YA Scavenger Hunt: April 4-7 (winner to be announced Monday)

Welcome to the Spring 2013 YA Scavenger Hunt!
Apr 4 – 7 (noon pacific time)

For you first timers, the YA Scavenger Hunt is an online blog hop created by the lovely and talented Colleen Houck. It’s a chance for you to see bonus material by your favorite YA authors as well as winning amazing prizes.

If you came here looking for my bonus material, a video of me reading an excerpt from DIE FOR HER, you’ll have to keep hunting!

At each stop on the hunt, you not only get to meet a YA author and read their bonus material, but you get a clue to enter for a grand prize–one lucky winner will receive at least one signed book from each author on my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours—until noon PST on April 7!

You can start right here or you can also go to the YA Scavenger Hunt homepage to find out all about the hunt. There are TWO contests going on simultaneously! I am a part of the BLUE TEAM–but there is also a red team. You can enter both contests!

(If you get stuck as you are moving through the hunt, click through to this page.)

SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE



Directions: You’ll notice that I’ve included my favorite number at the end of the post. 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 December 2, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.
ARE YOU READY??? Here we go…

BONJOUR!

I’m Amy Plum, and these are my two cabana boys, Paul and Ian.

Support for my revenants from a couple of vampires

As my cabana boys are so kindly demonstrating, I’m the author of the DIE FOR ME series, a paranormal romance trilogy set in Paris (which is where I live) featuring supernatural beings of my very own making called “revenants.”

Now that I’ve introduced myself, I’m excited to tell you about the author I’m hosting today:

For this year’s scavenger hunt, I have the honor of hosting the lovely Ellie James!

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ELLIE JAMES has been writing as long as she can remember, with tragic poems and romantic stories giving way to mystery, adventure, and a fascination with the unexplained. This love led Ellie to the most perfect place in the world, writing romantic YA thrillers for St. Martin’s Press. She resides in Texas with her husband, children, several cats, and Roxie the Big White Dog. She’s also a sucker for chocolate chip cookies.

To find out more about Ellie and her book, visit her website at www.elliejames.net.

About BROKEN ILLUSIONS:
It’s almost Mardi Gras, but for 16 year-old psychic Trinity Monsour this is no time for celebration. Another girl is missing. Tormented by visions she doesn’t understand, Trinity embarks upon a dark odyssey she could never have imagined. She’ll stop at nothing to better understand her abilities, convinced that doing so is the only way she can make sure the terrifying images she sees never actually happen. But it seems everyone else wants to stop her.

BROKEN ILLUSIONS can be bought here:

Amazon
Barnes & Noble

For her scavenger hunt BONUS MATERIAL, Ellie has given us a…

Deleted Super Secret Scene from BROKEN ILLUSIONS!

My foot hurt.

Hovering on the edges of sleep, I tried to ignore it, didn’t want to wake up. My body felt heavy, leaden, as if a thick wool blanket pressed down around me. Moving it would take too much effort, and all I really wanted was to sink beneath the gauzy layers of consciousness, and return to—

The dream.

My eyes shot open, finding the cold darkness surrounding me. With no memory of when, exactly, I’d gotten home, I shifted, reaching for Delphi—

Something hard scraped my arm.

Awareness came with the viciousness of ice water, and with it the haze fell away, and I came fully awake.

I wasn’t in my bed.

Heart slamming, I lay very still, moving nothing but my eyes. Little things began to register, like the hard, rough surface beneath my back, and the faint light filtering in through a window at the end of a long hallway. The sharp tingles along my calves. And my clothes…

Wet.

My shoes were gone.

Slowly I wiggled my toes, and felt the sharp throb in the arch of my foot all over again.

Wake up, I told myself. Wake up! It was time to rip away from the horror and let my breath come again, to slide my hand along the pillow and feel Delphi—

Something rough scraped my arm, and with it I realized there would be no more waking up. Because I’d already done that.

A silent scream burned my throat, but I knew better than to give it voice. I could be anywhere, with anyone. My only chance was getting away before anyone realized I was awake.

Carefully, I slid my hand toward my pocket, where my Blackberry—

It was gone.

This time the breath that ripped from me was more like a sob.

No, I told myself. No. Be smart. Don’t freak. There had to be an explanation.

But when I tried to look back to the last thing I remembered, I had no idea what was real, and what had been a dream.

A dream.

It was an ill-advised time to smile, but the quick rush made it impossible not to. I’d dreamed. Finally. I’d found him, just like I’d promised—

I sat up, wincing at the sharp pain in my side, in the exact place I’d been stabbed four weeks before. Gingerly I touched my fingers to damp flesh, and felt the soft stickiness of fresh blood.

That wasn’t a dream.

Help me, I whispered in my mind. Please, help me.

But I had no idea who I was begging.

Except that wasn’t true. I did know—I always knew.

When I’d fallen into the river, when flames had surrounded me, trapped me, two people had emerged to make sure I lived.

But Dylan was gone now, and my mother had been dead for fourteen years.

Around me the small room breathed, and through the rotting silence came the pulse of music, and the rumble of a car engine.

The sharp stab of longing was as ridiculous as it was wrong.

No one was coming to take me home.

Knowing I had to get out, I dragged myself to the side of the small room and used the wall to stand. My body screamed in protest, and my knees buckled, but I ignored the discomfort and shuffled along a narrow corridor, toward the spill of light.

A door, I realized, wooden and warped and hanging on broken hinges. Lunging for it, I eased into the night and grabbed for the rotting railing of the porch, holding on against the slice of splinters.

The sparse light of the moon revealed shotgun houses limping along in both directions, most of them empty and decaying, placeholders from that other time, before the storm. A few dead trees stood among waist-high weeds and shrubs.

Somewhere in the distance, light glowed, but I couldn’t tell the source.

I had no idea, absolutely no idea how I’d gotten there—or even where there was.

But I also knew none of that mattered at the moment, only how I was going to get away.

I heard the rumble of the engine first, the roar of a car coming fast. Twisting around, I saw the truck with the windows rolled down—

I slunk back into the shadows.

But it was too late. The truck slowed in front of the house, and the door flew open. “Is someone there?”

I knew better than going back inside. Hobbling toward the side of the house, I eyed the two-foot drop to the ground.

“Don’t be afraid,” came a voice from behind me. “I’m not going to hurt you—”

I jumped, coming down against the throb in my bare foot. I ignored the jolt of pain, ignored everything, knew only that I had to get away.

Tearing through the overgrown bushes, I stumbled into the waist high grass—and saw the muddy water of the canal.

“Don’t do it, Trinity.”

The sound of my name stopped me. Heart slamming I twisted around, and realized none of this was real.

He stood near an old oak, alive somehow, with the soft light of the stars playing with the dark brown of his shoulder-length hair, and a dragonfly inked along his throat.

But it was his eyes that got me, his eyes that once again reached inside and made me realize I’d never actually woken up.

“This isn’t real,” I whispered, relieved.

He didn’t smile, like Dylan had.

Dylan.

Someday I’d teach myself not to think of him.

Someday I’d quit expecting to turn around and see the burnished gleam of silver.

Someday I’d quit wanting—hating.

But this wasn’t someday. It was a dream and I’d been frightened, and whenever that happened it was Dylan who appeared.

Now I faced a stranger.

The stranger.

The one from before, at the old theater. The one who’d been watching me.

“You’re not really here,” I told him, breathing easier now. Slowly, I lifted a hand to pinch my wrist, but found the soft strip of leather instead.

“Then where am I?” he asked.

His voice was mild, gentle, but not amused like Dylan’s had been that morning in the hotel. Instead the stranger sounded confused, maybe even worried.

“Doesn’t matter,” I told him, smiling now.

God, I’d missed the dreams.

“Probably still at the party,” I added, but as soon as the words slipped out, I had to wonder if I’d really seen him there. Everything was a blur.

“I’m not at the party.”

I shrugged. “Whatever.”

“I’m right here,” he added quietly, with a single step toward me. “With you.”

I had so many questions. “And where’s here?”

Frowning, he looked around. “I’m not sure, about a mile from the theater, not far from the lake.”

“Oh, okay,” I indulged.

“I’ve been looking for you for a couple of hours—everyone has.”

A weird little buzz ran through me.

“Are you okay?” he asked with another step. “Do you need me to call someone, maybe one of your friends?”

The buzz merged with the hard slam of my heart.

“What happened?” he asked, really, really softly now, and with the question, his gaze dropped to my feet.

I looked down at the scrapes and mud, and once again felt the lance of pain in my arch.

“Who did this to you?” he asked.

Mechanically, I lifted my hands to the gauzy light of the moon and saw the scratches, something dark crammed beneath the remains of my fingernails.

“Tell you what. I’m going to call the police and—”

I jerked, looked up. “No.”

“You need help—”

“No, I don’t,” I said, backing away. “I just need to wake up.”

But it had been so long since I dreamed, and I couldn’t remember how.

“You’re tripping,” he said. “I don’t know what you took back there—”

“I didn’t take anything.” But God, how my head swam.

“Then what are you doing here?” he asked.

Swallowing hard, I glanced at the weeds tangling against my thighs, the slightly swollen canal behind me. Beyond ran a street I’d never before seen, lined by houses straight out of post Katrina coverage.

“I’m not here.” I couldn’t be.

“Trinity,” he said cautiously, like a parent speaking to a child. “I know you’re confused right now—”

I backed away, started to shake. “Because if I am, and you’re really here…”

The implications sliced deep.

“You did this,” I realized. It was the only explanation, the only way we could both be in a rundown neighborhood a mile from the theater. “You brought me here.”

His eyes burned with a devastation I didn’t understand. “No, I didn’t.”

“Who are you?” I demanded, buying time. If this was real, if I wasn’t dreaming, then Victoria and Kendall would know I was missing. They’d be looking for me. Someone would have seen something—

“I’m Xander,” he said simply.

“At the party, why were you watching me?”

He kept his eyes on mine. “Because I had to.”

I wanted to look away, to plot my escape—but something about the way he watched held me in place. “Why?”

Now he smiled, only a little, a faint curve of his lips, indulgent-like. “Because you won’t leave me alone.”

It was like getting hit with a glass of ice water. “What are you talking about?”

Slowly, hypnotically, he stepped closer.

I still couldn’t move.

He was taller than I’d realized, thinner, not quite gaunt, but not muscular either. His face was lean, a hint of a shadow at his jaw, his nose straight, his cheekbones sharp.

But again, it was his eyes that held me, the dark, transcendent glow that urged me to step closer, even as common sense told me to back away.

To run.

“I’m talking about you,” he said in careful, measured tones. “And me.”

My throat tightened.

“Night after night,” he said, “I’ve seen you. Sometimes walking—sometimes running.”

And just like that a whole new set of possibilities seeped through me. I stood there, trying to process what he was saying, while deep inside, something slimy and cold slipped through me. I’d felt something for weeks now. Every time I left the condo, I’d felt someone watching. But foolishly I’d thought it was someone else.

Hoped.

“You’ve been following me?” I asked, confused. None of it made sense.

“No,” the stranger—this guy I’d only seen two times in my life—Xander—said quietly. “You’ve been following me.”

How awesome is that? So that deleted scene is our exclusive content from the fabulous Ellie James. BUT THAT’S NOT ALL I’VE GOT FOR YOU! There are 2 contests you can enter.

YA SCAVENGER HUNT CONTEST

To enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of signed books by me, Ellie James, and more! To enter, you need to know that my favorite number is 33. Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the blue team and you’ll have all the secret code to enter for the grand prize!

My very own DIE FOR ME Contest

You have several chances to win a fabulous prize pack including 3 signed bookmarks, a signed copy of DIE FOR ME, a signed copy of UNTIL I DIE and…drumroll please…my VERY LAST copy of the ARC of IF I SHOULD DIE! (I know…huge prize pack!!!) (International.)

How to get your points:

follow me on Twitter at @AmyPlumOhLaLa (1 point)
get friends to follow me on Twitter (1 point per friend)
like me on Facebook (1 point)
get friends to follow me on Facebook (1 point per friend)
subscribe to me on YouTube (1 point)
get a friend to subscribe to me on YouTube (1 point per friend)
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 1-6, give me your user names and your friends’ user names so I can credit your points.) Please leave all of the information inside one comment, instead of a comment per person. The drawing will be random, but the number of points you get determines how many times your name will be put into the hat.

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!