On this hunt you will be able to gain access to exclusive bonus material, sign up for giveaways, and get an all access pass to top secret insider information. This fabulous sneak peek into what’s coming up in YA literature is for one day only!

As an extra bonus we’ve put together a puzzle with one keyword found on each website. Complete it and you will be eligible for a fantastic GRAND PRIZE which will include signed editions of books, signed bookmarks, jewelry, and many more exclusive gifts with at least one from EVERY AUTHOR!

 Scavenger Hunt Puzzle

Directions:
Copy and paste the puzzle below onto a document or blank email page and fill it out as you proceed through the Scavenger Hunt. Search for keywords, one on each website that will be highlighted in RED, and insert them into the puzzle. When finished, email your completed puzzle INCLUDING YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS FOR SHIPPING PURPOSES to Colleen Houck at contactme@colleenhouck.com. Rules: To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit this filled in puzzle before midnight on August 1^st Pacific Time. All the keywords must be in the correct place, and you must include your full name and address. Entries sent in without name and address will not be considered!    

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Welcome fans of young adult literature! Don’t forget to _______ up in time to join our special event! In ____________ you roll the dice and, like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get. Our scavenger hunt is very similar. Surprises wait around every corner. Turn one page and you’re chasing a _________ through a _________ _____________. Turn another and you are being ________ by a _______ which leaves your heart ________. YA ________s are full of ___________ heroes who must ___________ themselves for the greater good. Some of the characters travel through ______ or have a _________ __________. If there is one thing YA books have taught us, it’s that if you leave your ___________ keep an eye out for a patrolling ________. They’re very dangerous. Maybe not so frightening as a ____________, but still you should be careful. Also beware lest you become __________ by vampires. ______________ one is a different story. Just remember that bite has ___________ ramifications and that afterwards the sun can ______ you unless you get bitten by a glittering type. Whether you like dark, paranormal, romance, fantasy, ___________, Sci-Fi, or a combination of those, we’ve got something for you.

We think that each fan is a ______________ and we love you all!

Submitted by:
Name ________________________________
Address_______________________________
City_________________________________
State________________________________
Zip__________________________________
Email________________________________

The hunt begins!  I’m thrilled to have the honor of welcoming the fabulous Abbi Glines to my blog.   Take a look at her bio:

Abbi Glines can be found hanging out with rockstars, taking out her yacht on weekends for a party cruise, sky diving, or surfing in Maui. Okay maybe she needs to keep her imagination focused on her writing only. In the real world, Abbi can be found hauling kids (several who seem to show up that don’t belong to her) to all their social events, hiding under the covers with her MacBook in hopes her husband won’t catch her watching Buffy on Netflix again, and sneaking off to Barnes and Noble to spend hours lost in the yummy goodness of books. Her debut novel, BREATHE, can be found in digital format at Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Existence, a YA paranormal, will be published in 2012 by Wild Child Publishing. She is polishing her latest YA contemporary romance and planning on sending queries out to a few literary agents soon. If you want to find her then check Twitter first because she has a severe addiction to tweeting @abbiglines.   Facebook and Google +  are some of her other stomping grounds. She also blogs regularly but rarely about anything life changing.  

I have been very lax in posting over the summer because we’ve been traveling so much and had the kidlets with us.  So, I thought I’d get back into the swing of things with an interview and promo for my fabulous friend, Elizabeth Mahon, and her equally fabulous book!

I’m so proud of Elizabeth and her amazing book and I had a chance to chat with her about it:

Tell us about your latest release SCANDALOUS WOMEN.

First up, thanks so much for having me Marley! SCANDALOUS WOMEN is about the lives and loves of some of history’s most notorious women. The book examines the lives of about 35 women from Ancient Times to the 20th century. Everyone from Queens, mistresses, artists, and crusaders are in the book. Some women people will recognize such as Cleopatra and Anne Boleyn, but there are several women who are less familiar to the general public like Carry Nation and Ida Wells-Barnett. Although the book was written for an adult audience, I think that teenage girls will find it really interesting.

SCANDALOUS WOMEN started out as a blog, how did you go about turning your blog into a book?

It was actually my friends who encouraged me to turn SCANDALOUS WOMEN into a book. I had no plans when I first started the blog, and it wasn’t until I was laid off by my day job that I actually sat down and figured out how to write a non-fiction book proposal. I was shocked when the first agent I sent the proposal to asked to represent me. And then when we sold the book, I was over the moon. Then came the hard work of deciding who was going to be in the book and who wasn’t. Even though I had written about some of these women on the blog, I went back and did more research and extensively rewrote those chapters. They are much different than what I had initially written. Then it was a matter of trimming each chapter down to about 7 pages, which was hard believe me, but I had a word count and I tried not to go over it. I only had seven months to write and research the book, so I couldn’t read as many biographies as I wanted which was hard.

If you could switch places with one of your scandalous woman, who would it be?

You know that’s a really hard question! Hands down, it’s a tossup between Anne Boleyn and Emma Hamilton. I loved that Emma came from nothing and ended up the wife not only to the Ambassador to Naples but was also loved by one of England’s greatest heroes, Lord Nelson. She used the one commodity that she had which was her beauty but she also worked to improve herself, she learned French and Italian, singing and became a great friend to Maria Carolina, the Queen of Naples. Not bad for a girl born dirt poor near Wales. And Anne Boleyn, she’s always been my favorite wife of Henry VIII. She managed to keep him entranced for over ten years, and she gave birth to arguably England’s greatest Queen, Elizabeth I. Oh, and Henry VIII broke with the Church of Rome, becoming Head of the Church of England.

I knew it would be someone British!  LOL!  Which SCANDALOUS WOMEN has surprised you the most?

Josephine Baker was one of the women that I was fascinated by. I had no idea until I started researching her that she had been involved with the Resistance and worked as a spy during WWII, nor did I know about her Civil Rights work during the 1950′s. I just thought of her as a dancer who wore a banana skirt.

You’ve written about Royalty extensively on SCANDALOUS WOMEN, what did you think of the Royal Wedding?

I thought it was romantic and amazingly intimate for a wedding that had 1,900 guests and was watched by billions of people around the world. Kate looked elegant and classic, very reminiscent of Grace Kelly’s dress in 1956. Twenty years from now, when people look at that dress, it will not be dated. I was lucky enough to be in London when Prince Charles married Diana, and it was a totally different atmosphere this time around. For one thing, William and Kate looked like two people deeply in love on their wedding day, instead of two strangers who had no idea what they were getting in to. Of course, one of my favorite Scandalous Women, Sarah, Duchess of York was not there. Given the fashion sense of her two daughters Princess Eugenie and Beatrice, the mind boggles at what she might have worn.

I agree!  I heard the princesses did that to protest their mother not being invited to the wedding.  They certainly were memorable!  So, where can readers learn more about you?

Readers can find me at my blog Scandalous Women which is http://scandalouswoman.blogspot.com

Okay…what are you waiting for…go get Elizabeth’s book now!  Thanks for joining me and I wish you amazing success with this book…and many more!

Marley = )