Janet Gurtler- YA Addict: Welcome to the YA Scavenger Hunt with Janet Gurtler

Hello, hello!!!! Fun fun fun!
Okay. So. To make the Spring 2012 Hunt a little simpler, we're offering THREE hunts simultaneously! You can enter one, two, or all three hunts. Each hunt will have a prize of TWENTY signed books. To find out which books are a part of which hunt, click here!

As you can see I am part of TEAM RED!

SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE

Directions: Hidden within my post is a single letter that is RED. Make a note of that letter! It’s a part of a scrambled phrase. When you go to all the author sites of the red team, you’ll have all the letters you need to enter the contest.

Entry Form: Once you piece together all the clues to the hunt, make sure you fill out the form here to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the completed phrase 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 1st, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct puzzle code or without contact information will not be considered.

Welcome to Janet's world on the YA SCAVENGER HUNT!

I'm lucky enough to host Leah Bobet and her book, ABOVE, an amazing debut coming out very soon!! ABOVE officially releases April 1st from Arthur A. Levine Books. But if you want to know a SECRET, I saw it on a display table at Chapters yesterday. So it's out in the world! (Yes. Sometimes we are just that much ahead in Canada) ;)

The book is gorgeous and sure to be a big hit!!

A gorgeous urban fantasy about dangers outside and in.

Matthew has always lived in Safe, a community hidden far beneath the pipes and tunnels of the city Above. The residents fled to Safe years before to escape the Whitecoats and their cruel experiments, and now Matthew is responsible for both the keeping of Safe’s stories and for Ariel—a golden-haired shapeshifter, and the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen.

But one horrifying night, an old enemy murders Safe’s founder, Atticus, and the community is taken over by an army of shadows. Only Matthew, Ariel, and a handful of friends escape Above. Now they not only have to survive in a sunlit world they barely know, but they must unravel the mystery of the shadows’ fury and Atticus’s death. It’s up to Matthew to find a way to remake Safe—not just for himself and his family, but for Ariel, who’s again faced with the life she fled, and who needs him more than ever before.

An urban fantasy and a love story, Above is the breathtaking debut of an extraordinary new voice

Find ABOVE at Your Favorite Indie

Find ABOVE at Amazon

Find ABOVE at B&N

Leah Bobet drinks tea, wears feathers in her hair, and plants gardens in alleyways. Her short fiction has appeared in venues including On Spec, Realms of Fantasy, and several year's best anthologies. ABOVE is her first novel.

And now for your EXCLUSIVE CONTENT from ABOVE!!

Above

Scavenger Hunt extra

There's nothing private in the apartment on Jameson Avenue. Beatrice knew that on the

day she first got the keys and held them in her hand so tight they left tooth-prints on her palms. Darren used to bitch about that; bitch most elegantly about how a person couldn't wipe their backside in this place without ten minutes of colour commentary. Darren, she'd say, how 'bout doing it down at the corner? and—

He'd stop. He'd mutter a little and go for a walk; come back with a basket of alleycat-rough apples stolen off someone's backyard tree. Dump 'em on the table where they'd roll and catch and wobble, and say, offhand, dessert. Because they all knew – all know, living on top of each other like it's Night of the Living Dead – that there's a hell of a lot more privacy in the apartment than there is sleeping on the street.

And an address to put on job applications. Food in the fridge. A fridge to even have food

in. A place to sleep at night where you know, no matter what, you'll be safe—

Safe.

Goddamn.

There is nothing private in her stupid, stupid apartment. It's been two weeks since they

went below, went down into the sewers and came back one man short. Since she saw darkness with arms and legs ball up its impossible fist and punch her right in the ribs, and the cold of it hurt so bad her breath knotted up for hours and convinced her she was gonna die. Since someone did die.

She didn't like him; that's the crazy thing. He picked fights and used up all the hot water

and was a total pain in the ass. But he lived here. He put people up against the wall for not doing their chores, or thinking they could take advantage. He never argued 'bout the rent. He left pudding cups on the counter if you'd had a bad day, and didn't ask where they disappeared to.

There is nowhere private to cry.

Beatrice palms the key, squeezes it between her fingers. Yanks the laces of her boots tight one, then the other. The heavy leather circles her feet, her legs, her ankles. Ties her solid to the real world: loose floor tiles and dirty windows and sweat.

"Where you goin'?" someone says sleepy. Kat. It's Kat, coming out of the bathroom, halfdrunk or half-asleep, tiny inside the massive Nine Inch Nails shirt she uses for pajamas. The one that belonged to someone, someday, somewhen, but Beatrice has never asked. You don't ask about people's pasts, here. The minute you know you're all involved, and then it's your problem too, and what happens then, what happens then—

Kat didn't come down with them, to the sewers, to the tunnels, to the dark. Kat didn't see all those bodies laid out like a catastrophe. Like a disease. Like rotten apples, fallen from the tree at the end of a long autumn, burst sick and juicy on the grass.

"Goin' for a walk," Bea says, clipped, and eases out the front door into the sickly hallway

lights. Locks the door behind her.

Her shadow trails her out the door, down the hall. Into the empty streets.

#

You know you want more!!!! Go out and pick up ABOVE as soon as you can!

Okay hunters, your SECRET LETTER IS C.