Guest Post w/ Author Joe Gazzam | WHAT SCARES YOU? Win a signed copy of Uncaged!

Hi everyone! Today I am here to bring you a fun guest post from author Joe Gazzam. His debut YA novel UNCAGED was released on 10/22/13 and is thrilling readers everywhere. Joe will be sharing with my readers a guest post about what SCARES him. He has also agreed to give away 2 signed copies of his novel, Uncaged. Crazy awesome, right? 

About...

Uncaged by Joe Gazzam

Paperback, 266 pages

Published October 11th 2013 by Zova Books

Genre: YA Thriller 

Jason seems destined to screw things up. After capping off a burglary and a bar fight with a car wreck, he quickly finds himself on the wrong side of the law. And since his father's the governor, that means his punishment is about as public as it gets. Jason's thrown into the first Scared Straight program Florida has ever run in their updated, state-of-the-art Blackenbush Penitentiary. Along with a documentary crew led by Sasha, a young woman in way over her head, and a handful of other kids a year and a strike away from jail, Jason comes face to face with his inevitable future on the other side of a heavily guarded prison wall.

But that's just the beginning. The tour has barely begun when one of the inmates makes a move. Before long the entire penitentiary is under siege, surrounded by the feds and overrun with prisoners let loose from their cells. Jason slips away with Sasha in the chaos, but they won't be able to escape without help. And the only thing worse than being stuck in prison, is being stuck in a prison run by the inmates.

Purchase @ Amazon | B&N | Indiebound | The Book Depository

        With my new, scratch that, with my debut novel “Uncaged” coming out October 22nd, the folks at Bittersweet Enchantment asked me to write a few paragraphs about scary books or movies I like.  The good news here is -- they are one in the same – “The Shining.”

      In maybe his worst moment as a parent, my father let me watch this movie when I was eight years old and it completely blew my mind.  And not in a particularly constructive way.  For a solid year I was afraid to walk down hallways. And hotels?  Forget about it. You’d have to knock me unconscious to get me to step foot in one of those.

     But I think the reason it affected me so much is the same reason it’s such a great movie.  Because the characters were so rich and the subject matter so psychologically deep and disturbing, that it was almost impossible to shake off.  And the book, which I read a few years later, had the same effect. 

      Stephen King often talks about how his job is to create characters that we care about and then put them in harms way.  Which is what I attempted to do with “Uncaged.”  You see, there was another movie that blew my mind, although this one was a documentary.  It was called “Scared Straight.”  I also saw this one when I was about eight (it was a rough year).  It’s a documentary about the Scared Straight program in which they take repeat juvenile offenders and put the in a maximum-security prison for a day.  At some point they line them all up in chairs and let about twenty of the worst, most horrifying convicts in the room.  These are giant, mean looking guys, some of them missing an eyeballs.  And these convicts would just scream at these kids.  “If you were in here, I would to this to you and do that to you.”  Between that and the Shining, I’m surprised ever left the house again.

      But it did provide me with the subject for my book “Uncaged.”  Because in the documentary, there was always this imaginary line between the criminals and the kids.  You always kinda knew they weren’t really going to get violent with them.  Which led me to wonder, what would it be like if that imaginary line was removed?

     To me, that was the scariest thing in the world.

About The Author: Joe Gazzam

Find Joe @

Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads / Website

Screenwriter/Novelist Joe Gazzam was born in Baltimore, MD, grew up in Fort Lauderdale, FL and graduated from the University of Florida.  Soon after college he moved to Los Angeles with one script under his arm, never having been to California in his life.  

Since then, due to good luck and the support of friends and family, he’s been a working screenwriter for 8 years.  Joe has worked on such films as: 21 Jump Street, Barbarella, Step Up: Revolution, Disney’s Hawaiian Adventure, It Takes a Thief, Anubis Tapestry, and many more.

He is repped by Harley Copen of ICM and managed by Ava Jamshidi of Industry Entertainment.  His debut novel, UNCAGED, will be released on Oct. 22, 2013! 

He currently lives in Southern California with his wife and son.

To be entered to win the giveaway below please use the rafflecopter form. 

Thank you Joe for hosting this giveaway on my blog win TWO signed copies of Uncaged. 

Open to US and Canada ONLY.

a Rafflecopter giveaway