Ella James blog tour (Including a giveaway)!!!

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:

http://www.ellajamesbooks.blogspot.com/

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.