It's YASH time!!!

I’m excited to be hosting Paula Stokes and her novel The Art of Lainey! Welcome to those of you who are visiting my website for the first time. I hope you’re enjoying the hunt!

To participate in the Spring 2014 Young Adult Scavenger Hunt, and win up to 50+ books, you can start here. Follow the directions below and hop from post to post until you’ve seen all the authors on my team. Then you can begin on team two!

If you get lost, don’t worry. You can always check in on the Hunt’s main webpage.

Welcome to YA Scavenger Hunt!

THE HUNT IS NOW OVER!!! GOOD LUCK IF YOU ENTERED!!!

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Hi! Paula Stokes here, so psyched to be a part of YASH!

Soccer star Lainey Mitchell is used to getting what she wants, and when her boyfriend Jason breaks up with her for no reason, what she wants is to win him back before the start of their senior year. Lainey and her friend Bianca check the interwebz for tips and tricks, but the online dating advice is all pretty lame.

 Then the girls stumble across a copy of The Art of War. Didn’t someone once say that love is a battlefield? Jason isn’t going to stand a chance once Lainey and Bee go all Zhou Dynasty on him…

 Old school strategy and subterfuge meet modern-day dramarama in the story of a girl who sets out to win at all costs and ends up discovering what’s really worth fighting for.

And… here is an exclusive excerpt!

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“The secret,” Micah says, turning down the radio volume, “is to look for the bears at the very top of the hill.” I peer across him at the steep incline on the left side of the road. I don’t see anything but tall grass, leading up to a tree line. The sun breaks through a low ribbon of clouds. A beam of light reflects off Micah’s eyebrow ring, highlighting the scar on his temple and the faintest hint of beard stubble on his jaw.

The car moves around another bend in the road and starts slowly up the hill. A rustle in the shrubbery catches my eye. A fat-tailed squirrel emerges from beneath a bush, scampering across the crushed gravel.

Micah pulls the Beast over to the side of the road at the very top of the hill.

“Now what?” I ask.

He turns the music up just slightly. “Now we wait.”

I resist the urge to fill the silence with idle chatter. There’s something kind of otherworldly about hanging out at sunrise, the two of us on a random hunt for bears. I can see the beginnings of a ravine through a thin opening in the trees. I watch the opening, sneaking peeks at Micah every so often. If he’s lured me out here for anything other than high-quality bear spotting you wouldn’t know it.

I snuggle back in my bucket seat, humming along to one of the songs by Arachne’s Revenge. And then, something black crosses in front of my vision. Without thinking, I grab Micah’s arm.

“Did you see that?” I ask. Before he can answer, I see the black blur again. A bear cub peeks its head through the trees. I gasp. It stares curiously at Micah’s car. I fumble in my purse for my phone, cursing at how long it takes my camera function to start up.

The bear cub disappears from view. Crap. I start to open the car door.

“Lainey. We’re not supposed to get out of the car.”

“It’s just a little baby,” I scoff. “Not like it’s going to hurt me.”

Micah mutters something that sounds like “annoying drunk chicks” under his breath. “Okay,” he says. “But I’m going with you.”

We sneak around to the front of the Beast, crouching down to peer into the foliage. The bear cub runs across the opening again. I stifle a giggle. “Ohmygod, Micah,” I say. “It’s totally cute.”

“Yeah, it’s adorable.” He runs a hand through his mohawk. “Go on and get your picture.”

I hold my phone up but the bear waddles down into the rocky ravine. I creep forward a couple more steps and angle my phone down toward the rocks. The cub peers up at me with big brown eyes. Just as I snap the photo, I hear a deep growl. Mean. Menacing. It couldn’t have come from that sweet little…

“Lainey,” Micah’s voice sounds far away. “Don’t move.”

I turn to look at him over my shoulder and that’s when I see it. A bigger, blacker, momma bear, just inside the tree line. My brain deconstructs it into pieces. Disproportionally small Mickey Mouse ears. Snout. Fuzzy black coat. Giant paws with five-inch claws. White teeth, dripping with saliva.

“Don’t run,” Micah says.

Too late.

I’m already turned around, making my way up the far side of the ravine in my platform sandals faster than I ever thought possible. Micah swears loudly. My heart lodges in my throat. Behind me, the bear growls again. Micah lets out some kind of primal scream. I flick a look over my shoulder, just to make sure he’s not being eaten. He’s scooping up rocks from the side of the ravine and throwing them at the bear one after the next. The bear cub cowers behind its mother, probably traumatized for life.

“Go,” Micah yells. “Get in the car.”

He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I race up the grassy incline, plunge through the trees, and skid to a stop in front of the Beast. I’m hyperventilating, half from the run and half from the shock of almost getting mauled to death.

I watch Micah slowly retreat back up the hill, still flinging rocks one after the next. When he hits the gravel road, he drops his remaining stones to the ground. His hands are shaking so bad he can barely get his car door open.

“Ohmygod,” I say, as we both slide back into the Beast. “I’m sober now, if there was any doubt.”

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Are you okay? I thought you were going to get eaten,” I say, looking at Micah in sheer amazement. His hands are dirty and his face is slick with sweat.

“I’m good,” he says. “But that better be one hell of a picture.”

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For more Lainey and Micah fun, check out my YA contemp releasing on May 20, 2014. If you like books with heart, humor, hot boys, and happy endings, you’ll love The Art of Lainey.

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Bonus Giveaway!

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For the next stop on the Hunt, visit Kay Honeyman