Welcome to the YA Scavenger Hunt!
Welcome to the YA
Scavenger Hunt!
On this hunt you will be able to gain access to exclusive bonus material, sign up for giveaways, and get an all access pass to top secret insider information. This fabulous sneak peek into what’s coming up in YA literature is for one day only!
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 from EVERY AUTHOR!
Scavenger Hunt Puzzle
Directions: Copy and paste the puzzle below onto a document or blank email page and fill it out as you proceed through the Scavenger Hunt. Search for keywords, one on each website that will be highlighted in RED, and insert them into the puzzle, then fill out the Google form here.
Rules: To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit this filled in puzzle before midnight on August 1st Pacific Time. All the keywords must be in the correct place, and you must include your full name and address. Entries sent in without name and address will not be considered!
W
elcome fans of young adult literature! Don’t forget to _______ up in time to join our special event! In _______ you roll the dice and, like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get. Our scavenger hunt is very similar. Surprises wait around every corner. Turn one page and you’re chasing a ____ through a _____ _____. Turn another and you are being ______ by a _______ which leaves your heart ______. YA ______s are full of ______ heroes who must _____ themselves for the greater good. Some of the characters travel through ______ or have a ______ ______. If there is one thing YA books have taught us, it’s that if you leave your ______ keep an eye out for a patrolling ______. They’re very dangerous. Maybe not so frightening as a _______, but still you should be careful. Also beware lest you become ______ by vampires. ______ one is a different story. Just remember that bite has _____ ramifications and that afterwards the sun can _____ you unless you get bitten by a glittering type. Whether you like dark, paranormal, romance, fantasy, _____, Sci-Fi, or a combination of those, we’ve got something for you.
We think that each fan is a _____ and we love you all!
Now let's get on with the HUNT!
I am so excited to be hosting the fabulous TARA HUDSON!
Like me Tara is super smart, gorgeous, and fairly new to the whole being an author thing.
Okay!
So, two out of three?
Fine!
One out of three.
We both published our debut novels this year.
Seriously though she was a pre-med major who ended
up getting a degree in law and then to top it off,
tacked on a career as an author!
Can you say amazing woman?
I'd really feel so much better if she
was just a little bit homely.
But, sigh, she looks like she should be
a model on a book cover.
See what I mean?
I can totally picture her as a ghostly
heroine haunting a graveyard.
Here's her Bio
Born and raised in Oklahoma, Tara Hudson graduated with a degree in law, mostly because she believed all the horror stories about English majors and their careers in the food-service industry. Luckily, she soon remembered how much she loved telling ghost stories, particularly to her girlfriends who liked visiting abandoned cemeteries as much as she did. Tara currently lives in Oklahoma with her husband, son, and a menagerie of ill-behaved pets.
Her book is called HEREAFTER
Read this to learn a little more about HEREAFTER
Drifting in the dark waters of a mysterious river, the only thing Amelia knows for sure is that she's dead. With no recollection of her past life—or her actual death—she's trapped alone in a nightmarish existence. All of this changes when she tries to rescue a boy, Joshua, from drowning in her river. As a ghost, she can do nothing but will him to live. Yet in an unforgettable moment of connection, she helps him survive.
Amelia and Joshua grow ever closer as they begin to uncover the strange circumstances of her death and the secrets of the dark river that held her captive for so long. But even while they struggle to keep their bond hidden from the living world, a frightening spirit named Eli is doing everything in his power to destroy their newfound happiness and drag Amelia back into the ghost world . . . forever.
HEREAFTER is the first book in a trilogy.
To find out more about Tara Hudson and HEREAFTER check out her website.
If you'd like to purchase a copy, you can find HEREAFTER at
Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Indie Bound.
AND NOW FOR THE TOP
SECRET EXLUSIVE AND
FANTABULOUS BONUS FEATURE!
READ THIS SPECIAL EXTRA
COMING TO YOU DIRECTLY
FROM TARA!
ELI‟S ORIGINAL BACKSTORY Eli Rowland wasn't always a sexy misguided rockstar. In the original version of HEREAFTER, Eli was a fallen man of God. Notice how much more formally he speaks here? I definitely like – or dislike, depending on the scene – the new Eli better!
Eli fell silent once more. But this time, the silence only lasted a few more minutes. When Eli spoke again, his voice was softer than I'd expected.
"The story -- my story -- begins in 1934. The year my wife Dorothy and I moved to this region."
I nearly stopped walking, I was so surprised that Eli had had a wife. It was hard to imagine any woman could have stood to be around him for more than a few hours. Wisely, though, I kept this opinion to myself and continued to listen as we walked. As Eli spoke, his quiet words gained a mesmerizing cadence, a kind of rhythm I couldn't ignore.
"In the midst of a nation-wide Depression," Eli went on, "My wife and I came to Oklahoma San Bois Mountains. For religious reasons, ostensibly. It may shock you to know I was a man of God, already a preacher at age twenty. My particular calling, or so the Baptist Church thought, was to travel around the country, acting as a sort of missionary to the rural communities of America.
Dorothy and I would arrive in each of these communities and set up camp, as it were, for several weeks. Typically, we were given leave to do our mission work in church buildings, although we occasionally had to make use of school rooms or even outdoor tents.
Our settings, however, didn't have much bearing on the events that occurred within them. No matter where I preached, each sermon I gave would be more moving, more fantastic, than the last. Each word I spoke was intended to transport a flock of believers to God, and then return them, a more inspired group of Christians, to their normal Sunday preachers.
Revivals, the gatherings were known as. More like carnivals, really. At least, ours were. We had strings of electric lights, fiery torches, scores of musical instruments. We put on quite the show, week to week, all in the name of God. But please, pay close attention to the word "show."
Because, Amelia -- and you may judge me, if you want, for what I'm about to tell you -- my revivals had little to do with the spiritual message I imparted to people. Instead, the revivals had everything to do with my favorite thing in the world: money.
You see, while other Americans lost their savings, their farms, their very homes…while the rest of the country starved, Dorothy and I thrived. Unbeknownst to the church, we specifically sought out the towns that were on the verge of ruin but had not yet collapsed. Places where people were desperate, but not yet destitute. Places where Christians, wavering on the brink of financial destruction, might give hundreds if not thousands of dollars to a man who promised them salvation."
At this point in Eli's story, I stopped walking and sucked in a hissed breath. Eli paused, too. He even had the decency to hang his head.
"I told you that you'd judge me," he said quietly.
"I'm…I'm trying very hard not to, Eli. I'm trying very hard to just…listen." I stuttered as I spoke, probably because I was trying harder, at this moment, to hide my lie than to listen.
Eli chuckled softly, but it was a mirthless sound. He continued to make his way through the woods, picking back up with his story after only a few steps.
"In 1934, this area of Oklahoma proved to be my greatest find, in terms of flocks to fleece. The area still had a relatively high level of prosperity, due in part to the coal mines that pocked the mountainsides. By the thirties, however, the Depression and Dust Bowl -- both of which had so successfully driven the rest of Oklahoma to its knees -- had finally found their way into this region. Coal alone wasn't enough to keep the fear out of men's eyes, though it still provided a healthy paycheck to some. Even better, a mining accident had claimed the lives of fifteen men, only four years prior. All of these things provide excellent fuel for the fire of desperation.
So Dorothy and I came here, moving from town to town, putting on our great show. And what a success we were! We had never felt richer, more prosperous, than we did in Oklahoma.
And that, of course, is when the worst happened. The morning after our last show in Wilburton, Dorothy discovered she was pregnant. Very quickly, she informed me that we couldn't travel much, not for the duration of her pregnancy. And the longer she remained pregnant, the more adverse she was to leaving Wilburton at all.
With no small amount of anger, I contacted the central authority for the Missionary Baptist Church and sought permission to remain in one place for a while. The Church readily granted the request, but they cut my already-meager salary to a mere pittance.
And that wasn't the worst of it.
To my surprise…to my horror, pregnancy began to change Dorothy. It began to…soften her. She was only eighteen years old at the time -- an impressionable age. So susceptible to change.
Although I sometimes wonder, now, whether Dorothy loved me at all, I could never doubt that she truly loved that child inside her. She spoke softly to it. She crooned to it each night as she fell asleep. She dreamt of its future. A future, she began to realize, which would only be tainted by an association with our way of life.
On behalf of our unborn child, Dorothy grew to hate our lives of deceit. She actually became happy the pregnancy had forced us to settle down in this wretched little town -- a town we had long since fleeced. You see, the point of a graft is to accomplish it and then disappear, before the unsuspecting victims start thinking their pitchforks look more like weapons than farm tools.
But Dorothy's love for that child made her forget all this. Dorothy even wanted me to try and establish myself in the community. To become a settled preacher -- a real one.
And, for her, I tried. I did. But the townspeople of Wilburton, and Talihina, and High Bridge, and Red Oak -- well, if they had been fools before, they certainly weren't fools now. They didn't run me out on a rail, I'll give them that. But they didn't place me at the helm of any church, either.
So, without our extra fleecings, without even our basic income from the Church, Dorothy and I began to do what the rest of the country was already doing -- starve.
Whatever Dorothy could scrounge, she stored for that baby. Whatever I could scrounge, I poured into my mouth in the form of cheap whiskey, which drove Dorothy and I even further apart.
I was drunk the night Dorothy went into labor. I remained drunk throughout that night, into the next day, and then into the following night, as she tried to deliver. Each time she cried out, I took another sip. Even at the sight of my newborn son, I took another sip.
And when the doctor told me Dorothy had died in childbirth, I took yet another sip.
After I buried her, I made a vow to myself that I would stay drunk for every remaining minute of my life. I set about accomplishing the goal with amazing vigor. To this day, I can't precisely remember the face of my son. The blur of that memory has nothing to do with my death; it has everything to do with the perpetual shroud that drink placed over my eyes.
The early months of 1935 were part of the coldest winter I'd ever experienced. The chill only made me drink more. I made no effort to hide my actions, and it quickly became clear to the town that I was in no condition to father my child. The people of the town, who were far godlier than I ever could have hoped to be, took my child from me, to protect him. The night they came for him, I drank myself into a stupor, walked several miles to High Bridge, and then kept walking right off of it."
At this revelation, Eli fell silent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you all so much for visiting my website and I hope you are all enjoying the tour. While you're here, sign up to win a fabulous prize pack including a signed copy of TIGER'S CURSE & TIGER'S QUEST as well as an advanced reading copy of the soon to be published TIGER'S VOYAGE, the third book in the Tiger Saga. Also included in the prize pack is a journal, jewelry, and the most coveted prize I will be giving away, which is an exclusive signed poster depicting concept art for the upcoming TIGER'S CURSE motion picture.
To qualify to win the prize simply leave a comment on my page. Ten eligible people will be selected and emailed at 9 am pacific time on Tuesday August 2nd. Each person selected must have entered the grand prize contest as well to prove they were a participant of the Scavenger Hunt. The first person to email me back at contactme@colleenhouck.com will win the prize pack.
Ready to go to the next website on the Scavenger Hunt?
Click HERE!
If you get lost, here is a complete list of participating authors in alphabetical order. There are actually 23 authors involved. I forgot to add myself =)
JOSEPHINE ANGELINI
TERA LYNN CHILDS
ANGELA CORBETT
KADY CROSS
HEATHER DAVIS
DJ DESMYTER
BREE DESPAIN
LEIGH FALLON
MARLEY GIBSON
ABBI GLINES
COLLEEN HOUCK
TARA HUDSON
ELANA JOHNSON
SOPHIE JORDAN
MYRA MCENTIRE
ALEXANDRA MONIR
LISA NOWAK
AMY PLUM
BETH REVIS
LISA & LAURA ROECKER
INARA SCOTT
JERI SMITH-READY
LANI WOODLAND
Scavenger Hunt!
On this hunt you will be able to gain access to exclusive bonus material, sign up for giveaways, and get an all access pass to top secret insider information. This fabulous sneak peek into what’s coming up in YA literature is for one day only!
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 from EVERY AUTHOR!
Scavenger Hunt Puzzle
Directions: Copy and paste the puzzle below onto a document or blank email page and fill it out as you proceed through the Scavenger Hunt. Search for keywords, one on each website that will be highlighted in RED, and insert them into the puzzle, then fill out the Google form here.
Rules: To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit this filled in puzzle before midnight on August 1st Pacific Time. All the keywords must be in the correct place, and you must include your full name and address. Entries sent in without name and address will not be considered!
W
elcome fans of young adult literature! Don’t forget to _______ up in time to join our special event! In _______ you roll the dice and, like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get. Our scavenger hunt is very similar. Surprises wait around every corner. Turn one page and you’re chasing a ____ through a _____ _____. Turn another and you are being ______ by a _______ which leaves your heart ______. YA ______s are full of ______ heroes who must _____ themselves for the greater good. Some of the characters travel through ______ or have a ______ ______. If there is one thing YA books have taught us, it’s that if you leave your ______ keep an eye out for a patrolling ______. They’re very dangerous. Maybe not so frightening as a _______, but still you should be careful. Also beware lest you become ______ by vampires. ______ one is a different story. Just remember that bite has _____ ramifications and that afterwards the sun can _____ you unless you get bitten by a glittering type. Whether you like dark, paranormal, romance, fantasy, _____, Sci-Fi, or a combination of those, we’ve got something for you.
We think that each fan is a _____ and we love you all!
Now let's get on with the HUNT!
I am so excited to be hosting the fabulous TARA HUDSON!
Like me Tara is super smart, gorgeous, and fairly new to the whole being an author thing.
Okay!
So, two out of three?
Fine!
One out of three.
We both published our debut novels this year.
Seriously though she was a pre-med major who ended
up getting a degree in law and then to top it off,
tacked on a career as an author!
Can you say amazing woman?
I'd really feel so much better if she
was just a little bit homely.
But, sigh, she looks like she should be
a model on a book cover.
See what I mean?
I can totally picture her as a ghostly
heroine haunting a graveyard.
Here's her Bio
Born and raised in Oklahoma, Tara Hudson graduated with a degree in law, mostly because she believed all the horror stories about English majors and their careers in the food-service industry. Luckily, she soon remembered how much she loved telling ghost stories, particularly to her girlfriends who liked visiting abandoned cemeteries as much as she did. Tara currently lives in Oklahoma with her husband, son, and a menagerie of ill-behaved pets.
Her book is called HEREAFTER
Read this to learn a little more about HEREAFTER
Drifting in the dark waters of a mysterious river, the only thing Amelia knows for sure is that she's dead. With no recollection of her past life—or her actual death—she's trapped alone in a nightmarish existence. All of this changes when she tries to rescue a boy, Joshua, from drowning in her river. As a ghost, she can do nothing but will him to live. Yet in an unforgettable moment of connection, she helps him survive.
Amelia and Joshua grow ever closer as they begin to uncover the strange circumstances of her death and the secrets of the dark river that held her captive for so long. But even while they struggle to keep their bond hidden from the living world, a frightening spirit named Eli is doing everything in his power to destroy their newfound happiness and drag Amelia back into the ghost world . . . forever.
HEREAFTER is the first book in a trilogy.
To find out more about Tara Hudson and HEREAFTER check out her website.
If you'd like to purchase a copy, you can find HEREAFTER at
Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Indie Bound.
AND NOW FOR THE TOP
SECRET EXLUSIVE AND
FANTABULOUS BONUS FEATURE!
READ THIS SPECIAL EXTRA
COMING TO YOU DIRECTLY
FROM TARA!
ELI‟S ORIGINAL BACKSTORY Eli Rowland wasn't always a sexy misguided rockstar. In the original version of HEREAFTER, Eli was a fallen man of God. Notice how much more formally he speaks here? I definitely like – or dislike, depending on the scene – the new Eli better!
Eli fell silent once more. But this time, the silence only lasted a few more minutes. When Eli spoke again, his voice was softer than I'd expected.
"The story -- my story -- begins in 1934. The year my wife Dorothy and I moved to this region."
I nearly stopped walking, I was so surprised that Eli had had a wife. It was hard to imagine any woman could have stood to be around him for more than a few hours. Wisely, though, I kept this opinion to myself and continued to listen as we walked. As Eli spoke, his quiet words gained a mesmerizing cadence, a kind of rhythm I couldn't ignore.
"In the midst of a nation-wide Depression," Eli went on, "My wife and I came to Oklahoma San Bois Mountains. For religious reasons, ostensibly. It may shock you to know I was a man of God, already a preacher at age twenty. My particular calling, or so the Baptist Church thought, was to travel around the country, acting as a sort of missionary to the rural communities of America.
Dorothy and I would arrive in each of these communities and set up camp, as it were, for several weeks. Typically, we were given leave to do our mission work in church buildings, although we occasionally had to make use of school rooms or even outdoor tents.
Our settings, however, didn't have much bearing on the events that occurred within them. No matter where I preached, each sermon I gave would be more moving, more fantastic, than the last. Each word I spoke was intended to transport a flock of believers to God, and then return them, a more inspired group of Christians, to their normal Sunday preachers.
Revivals, the gatherings were known as. More like carnivals, really. At least, ours were. We had strings of electric lights, fiery torches, scores of musical instruments. We put on quite the show, week to week, all in the name of God. But please, pay close attention to the word "show."
Because, Amelia -- and you may judge me, if you want, for what I'm about to tell you -- my revivals had little to do with the spiritual message I imparted to people. Instead, the revivals had everything to do with my favorite thing in the world: money.
You see, while other Americans lost their savings, their farms, their very homes…while the rest of the country starved, Dorothy and I thrived. Unbeknownst to the church, we specifically sought out the towns that were on the verge of ruin but had not yet collapsed. Places where people were desperate, but not yet destitute. Places where Christians, wavering on the brink of financial destruction, might give hundreds if not thousands of dollars to a man who promised them salvation."
At this point in Eli's story, I stopped walking and sucked in a hissed breath. Eli paused, too. He even had the decency to hang his head.
"I told you that you'd judge me," he said quietly.
"I'm…I'm trying very hard not to, Eli. I'm trying very hard to just…listen." I stuttered as I spoke, probably because I was trying harder, at this moment, to hide my lie than to listen.
Eli chuckled softly, but it was a mirthless sound. He continued to make his way through the woods, picking back up with his story after only a few steps.
"In 1934, this area of Oklahoma proved to be my greatest find, in terms of flocks to fleece. The area still had a relatively high level of prosperity, due in part to the coal mines that pocked the mountainsides. By the thirties, however, the Depression and Dust Bowl -- both of which had so successfully driven the rest of Oklahoma to its knees -- had finally found their way into this region. Coal alone wasn't enough to keep the fear out of men's eyes, though it still provided a healthy paycheck to some. Even better, a mining accident had claimed the lives of fifteen men, only four years prior. All of these things provide excellent fuel for the fire of desperation.
So Dorothy and I came here, moving from town to town, putting on our great show. And what a success we were! We had never felt richer, more prosperous, than we did in Oklahoma.
And that, of course, is when the worst happened. The morning after our last show in Wilburton, Dorothy discovered she was pregnant. Very quickly, she informed me that we couldn't travel much, not for the duration of her pregnancy. And the longer she remained pregnant, the more adverse she was to leaving Wilburton at all.
With no small amount of anger, I contacted the central authority for the Missionary Baptist Church and sought permission to remain in one place for a while. The Church readily granted the request, but they cut my already-meager salary to a mere pittance.
And that wasn't the worst of it.
To my surprise…to my horror, pregnancy began to change Dorothy. It began to…soften her. She was only eighteen years old at the time -- an impressionable age. So susceptible to change.
Although I sometimes wonder, now, whether Dorothy loved me at all, I could never doubt that she truly loved that child inside her. She spoke softly to it. She crooned to it each night as she fell asleep. She dreamt of its future. A future, she began to realize, which would only be tainted by an association with our way of life.
On behalf of our unborn child, Dorothy grew to hate our lives of deceit. She actually became happy the pregnancy had forced us to settle down in this wretched little town -- a town we had long since fleeced. You see, the point of a graft is to accomplish it and then disappear, before the unsuspecting victims start thinking their pitchforks look more like weapons than farm tools.
But Dorothy's love for that child made her forget all this. Dorothy even wanted me to try and establish myself in the community. To become a settled preacher -- a real one.
And, for her, I tried. I did. But the townspeople of Wilburton, and Talihina, and High Bridge, and Red Oak -- well, if they had been fools before, they certainly weren't fools now. They didn't run me out on a rail, I'll give them that. But they didn't place me at the helm of any church, either.
So, without our extra fleecings, without even our basic income from the Church, Dorothy and I began to do what the rest of the country was already doing -- starve.
Whatever Dorothy could scrounge, she stored for that baby. Whatever I could scrounge, I poured into my mouth in the form of cheap whiskey, which drove Dorothy and I even further apart.
I was drunk the night Dorothy went into labor. I remained drunk throughout that night, into the next day, and then into the following night, as she tried to deliver. Each time she cried out, I took another sip. Even at the sight of my newborn son, I took another sip.
And when the doctor told me Dorothy had died in childbirth, I took yet another sip.
After I buried her, I made a vow to myself that I would stay drunk for every remaining minute of my life. I set about accomplishing the goal with amazing vigor. To this day, I can't precisely remember the face of my son. The blur of that memory has nothing to do with my death; it has everything to do with the perpetual shroud that drink placed over my eyes.
The early months of 1935 were part of the coldest winter I'd ever experienced. The chill only made me drink more. I made no effort to hide my actions, and it quickly became clear to the town that I was in no condition to father my child. The people of the town, who were far godlier than I ever could have hoped to be, took my child from me, to protect him. The night they came for him, I drank myself into a stupor, walked several miles to High Bridge, and then kept walking right off of it."
At this revelation, Eli fell silent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you all so much for visiting my website and I hope you are all enjoying the tour. While you're here, sign up to win a fabulous prize pack including a signed copy of TIGER'S CURSE & TIGER'S QUEST as well as an advanced reading copy of the soon to be published TIGER'S VOYAGE, the third book in the Tiger Saga. Also included in the prize pack is a journal, jewelry, and the most coveted prize I will be giving away, which is an exclusive signed poster depicting concept art for the upcoming TIGER'S CURSE motion picture.
To qualify to win the prize simply leave a comment on my page. Ten eligible people will be selected and emailed at 9 am pacific time on Tuesday August 2nd. Each person selected must have entered the grand prize contest as well to prove they were a participant of the Scavenger Hunt. The first person to email me back at contactme@colleenhouck.com will win the prize pack.
Ready to go to the next website on the Scavenger Hunt?
Click HERE!
If you get lost, here is a complete list of participating authors in alphabetical order. There are actually 23 authors involved. I forgot to add myself =)
JOSEPHINE ANGELINI
TERA LYNN CHILDS
ANGELA CORBETT
KADY CROSS
HEATHER DAVIS
DJ DESMYTER
BREE DESPAIN
LEIGH FALLON
MARLEY GIBSON
ABBI GLINES
COLLEEN HOUCK
TARA HUDSON
ELANA JOHNSON
SOPHIE JORDAN
MYRA MCENTIRE
ALEXANDRA MONIR
LISA NOWAK
AMY PLUM
BETH REVIS
LISA & LAURA ROECKER
INARA SCOTT
JERI SMITH-READY
LANI WOODLAND
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newest »
message 1:
by
Katherine
(new)
Aug 01, 2011 02:37PM
Thanks to all the authors who are participating in the Scavenger Hunt. So many awesome giveaways!
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