Book Giveaway: Numbers: The Chaos by Rachel Ward

Last year, I read and truly enjoyed Numbers by Rachel Ward. This year, Numbers: The Chaos is out, and it’s the second book in the series by a talented author. In order to celebrate the release of the novel, we are offering up a giveaway for TWO lucky readers!

The Book:

Numbers: The Chaos by Rachel Ward

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Horror/Thriller

Publisher: The Chicken House (Scholastic)
Publication Date: March 2011
Paperback: 352 pages

The curse of the NUM8ERS continues in Rachel Ward’s CHA0T1C, earth-shattering sequel!

When he was a little boy, Adam learned about the numbers. The first ones he saw were Jem’s. That was how he knew she was going to die. Adam has more than inherited his mother’s curse: When he looks in someone’s eyes, he not only sees the date of their death…he feels the searing, shocking pain of it. Since Jem died, Adam has lived by the sea with his great-grandmother, Val. But when rising tides flood the coast, they return to London. The city is an alien, exciting, frightening place. Most disturbing of all, Adam can’t help but clock how many people’s numbers are in January 2027; how many are on New Year’s Day. What chaos awaits the world? Can he and Sarah stop a catastrophe? Or are they, too, counted among the “twenty-sevens”?

The Website:

You can read more about Numbers: The Chaos online at the author’s official website HERE and the series official website HERE.

The Excerpt:

The knock on the door comes early in the morning, just as it’s getting light.

“Open up! Open up! We’ve got an evacuation order on these flats. Moving out in five minutes. Five minutes, everybody!”

You can hear them going down the corridor, knocking ondoors, repeating the same instructions over and over. I hadn’t been asleep, but Nan nodded off in her chair, and now she jerks awake and curses.

“Bloody hell, Adam. What time is it?” Her face looks crumpled and old, too old to go with her purple hair.

“Half-six, Nan. They’ve come.”

She looks at me, tired and wary.

“This is it, then,” she says. “Better find your things.”

I look back at her and I think, I’m not going anywhere. Not with you. We’ve been expecting this. We’ve been camped out in the flat for four days, watching the floodwater rising in the street below. They’d warned everyone that the seawall was likely to go. It was built years ago, before the sea level rose, and it wasn’t going to stand another storm with a spring tide to add to
the swell.

We thought the water would come and then go, but it came and it stayed.

“S’pose this is what Venice looked like before it was washed away,” Nan said gloomily. She flicked her cigarette butt out the window and down into the water below. It bobbed slowly along the street toward where the walkway had been. And she lit another cigarette.

The electricity was cut off that first night, then the water in the taps turned brown. People waded along the street outside, shouting through megaphones, warning us not to drink the water, saying they’d bring us food and water. They didn’t.

Instead we made do with what we’d got, but with no toaster and no microwave, and the milk going bad in the fridge, we were starting to get hungry after twelve hours. I knew things were bad when Nan peeled the cellophane off her last pack of smokes.

“Once these are gone we’re going to have to get out of here, son,” she said.

“I’m not going,” I told her. This was my home. It was all I had left of Mum. expecting this. We’ve been camped out in the flat for four days, watching the floodwater rising in the street below. They’d warned everyone that the seawall was likely to go. It was built years ago, before the sea level rose, and it
wasn’t going to stand another storm with a spring tide to add to the swell.

We thought the water would come and then go, but it came and it stayed.

“S’pose this is what Venice looked like before it was washed away,” Nan said gloomily. She flicked her cigarette butt out the window and down into the water below. It bobbed slowly along the street toward where the walkway had been. And she lit another cigarette.

The electricity was cut off that first night, then the water in the taps turned brown. People waded along the street outside, shouting through megaphones, warning us not to drink the water, saying they’d bring us food and water. They didn’t. Instead we made do with what we’d got, but with no toaster and no microwave, and the milk going bad in the fridge, we were starting to get hungry after twelve hours. I knew things were bad when Nan peeled the cellophane off her last pack of smokes.

“Once these are gone we’re going to have to get out of here, son,” she said.

“I’m not going,” I told her. This was my home. It was all I had
left of Mum.

You can read the full first chapter online HERE.

The Author:

I’m a fortysomething author, currently writing novels for teenagers and young adults (some adults like them too). My first novel, ‘Numbers,’ was published in January 2009, and was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. At the moment, I’m working on a sequel, which will be published in 2010.

The Trailer:

THE GIVEAWAY:

We are giving away TWO copies of Numbers: The Chaos! The contest is open to participants with a United States mailing address only (international readers can enter if they have a friend in the States who can accept their prizes by mail) and will run until Saturday, March 12, 2011 at 11:59 PM (PST). In order to enter, all you have to do is leave a comment here answering the following question: if you had the option, would you want to be able to see the death dates of everyone around you? Only ONE comment per person, please! Multiple entries and/or duplicate comments will be automatically disqualified. Good luck!