YA Scavenger Hunt (Team Green)

This post is ELIZABETH HOLLOWAY'S post for TEAM GREEN!

If you are looking for DOROTHY DREYER'S post for TEAM ORANGE, scroll down!

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 one signed 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 72 hours!

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! I am a part of the GREEN TEAM--but there is also a red team, a gold team, an orange team, a blue team, and an indie team, for a chance to win a whole different set of signed 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 my favorite number is included in this post, all big and GREEN. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the GREEN 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 ENTRY 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 DATE, 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 Sandra Waugh for the YA Scavenger Hunt!


Sandra grew up in an old house full of crowded bookshelves, in walking distance of an old library that allowed her to drag home a sack of six books at a time. It goes without saying, then, that she fell in love with the old house in Litchfield County, CT because of its many bookshelves, and she lives there now with her husband, two sons, and a dog who snores. Loudly.

For more about Sandra and to purchase her book, please see the links below!

              

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

Full of romance and nature magic, this debut fantasy is perfect for fans of Shannon Hale, Juliet Marillier, and Kristin Cashore.

“A beautifully realized world, a unique voice, and a compelling, action-packed story. This is a striking debut novel with a lovely folkloric flavor.” —Juliet Marillier, author of Wildwood Dancing

Lark has foreseen two things—she will fall for a young man with sage green eyes,and he will kill her.

Sixteen-year-old Lark Carew is happiest close to home, tending her garden and gathering herbs for medicines. But when her Sight warns her that monsters called Troths will soon invade her village, Lark is summoned on a journey to seek help from the legendary Riders of Tarnec. Little does she suspect that one of the Riders, Gharain, is the very man who has haunted her visions. Or that the people of Tarnec have called her there for another reason: Lark is the Guardian of Life, the first of four Guardians who must awaken their powers to recover four stolen amulets. Together, the amulets—Life, Death, Dark, and Light—keep the world in Balance. To take back the Life amulet, Lark will have to discover her true inner strength and give in to a love that she swears will be her downfall.

LARK RISING

Sandra Waugh

DELETED SCENE

Before the noon hour I reached the Niler marshes.

I had to stop for a moment and simply stare at the dense stand of cattails, reeds and bulrushes that confronted me, jutting up from the muck, twice a man’s height. I’d never seen anything like it.  They spread far to the north and east, stopping the pastureland abruptly while the path went on into the marsh and disappeared. I walked up to the opening that cut a narrow trough, where the trail turned wetly dark. I leaned my face in and closed my eyes.

A shuffling of canes in the faint breeze, a smell of decay, and the marsh’s humid breath on my cheeks. A lonely place, it felt, not an evil one. I might shrink from people, but not from Nature’s odd offerings—except Dark Wood.  I shifted my pack and walked in.

 

The path was less defined here, winding this way and that to follow solid ground. All that could be seen was the narrow trail between the pale brown walls, threading ever deeper into the unknown. The sky above was vibrantly blue, but within the rushes the light was dulled. It turned silent, save for the whispers of reedy stems brushing against one another.  Silent and cheerless.

I walked on for what seemed a long time; time that drew the first tremors of worry as senses became blurred by the sameness. I could not look back anymore, or I’d get turned around. The rushes swallowed and the stillness yawned wide, growing with need. Silence was usually comforting, but not this. This was not the breath of space between sounds; this consumed.

“Hello.”  I said it loudly to shatter the quiet.  My voice fell away.  No echo.  “Hello!”

And then I stopped all at once, engulfed by the utter, aching loneliness of the Niler Marshes.  It had seeped through, this slow rot, slow loss; rising up and over, exhaling through the reeds and into me, leaving me more hollow and forlorn than I’d begun, as if it were taking my emotions for itself and leaving me with a worse despair: nothingness.  The marsh was sighing lonely needs—loneliness that begged for company, for any bits of life it could absorb.  I shook it off, started forward again, my pace quickening. The path was uneven; hillocks of rotted things congealed in the stagnant water, waiting to trip the unsuspecting.  Waiting to trip… and to keep hold of. I remembered hearing that it was possible to be lost in the Niler marshes; that once off the path—even a little—it was impossible to find your way back.  You’d think you were heading right, only to be sucked further into the maze of reeds and muck.  Eventually the marsh would claim you.

“Not me,” I whispered, even so quietly wanting to defy the silence, the marsh,  “You can’t have me.”  

The canes shifted and sighed. Stay, they said. I put my thoughts to Rileg. He would be scampering ahead of me on his three limbs.  He’d keep a true course. I pretended he was there, urging me on—his bright eyes and wide-grinned pant challenging me to keep up—and I began to run.

The pack was bumping against my back; my cloak was suddenly heavy.  I ran nonetheless, mud squelching underfoot.  How long was it through these marshes?  I thought back as I ran, wondering if I’d ever heard more talk of this place.  Who had last been through here?  There was nare reason to come this way, Dann was the last village on this side of Dark Wood—no one would willingly choose to travel this way to reach the city of Tyre.

Deeper in I pushed, eyes on the path.  I crossed a rude footbridge, and a place where logs had been laid against particularly deep mud.  It had been travelled; it had been tended, I kept telling myself. It was not empty—

And then I stopped, nearly tripping in my abruptness.  

There was a fork in the path.

I stood frozen, gaping at the split in the rushes, fighting a rising anguish—that I did not know what to do now, that I had not expected two options for travel, that one direction would be wrong and, should I make the wrong decision, I would lose time, or lose myself, or, worse, lose Merith.

Hollow, hollow.  I felt it.  I had no courage for choices.  I had no courage for dares.

“Trust yourself,” I heard my grandmother’s words somewhere in my head, but I ignored them, wanting her instead.  Home, I pleaded inside, take me home!  And then the words and thoughts were gone, leaving only loneliness and uncertainty.  A breeze pushed through, a soft clattering of the canes, applauding my hesitation.  I would stay… I would stay.

The harsh call of a redwing snapped the aching silence, its sudden burr and shrill breaking my stupor.  It cried out twice more until I shook my head clear of the melancholy.  Lark, attend, I hissed at myself, you are bound to this journey.  Taking a deep breath, I set down my pack and edged forward to inspect both trails.  The right fork, I saw, had been thrust into, hacked at. I placed my fingertip against the broken reeds; the stems splintered a bit and little wisps of their skin fluttered down and melted into the black water. These were hastily crushed, trampled rather than groomed. But if recent this was or not, I could not tell.  Drawing a better breath, I took up my things and moved on, staying to the left. I called to the redwing, but it had not waited for my thanks.  Wherever it had come from, wherever it had gone, I did not know.

Pretty great, huh? Don't forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of signed books by me, Sandra Waugh, and more! To enter, you need to know that my favorite number is 700. 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

Have you found the scene in Call Me Grim from Aaron's perspective? If not, you need to keep going on your quest. You must check out the next author, Bree Despain! And for a little something extra, enter below to win a $25 Amazon gift card, and one ebook or audiobook download (winners choice) of my novel, Call Me Grim.

a Rafflecopter giveaway