It's Time For A Holiday...

Hey Everyone,

Well, 2013 has been an epic year for me. I've managed to publish The Elements Trilogy, Before and Beyond - the two Betwixt Series novellas, two Indie Inked samplers and put together three omnibus books. I've also written the 1st draft of two books I'm publishing next year - True Colors and I Know Lucy. I've been invited to be a panelist at UtopYA Con next year and I've signed a publishing contract with Evatopia Press.

I'm really proud of what I've achieved and I can't wait for 2014. I have another 6 books planned and I can't WAIT to share them with you!

My brain is now ready for a little break. My family and I are going away for a week to a sunny resort in Thailand then returning for a snuggly two weeks in the Suzhou cold. It'll be my boys first winter Christmas so it'll be a good experience for them.

I'm planning on getting a bunch of reading done. My kindle is packed with goodies that I'm super excited about getting into.

What's on your reading list?

If you want to add a few more - here are some of my favorite reads from 2013 (in no particular order).

Anna Cruise:
Maverick - If I Fall - It Was You - It Was Me - It Was Us - Down by the Water

Ella James: Selling Scarlett - Taming Cross

Taylor Longford:
Defiance - Chaos - (I read the 1st three in this series last year. I have LOVED them all so far!)

JA Huss: Losing Francesca

Alexia Purdy: Ever Wrath

Cambria Hebert: Text

Shelly Crane: Wide Awake - Wide Spaces

Komal Kant: Impossible

Ruben Gretchen: The Happiness Project

Simone Elkeles: Wild Cards

What have you read and enjoyed this year?

Thank you so much for everyone who has read and followed this blog throughout 2013. I have had so much fun highlighting authors and introducing you all to some top quality reading.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and a very Merry Christmas :)
I will be back on January 6th with more author highlights, cover reveals, interviews, discussion posts, giveaways and a ton more fun.

COVER LOVE: September Edition

This week is all about COVERS. Yay! I have a cover reveal for Tara West on Thursday, but today, I want to highlight some of the new covers that have really caught my eye.

The first cover that really caught my eye this month is from Lizzy Ford's upcoming book. The cover for her upcoming release is STUNNING and so powerful. I'm not really into witches and voodoo and stuff, but this cover takes my breath away.

Ella James has redone her Love Inc. Series. The new covers are gorgeous. I really liked the old ones too, but these ones have a very different feel and I think they work brilliantly.

Redoing covers can be an excellent way to ramp up sales or find a new audience. Because of this, I am giving my Elements Trilogy a make over. Keep an eye out for the Cover Reveal - Oct 1st and the One Day Sale to celebrate - Oct 2nd.

COVER LOVE - July Edition plus COVER REVEAL for Taming Cross by Ella James

As many of you know, this is my favourite post of the month. I love book covers, there is something so delicious about them and I have some gorgeous ones to share with you today.

First off - here are two by the talented Eden Crane. I love her stuff and am very excited to be working with her for the first time. She did these two covers for Komal Kant - an author I adore. I can't wait for both these books to come out. So excited!!

Add Echoes of Melody to your reading list.

Add Wrong Side of Town to your reading list.

Next up with have a saucy little cover by Lizzy Ford. I think it's the lips that my eyes get drawn to first. They are very luscious and I'm immediately intrigued by who this woman is.

Add Star Kissed to your reading list.

Another cover that caught my eye and took my breath away this week was Exit Stage Left by Patti Larsen. It is SO gorgeous and I cannot tell you how excited I am that Patti has written a contemporary romance. I can't WAIT to read it!!

Add Exit Stage Left to your reading list.

And finally - the big cover reveal. I love doing cover reveals and I'm very excited to be a part of Ella's one. The sequel to Selling Scarlett does not disappoint. Check out - Taming Cross! 

TAMING CROSS by ELLA JAMES

For twenty-three years, Cross Carlson was a playboy. You know the type. Tall, dark, and wealthy. Blue-eyed. Charming. He seemed to have it all so easy. But Cross was harboring a terrible secret - one that helped ruin the life of an innocent girl and almost ended his own.

Finally out of the hospital, Cross is flailing, scarred in both body and mind and stifled by the weight of the secret he still keeps. The only way to absolution lies in a Mexican convent, and going there could cost him everything.

If there's anyone who knows what it's like to screw up big time, it's Meredith Kinsey. Just a few years ago, Merri was an ordinary girl with a job at her college newspaper and white picket fence kind of dreams. Now she's holed up in a Mexican convent, hiding from a drug lord who thinks he owns her.

What happens when the only way out of hell is with the son of the man who put you there? They say love conquers all, but does it really?

Add Taming Cross to your reading list.

Indie Inked Solstice Sale - Friday's Books of the Day!

HAPPY SOLSTICE EVERYONE! Today is the final day of the sale and your last chance to enter the amazing signed paperback giveaway.

Entry details are on the Rafflecopter form below.

We have an awesome line up for you today.

SET IN STONE by Beth Balmanno

Fifteen year-old Valerie is used to losing things–she lost her dad to his job ages ago and her best friend moved with no warning...and hasn't been heard from since. During a weekend camping trip with her emotionally distant parents, she stumbles upon a hidden, mysterious stone and she finds herself desperate to keep it, to possess it. Two strange and beautiful boys have other plans, however. They follow her home–Leo, warm and seductive, who covets the stone and will stop at nothing to get it; and Noel, dark-haired and wise, who pledges to protect her and keep her safe.

As she delves deeper into the magic of the stone and the Celtic lore that surrounds it, Valerie realizes that she's losing. Again. But this loss might involve more than a magical stone – this time, she just might lose her heart.

PURCHASE ON AMAZON.

FREAK OF NATURE by Julia Crane

Donate Body to Science. Check.
When seventeen-year-old Kaitlyn checked the box, she never suspected she’d have her life–and her body–stolen from her. She awakens one day in a secret laboratory to discover that her body is now half-robot and is forced to hide her own secret: that she still has human emotions and a human mind. If the scientists who made her find out, they’ll erase what remains of who she was.

Kaitlyn finds an unlikely ally in Lucas, a handsome, brilliant scientist who can’t get over the guilt he feels knowing she was once a vibrant, beautiful young woman. He never expected a science project to affect him the way she does. As he tries to help her rediscover her past, he finds himself falling for the brave girl struggling to find her place and acceptance between the human and computer worlds.

PURCHASE ON AMAZON and BARNES and NOBLE.

SELLING SCARLETT by Ella James

Elizabeth DeVille doesn't belong at a party like this—one where the gowns cost more than her Camry and cigars run higher than her grad school utility bills. Dragged out of seclusion by her best friend Suri, Elizabeth is merely playing dress-up, rubbing elbows with a crowd that banished her troubled family years ago.

Hunter West is tired. Tired of parties, tired of pretending, and tired of trying to right a wrong that haunts him every day. Bourbon heir and professional poker player by day, by night Hunter is gambling with his life in a high-stakes game of crime and blackmail.

When Elizabeth stumbles into Hunter's den of vices, she's a light in the darkness, a flame in the void. And, just like everything he touches, Hunter mars her in a record time. To rectify the damage done, Elizabeth needs money she doesn't have, and she's come up with a foolproof way to get it.

Follow Elizabeth—code-named Scarlett—to the lush Nevada brothel where she'll auction her virginity and risk the only thing that's not for sale: her heart. The highest bidder is a familiar face, with wicked hands and the devil's mouth. And a secret so dark that it could cost her life.

PURCHASE ON AMAZON and BARNES and NOBLE.

RECALLED by Cambria Hebert

Love or Death? A simple question really. The choice seems obvious. But. What if you never knew love, what if your life was spent just trying to survive? What if you knew your fate before you were fully grown?

And then you died.

And you were given another chance. A better chance.

This new life depended upon one thing: your job. And so you agreed. You thought it would be simple. You thought it would be cut and dry.

It never is.

And now you are left holding the fate of someone else in the palm of your hand and you have to make the ultimate choice.

Love or Death?

PURCHASE ON AMAZON.

Also: today is the cover reveal for the second book in the Death Escorts Series - Charmed. Check it out!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Highlight: Stained by Ella James

It is my great pleasure to have Ella James visiting YAlicious today. She is an amazing author with a hefty pile of books to her name. Today she is here to tell us about her Stained Series.

Welcome to YAlicious, Ella! 

BOOK ONE IN THE BESTSELLING STAINED SERIES:

Seventeen-year-old Julia is finally living the good life. She's traded a hard cot in a Memphis orphanage for her very own room in a perfect little house, on a perfect little street, with a perfect set of parents who picked her to be their daughter. 

But Julia is hiding a secret - and one fall night, she returns home from a friend's house to find that her secret has found her. Her 'forever home' is ashes. Her parents are dead. And, in the sky above the flames, a winged creature hunts her.

The Nephilim King, Samyaza, has taken everything from Cayne. After struggling in the darkness for years to piece together his shattered life, Cayne is finally ready to confront his past and avenge the loss of everything he loved. He tracks Samyaza to a Memphis warehouse, where he winds up flat on his back, in the healing hands of a beautiful, dark-haired girl he doesn't need to know. 

Unbeknownst to either of them, they are already bound. Cayne's past holds the answers to Julia's future. But what will pose the greatest threat to her? The bounty placed on her head by the leaders of two Celestial realms, or giving her heart to a man who is predestined to break it? 

- STAINED BOOKS TWO AND THREE LISTED IN AMAZON'S TOP 100 YA EBOOKS OF 2012.

-NOMINATED BEST DEBUT NOVEL AT UTOPYA CONVENTION 2012.

-NAMED ONE OF THE TOP 10 YA ROMANCE BOOKS OF 2011.

-WINNER OF THE FLAMINGNET TOP CHOICE AWARD.

-CAYNE NAMED ONE OF THE TOP 10 BEST BOOK BOYFRIENDS OF 2011.

-FEATURED ON NUMEROUS AMAZON BESTSELLER LISTS.

-FIRST IN A COMPLETED SERIES OF FOUR (INCLUDING STOLEN, CHOSEN, AND EXALTED).

Five Things You Didn't Know About The Stained Series: 

1) I wrote Stained during a break from college in 2006, and then I stuck it in a drawer until my sister gave me a Kindle in 2012. I never planned to finish the series until I put it up for sale online and people wanted other books. 

2) The Stained Series enabled both my husband and I to quit our jobs and pursue writing full-time. We've both written other books, but Stained was what opened doors for us in 2012. 

3) Samyaza is a real name from the Bible, but Cayuzul is one I made up because I needed a Nephilim-iszed form of "Cayne". 

4) I visited Killin, Cayne's hometown in Scotland, during my honeymoon in 2011. It wasn't so different from how I thought it would be. 

5) I'm probably going to do a spinoff featuring two of the Stained characters whose journeys weren't wrapped up in the epilogue of the fourth and final Stained Series book. 

Thanks for sharing those, Ella. I love that you were able to visit Killin. That must have been pretty cool.

You can pick up copies of Ella's books on Amazon.

If you'd like to connect with Ella online, you can follow the links below:
Website
Twitter
Facebook