My full iClue Contest

My iClue week is coming to an end. Here are both my full mysteries with three clues each. At the end is the link to the iClue site to enter your answers. Thanks for playing! And thanks again to Paperback Dolls, Good Choice Reading and The Reading Room for hosting me this week.

A little about my mysteries:

I love pop culture and love to include pop culture references in my books. But ... sometimes it can date a book or possibly end up tragically. For example, if today I wrote something specifically about Charlie Sheen, in two years it could read funny or not so funny, or just plain odd. So instead I'd mention an actor who got fired from a popular sitcom because he had some issues with drugs and prostitutes. That's vague enough that in two years it could be relevant to a completely different scandalous actor.

I also love music, but to me musical taste is so personal. I might love the song Raise Your Glass by Pink, but you might hate it and by extension think my character is lame for liking it. Still, music is such a huge part of teen lives that I can't leave it out. And that's what these mysteries are about. 

Mystery #1

This is an excerpt from BETRAYAL, the second Haunting Emma book. She’s heading to the Knell for the first time with Bennett. Along the way she sees the ghost of a dead celebrity. Your job is to figure out what celebrity she sees.

From BETRAYAL:

Bennett led me down the cobble-stoned street, past narrow brownstones with ornate wrought-iron fences and ancient trees growing between the sidewalks. 

“So, is this whole block ghostkeepers?” I said.

“Yeah, mostly people involved with the Knell.”

As dusk crept over the rooftops, I watched a boy who looked like Nicholas climb a streetlamp, light a long match, and fiddle with the glass. The lamp lit instantly—but from electricity, not his flame. 

“I don't get it,” I said. “They’re not like the ghosts in Echo Point.” Or even the ones I remembered from my childhood, before my parents had my ability suppressed. “It's like they don't know they're dead.”

“Maybe it’s the street,” he said. “Or the Knell, or how many ghostkeepers live here. No one's really sure why, but they almost forget they're ghosts.”

We passed a small private park where a few old guys played chess at tables under the street lamps. A younger ghost moved a rook, eccentrically dressed and familiar.

I stopped and stared. “Is that...?”

“The actor?” A movie star who’d recently died of an overdose. “Yeah.”

“Have you asked if it was suicide or an accident?”

He looked at me. “No.”

“Oh, right.” He couldn't communicate with them and I felt like a jerk for bringing it up.

So do you know the answer? Who is the actor? If you do, go here and enter to win the iPod Touch. If you need a little help, here are three clues to help you figure it out.

1.     Australia

2.     The Taming of the Shrew

3.     Chocolate toffee candy bar

Mystery #2

This is a first-time-ever-seen excerpt from SURRENDER the third and final Haunting Emma book that will be published in December. In it Emma is listening to a song Bennett has downloaded to her iPhone. Read the passage and see if you can figure out who the artist is and what song she's singing.

From SURRENDER:

I didn’t go to school the next day. Simon never would’ve let me get away with that, but the Sterns either didn’t care or were stuck in the mire of their own depression. How would I know? I never even left my room.

Natalie and Lukas both knocked. I’d learned my lesson, though, and shoved my chair under the handle, so Natalie couldn’t barge in. I heard her trying to talk Lukas into smashing in, but he refused. Either he didn’t want to get in trouble with the Sterns, or he understood I just wanted to be alone. It was more of a guy reaction to a problem. I’d noticed girls often liked to cry and relive every moment of distress with a friend. I wasn’t that kind of girl.

Instead I listened to Bennett’s songs over and over. I kept my laptop in bed in with me, so I could look up the lyrics online and memorize them. One of the songs was about how life had no music ‘before you.’ That’s how I felt, like all the music and color had gone out of the world. Sometimes a song could really hit you, even if it was from an artist who usually sang about her lady parts.

So do you know the answer? Who is the artist and what is the song? If you do, go here and enter to win the iPod Touch. Here are three clues if you’re having trouble.

1.     Milkshake

2.     Solo or group singing without instrumental sound

3.     Flesh Tone

iClue site. 

Good luck and thanks for playing! 

XOLee