Welcome to the Ella James blog tour! I'm honored to have been asked to participate. She is the author of several young adult paranormal books. Here is some info on some of her books (click on the covers to be taken to Amazon):
After a fire destroys seventeen-year-old Julia's home and kills her
foster parents, she chases the half-demon responsible across the country
and back, determined to avenge her family and discover why a host of
celestial baddies want her dead. With Julia is enigmatic hottie Cayne,
who has his own score to settle with the half-demon, and who might be
just as dangerous as the creature he and Julia hunt.It
was named one of the Top 10 Books of 2011, and Cayne was named one of
the Top 10 Best Book Boyfriends of 2011. It is also winner of the
Flamingnet Top Choice Award.
We're going to skip posting the synopsis for this book, so we don't give away any spoilers for the first book in this series, Stained :)
Milo Mitchell's life used to be charmed, but that was before her family
dissolved, she went a little crazy, and her best friends started acting
more like strangers. Spending Saturday morning in a treehouse with a
stun gun for company and a herd of deer for friends is the only exciting
thing in her life...until she shoots a fawn and finds her dart stuck in
a guy.
Her gorgeous victim is dressed in a Brioni tux and armed
with a hanky. He has no idea who or where he is. Afraid her dart caused
his amnesia, Milo takes him in, names him Nick, and vows to help him
solve his mystery. Soon the pair find Nick's face in a newspaper
obituary, and Nick begins to have strange, ethereal memories of
Milo--who is sure she's never met him. Suddenly Nick knows things he
shouldn't know and is doing things he shouldn't do. When the Department
of Defense shows up, Nick and Milo run--toward a shocking conclusion
that could destroy both their worlds.
Margo Ford just became an heiress. Not the Paris Hilton kind. Her
billions came after her father died and her insanely wealthy, insanely
absent mother officially claimed her. Unfortunately, some terrorists
noticed, and they hatched a plot to kidnap her. After a news report goes
awry, reporting that Margo *has* been kidnapped, and her mother offers
the humiliating sum of $500,000 for her return, Margo doesn't want
anything to do with her *#$!@ of an egg donor. Then she is sentenced to a
summer of "protection" on her mother's private island. Not the Oprah
Winfrey kind. This one has an astronomical observatory filled with
scientists, including Logan Greer, a super hot, super infuriating
planet-hunter. Hiding out from kidnappers has never been so boring...
until suddenly it isn't anymore.
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Ella is generously giving away an ecopy of Stained and an ecopy of HERE. To enter, follow Ella's blog here:
Then, come back here and post in the comments letting us know that you are following her blog. That's it! Easy, huh?
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And now, onto the FIRST EVER (unedited) snippet from the 3rd book in the Stained series, Chosen:
CHOSEN, Chapter 1
Cayne had gone insane.
Militant, giving-looks-out-of-the-corner-of-his-crazy-eyes,
enforcing-the-rules-harshly-if-necessary, you-better-obey-me-woman kind of
crazy.
Since they’d landed at Zurich Airport, Julia had been forced
to consume nearly every delicacy known to Switzerland.
Switzerland? Make that Europe.
The latest eat-or-die item was something called tirggel. It
looked kind of like shortbread, tasted less sweet, and according to Carlin, was
‘educational.’
“People ate these in centuries past,” she explained, her
Spanish accent rolling the ‘r.’ “They were made to celebrate Christ’s birth.”
Julia cut her eyes at Carlin, then at Cayne.
Well she couldn’t argue with Jesus. She could, however, bite
the head off her horse-shaped tirggel. So she did. In fact, she finished her
plate, consuming one archer-looking tirggel dude and two more horses before
Cayne looked at Edan, who winked indiscreetly and pushed his café chair back,
stood on his long legs, and sauntered back to the counter, attracting the
attention of every female in the place.
Julia dropped her head into her hand, the other hand moving
to cover her stomach. “No way.”
Cayne shot her a look that started out wide-green-eyes
innocent and quickly turned good-ole-fashioned-Cayne-style shrewd.
His left brow arched, and his face tipped down toward her. “You
haven’t had the Zürcher Geschnetzeltes,”
he murmured, a touch of a Scottish burr in his quite tone. “It’s very good
here.”
“I’ve had the Zürcher
Geschnetzeltes in three other cafés! And how do you know it’s good?”
He arched that
damned hot brow again and leaned his dark head toward the wall of glass behind
him—sparkling windows that looked out over the second-story railing and into a
courtyard where people were…ugh…for some reason…well, skinny-dipping. Julia saw
a woman’s butt as she did a dramatic jump into the fountain, and Cayne gave
another pointed nod at the glass, where there was…a sticker? Okay, some kind of
badge? Well, she saw a number on it. Number One? She didn’t even know. Dang
German. Definitely not something they’d seen fit to teach her in Memphis City
Schools.
“It says this café
has the best Zürcher Geschnetzeltes in this area.” He had the nerve to look
smug, like this knowledge made him somehow superior.
As Edan returned
with a basket full of veal and mushrooms, topped with a dreadfully familiar
creamy sauce, plus two baskets of miscellaneous stuff for himself, and Julia
opened her mouth to tell Cayne I’m NOT
too thin anymore and I’m not gonna get too thin cause my head feels FINE,
the café’s door swished open, a chirpy little bell rang, and in glided Drew and
Meredith, snowflake-speckled and looking like extras from Matlock.
Meredith wore a pale
gray trench coat that reached her ankles, and Drew had on a seal-skin-sleek
black coat that started with a—tsk, tsk!—a turtleneck and ended at the tops of
his shoes, and reminded Julia of a judge’s robe.
For a second, she
allowed herself to appreciate the humor in the situation. Their ridiculous
jackets, bought at some kind of Zurich bargain clothes store, totally ’80s,
totally silly, and the way their super-serious faces complimented their
costumes. Then Meredith’s big, dark eyes met Julia’s, and humor was the last
thing on her mind.
As Mer and Drew
neared, Julia wrapped her own cozy magenta sweater-cloak-thingie around herself
and leaned in to Cayne’s hand, which was suddenly stroking her back—his arm
having gone protectively around her shoulders. She could feel the tension in
his body, despite him sitting in his own chair; she could pretty much see the
wheels turning inside his head. The hand that stroked her so gently could
produce a Nephilim blood dagger in a millisecond, and that dagger could kill.
Which, for once, was
maybe a good thing. Because as Drew pulled out a chair for Mer and she shook
her head, Julia’s stomach flipped.
Meredith put her
hand on Drew’s shoulder, squeezing—and not in a gentle way. She glared down at
him and said, “Guys, I think that we should go. They’re here. For sure.”
Drew glanced up at
her, dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair contrasting sharply with his pearly teeth,
bared through scowling lips. “It’s best to let them pass,” he hissed, low enough
that no one else in the café would hear (unless, of course, they were Chosen,
too).
Meredith dropped
down on her heels, squatting beside him. “There’s a back door, Einstein.”
Carlin leaned
forward, deceptively angelic in a white suede coat, her long, brown curls
trailing down her back, her olive-colored skin pretty and smooth, lighting up
her bright, greenish-brownish eyes. “How many? Where were they?”
“We saw three of
them,” Mer said, “just like we thought. And one of them was definitely Adam.”
The table fell
silent, and Julia looked at all the faces. Cayne’s was hard and harsh; Edan’s
was comically oh-noes (and therefore not really very serious); Carlin’s had
bleached white.
“Adam?” she
whispered.
“Adam,” Mer said. “We
got close enough for me to catch some of their feelings. They were very
‘hunter’-ish,” she said, with air-quotes that caused her sparkly nails to
sparkle so traditionally Meredith-like that Julia’s chest hurt.
And at that, Cayne
stood, tugging Julia with him. He dropped a casual kiss on her forehead and
wrapped his arm more tightly around her, as if they were leaving. He said
something loud and German. The he nodded down at the table. In soft English, he
said, “Meredith is right. The back door connects to a hallway. It has a sign on
the outside that says ‘for staff only’ and requires an ID card for entry. If we
go one or two at a time and blend in with the kitchen staff as we pass the
bathrooms, we can all exit that way. It comes out near a hotel. We can rent
another van and go.”
Julia blinked,
mainly because she wasn’t sure she’d ever heard Cayne say quite so many words.
Edan stood, wiping a
hand back through his lustrous, wavy, shampoo-commercial, caramel-colored hair.
“I won’t be seen,” he said. “I’ll go out the front and meet you at the hotel.”
He said something in German (one of the words sounded like ‘hotel’), and Cayne
hesitated, then nodded.
For an instant,
Carlin, Drew, and Meredith watched him go—and so did Julia. Edan was like that:
magnetic. A weird kind of magnetic: one that accompanied a nervous, nauseated,
dementors-are-in-the-building kind of feeling. But still magnetic. It didn’t
hurt that his long, lean body was…well, it was something for other, single
girls (like Carlin) to gawk at. Julia locked her eyes onto the Zürcher
Geschnetzeltes and let Cayne pull her closer to his chest.
“Julia and I will go
first. We’ll be waiting near the mouth of the hallway. Carlin and Meredith, go
to the women’s room in a minute. Drew, place an order, and when they turn
around to give it to the chef, you come, too.”
Drew’s eyes were
dark. “You’re not the group leader.”
“Neither are you,”
Meredith snapped. “Get going. We’ll come after.”
As Julia and Cayne
turned, moving as one, she saw the staff’s eyes follow them and knew Cayne had
been right. They did need a plan, because an entire table of people flocking to
‘the bathroom’ at one time was bound to attract attention. Cayne must have been
a step ahead of her, because, rather than simply walk toward the restrooms (and
the hallway), he pushed her gently into the wall at the back of the main room,
put his hot mouth on her neck, and ground his body into hers.
As Julia’s pulse
pounded, lightning-fast and heady through her limbs, he clutched her hair and
swept her boneless body through the doorway, moving in the direction of
escape.
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About the author:
Ella
James is the author of Stained and Stolen, books one and two in the
Stained Series; HERE, book one in an unusual sci-fi romance trilogy; and
Before You Go, a one-shot YA romance beach read that tells the first
meeting of Logan and Margo, who will be featured in her upcoming adult
release, Over The Moon. She has a YA paranormal romance release
scheduled for almost every month of 2012, including Chosen (Stained Book
Three) in June and the second HERE book in July. Ella is inviting
readers to
help her write an adult romance shapeshifter novel, which is plotted
via polls and questions on her blog and her Facebook page. Ella lives in
Birmingham, Alabama, with her wonderful husband, opinionated baby, and
mopey dog. You can visit her blog at www.ellajamesbooks.blogspot.com, or
friend her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ellajamesbooks. For a list
of her award-winning YA romances, visit her Amazon page.
