The YA Scavenger Hunt Hits Fall!

Leaves are turning, temperature’s dropping, apple cider’s out–and it’s Scavenger Hunt!

I’m Leah Bobet, author of An Inheritance of Ashes and Above, and I’m your host for this stop of the YA Scavenger Hunt!

Word on the Street, I am ready to rumble.

A photo posted by Leah Bobet (@leahbobet) on Sep 25, 2016 at 6:58am PDT

The Puzzle

I’ve hidden my favorite number somewhere in the post below. If you collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the Red Team, and then add them up, you can hit the entry form at the YASH official site to qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the correct number will qualify!

The Rules

The contest is open internationally, but 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 October 4th, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.

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Now that that’s clear, on to the content: It’s my pleasure to host author Jennifer Brody!

Jennifer Brody’s debut novel The 13th Continuum sold to Turner Publishing in a 3-book deal and is being packaged into a feature film. The second book in the trilogy — Return of the Continuums — publishes on November 1, 2016. She is a graduate of Harvard University, a creative writing instructor at the Writing Pad, and a volunteer mentor for the Young Storytellers Foundation. She founded and runs BookPod, a social media group for authors. She lives and writes in LA.

Reaching the Surface was just the beginning. As Myra Jackson and her friends set out to find the First Continuum, Captain Aero Wright and two companions from the outer space Second Continuum find themselves banished for treason and stranded on Earth. Wright has vowed to complete his late father’s mission to recolonize their ancestral planet, but his true mission is to find the mysterious girl who haunts his dreams.

Meanwhile, Myra and the young refugees of the underwater Thirteenth Continuum must make an unlikely ally if they are going to survive the hostile surface world and reach their destination, the nexus of humanity’s hope for survival.

As their paths begin to converge, the Beacons that guide and connect Myra and Aero begin to prove their power, and a shadowy force with a centuries-old grudge reveals itself.

There’s more on Return of the Continuums at Jennifer’s website, or checking the book out here!

But for now, Jennifer’s shared an extra special bonus scene from Return of the Continuums.

“The signal was coming from this place,” Aero said. He glanced around the courtyard framed by crumbling red-brick buildings. His Beacon pulsed steadily, but with no urgency.

“But that can’t be right,” Wren said. “There’s nothing here. Look around…there’s just ruins.” She picked up her boot and wiped off the ash clinging to the sole. Aero stared at her boot and felt sick. Human ash, he realized. Many people died here.

“Patience,” the Forger urged.

He rested his hand on Wren’s shoulder, but she looked anything but patient. Her brow knitted together in frustration and disappointment. Her emotions were always so nakedly displayed on the fine contours of her face, Aero thought.

“Sir, what do we do now?” Wren asked, scanning the courtyard.

“I don’t know,” Aero said. He hated uncertainty more than anything. He spun around, looking for the door to the First Continuum. He glanced down at his Beacon for guidance. “Why’d you bring us here?” he muttered to the device on his wrist.

No response came.

It was Myra who answered. Her lips were pressed into a thin line; her face glowed in the brittle sunlight. The wind tussled her hair. She focused on her Beacon. “Elianna, I know you’re in there. Come on, show us the way…”

They stood together and held the space. Myra’s brow cinched, as she concentrated hard. Aero joined her, probing his Beacon until the fuse lit. Their Beacons caught fire. The light blazed up their arms and enveloped their bodies.

The images from Before Doom assaulted their neural synapses — stately buildings, manicured courtyards, orderly pathways crammed with students racing to class, cavorting and shouldering heavy bags crammed with books, packing the lecture halls. Professors spoke from wooden podiums, their voices booming out and disseminating the collected knowledge of the humanity. The images continued pouring into their brains, as if downloaded from some invisible source.

Aero felt a kinship to these long dead students, even across the boundless gulf of time. This had once been an institution of higher learning and research, different that the Agoge in its primary purpose, but a school nonetheless. But even it could not withstand the coming onslaught. The images resolved into the day that it happened.

Aero watched as the Doom exploded into the world, claiming every living creature in a tempest of fire and radiation. Buildings that had stood for a thousand years burned and crumbled to dust. Students fled across the campus, but there was nowhere to run. The Doom had possessed the world; it had become the world. He watched as a girl burst into ash that fluttered and flitted about in the fiery air.

The waves of destruction kept coming, one after another, pummeling the world, until everything was dead or destroyed, and would remain so for a thousand years. The images slowly dissolved back into the present. He heard Myra gasp beside him.

“You saw it, too?” Aero asked. His voice wavered with sadness.

A tear drifted down her cheek. “It was so beautiful…but now only ashes.”

They shared a moment of grief, as their thoughts blended and swirled together. But then her eyes lit up. “Elianna…I can feel her. I think she’s coming back to me.”

Aero squeezed her hand.

“She never left you.”

Catching the dazed expression on his face, Wren couldn’t help but scowl. “Let me guess, the Beacon’s telling you something? Care to share it with the rest of us?”

Aero knew that she felt left out, that in some dark place where jealousy blossomed and grew, that Wren wished she were a Carrier, not Myra. But every colony had only one. Aero had been chosen by the Beacon. He couldn’t help the connection that he shared with Myra, anymore than he could help the fact that he had two arms and two legs. He wanted to say these things out loud, beg for Wren’s understanding. But words failed him, as they often did when they became entangled with emotions.
Instead, all he said was:

“Right, the Beacon says to go this way.”

Two arms and two legs! That means between Aero and Myra, they’d have 8…

I’m running my own giveaway here:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

But! Don’t forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of signed books by me, Jennifer, and more!

Keep On Hunting

Thanks for stopping by! Your next stop on the hunt is Kat Ellis, who has more bonus material, giveaways, and author spotlights!

Happy hunting!

Originally published at Leah Bobet. You can comment here or there.