It’s YA Scavenger Hunt Time — Spring Edition!!

Posted Apr 2 2019, 3:00 pm in , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome to YA Scavenger Hunt, spring edition! I LOVE the scavenger hunt. This is such a fun way to discover new authors and win amazing books. 
 

image by Derek Murphy

This bi-annual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors…and a chance to win some awesome prizes! On 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 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 120 hours!

Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are multiple contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the BLUE TEAM–but there is also a red team, a gold team, a green team, a purple team, etc. for a chance to win a whole different set of books!

If you’d like to find out more about the hunt, see links to all the authors participating, and see the full list of prizes up for grabs, go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page.

 
SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE
 
Directions: Below, you’ll notice that I, Patty Blount, have 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 GINGER SCOTT on my website for the YA Scavenger Hunt!
Ginger Scott is an Amazon-bestselling and Goodreads Choice Award-nominated author of several young and new adult romances, including Waiting on the Sidelines, Wild Reckless, The Hard Count, Cry Baby, and the soon-to-be-released coming-of-age love story BRED, which is inspired by the classic Great Expectations. A former journalist and an avid sports fan, Ginger often blends her two passions for stories that are real, gritty and all about the tomboy girl coming out on top. Find her and her work at www.littlemisswrite.com.
 
Find out more information by checking out her website here! Or, click here to buy the book.
 
EXCLUSIVE CONTENT
 
Tristan Lopez is loyal to his brothers.

He doesn’t really have a choice, born into a gang that has a chokehold on every kid that roams its streets. He gave his life to them willingly, knowing if he did then one day this kingdom, led by boys drunk with power and ruled by fear, would all be his. He was loyal through it all. Loyal when prison took his dad away. Loyal when his face was touched by the cold metal of the rival gang’s gun. Loyal even though his mom begged him to run the moment she returned home from rehab. He thought about becoming someone else. It was hard not to crave the life of a regular 17-year-old. It’s the only reason he stayed in school—to pretend. But he always fell back in line. Loyal.

Riley Rojas didn’t belong in Tristan’s real world. She should have only been part of the fantasy, one of the many faces he got to pretend with amidst rows of metal chairs and desks and whiteboards with assignments. But there she was, moving boxes from the back of an old pick-up into a house Tristan had shot up on a dare with his friends only a few months before. Tall enough to look him in the eyes and strong enough to fill his shadow, Riley took up space on his streets, her loud mouth fearless in the face of the gang leaders who terrified everyone else. She pushed Tristan around on the hard court, and she balled better than his friends—better than him sometimes. She challenged him. She needed him. He liked it. And when her pale blue eyes stared into his, he quit wanting to pretend. He couldn’t ask her to leave because she’d only dig her heels in deeper. He couldn’t ask because he didn’t want her to go. She was blurring his lines. She was testing his loyalty. He was falling in love. And it was going to tear him apart.
 

Guest Post from Ginger Scott
A Gang Member and a Love Story

I had the idea for Cry Baby a little over a year ago. It was sparked by
a few things. Like a lot of themes I write into my fiction, some great
reporting inspired me here. I was listening to an in-depth piece on NPR
about a kid who had to run home after school and hide in his apartment
because he was avoiding joining the gang that ravaged his neighborhood.
If they saw you, and you were male and of the right age, you were in. It
was that simple. Or rather, that complex and horrifying. He couldn’t
hide at school, so he survived the torment there. I think about that boy
and his story often, wondering if he made it out alive, or if he was
sucked in.

The rest of my inspiration came from my world. I have this recurring
dream, and I had just had it for the first time in years right before I
started this book–it had maybe been a decade. Fair warning, my dreams
are a lot like my books sometimes, minus the HEA. The dream always goes
like this: Me and my dad are pulling out of a gas station that vaguely
resembles the one on the corner of the main street in my old
neighborhood. I’m always a young teen girl, twelve or thirteen, and my
dad is always in his forties. It flips to slow-motion, and both my dad
and I see a car slow down and begin to turn into the gas station, the
passenger-side windows facing us and two men leaning out the windows
with guns turned to the side and ready to fire. We’re just in the way,
but it doesn’t matter. They begin to shoot. Glass shatters. Sometimes my
dad is hit in his arm or his chest. He’s never killed, but we’re always
both terrified. He pulls me down and ducks above me, shouting at me to
push the gas because for some reason he’s no longer able. I always push
it with my hand while he turns the wheel, and sometimes I can feel our
car dip into the gutter and level out on the road back home. Sometimes
we crash. Sometimes, we just keep turning and driving, in circles while
bullets pierce our car. It goes on like this until I wake up.

It’s always the same dream. But this last time I woke up with a strange
feeling. I used to write the dream off to things I heard about at
school, to the gun shot sounds we could hear at night sometimes, or to
the boys I watched grow up in grade school only to read about their
incarceration or tragic death in high school or after graduation. This
time, though, I woke up thinking about Tristan. He had a name. He had a
backstory, and a tragic existence. He was trapped in the same dream I
was, and he was loud and demanding. His prologue flew out in minutes.
The rest of his story would take a lot longer.

I ruminated about Cry Baby for months, while I worked on other projects.
I began to save stories about MS13, the gang that’s made a lot of news
over the last few years. It’s become a political spotlight, of sorts.
The saddest part to me, though, is the kids the gang members all start
out as.

Kids like Tristan.

I began researching MS13 cases, and digging into old Bloods and Crips
articles. Some of the stories truly broke my heart, and every single
time, I thought about the young kids who didn’t have a choice. Choice is
tricky. If you’re only shown one thing when you’re young, it’s hard to
realize you have one. It’s harder still when you know that not falling
in line might mean torture and death.

This book is one of my greatest accomplishments. It was tough to write.
Honesty is that way, I think. I didn’t sugarcoat things. I gave my
readers the real world that some have to survive, and that others fall
to. I also hope I gave you characters to love, to root for, and to want
in your lives. Maybe people we all wish we were a little bit like, too.
Brave.

I hope you enjoy Cry Baby. I hope you feel it in your bones and let it
simmer in your soul. I hope it hits you like that NPR story hit me, and
I hope we all think about the ways we’re lucky for just a little while,
even though there are often ways we aren’t.

And yes, the kissy parts are pretty fucking fantastic, too. 😉

Until next time.

XO
Ginger

Link to playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/user/thegingerscott/playlist/2JI0TaECnYdiV6KPRv22Lh?si=IpWF-WYSRGiHt_gPwkL8UQ

 

And don’t forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of books by me, Ginger Scott, and more! To enter, you need to know that MY favorite number is 3. 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!

CONTINUE THE HUNT
To keep going on your quest for the hunt, you need to check out the next author, JESSICA BRODY
 
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! 
I’m doing my own special giveaway. Enter here for a chance to win a $10 Amazon Gift Card. 
 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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