I’m part of the Young Adult 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!
There are
eight contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the PINK team—but there are also a bunch of other teams from whom you can 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
Below, I’ve listed my favorite number. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the pink team, then add them up. It’s really that simple. Really.
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 Oct. 5, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.
Chase Night
Today I’m hosting Chase Night. That is like…the coolest name ever. And if his website is to be believed, it’s even his real name. Other facts about him:
Chase Night was born and raised in Arkansas, which he claims is both far better and worse than everything that has been said. He graduated from the University of Central Arkansas with a B.A. in Creative Writing, a mere thirteen years after first enrolling. He lives in Arkansas with his wife, three dogs, one cat, and an immortal garden snail. Chicken is his debut novel.
Feel free to find out more about him at his author website. You can check out his book Chicken on Amazon.
Chicken
Casper Quinn has a secret.
Brant Mitchell has two.
Hickory Ditch, Arkansas – July 2012
Popular fried chicken chain Wings of Glory is under attack from homosexual activists, and Harvest Mission Pentecostal Church is ready to fight back.
Caught in the crossfire of a culture war in which they never enlisted, Casper and Brant will each have to find his own answer to the age-old question: Am I really what I eat? Because if they could find the courage to tell each other their truths, they might discover there really is life after the Ditch.
Chicken is a Southern Gothic YA novel with an infusion of magical realism. It’s a raw, honest, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant look at falling in love in a place where angels and demons are believed in without question, but the human heart is always subject to suspicion.
Deleted Scene
Chase wanted to share a deleted opening scene from Chicken. And here it is:
Caleb Courts is dead and has been that way for a while, and even before that when he wasn’t dead, we didn’t know each other any, only crossed paths that one time he couldn’t possibly remember, but none of this stops him from visiting my tiny room at the back end of my family’s trailer late at night when my parents and sister are sleeping on the other side of walls as thin as Bible pages. They can’t cough, snore, sneeze, or fart without me knowing, but they’ve never once heard me scream. Caleb Courts makes sure of it.
I wake up sweaty and frozen. Not frozen like ice, but frozen like stone. Like I put on a thousand invisible pounds in the hour or so I managed to sleep. My limbs, my lips, my eyelids—all too heavy. I’m on my back, right cheek stuck to my hot pillow, left arm pinned across my damp, bare chest. My right hand rests in the crook of my groin, pinkie and ring fingers tucked inside the leg opening. Caleb Courts knows all my sins.
He hovers around the edges of my wooden, twin-size bed. I ain’t ever seen him—he won’t let me—but if there’s one thing this town has taught me it’s that you don’t have to see something to believe in it. Sometimes you just know what’s there. And I know Caleb Courts is here now, and I know he was here last night, and all the nights before, every night since junior prom. What I can’t figure is why. Some nights feel like a warning, like he’s just here to keep me from following his own path. Other nights feel like a reaping, like I’ve already gone too far down that road and he’s here to collect.
Tyler Mathis calls him the Unholy Ghost.
Brant Mitchell calls that bullshit and borderline blasphemy.
Neither of them knows Caleb visits me.
Nobody knows, and nobody can.
If they knew about this, then they’d know about everything.
Continue the Hunt
Don’t forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of signed books by me, Chase Night (such a cool name), and more! You could easily win more than 42 books!
To continue on your quest for the secret numbers, go and visit my new friend, Deidre Mapstone.
Here’s the scoop on the plot:
