Yes, yes, yes, my first news post in … um … months. But it’s an exciting one.

UKYA (young adult literature written by writers living in the united kingdom) is a wonderful world to inhabit. And today, you get the chance to find out some more about some of the authors who write it. And win dozens of free signed books, including some by me!

Welcome to the UKYA Easter Egg Hunt! One very lucky winner will win a huge grand prize of signed books by over thirty YA authors who write and live in the UK.

All you have to do is read this blog, count up how many UKYA branded Easter eggs you see in the blog, and follow the link at the end to the next blog. Keep going until you get back to the blog where you started, and add up how many eggs you’ve seen along the way.

Email your answer to: UKYA2015egghunt@gmail.com. A winner will be chosen at random from all correct entries, and contacted by email.

This closes at noon (UK time) on Sunday, 5^th April, and is open internationally.

Good luck!

Hello, egg-hunters! My name is Sally Nicholls and I’ve written a bunch of UKYA books, all very different – ‘Ways to Live Forever‘ (about a boy with leukaemia), ‘Season of Secrets‘ (which is more middle-grade really, about a girl who meets a wounded pagan god), ‘All Fall Down‘ (a historical apocalypse novel set in 1349 about the Black Death) and ‘Close Your Pretty Eyes‘, (about a girl who moves to a house haunted by the ghost of Victorian mass-murderess Amelia Dyer).

My new book is ‘An Island of Our Own’, which is out in a fortnight’s time, on April 2nd. It’s about three siblings who are raising themselves after the death of their mother, and who end up on a treasure hunt to find some jewellery left to them in a will. This is the first chapter:

I told my brother Jonathan I was going to write a book about all the things that happened to us last year. About the home-made spaceships, and the lock-pickers, and the thermal lances, and the exploding dishwasher, and the island that was old when the Vikings came, and Auntie Irene’s treasure, and all the things that happened before we found it.

“It’s going to be brilliant!” I told him. “And I’ve already got a title. An Island of Our Own! Isn’t it great?”

“But we don’t have an island of our own,” said Jonathan. “People are going to pick it up and expect it to be Swallows and Amazons for rich people! And then they’ll read it and there’ll be no island and they’ll hate you! They’ll put grenades through your window!”

I told Jonathan that people didn’t put grenades through your window just because of what you called your book. But Jonathan said you shouldn’t underestimate the rage of a fandom.

“Look at Star Wars fans,” he said. “I would totally put a grenade through George Lucas’s window if I thought it would get him to take Jar Jar Binks out of The Phantom Menace.” Which seems a little harsh given how much Jonathan loves Star Wars, but Jonathan said you should never expect logic from a fanatic, which is probably true.

So I said I’d tell people at the beginning of the book that the title wasn’t about a real island, but a metaphorical one (although there is a real island in the story – several in fact), and also not to put grenades through my window, but send cake instead.

“There,” I said. “Satisfied? Can I start now?”

 For my top ten UKYA novels, go here.

For the next blog in the Easter Egg Hunt, go here. And good luck!