.
Reading each agency's guidelines and following their rules.
Making my book start with a bang, knowing that the first few pages might be all that the agent would read.

There are other ways of getting agents, such as conferences and referrals from published authors. (And my agency has a wonderful blog at dglm.blogspot.com with lots of invaluable advice!) But this is how I got my agent, and the result has been more successful than I could ever have imagined.

And if you want to know how I felt when I signed with Stacey, this is the blog post that I wrote that day, back in 2008:

DREAMING OF BOOKS

Last night I had a dream.

In the dream I finished my book and, instead of sending a query letter to a million and one literary agents, I chose just a handful. I heard that the process of finding an agent was like dating, so I looked at each person and agency carefully. And I asked myself if I would be able to sit through a long dinner date with the person, leave the restaurant with a smile on my face, and still be chuckling hours later about things we had said.

Mind you, in my dream I was a bit of a lesbian, because with this particular dating situation, I felt like I only wanted to see women. Who is able to put up with two men in their life, especially if one of them is French?

There was one woman from an agency owned by another woman who I thought would be the perfect date. An hour and a half after I sent her my letter and 5-page prologue I got a return email asking for the entire manuscript. She said she would read it "promptly." All I could think was "What does 'promptly' mean in the agent-dating world? A week? Three months?" I tried to set my mind on "pause", and refused to give in to my impulse to query other agents until I heard back from her.

And then, in my dream, the agent called me. Well, not her, but another agent from the same agency. I listened as she told me that she loved the book. That it had made her laugh out loud. That she wanted to represent me.

I wanted to know more about her, and she described herself. We had a lot in common. Even more than I had thought I would have with her colleague.

I hung up the phone in a daze, thinking, "This is one hot agent." Just thinking of what I would wear to our hypothetical dinner date sent me into a tizzy.

This morning I awoke and wondered if I was still dreaming. I blearily opened my email Inbox. And as proof that I was actually awake, and not lingering in the bliss of my literary dream-world, there was an agency contract sitting right there, waiting for me.

Previous post: Road to Publication, Mile 1: From Blogger to Writer

Road to Publication: Mile 1: from blogger to writer

A few of you have asked me to share my road to publication, and since it's been a long time since I've written about that, I thought I'd start at the beginning. Okay, not the VERY beginning, which was a poem about a turkey that I wrote in first grade and was published in my school newsletter. I'll skip that, and all of the other poems I wrote through high school and stopped writing when I got rejected by my university's literary journal. At that point I thought, Well, if even THEY won't take me, I must be crap. So I summarily trashed my dreams of writing and decided to pursue a "real career."

Fast forward a few years later, and I'm living in France with several long distance relationships: my family and a couple of romances. This was the early '90s, and email still only existed for the military. I wrote long letters and faxes describing my life in France, and for Boy 1 and Boy 2 had to use all of my storytelling powers to keep them interested from far far away. That in itself was very good training. I found out years later that everyone had kept my letters because they found them so entertaining.

It wasn't until I moved to the French countryside six years ago that I started writing in earnest. I set up a blog in order to keep in touch with friends and family. But as I wrote stories and posted pictures from my life in France, more and more "strangers" began following my blog until I had a good following of very dedicated readers. Some of them were writers and journalists. And they told me that my writing was good. They thought I should try to publish.

So I collected all of my France stories together and wrote them up into a book—a kind of fictionalized memoir. I called it "A YEAR IN THE VINES." (Not a terribly original title, but it was meant to convey the content of the book in five short words. I thought I could change it to something more exciting if someone actually bought it.)

That took me about a year to write, grabbing an hour here and there away from my two toddlers and part-time translating and teaching jobs. I remember the evening I finally finished it. I had been writing in the guest-room bed, and when I typed that final period. I jumped up, ran downstairs, and began yelling to my husband, "I did it! I did it! I wrote a book!"

Of course, I had no idea if anyone would ever see it, but we cracked open a bottle of champagne anyway. And I consider that Mile 1 of my Road to Publication. I'll tell you about Mile 2 (finding an agent) in my next post!

Road to Publication: Mile 1

A few of you have asked me to share my road to publication, and since it's been a long time since I've written about that, I thought I'd start at the beginning. Okay, not the VERY beginning, which was a poem about a turkey that I wrote in first grade and was published in my school newsletter. I'll skip that, and all of the other poems I wrote through high school and stopped writing when I got rejected by my university's literary journal. At that point I thought, Well, if even THEY won't take me, I must be crap. So I summarily trashed my dreams of writing and decided to pursue a "real career."

Fast forward a few years later, and I'm living in France with several long distance relationships: my family and a couple of romances. This was the early '90s, and email still only existed for the military. I wrote long letters and faxes describing my life in France, and for Boy 1 and Boy 2 had to use all of my storytelling powers to keep them interested from far far away. That in itself was very good training. I found out years later that everyone had kept my letters because they found them so entertaining.

It wasn't until I moved to the French countryside six years ago that I started writing in earnest. I set up a blog in order to keep in touch with friends and family. But as I wrote stories and posted pictures from my life in France, more and more "strangers" began following my blog until I had a good following of very dedicated readers. Some of them were writers and journalists. And they told me that my writing was good. They thought I should try to publish.

So I collected all of my France stories together and wrote them up into a book—a kind of fictionalized memoir. I called it "A YEAR IN THE VINES." (Not a terribly original title, but it was meant to convey the content of the book in five short words. I thought I could change it to something more exciting if someone actually bought it.)

That took me about a year to write, grabbing an hour here and there away from my two toddlers and part-time translating and teaching jobs. I remember the evening I finally finished it. I had been writing in the guest-room bed, and when I typed that final period. I jumped up, ran downstairs, and began yelling to my husband, "I did it! I did it! I wrote a book!"

Of course, I had no idea if anyone would ever see it, but we cracked open a bottle of champagne anyway. And I consider that Mile 1 of my Road to Publication. I'll tell you about Mile 2 (finding an agent) in my next post!

Contest Winners

Wasn't the Winter YA Scavenger Hunt AWESOME? I had so much fun getting to know the other authors, as well as hearing from all of you. Thank you all for following, getting your friends to follow, voting and commenting.

So…the names of the winners.

The winner of the YA Scavenger Hunt Grand Prize is Sandra Lin of Australia!

And the winner of my very own DIE FOR ME contest is: Sarah Kalaitzidis of Canada!

Congratulations to Sandra and Sarah, and again – thank you ALL for participating in this contest. And do not fear – there will be more. If you follow me on FB and Twitter, you can participate in my CONTEST MONDAY…every week!

Merci et à bientôt!

Amy

YA Scavenger Hunt [Contests now over]

Welcome to the SECOND edition of the YA SCAVENGER HUNT, running Dec 1-Dec 4 (noon Pacific time). I'm so excited to participate once again!!! Not only because I am hosting an amazing author, but my own bonus material is out there somewhere on someone else's blog!

Each author on the hunt is hosting another author's bonus material AND a link to the next step of the hunt. Take a couple of hours and work your way through the entire circuit collecting the words in red and entering all of the different contests you find along the way.

For this year's scavenger hunt, I have the honor of hosting the lovely Abbi Glines!

About Abbi: Abbi Glines can be found hanging out with rockstars, taking out her yacht on weekends for a party cruise, sky diving, or surfing in Maui. Okay maybe she needs to keep her imagination focused on her writing only. In the real world, Abbi can be found hauling kids (several who seem to show up that don't belong to her) to all their social events, hiding under the covers with her MacBook in hopes her husband won't catch her watching Buffy on Netflix again, and sneaking off to Barnes and Noble to spend hours lost in the yummy goodness of books. If you want to find her then check Twitter first because she has a severe addiction to tweeting @abbiglines. Facebook and Google + are some of her other stomping grounds. She also blogs regularly but rarely about anything life changing. She also really enjoys talking about herself in third person.

To find out more about Abbi and her books, visit her website at www.abbiglines.com.

Abbi's debut novel, BREATHE, can be found here:

Barnes & Noble: digital format / paperback
Amazon: digital format / paperback
IndieBound: paperback

Her second YA contemporary, THE VINCENT BOYS can be found here:

Barnes & Noble: digital format
Amazon: digital format

And here is Abbi's BRAND NEW YA paranormal romance, EXISTENCE!!!

About EXISTENCE:

What happens when you're stalked by Death? You fall in love with him, of course.

Pagan Moore doesn't cheat Death, but instead, falls in love with him.

Seventeen year old Pagan Moore has seen souls her entire life. Once she realized the strangers she often saw walking through walls were not visible to anyone else, she started ignoring them. If she didn't let them know she could see them, then they left her alone. Until she stepped out of her car the first day of school and saw an incredibly sexy guy lounging on a picnic table, watching her with an amused smirk on his face. Problem is, she knows he's dead.

Not only does he not go away when she ignores him, but he does something none of the others have ever done. He speaks. Pagan is fascinated by the soul. What she doesn't realize is that her appointed time to die is drawing near and the wickedly beautiful soul she is falling in love with, is not a soul at all.

He is Death and he's about to break all the rules.

EXISTENCE will be released in just under 2 weeks on DECEMBER 13!  You can pre-order it here.

For her scavenger hunt BONUS MATERIAL, Abbi has given us a mini-prequel from EXISTENCE called "DEATH'S ARRIVAL".

The moment she spotted me, I knew it. Granted, she did a really good job of pretending she couldn't see me. The fact that she halted in her steps the moment her eyes met mine, then quickly darted past me as she hurried into the school, gave her away.  Students walked past me all morning without seeing me, but this one saw me. I stood up from the wooden picnic table, where I'd been sitting awaiting her arrival. I could force her to acknowledge me by becoming visible to everyone else but I wasn't in the mood to do so just yet. The determination in her eyes intrigued me. If there hadn't been a parking lot full of witnesses, I have the feeling she would have yelled at me instead of cowering like most humans. The monotony of my existence didn't hold much promise of entertainment. I'd play her games for awhile. Games were fun to play and it'd been much too long since I'd come across a worthy opponent, especially a female one.

When I'd decided to come much sooner than required to take a soul, I hadn't been expecting to be intrigued by a mere girl. Although she was the soul I'd come to take, she wasn't what drew me here early. There was something else here or should I say someone else here who didn't belong. No, I wasn't here for the girl just yet, I came to see the soulless. It wasn't my job to follow the soulless but they were so rare. It had been over a hundred years since the last soulless walked the Earth. He was just a boy, which was expected. The soulless never lived long. They fulfilled their purpose by their creator and were then removed from life. Although he had no soul for me to hear I could still watch him undetected.

His eyes continued to scan the crowd of students. His purpose must be here. Patiently I waited until he found his prey. Almost as if he were the silly boy he portrayed, his attention was claimed by a girl. Ah, but not any girl. He was here for her, too. Her soul was marked, of course, and therefore mine to take. His purpose would be up sooner than expected. Whatever reason the soulless has for watching her will become pointless when I take her soul. Unfortunately, her time is up. Death is literally knocking on her door. Chuckling at my own humor, I silently rapped on the wooden door as I followed her into an empty classroom. Depending on what the soulless was after, I realized I might have to forgo playing her games and just take her soul as planned.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! I have 2 contests you can enter.

YA SCAVENGER HUNT CONTEST

As an extra bonus we've put together a puzzle with one keyword found on each website. Complete it and you will be eligible for a fantastic GRAND PRIZE which will include signed editions of books, signed bookmarks, jewelry, and many more exclusive gifts with at least one gift from EVERY AUTHOR!

Directions: Search for the 37 keywords—one on each Scavenger Hunt website—that are highlighted in RED. When you are finished, go here to the puzzle form, where you will find a list of scrambled keywords. Put your keywords in the same order as the scrambled ones—from #1 – #37—and paste that list into the entry form.

Rules: To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed puzzle form before noon on Dec 4th Pacific Time. All the keywords must be included and you must include your full name and address. Entries sent in without name and address will not be considered! The contest is international.

My very own DIE FOR ME Contest [now over - winner will be announced Dec. 5]

Enter up to 6 times to win a fabulous prize pack including a Paris keychain, signed bookmark and bookplate, a signed copy of DIE FOR ME and an ARC of UNTIL I DIE! (I know…huge prize pack!!!) (International.)

How to get your points:

follow me on Twitter at @iHeartRevenants
get a friend to follow me on Twitter
like me on Facebook
get a friend to follow me on Facebook
Vote in the YA Sisterhood's Tournament of Heroines[The voting has closed, so total points possible is now 5.]
Leave me a comment here under this blog post telling me how many points to give you. Just leaving a comment counts 1 point. (And if you have done 1-4, give me your user names and your friends' user names so I can credit your points.)

Note: to be eligible to win you also need to submit a valid entry for the YA Scavenger Hunt grand prize.

Ready to go to the next website on the Scavenger Hunt?

Click HERE!

YA Scavenger Hunt

Welcome to the SECOND edition of the YA SCAVENGER HUNT, running Dec 1-Dec 4 (noon Pacific time). I'm so excited to participate once again!!! Not only because I am hosting an amazing author, but my own bonus material is out there somewhere on someone else's blog!

Each author on the hunt is hosting another author's bonus material AND a link to the next step of the hunt. Take a couple of hours and work your way through the entire circuit collecting the words in red and entering all of the different contests you find along the way.

For this year's scavenger hunt, I have the honor of hosting the lovely Abbi Glines!

About Abbi: Abbi Glines can be found hanging out with rockstars, taking out her yacht on weekends for a party cruise, sky diving, or surfing in Maui. Okay maybe she needs to keep her imagination focused on her writing only. In the real world, Abbi can be found hauling kids (several who seem to show up that don't belong to her) to all their social events, hiding under the covers with her MacBook in hopes her husband won't catch her watching Buffy on Netflix again, and sneaking off to Barnes and Noble to spend hours lost in the yummy goodness of books. If you want to find her then check Twitter first because she has a severe addiction to tweeting @abbiglines. Facebook and Google + are some of her other stomping grounds. She also blogs regularly but rarely about anything life changing. She also really enjoys talking about herself in third person.

To find out more about Abbi and her books, visit her website at www.abbiglines.com.

Abbi's debut novel, BREATHE, can be found here:

Barnes & Noble: digital format / paperback
Amazon: digital format / paperback
IndieBound: paperback

Her second YA contemporary, THE VINCENT BOYS can be found here:

Barnes & Noble: digital format
Amazon: digital format

And here is Abbi's BRAND NEW YA paranormal romance, EXISTENCE!!!

About EXISTENCE:

What happens when you're stalked by Death? You fall in love with him, of course.

Pagan Moore doesn't cheat Death, but instead, falls in love with him.

Seventeen year old Pagan Moore has seen souls her entire life. Once she realized the strangers she often saw walking through walls were not visible to anyone else, she started ignoring them. If she didn't let them know she could see them, then they left her alone. Until she stepped out of her car the first day of school and saw an incredibly sexy guy lounging on a picnic table, watching her with an amused smirk on his face. Problem is, she knows he's dead.

Not only does he not go away when she ignores him, but he does something none of the others have ever done. He speaks. Pagan is fascinated by the soul. What she doesn't realize is that her appointed time to die is drawing near and the wickedly beautiful soul she is falling in love with, is not a soul at all.

He is Death and he's about to break all the rules.

EXISTENCE will be released in just under 2 weeks on DECEMBER 13!  You can pre-order it here.

For her scavenger hunt BONUS MATERIAL, Abbi has given us a mini-prequel from EXISTENCE called "DEATH'S ARRIVAL".

The moment she spotted me, I knew it. Granted, she did a really good job of pretending she couldn't see me. The fact that she halted in her steps the moment her eyes met mine, then quickly darted past me as she hurried into the school, gave her away.  Students walked past me all morning without seeing me, but this one saw me. I stood up from the wooden picnic table, where I'd been sitting awaiting her arrival. I could force her to acknowledge me by becoming visible to everyone else but I wasn't in the mood to do so just yet. The determination in her eyes intrigued me. If there hadn't been a parking lot full of witnesses, I have the feeling she would have yelled at me instead of cowering like most humans. The monotony of my existence didn't hold much promise of entertainment. I'd play her games for awhile. Games were fun to play and it'd been much too long since I'd come across a worthy opponent, especially a female one.

When I'd decided to come much sooner than required to take a soul, I hadn't been expecting to be intrigued by a mere girl. Although she was the soul I'd come to take, she wasn't what drew me here early. There was something else here or should I say someone else here who didn't belong. No, I wasn't here for the girl just yet, I came to see the soulless. It wasn't my job to follow the soulless but they were so rare. It had been over a hundred years since the last soulless walked the Earth. He was just a boy, which was expected. The soulless never lived long. They fulfilled their purpose by their creator and were then removed from life. Although he had no soul for me to hear I could still watch him undetected.

His eyes continued to scan the crowd of students. His purpose must be here. Patiently I waited until he found his prey. Almost as if he were the silly boy he portrayed, his attention was claimed by a girl. Ah, but not any girl. He was here for her, too. Her soul was marked, of course, and therefore mine to take. His purpose would be up sooner than expected. Whatever reason the soulless has for watching her will become pointless when I take her soul. Unfortunately, her time is up. Death is literally knocking on her door. Chuckling at my own humor, I silently rapped on the wooden door as I followed her into an empty classroom. Depending on what the soulless was after, I realized I might have to forgo playing her games and just take her soul as planned.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! I have 2 contests you can enter.

YA SCAVENGER HUNT CONTEST

As an extra bonus we've put together a puzzle with one keyword found on each website. Complete it and you will be eligible for a fantastic GRAND PRIZE which will include signed editions of books, signed bookmarks, jewelry, and many more exclusive gifts with at least one gift from EVERY AUTHOR!

Directions: Search for the 37 keywords—one on each Scavenger Hunt website—that are highlighted in RED. When you are finished, go here to the puzzle form, where you will find a list of scrambled keywords. Put your keywords in the same order as the scrambled ones—from #1 – #37—and paste that list into the entry form.

Rules: To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed puzzle form before noon on Dec 4th Pacific Time. All the keywords must be included and you must include your full name and address. Entries sent in without name and address will not be considered! The contest is international.

My very own DIE FOR ME Contest

Enter up to 6 times to win a fabulous prize pack including a Paris keychain, signed bookmark and bookplate, a signed copy of DIE FOR ME and an ARC of UNTIL I DIE! (I know…huge prize pack!!!) (International.)

How to get your points:

follow me on Twitter at @iHeartRevenants
get a friend to follow me on Twitter
like me on Facebook
get a friend to follow me on Facebook
Vote in the YA Sisterhood's Tournament of Heroines You don't have to vote for DIE FOR ME's Kate (although *cough* I wouldn't mind) you just have to vote!
Leave me a comment here under this blog post telling me how many points to give you. Just leaving a comment counts 1 point. (And if you have done 1-5, give me your user names and your friends' user names so I can credit your points.)

Note: to be eligible to win you also need to submit a valid entry for the YA Scavenger Hunt grand prize.

Ready to go to the next website on the Scavenger Hunt?

Click HERE!

UNTIL I DIE Teaser: Kick-ass Kate

This teaser is to accompany the YA Sisterhood's Tournament of Heroines, which starts tomorrow (Dec 1). BUT…since the YA Scavenger Hunt also starts tomorrow, I am going to jump the gun and give this to you today. Don't worry – I'll remind you tomorrow to go vote for Kate.

What I hoped this teaser would show you is Kate's humanity. She is just like you and me, but with a few weeks of Gaspard's fight training under her belt. And she is facing a numa in a dark alleyway. The important part is not her skill, but that she can swallow her fear in order to fight. And…take it away, Kate!

I can't do this. As the thought flashed through my mind, I had a panic-induced out-of-body experience. I felt like I was up in the air looking down at myself: a teenage girl standing in an alleyway brandishing a sword at a man almost twice her size. I can't, I thought again. I'm too afraid to move.

My enemy righted himself and started toward me. I looked up into his cold, murderous eyes, and that was all it took. I felt the adrenaline coursing through my veins and my heart thumping in my chest. And suddenly I was in the zone.