Welcome to the 2020 Fall YA Scavenger Hunt!
Hello! I’m Brenda Drake, your host for this leg of the hunt.
About Me …
I can’t live without . . . coffee. I love all flavors and usually drink several cups a day.
I can live without . . . fish. The dead kind. Yuck. But I will eat lobster and crab legs with lots of butter.
I’m usually hanging out . . . writing at my computer or at a place that serves coffee and doesn’t mind if I take up residency for hours.
You are currently hunting on …
Looking for my exclusive bonus content? You’ll have to keep searching. Also, don’t forget to enter my extra giveaway at the bottom of this post.
Somewhere on this blog hop, I’ve hidden a list of my top favorite gods and goddesses in ANALIESE RISING. Before you go looking for it, check out the amazing author I’m hosting.
But, first, a few rules.
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 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 until October 5th at noon PST!
Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are THREE contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the RED TEAM–but there is also a purple team and a blue team for a chance to win a whole different set of 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 I’ve listed my favorite number. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the gold 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 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 Sunday, October 6th at noon Pacific time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.
Now that all the technical stuff is out of the way, I’ll introduce the author I am hosting on this hunt.
Today, I’m excited to be hosting Margot Harrison, on my website for the YA Scavenger Hunt! The book Margot is showcasing in the hunt is THE GLARE.
Margot Harrison has a lifelong habit of creeping herself out and now attempts to creep others out via her fiction. Her teenage dream was to see as many movies as possible and write about them, which she does as a Tomatometer critic for Vermont media company Seven Days.
She is also a Harvard grad, wrangler of calicos, speaker of French, native of New York City, and lover of horror podcasts and strong black tea.
About the book …
After ten years of living on an isolated, tech-free ranch with her mother, sixteen-year-old Hedda is going back to the world of the Glare—her word for cell phones, computers, and tablets. Hedda was taught to be afraid of technology, afraid that it would get inside her mind and hurt her. But now she’s going to stay with her dad in California, where she was born, and she’s finally ready to be normal. She’s not going to go “off-kilter,” like her mom says she did when she was just a little kid.
Once she arrives, Hedda finally feels like she’s in control. She reunites with old friends and connects with her stepmom and half-brother. Never mind the terrifying nightmares and visions that start trickling back—they’re not real.
Then Hedda rediscovers the Glare—the real Glare, a first-person shooter game from the dark web that scared her when she was younger. They say if you die thirteen times on level thirteen, you die in real life. But as Hedda starts playing the so-called “death game”—and the game begins spreading among her friends—she realizes the truth behind her nightmares is even more twisted than she could have imagined. And in order to stop the Glare, she’ll have to first confront the darkness within herself.
And here’s her bonus material …
On November 3, 2009, a sixteen-year-old girl named Caroline Westover, living in the town of San Rafael, Calif., attempted to blind herself by injecting Drano into both eyes. According to one witness, when the EMTs found her, she told them, “Please help me. I can still see them.”
Urban legends quickly sprang up around the incident. Caroline regained most of her sight thanks to surgery, but died in 2019 under mysterious circumstances. She never explained her strange words.
In 2020, Caroline’s parents sold their home in San Rafael. While cleaning the house, the new owner discovered a note under a loose floorboard in a bedroom closet. The note is dated 11/2/09. Handwriting analysis suggests it was written by Caroline Westover. The note reads as follows:
Why are you ignoring me? I need to see you. I’m going to stick this in your mailbox. If that causes trouble for you, too bad.
I’m already in trouble. Such bad trouble. Turning off texting and notifications wasn’t enough. Any screen will do it now. I had to turn my laptop off and hide it under the bed. Last night I tried to watch a movie with Ellis, some silly kids’ thing, and when I looked up, one of THEM was there. It was in the dark under the table, all hunched up with its legs bent like human legs don’t bend.
I jumped up and turned on the lights, and when I looked again it was gone. But my little brother said I was as pale as a corpse. As pale as THEM.
What if THEY had hurt him? How can I be sure they won’t?
It’s getting hard to find safe places. Indoors, the microwave and security system beep. My parents use their phones and laptops. My brother plays his video games. I tried going in the yard, but I could still see the neighbors’ giant TV through the window. Light from screens bounces everywhere.
So I got in the car and came to the beach, where I am now, but I still have to stay away from people. Everybody has phones that buzz or burble or play their favorite ringtone. Everybody’s always getting calls and messages. Any one of them could trigger me.
I know you don’t believe me, but I’m NOT imagining it. I’ve seen the glowing white in the corner of my eye, and I’ve heard the high-pitched keening, like those tiny frogs in the springtime, and I’ve even felt cold fingers tugging on my ankle. How many times do I have to say it? THEY are real.
It feels like ten years ago that we talked at the marina, though it was the day before yesterday. I don’t think you understand what’s happening to me.
It all made sense when you explained it, using your calm voice and your big words. For a few hours, I even believed you. I told myself everything I was seeing was a hallucination, and if I ignored it, it would go away.
But I know what THEY can do to me. I know from the game. THEY’VE killed me a thousand times, strangling and smothering and choking me. It was only pixels then, but it’s not pixels now.
That boy, walking past me on the beach. My age. He holds something cupped in his hand, staring down at it—his phone.
I look away—too late. The glare of his screen sticks in my eyes. My ears roar like the ocean surf, and sweat dampens my T-shirt as I force myself to breathe: in and out, in and out. Nowhere is safe.
I close my eyes and count to a hundred, waiting for a cold hand on my bare neck. Waiting to see something glow through my eyelids. Waiting for THEM.
Very carefully, I open my eyes. Something rustles in the tree branches above me, and I snap them closed again. Count to two hundred. Open.
Okay, I think I’m safe. I think THEY’RE gone.
For now.
I can’t let THEM get close enough to hurt me. If that means I can’t go to school, or I have to cross the street to avoid somebody using a phone, or I can’t watch TV with my little brother, that’s what I have to do. That’s what my life will be now.
Except even that might not work. Every time I see THEM, they’re getting closer. Maybe THEY were teasing me at first, but now they’re serious.
You have to help me. Only you can understand. Only you can possibly believe me. Please stop telling me it’s my imagination. You of all people know what imagination can do.
You started this, and only you can
Make it stop.
Make it stop.
Make it stop.
You can learn more about the urban legend of the Glare here. To find out what really happened to Caroline Westover, read The Glare, available wherever books are sold.
(Thank you to Eva Sollberger for the images.)
Thank you so much for visiting my website! For the hunt, my number is …
While you’re here don’t forget to enter the rafflecopter bonus contest I am running exclusively during the YA Scavenger Hunt. I’ll select one winner to receive a complete set of the Library Jumpers series. (Physical set is for US winner only – International winner will get an ebook set if the books aren’t available on Book Depository.)
Click here to enter the Rafflecopter: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/dd6a04e130/?
To keep going on your quest for the hunt, you need to check out the next author –
Pintip Dunn
CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE THE HUNT!
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