Colleen Houck


“I took hold of that scourge -filled ship and crushed it between my limbs, hurtling it into the second sun, the red one that gave me strength. But I was too late." Terraformer

Colleen's blog


  • YA Scavenger Hunt-Spring 2015

    April 2, 2015


    Welcome to the 10th YA Scavenger Hunt!

    yash

    Hello! I am Colleen Houck,

    your hostess for this leg of the hunt.

    2015-02-19 06.22.06-2

    About Me

    My favorite mythological creature is a dragon.
    I went on a cruise for the first time last year.
    I do all my writing in my bedroom.
    I went to school to be a teacher.
    I’m fluent in American Sign Language.

    You are currently hunting on

    TEAM BLUE!

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    Blue Team 1

    Looking for my exclusive bonus content? You’ll have to keep searching.

    Somewhere on this blog hop, I’ve hidden a sneak peek from the first book in my brand new Egyptian series, REAWAKENED. AND you’ll get to find out what the title of book two will be! Shocking reveals are just around the corner. Before you go looking for it, check out the amazing author I’m hosting.

    But, first, a few rules.

    SCAVENGER HUNT PUZZLE RULES

     
    Directions: Below, you’ll notice that I’ve listed my favorite number. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on TEAM BLUE, and then add them up (don’t worry, you can use a calculator!)
    HINT: THE SECRET NUMBER IS HIGHLIGHTED IN BLUE!
     

    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.

    Rules: Open internationally, 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 SUNDAY, APRIL 5TH, at noon Pacific Time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.

    On this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each participating YA author, you also get a secret number. Add up the numbers, and enter it for a chance to win a major prize–one lucky winner will receive at least one signed book from each author on my team in the hunt! But play fast. This contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online until noon PST on Sunday, April 5th!

    There are EIGHT contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the BLUE TEAM, but there is also a RED TEAM,  GOLD TEAM, ORANGE TEAM, PINK TEAM, PURPLE TEAM, TEAL TEAM,  & GREEN TEAM! Check out each team for a chance to win eight different sets of signed books!

    If you’d like to find out more about the hunt, see links to all the authors participating, and see the full list of prizes up for grabs, go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page.


    Now that all the technical stuff is out of the way, I’ll introduce the author I am hosting on this hunt.

    I am super excited to be hosting…
    GWENDA BOND!
    author

     

     

    GWENDA’S BIO: Gwenda Bond is the author of Girl on a Wire, a novel about a daredevil heroine who discovers magic and mystery lurking beneath the big top. Next up is Lois Lane: Fallout in May 2015. Her previous novels include The Woken Gods and Blackwood. She has also written for Publishers Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, among other publications. She has an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband, author Christopher Rowe, and their menagerie. Visit her online at www.gwendabond.com or @gwenda on twitter.

     

    Colleen here-My house isn’t nearly as old. I think it’s around  20. No. Maybe it’s only ten years old. It’s my mortgage that won’t be paid off for twenty more years.
     
     
     

    The book Gwenda is showcasing in the YA Scavenger Hunt this season is

    LOIS LANE: FALLOUT

    loise-lane-fallout-final
    Colleen here-Love the title and the cover. It stirs the imagination just looking at it. In case you’re as deeply curious about the story now as I am. You’re in luck. Here’s some info on it.
     
     

    Lois Lane is starting a new life in Metropolis. An Army brat, Lois has lived all over—and seen all kinds of things. (Some of them defy explanation, like the near-disaster she witnessed in Kansas in the middle of one night.) But now her family is putting down roots in the big city, and Lois is determined to fit in. Stay quiet. Fly straight. As soon as she steps into her new high school, though, she can see it won’t be that easy. A group known as the Warheads is making life miserable for another girl at school. They’re messing with her mind, somehow, via the high-tech immersive videogame they all play. Not cool. Armed with her wit and her new snazzy job as a reporter, Lois has her sights set on solving this mystery. But sometimes it’s all a bit much. Thank goodness for her maybe-more-than-a friend, a guy she knows only by his screenname, SmallvilleGuy…

     

    Colleen here-OH NO YOU DIDN’T! Gwenda! Perhaps you are not aware that I have a SLIGHT Superman obsession. This one just shot to the top of my reading list. I will be totally thumbing through that book looking for gorgeous blue eyes and a curled lock of hair.

     

    TOP SECRET BONUS MATERIAL STRAIGHT AHEAD!

    Here’s a Sneak Peek Into The Behind The Scenes Of LOIS LANE: FALLOUT

    What Would Lois Do?

    by Gwenda Bond

    My first encounter with Lois Lane is one shared with millions of people, and no doubt some of you reading this: Margot Kidder’s witty, sharp, sincere portrayal opposite Christopher Reeve’s Superman. I’ve often said that I’m not sure anymore whether I love that version of Superman so much because of my affinity for great, banter-filled classic screwball films and their effortless mash-up of humor with more serious themes—particularly screwballs set in newsrooms like His Girl Friday—or if my affinity for those came from loving Superman as a kid. Re-watching it (and the Donner cut of the sequel!) just before I started writing Fallout, I was struck by how Reeve as Clark Kent seems to be channeling Cary Grant at times, and how Kidder as Lois Lane could be heading out to meet up with Rosalind Russell for drinks. After falling in love with the Superman movie, I always kept my eye on those characters, first reading my big brother’s comic books, and later reading my own.

    The versions of Superman I love best are equal parts serious themes and humor, mystery and banter, secrets and confidences. Underlying all those things is perhaps the most important element of all—optimism. Lois Lane and Clark Kent/Superman are such a great team in part because they are both clear-eyed and able to see the bad and the good in the world. But no matter how dark the bad gets, neither of them flinches in their commitment to the good and doing what’s right. Or, in my favorite-favorite portrayals, in their commitment to each other.

    There have been many versions of Lois Lane over the years. She’s a character who has had many lives. Some incarnations and eras have been better than others, but that’s part of the mark of a great comics character, isn’t it? A character who grows with good portrayals, but easily survives not-so-good ones. This is a character that has done far more than that. She is iconic. Most of us could probably describe the major traits that define her: her fast-talking wit, her ability to feel emotion deeply (whether it’s irritation or love), her dedication to truth and justice, her loyalty, ambition, impulsiveness and stubbornness, being the best at her job as a reporter and willing to do whatever it takes, screwing up and then getting right back out there to make things right. She is truly a superhero without any superpowers.

    Approaching this character to give her a whole new portrayal for a new generation, I kept all this very much in mind. I also realized that I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have ended up getting a journalism degree as an undergraduate, if not for Kidder’s Lois Lane. So, what Lois Lane means to me could fill a book (or several), but having gotten to write this character (what a gift), she now means even more to me. Jokingly, I’ve said that one of the best parts about writing Lois is that you can just ask: “What would Lois do?” and there’s your plot. But, after writing her as a teenager, in the process of becoming who she’s meant to be, I feel like this is actually useful in a much larger sense. I feel like Lois Lane is a friend I know almost as well as I know myself. This is about to get schmaltzy enough to make Lois roll her eyes, even if she agreed. But here goes:

    I hope that readers of Fallout—particularly girls—end up feeling the same way. Because if you’re afraid to take a risk or not sure if you can pull something off, if you’re not sure whether to stand up for someone else or what to do in a given situation, then the question of what would Lois do, or of what she’d tell you to do, will work. What would Lois do? The answer will always be smart, brave, and to value yourself and what’s right. Lois would tell you, “So you’re afraid, you got this.” Or, “It won’t be easy, but of course you have to do it anyway.” Or, “You know what’s happening to that other person isn’t right, so what can you do to help fix it? That’s what you do.” Or, “You know you deserve better, so don’t accept less.” Or, “You screwed up, majorly. Now you do what you can to make it right, and move on.” Because all those things? Those are what Lois would do. And that’s what Lois means to me—the kind of smart, brave, self-valuing commitment to justice that everyone can try to achieve. We can all share this superpower. 

    We’re just kicking off a campaign to share what Lois Lane means to you in advance of Fallout’s publication next month. For the next two weeks, 10 people whose responses are chosen by the publisher will win an early copy. Tweet using the hashtag #loislanefallout to enter (this an extra contest completely separate from the #YASH!). It’s what Lois would do. 😉


     

    Colleen here. Wasn’t that awesome?

    You can now add LOIS LANE: FALLOUT to your TBR list on Goodreads!


    Are you as interested in this book as I am?

    Here’s how you can your hands on it!

    You can buy LOIS LANE: FALLOUT HERE!

    Or on her Website, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook pages

    and sign up for her Newsletter so you’ll never miss out

    on any important book news or updates.


    And don’t forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of signed books by me, Gwenda, and many more! To enter, you need to write down my favorite number, find all the other numbers on TEAM BLUE add them up, and you’ll have the secret code to enter for the grand prize!

    Thank you so much for visiting my website! While you’re here don’t forget to enter the rafflecopter bonus contest I am running exclusively during the YA Scavenger Hunt. For an extra bonus entry, leave a comment on this blog post and answer the following: Who is your favorite Superhero and what makes them super to you? I look forward to reading your answers! Have fun! Ten winners will receive copies of the first book in my series, TIGER’S CURSE along with a copy of the prequel novella in the series, TIGER’S PROMISE. One lucky winner will be getting my entire Tiger series! And one super duper lucky fan will win an advanced reading copy of REAWAKENED!

    Good luck everyone!

    Tiger series

    Enter the rafflecopter below for a chance to win,

    a Rafflecopter giveaway


    Ready to move on to the next link in the hunt? Then head on over to visit author Dorothy Dreyer’s page.

    LINK TO NEXT BLOG

    This entry was posted in YA Scavenger Hunt.

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    Colleen Houck
    Colleen Houck

    New York Times Bestselling author Colleen Houck is a lifelong reader whose literary interests include action, adventure, paranormal, science fiction, and romance. When she's not busy writing, she likes to spend time chatting on the phone with one of her six siblings, watching plays, and shopping online. Colleen has lived in Arizona, Idaho, Utah, California, and North Carolina and is now permanently settled in Salem, Oregon with her husband and a huge assortment of plush tigers.