Welcome to YA Scavenger Hunt! 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! 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 an awesome Gold Team prize pack of books!
Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are SIX contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all!
If you’d like to find out more about the hunt you can see links to all the authors participating, and the full list of prizes up for grabs on the YA Scavenger Hunt page.
Find out more about Rachel by checking out her website!
Hold
Luke Aday knew that his sister’s death was imminent—she had been under hospice care for months—but that didn’t make her death any easier on him or their family. He returns to school three days after the funeral to a changed world; his best friends welcome him back with open arms, but it isn’t the same. But when a charismatic new student, Eddie Sankawulo, tries to welcome Luke to his own school, something life-changing happens: In a moment of frustration, Luke runs into an empty classroom, hurls his backpack against the wall—and the backpack never lands. Luke Aday has just discovered that he can stop time.
Exclusive Content
Hi readers!
Hold will be out really soon (Oct. 20th), so today I’m sharing an inspiration board and an excerpt, to give you a little more information about Luke’s world. Hold is about grief and romance, but it’s also very much about Luke’s relationships with his friends. This excerpt, from a few chapters in, introduces the trio that is Luke, Marcos, and Dee.
Here’s the inspiration board:
And here’s the excerpt:
Hold
By Rachel Davidson Leigh
They didn’t have to say where or when they would find each other after school. Dee, Luke and Marcos met outside the south entrance by the wobbly picnic table, because that’s what they’d been doing since they were thirteen. Luke let Dee hug him, twice, and they walked toward her house as though nothing had changed in a month of absences and ignored calls.
They fell into step along the side of the road with the February wind at their backs. Neither of them said anything about the funeral, and, after days of flowers and cards promising Lizzy’s arrival in heaven with all the pretty angels, Luke was so grateful he would have let them hug him all over again. It was the kindest silence.
Five years ago, in seventh grade, the walk had begun as a two-some. Back then, Dee and Luke had bonded, in hushed, embarrassed giggles, over their shared crush on the new boy with the soft brown skin and the big, toothy smile. He was so sweet. She’d been the first person to get how the pieces of Luke fit together, before his parents and long before anyone else at school. She’d glommed onto his side like sticky tape and it all should have been a mess. By rights at least one of them should have ended up heartbroken and in tears, but by luck they’d both fallen for a boy who liked neither of them and was too dense to understand the problem.
It wasn’t until freshman year, when all three of them were connected at the hip, that Dee finally had broken down and told Marcos why she and Luke had both suddenly become obsessed with Ender’s Game. Of course it was a good book, but it was also his favorite book and at the time that’s what had mattered. They’d created a Marcos Aldama book club, for God’s sake, and they might have started on The Song of Ice and Fire series if Dee hadn’t gotten up the courage to ask if hewantedtowalkhomewiththemsometime.
When she’d explained, he’d just stared at her over the top of his ham sandwich. “But how?” He’d asked. “I looked like Manny from Modern Family.”
He hadn’t, not really. Except maybe a little in the face.
Most of all, even when he’d awkwardly clarified that no, he didn’t want to date Luke or Dee and asked if that was cool, Marcos had never said a thing about Luke being a boy. It had probably never occurred to him to care.
They walked out of the school parking lot and down West Thirty-third toward Dee’s house. As always, she marched ahead while the boys trailed behind. Marcos’s arm was slung around Luke’s neck, as if to make sure that Luke was actually, physically, there. Their hips knocked together in an uneven beat when Luke stepped forward on one side and Marcos stepped forward on the other. They couldn’t find a rhythm, but neither pulled away. Luke used to imagine that this was what a first kiss would feel like: all awkward limbs and too much feeling.
Neither of them asked questions. Instead, Dee chattered about one show she’d convinced Marcos to watch and another, which she hadn’t. Luke hadn’t heard of either of them, but that wasn’t new. Lizzy liked old TV shows, so that’s what he knew best. Luke caught every other word as she ran through the plots, but the rest flowed together like music.
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Sounds like a great book Rachel! Putting it on my TBR list now!
Don’t forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of books by me, Rachel, and more! To enter, you need to know that my favorite number is 11. That’s right, 11. Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the Gold Team and you’ll have the secret code to enter for the grand prize!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
To keep going on your quest you’ll need to visit… Sharon Biggs Waller!
And FYI for those who love a deal:Called Veronica Mars meets The Americans, They Call Me Alexandra Gastone, is currently on sale for $0.99 at Amazon. If you buy a copy but then win YASH, you don’t have to worry about getting the same book twice. I’ll send you the sequel and final book in the duology, My Name is Milena Rokva.
Den of a Book Dragon 