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! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours!
There are FIVE contests going on: 1. BLUE Team 2. RED team 3. GOLD team 4. PINK team 5. PURPLE team for a chance to win a whole different set of books!
You can enter one or all! As you can tell, I’m a part of the BLUE TEAM.
To enter, you need to know what my favorite number is. Being number 2 has never appealed to me, so I try to win all the time. Now 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!
Entry Form: Once you’ve added up all the numbers, make sure you fill out the form 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 April 9, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.
Today I’m so lucky to be featuring Printip Dunn. She’s giving us a very special treat by letting us read the beginning of her new novel, Girl on the Verge. And her sample is great! So here’s Pintip Dunn.
If I part my knees, I can catch long glimpses of its lazy swimming through the gap in the stairs.
Of course, I’m not supposed to part my knees. It’s not ladylike for a twelve-year-old girl, not here, not in Thailand. The land where my parents grew up; the place that’s supposed to be my home, too. That’s what the banner said when my relatives came to pick us up at the airport. “Welcome home, Kanchana.”
Never mind that I only come to Thailand every couple years.
Never mind that I don’t look like anyone else here, with my American build and my frizzy, out-of-control hair. Never mind that I don’t look like anyone in my hometown, either, since I’m the only Asian girl in school. Never mind that the only reason we’re here now is because my father’s dead and my mom can’t keep it together.
For a moment, pain lances through me, so sharp and severe that it might as well slice my heart in half, like in one of those video games my friends like to play. I squeeze my eyes shut, but that doesn’t keep the tears from spilling out. Neither do the glasses sliding down my nose. And so the tears drip down, down, down, past my unladylike knees, through the gap in the stairs, into the fish basin below.
The drops scare the fish, who swims away with its tail swishing in the water, no longer languid, no longer lazy. So, even this creature wants to get away from me—from my grief, from my strangeness—as quickly as possible.
“There you are, luk lak,” Khun Yai says in Thai, coming down the stairs. She is my mother’s mother, and since we arrived, she’s used the endearment—child that I love—more often than my name.
“You’re up early.” She pats her forehead with a handkerchief. It’s only seven a.m., and already sweat drenches my skin like I’ve taken a dip in the basin. No wonder they take two or three showers a day here.
“Couldn’t sleep. Jet lag.”
“I’ve been up for a couple hours myself.” She eases onto the step next to me, her knees pressed together, her legs folded demurely to one side.
Immediately, I try to rearrange my body to look like hers and then give up. My legs just don’t go that way.
“What do you want to do today?” Khun Yai asks. “More shopping?”
“Um, no thanks.” I make a face. “Didn’t you hear those salesgirls at Siam Square yesterday? They rushed up as soon as we entered and said they didn’t have anything in my size.” My cheeks still burn when I think about their haughty expressions.
I stare at her diminutive frame and her chopstick legs. “One of the salesgirls asked how much I weighed. Another grabbed my arm and said I felt like a side pillow.”
“They didn’t mean any harm. It is just the Thai way to be blunt.” She catches my chin and tilts up my face. “You are so beautiful. I wish you could see that.”
I could say so many things. I could tell her that I’m ugly not only in Thailand but also in the United States. Even though I’m not big by American standards—far from it—I could confess how the boys call me Squinty. How those Thai salesgirls snickered at my poodle-fuzz hair. I could explain how I’m from two worlds but fit in neither.
But I don’t. Because my words will only make her sad, and there have been enough tears in our family.
NOW, because it’s spring and because this is a special week on The Write Game, I’m offering up three eBooks of Double Negative and three eBooks of Sudden Secrets.
And if you haven’t already joined me on my website, you can get an instant gift by signing up HERE.
CONTINUE THE HUNT. . .To keep going on your quest, you need to check out the next author! Tobie Easton. And please let me know in your comments what you think of this hunt. Is it something you’d participate in if you wrote YA?
