What’s your “Winner’s Curse”? Blog Tour & Contest

I absolutely adore Marie Rutkoski’s The Winner’s Curse and the new sequel The Winner’s Crime. These books are so seductive and entertaining (see our review of The Winner’s Crime, now in stores, here), and I am among those of you eagerly awaiting the third installment (hopefully due out next year).

So today, I am very pleased to be participating in the official blog tour for The Winner’s Crime. After today’s post, be sure to keep reading for your chance to win a copy of the book.

For this blog tour, we were asked to address the following question:

The ‘Winner’s Curse’ is an economics term that means
you’ve gotten what you wanted – but at too high a price.
What would you pay too much for?

I’m a firm believer in the ideology that you get what you pay for, so I’m usually okay paying a little more to get something that’s a better quality product. But I’m also on a budget, so I’m always looking for a good sale, a coupon, or some kind of deal to stretch my dollar. And I’m also wary of over-priced goods … like I said, I don’t mind paying a little more for better quality, but I also don’t believe in paying too much for something if I can get it for less without sacrificing quality.

So what WOULD I pay too much for? Well, to be honest, it’s the intangible idea of longevity and health. Not just for me, but for my loved ones. Allow me to get a little personal with you: I was 11 when my dad was diagnosed with cancer. He’s okay — 20+ years later, he’s still around, and I am eternally grateful for it. But there’s also a good chance he’ll be diagnosed with another form of cancer someday, and the type of cancer he was diagnosed with all those years ago isn’t really gone. The doctors say he probably won’t die from it … but he’ll probably die with it.

So if I could guarantee that my dad wouldn’t get sick again; that he and my mom and my husband and I could stay healthy and live, if not forever, for a good long time, then I’d take that chance. I’d pay too much to make that happen. I am sometimes kept up late at night, paralyzed with an overwhelming fear about what will happen when I have to say goodbye to my parents or my husband. It leaves me a sobbing mess — and I hate it. To not have to face that again? Priceless.

Visit the other stops on The Winner’s Crime blog tour here.

Want to win a copy of The Winner’s Crime? Just comment below & tell us what YOU’D pay too much for, then fill out the Rafflecopter form here.

U.S. only. Contest runs through midnight (PT) on Saturday, March 21st.

Book two of the dazzling Winner’s Trilogy is a fight to the death as Kestrel risks betrayal of country for love.

The engagement of Lady Kestrel to Valoria’s crown prince means one celebration after another. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth about her engagement…if she could only trust him. Yet can she even trust herself? For—unknown to Arin—Kestrel is becoming a skilled practitioner of deceit: an anonymous spy passing information to Herran, and close to uncovering a shocking secret.

As Arin enlists dangerous allies in the struggle to keep his country’s freedom, he can’t fight the suspicion that Kestrel knows more than she shows. In the end, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth. And when that happens, Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them.