YA Scavenger Hunt

The YA Scavenger Hunt is officially over! Winners for my personal contest will be announced tomorrow, April 3rd. Thanks for playing!

Welcome to the April Fool’s Scavenger Hunt! If you’ve gotten here via another blog on the hunt: nice to see ya! If you’re here to use my blog as the starting line: I’m flattered! Grab a spinach puff!

Now that we’re all fed and happy, here’s the deal. The YA Scavenger Hunt is an online blog hop sponsored by authors who write books for both Young Adults and the Young at Heart. Winners get a giant truckload of books, and many authors have their own individual contests along the way. Each of us hosts a different author on the tour, and each author contributes some exclusive bonus material. Want to read a deleted scene from Croak? Of course you do! But you’ll have to keep hunting to find it!

If you’ve already been here or are stuck in any way, click here to go to the YA Scavenger Hunt website for some help. Also note that you are currently blog hopping on Team Yellow – once you’re done with this one, check out Team Red and Team Blue for a chance to win even more prizes!

So without further ado, let me welcome my guest to the stage:

So who’s this Magan Vernon character?

Self-proclaimed geek-to-glam poster child who channels her inner geek by writing science fiction for teens, even though she slept with a night light until she was in middle school for fear of alien attacks. She now lives with her husband, daughter, and dog in central Illinois where she still sleeps with a night light…just in case

What’s her book, How To Date An Alien, about?

High school senior Alex Bianchi’s estranged father gets her an internship at Circe Operations Center to pad her college applications. But Circe isn’t your typical military base. It’s an alien-run operation center and not all of the aliens are friendly, especially the one that tries to kill Alex on her first day. When Ace, a dark-eyed Caltian, enters and saves the day, she can’t help but be drawn to him. Can these star-crossed lovers survive when they’re on the brink of intergalactic war?

You can find out more about Magan at her website, and buy her book on Amazon.

Got any sweet, sweet bonus material for us?

Here is a preview of the first chapter of the second book in the My Alien Romance series: How To Break Up With An Alien:

One would think that saving the world from evil aliens would be enough to exempt me from my senior year of high school. Or even the fact that I was promised to the prince of said evil aliens. And a future Caltian princess should get some sleep.

A brilliant blue light streamed down from my bedroom ceiling, reflecting off the mirror above my dresser.

“You’re late.” I mumbled, not even lifting my head from the pillow.

The light disappeared and the weight shifted on the left side of my bed. A cold burst of air bore through my covers and I knew that my alien was nearby.

“I’m sorry. There was some sort of a Martian threat on the Utah capital and I had to handle it.” Ace’s warm fingers brushed against my cheek. The rest of his body may have been cold, but his hands were always warm and left me with a sensation like rubbing aloe on a sunburn. I couldn’t resist.

“A likely excuse.” I opened my eyes and grabbed my glasses from the night stand, placing them on my face and sitting up next to him.

“But I brought you something.” He grinned pulling a box from behind his back with a giant cartoon purple dinosaur on it.

“Feeble Weebles!” I tried not to scream and wake my family up in the middle of the night, but it was freaking Feeble Weebles! The Caltian cereal that is like Lucky Charms but with only marshmallows.

“So does this make up for me being late?” He leaned in closer.

I nearly brushed my lips against his, pulling the cereal from his grasp. “I’ll think about it.”

“Oh come on, for me?” He lifted his eyebrows and flashed his irresistible smile that could have been on its own cereal box.

I swallowed setting the box on my night stand. I tried to think of something to say instead of just staring at the way his temperature control suit molded onto his body. With his body’s normal temperature being half of what a human’s is, he always had to wear it when he visited. Which was supposed to be around ten o’clock instead of two in the morning.

“I just wanted to come wish you luck on your first day of school and work.” He ran his fingers along where my sleeve met my arm. ”Sorry I couldn’t get hear earlier.”

“Is this what it’s always going to be like?” I looked up to meet his eyes. They were endless pools of black that always were a bit frightening, but intriguing at the same time.

“Always like what?” He laid down next to me, his long body spreading along my twin sized bed while he propped his spikey haired head up on his extended arm.

I sighed. “Me waiting up for you, only to have you show up late or busy with some alien duty.”

Ace shook his head, his hair brushing against my headboard. “I hope not. Once you are at Northern Arizona, I can arrange to see you more often. Then we won’t have to worry about sneaking around when your mother isn’t awake and you can even come see me instead of this beaming thing.”

I laid down next to him, pressing my body to his. His muscles shivered underneath me and even through the temperature control suit I could feel his icy hot chill. “How about you figure out how to beam me places and then I can just come see you at work whenever I want?”

Ace pressed his forehead to mine, his dark eyes staring into mine. “Why must you ask me questions that you know are impossible?”

“Impossible things are happening every day.”

Ace let out a silent laugh, the cold air blowing through his nose and tickling my lips. “You stayed up watching musicals why you were waiting for me, didn’t you?”

“I can sing some of them if you would like.”

“I think there is something better that you can do with your mouth instead of sing.”

He tilted his head and pressed his lips to mine. After waiting all night for him, the electric current his touch sent from my lips and all the way down almost made up for it. Almost.

“Alex?”

Crap, my mom. I broke the kiss put my finger to my lips. Ace rolled off the side of my bed and underneath it. I pulled the comforter up and over the side to try and hide him the best I could.

The door squeaked open and Mom poked her blonde mess of hair in. She reached her fingers under her thick glasses, rubbing her eyes. “Is everything alright? I thought I heard something?”

“Oh no, just woke up and thought I would listen to some Ira Glass podcasts.” I pushed the comforter further onto the side of my bed, hoping that she wouldn’t walk over and see Ace laying between the bed and the window.

“Oh.” She glanced at my Ipod in the dock. Hopefully she was too sleepy and wouldn’t realize that nothing was actually on. “Well, you should probably get back to sleep. I know the first day of school is exciting, but at least try to keep it down.

“Okay, I will do that.”

She nodded and I thought she would leave the room, but instead she walked over to my night stand. My heart pounded thinking how close she was to finding Ace under my bed. Hopefully he didn’t breathe too loud.

“What is this?” She picked up the box of Feeble Weebles, squinting at the giant purple dinosaur.

“Just some cereal I got the other day. Been hiding it in my room so I wouldn’t have to share with Elijah.” Good excuse, Alex, Good excuse.

Mom shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

I shrugged. “Yeah it’s new.”

“Huh. Alright, well next time let me know when you get a box and I will try and get some for Elijah as well.”

“Will do.”

Finally she walked to the door and closed it behind her. I waited until I heard that she was out of ear shot before I pulled up the comforter and leaned over the side of the bed. But Ace wasn’t there. Nothing but dust bunnies.

Huh.

I sat back up and felt something cold against my back. I looked up and there was Ace, kneeling behind me.

“Looking for something?” He placed his hands on my shoulders and brushed his lips to my forehead.

If only I could have the speed that my alien boyfriend had, then I could just zip through my senior year and forget about distance and mom’s with a great sense of hearing. But when said alien boyfriend is in my bed, and my mother in the next room, I wished that time could freeze. Just for a few minutes at least.

Nice! Now what’s all this about a prize?
As you are hopping from blog to blog there will be a letter highlighted in YELLOW. After you have collected all 20 yellow letters, one from each blog, unscramble them to form a phrase. Enter the phrase here, making sure you put the YELLOW phrase in the YELLOW entry form. When you have finished with the yellow team you may want to consider moving onto the BLUE and RED author teams so you can enter to win even more prizes. To do that, click HERE and then select an author on either the red or the blue team. Collect your blue or red clues along the way and enter the secret phrase in the form. Don’t forget that most of the authors are doing their own giveaways as well so there are many chances to win something special.

But wait, another giveaway? WHAT’S ALL THIS?
Enter my contest for a chance to win a copy of Croak! Five runners-up will also receive scythe pendants! There is a whole cornucopia full of ways to enter: follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, follow this blog, follow me on Pinterest, sign up for my newsletter, or leave a comment below telling me who your favorite Muppet is (Sesame Street counts too). Trust me, it’s for science. When you’re all done clicking and liking and following, just fill out this little form, and you’ll be entered! (You MUST fill out the form to be entered, otherwise I won’t know what to give you credit for.)

FORM CLOSED, CONTEST OVER

I’m lost and confused. What do I do now?
Click here to go to the next stop on the hunt!