EMU vs. FRIDAY THE THIRTEENERS

And we are back!
Back to celebrating Jeanne Ryan's fabulous book NERVE and the dares by the EMUs and the Thirteeners!

So here's the deal. Go on over to the EMU blog and check out their dares. Then come back and check out ours. They've all be compiled nicely into one video for your viewing pain, I mean pleasure. As an incentive to finishing off the whole video (yes I know it's 10 minutes long! But there are 5 dares on there!!!) I will give you a sneak peak at what you can look forward to for the last dare!

What in the world is that? Is that Mindy McGinnis dressed as a carrot?!!! Tune in and find out!!



All you have to do is leave us a comment and you will be entered in for a chance to win a signed copy of NERVE!!

Gretchen McNeil's AWESOME TEN Dare

We are so excited to welcome Gretchen McNeil to the blog today for many many reasons. But the two most important are that 1. Gretchen is the most amazing person and we love her! and 2. Her new book TEN goes on sale on September 18th, 2012!!

 

And their doom comes swiftly.

It was supposed to be the weekend of their lives — an exclusive house party on Henry Island. Best friends Meg and Minnie each have their reasons for being there (which involve T.J., the school’s most eligible bachelor) and look forward to three glorious days of boys, booze and fun-filled luxury.

But what they expect is definitely not what they get, and what starts out as fun turns dark and twisted after the discovery of a DVD with a sinister message: Vengeance is mine.

Suddenly people are dying, and with a storm raging, the teens are cut off the from the outside world. No electricity, no phones, no internet, and a ferry that isn’t scheduled to return for two days. As the deaths become more violent and the teens turn on each other, can Meg find the killer before more people die? Or is the killer closer to her than she could ever imagine.


Look at the reviews TEN is garnering!!!

"A scary gorefest of murder and mayhem, not for the faint of heart [...] a breathless read." (Kirkus)

"Agatha Christie meets Gossip Girl [...] in McNeil’s (Possess) throwback to old-school thrillers [...] has all the hallmarks of a traditional slasher flick, including imprudent sex, gory slayings, and dramatic revelations." (Publisher's Weekly)

Doesn't that sound thrilling!! Ok so we dared Gretchen to write a theme song for her book or one of her characters and sing it. Well, prepare to be amazified!!

 

 GRETCHEN MCNEIL

Singer ~ Writer ~ Clown

Gretchen's YA horror/paranormal POSSESS debuted with Balzer + Bray for HarperCollins in 2011. She's also a former coloratura soprano, the voice of Mary on G4's Code Monkeys and she currently sings with the LA-based circus troupe Cirque Berzerk. Online, you can find her as a founding member of the vlog group YARebels where she's known as "Monday," and blogging with The Enchanted Inkpot and The Apocalypsies. She also blogs here and tweets here.

The NERVE of some people...

Those EMU people have some NERVE! They had the audacity to challenge us THIRTEENERS to a blog to blog dare contest! Can you believe it? Well, we Thirteeners sure as heck weren't going to back down from a dare contest, that's for sure! So we accepted the challenge! Because it is in celebration of our buddy, Jeanne Ryan's debut book NERVE, which is coming out this week on September 13th! And we are all pretty excited about it. And here's why!

Summary:

When Vee is picked to be a player in NERVE, an anonymous game of dares broadcast live online, she discovers that the game knows her. They tempt her with prizes taken from her ThisIsMe page and team her up with the perfect boy, sizzling-hot Ian. At first it’s exhilarating–Vee and Ian’s fans cheer them on to riskier dares with higher stakes. But the game takes a twisted turn. Suddenly they’re playing all or nothing, and the prize may be their lives.

Not only have translation rights for NERVE been sold in six territories so far, but the LA TIMES included it in their round-up of YA titles for this fall. Plus, look what both Kirkus and PW said about it!

“[R]eaders will find themselves flipping madly to the very last page.” Kirkus Reviews

“Ryan’s story is thought-provoking and unsettling…the ending goes off with a bang and a twist.” Publishers Weekly

So how could we possibly turn down the EMU's dare? We couldn't! So come back this Friday to see the results of the NERVE challenge and vote for which blog had the best dares and you will get a chance to win a signed copy of NERVE!


Jeanne Ryan has lived all over the world, raised in a family with eleven brothers and sisters. She spent her early childhood in Hawaii and the rest of her growing-up years trying to figure out a way to get back there, with stops in South Korea, Michigan and Germany along the way. Before writing fiction, she tried her hand at many things, including wargame simulation and youth development research. But she decided it was much more fun to work on stories than statistics. These days, she still loves Hawaii, but has found her home under the moody skies of the Pacific Northwest. Her website is here, she tweets here, you can friend her here, and don't forget to add her book on goodreads here!

Erin Bowman Takes the Dare: Book Dominos!

Today's dare comes from a good friend of mine, Caroline Richmond. She dared me to set up my books like dominos and knock them all over. This proved especially difficult because I live in a very, very old farmhouse. Nothing is level, and the floorboards are ridiculously wide and uneven and there are old square-head nails everywhere that aren't quite flush with the wood. Getting these books to balance was a bit of a struggle. But I managed.

Here are my book-domino results via vlog! (Please pardon my general state of un-showered-ness and messy hair. I'm on deadline! ;) )



And here's a picture of the end result since I was having issues with the laptop camera:

I'm quietly cursing 13 Reasons Why for messing up an otherwise perfect YA formation.

A huge thank you to Caroline for this fabulous (and FUN) dare. I hope you all have a great weekend, and be sure to check back next week for more truth/dare madness!

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Erin Bowman is a YA writer, letterpress lover, and Harry Potter enthusiast living in New Hampshire. Her debut novel, TAKEN, comes out from HarperTeen in April 16, 2013. You can visit her blog (updated occasionally) or find her on twitter (updated obsessively).

Caroline Carlson Takes the Dare!

Today we've got fabulous MG author Caroline Carlson on the blog! Her debut middle grade novel, MAGIC MARKS THE SPOT, will be published by HarperCollins in Summer 2013. Until then, she shares her love for pirates AND cooking with this dare!

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In an effort to prove my boldness and daring to the members of Friday the Thirteeners, I’ve decided to cook a favorite recipe from my forthcoming middle grade novel, MAGIC MARKS THE SPOT. You might remember that a few months ago, my fellow debut author Elle Cosimano performed this dare by sharing her recipe for a delicious-looking chicken stew. That’s nice and all, Elle, but let’s be frank: Anyone can cook chicken stew. It takes a truly talented chef, however, to prepare the recipe I’m sharing with you today: hardtack, the tooth-breakingly tough flour-and-water biscuit that my pirate characters spend most of their time eating in my novel. Mmm! For this post, I’m using the hardtack recipe developed by the thoughtful scallywags at WikiHow. And to help you follow along, I’ll be showing you step-by-step photos in the style of my favorite food blogger, the Pioneer Woman. You might even call me the Buccaneer Woman. On second thought, please don’t ever call me that. Anyway, the first thing you’ll want to do is preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Then collect your ingredients: flour, water, and salt. (Sea salt is best—this is a pirate recipe, after all.) If you are lucky enough to have a pirate acquaintance, you should probably ask him to help.

In a large bowl, combine a cup and a half of flour, a cup of water, and a teaspoon of salt.

Then use a wooden spoon to stir it all together.

You want the dough to be thick enough that it’s hard to stir, so you’ll probably need to add more flour. When the dough is ready, it should be able to hold up a sword without much trouble.

Clean off your sword and turn out the dough onto a floured surface. By this point, you will most likely be covered in flour, but don’t despair–a little flour is hardly enough to make a true pirate tremble in his boots. Roll out the ball of dough until it’s not quite as thick as it was before. (The recipe says it should be half an inch thick, but do you know a pirate who keeps a ruler in his kitchen? I don’t. Just roll it out until you get bored and feel like stopping.)

Next, use your sword to cut the dough into four equal pieces. I trimmed the edges of the dough here, too, since pirates like to keep things tidy.

Now you’ll need to poke holes in the hardtack to make it look more authentic and piratical. I used a chopstick to make four rows of four holes in each biscuit.

But if you don’t have a chopstick, you can always use your peg leg.

Okay, now your hardtack is ready to bake! Climb out of the dough and wipe off your leg. Then put the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet and pop ‘em in the oven for about 30 minutes. (It’s okay if they look a little weird.)

While you’re waiting for the hardtack to cook, you’ll probably want to clean up the huge, floury mess you’ve made all over the kitchen. You can leave out a bowl of salt water to keep your pirate friend occupied while he waits for you to finish.

When the hardtack is golden brown, take it out of the oven and remove your pirate from his mixing bowl. Wait at least 30 more minutes for the biscuits to cool. According to the recipe, you’re supposed to let your hardtack rest for a month so it’ll get good and hard, but I’m pretty sure most pirates aren’t that patient. Besides, I have a dentist’s appointment tomorrow, and I don’t want to break my teeth.

When the biscuits are cool, take a bite!

Delicious! Thanks so much to the Thirteeners for having me, and special thanks in advance to my
dentist.

Caroline, you're awesome! Thank you so much for playing with us! Up next on Friday is our Erin Bowman! Would you like to submit a Truth or Dare for her?
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Caroline Carlson grew up in New England and now lives with her husband in western Pennsylvania. She earned an MFA in Writing for Children from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is an assistant editor of VCFA's literary journal, Hunger Mountain. Caroline's debut middle grade novel, MAGIC MARKS THE SPOT, will be published by HarperCollins Children's Books in Summer 2013. You can find her on Twitter and Goodreads and on her remarkably lazy blog.