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.


And now, I'm excited to present the author I get to host today: Megan Crewe!

Like many authors, Megan Crewe finds writing about herself much more difficult than making things up. A few definite facts: she lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband and son (and does on occasion say “eh”), she’s always planning some new trip around the world, and she’s spent the last six years studying kung fu, so you should probably be nice to her. She has been making up stories about magic and spirits and other what ifs since before she knew how to write words on paper. These days the stories are just a lot longer. Along with her recent YA fantasy A MORTAL SONG, she's also the author of the Earth & Sky trilogy, the Fallen World series, and GIVE UP THE GHOST.

For the Hunt, Megan is sharing with us an exclusive deleted prologue from A Mortal Song. Check it out below!

***

I learned the story of my birth as a child, perched on Ayame’s lap while she combed my hair. She liked to talk about our great purpose as the kami people: to answer the prayers of those who called out for help, to ensure nature’s cycles followed their proper course, and to mind the boundaries between the corporal world of living creatures and the ethereal world of spirits, as beings not quite one nor the other ourselves. “It’s a life more of giving than taking, my little princess,” she said. “But if you give enough to the Earth, it gives you joy in return. Look at you. You are the joy it gave your parents.”

Kami live for hundreds of years, which according to Ayame was why our marriages rarely resulted in a child. I was the only one born on the sacred mountain in as long as she could remember, a blessing for the chosen rulers of our people. “When your mother and father announced they were expecting, the celebrations lasted for weeks,” she told me. And in the days after I had come into the world, kami from far and wide had traveled to offer me their respects.

“You will do all of us proud, Sora,” Ayame always finished. “Look how strong you are already.”

Her words made me beam with a joy of my own. I remembered them every time my parents called me their “gift,” every time the other kami in the palace bowed to me, every time I stood on the mountainside and felt its power echo through me. The Earth itself had brought me into being, to live and love and do its work. I was meant to be there, to fulfill that promise.

I had no reason not to believe it. Until the day I discovered that the most important part of the story had been a lie.

***

So good!! To find out more about Megan, visit www.megancrewe.com, and learn more about A MORTAL SONG at http://smarturl.it/AMortalSong.

And don't forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of books by me, Megan Crewe, and more! To enter, you need to know that my favorite number is 16. (After all, I was born on June 16th!) Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the orange team and you'll have the secret code to enter for the grand prize!

CONTINUE THE HUNT!

To keep going on your quest for the hunt, you need to check out the next author: Suzanne Lazear! www.suzannelazear.com

P.S. Want to enter to win an advance copy of my next book, The Girl in the Picture, with annotated notes from me? Follow me at www.twitter.com/TimelessAlex and tweet "Enter me to win #TheGirlInThePicture!"