How to Marry an Alien Blog Tour (Excerpt)

Hey everyone!
Today I'd like to share with you a few things about the third installment in Magan Vernon's YA Sc-Fi series, including a swoon-worthy excerpt. :)

Title: How to Marry an Alien

Series: My Alien Romance, #3

Author: Magan Vernon

Release date: November 18th 2012

Publisher: Calta Press

Alex’s interstellar relationship has finally been sealed in the eyes of the human world, so now she can move on to her next step: college. 

With Ace by her side and a new piece of jewelry on her finger, she thinks she is ready for anything. Well, almost anything.

Her new roommate holds a dangerous link to her past that Alex isn't sure if she can handle. Then there is the whole alien fiancé thing. Every time she tries to get closer to Ace, he seems to pull further away. Top that off with a full summer class load and a few more alien attacks and it’s just another day for Alex. 

Except this time she isn’t sure if marrying an alien will be the happy ending she’s hoping for.

**While the first two alien books were mildly tame, this book is a little different. I'm not saying it's Fifty Shades or anything, but Alex is eighteen, she's going off to college and she's been with her alien boyfriend for a year; there is guranteed to be some heat. I'm recommending this for upper YA/New Adult readers.**

EXCERPT

Obviously the Circe doctors did a fine job healing him. He didn't look like he ever had a scratch on him with his smooth, porcelain skin and his hair in his usual spikes. I wanted to pull him close to me and just inhale his clean scent. But the giant camera facing us from the corner of the elevator made me think otherwise.

"Can I not just be excited to finally be able to see my princess?" His warm hands found mine, intertwining our fingers as he pulled them up to brush his lips against my knuckles.

"You are a smooth talker, sir."

"Likewise." He put our intertwined hands down and a smile crept along his statuesque face. Every time he smiled, it made his dark eyes light up and brought me back to the first moment I met him the moment he saved my life. If I wasn't already excited to see him, the smile was all I needed to get him off the elevator and lead him to my bedroom.

"It's smaller than the rooms at Circe, and you are to share it with someone else, but it's..." Ace paused, walking from one end of the room to the other in only a few long strides. "Nice."

"Well I'm sure you will be able to make yourself at home." I slid past him and sat down on the bed, patting the spot next to me.

Ace sat down and then laid down, spreading his long body across my bed. "Yeah, I can deal with this."

Seeing him stretched across the bed, his hands behind his head and every muscle rippling through his arm, made me want him so bad. My V card was still very much intact, but after all of my run-ins with death and after seeing Ace so close to it, the fear of losing him forever made me want to give up that card in a bad way.

I laid down next to him, placing my head on his chest and trailing my fingers up and down his chiseled stomach.

"Princess, if you keep touching me like that I'm not going to be able to stay still for long."

I lifted my head, meeting his dark eyes with my own. There was nothing more that I wanted to do than to get lost in them. His hand crept up to the side of my face before he pulled me down until his mouth was on mine. The sliding of his tongue between my lips was the go ahead I needed to move from my spot next to him and climb onto his beautiful body. His hands were on fire, sending the spark all the way through my back while his fingertips scaled my bare arms. My body pressed against his cold shell made me want to cry out with a mixture of fire and ice against my skin.

While his hands were against my shoulders, my fingers made their way to the buttons on his shirt. He'd become accustomed to wearing plaid, pearl snap shirts over his temperature control suit when we were in public. Normally I thought the shirts looked silly, but with the easy access they provided me, I suddenly liked them more.

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to find out more about the books.

You can find links to the other tour stops here. Order How to Marry an Alien on:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Thanks so much for stopping by, people, and thank you to 

The Cadet of Tildor Blog Tour Excertp and Giveaway

Hello lovelies,

Today I am very excited to share with you an excerpt from The Cadet of Tildor by Alex Lidell. I've been reading a lot of (good) fantasy lately and I'm really looking forward to this book. Here's some basic info:

Title: The Cadet of Tildor
Release date: January 10th 2013
Publisher: Dial
Genre: Fantasy
Age group: Young Adult
Buy: Amazon

Tamora Pierce meets George R. R. Martin in this smart, political, medieval fantasy-thriller.

There is a new king on the throne of Tildor. Currents of political unrest sweep the country as two warring crime families seek power, angling to exploit the young Crown's inexperience. At the Academy of Tildor, the training ground for elite soldiers, Cadet Renee de Winter struggles to keep up with her male peers. But when her mentor, a notorious commander recalled from active duty to teach at the Academy, is kidnapped to fight in illegal gladiator games, Renee and her best friend Alec find themselves thrust into a world rife with crime, sorting through a maze of political intrigue, and struggling to resolve what they want, what is legal, and what is right.


EXCERPT #5

He cocked his head, regarding her for several seconds. “No.” The word was mild. He switched the sword back into his left hand. “Fight.”

Fine. She skipped the salute and went for his throat.

The throat moved. And continued moving. The harder she swung, the more Savoy slid, his very lack of force mocking her efforts. An urge to hurt him suddenly gripped her, and Renee threw her whole weight behind the blows, aiming for his ribs, his thighs, his hurt shoulder. If a blow connected, just one, just once, he’d feel her worth, her potential, he’d know she belonged here.

About the author:

Alex Lidell is a YA fantasy writer and author of ABNA Finalist THE CADET OF TILDOR (Penguin, 2013). 

Although English is Alex’s primary language, it wasn’t her first. Coming from Russia, Alex learned english in elementary school and fell in love with reading when the school librarian put Tamora Pierce’s ALANNA into her hands. Years later, in college, it was another book that re-united Alex with russian, which she had shunned in adolescence. The Three Musketeers.* Alex thanks both books, and the writers who created them. 

Beyond writing, Alex is also a photographer, a horseback rider, and a paramedic. The latter two go hand in hand more often than one would like. She is trying to self-teach herself and her horse to sword-fight. Alex would love to see THE CADET OF TILDOR in the classroom and is working on developing teacher guides for the novel. She enjoys “e-meeting” both students and educators.

Follow Alex on Twitter, Facebook, GoodReads, Shelfari or Library Thing

Please visit the tour site for information about the other tour stops.

You can enter to win one of the two following prizes:
$20 Amazon Gift Card, PLUS a copy of THE CADET OF TILDOR with swag – US
$20 Book Depository Gift Card – International

(The giveaway os offered and organized by the author and not The Nocturnal Library.)

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As always, a warm thank you to AToMR Tours for organizing this blog tour.

Divinity Blog Tour: Guest Post by Patricia Leever + Giveaway

Hello, nocturnal readers!

I am extremely excited about today's guest post! The lovely Patricia Leever, author of Divinity, stopped by to share a few words about creating a love interest for her main character, Evie. Now, I already know I am going to love Daniel, so you girls are going to have to fight me for him. But before I get carried away, here's what Patricia had to say:

Greetings my nocturnal little love monkeys and a big thank you to Maja over here at the Nocturnal Library for having me!

Now, you might be wondering, as a romance writer, how does one come up with a love interest in a story such as Divinity. Well, to be perfectly honest, the process is different for everyone, not only with each writer, but each story I think. At least for me.

For Divinity, Evie was “born” first, meaning that she clawed her way out of my wee little melon first and foremost, this badass 135 year old demon hunter that had lived through several lifetimes. As she “spoke” to me, fleshing out, I saw that she seemed to be searching for something other than just the next demon, something more. That’s when Daniel started to take form. Mind you, my characterization process makes me sound like a complete lunatic, but I don’t know any other way to describe it.

Daniel started as just a thought, a shadow almost. The more I got to know Evie, the clearer he became; the yin to her yang, if you will. Without a doubt, Evie is harsh I mean she’s pretty much had to be to survive, at least in her mind. But Daniel helps her find her softer “girlie” side which was what she has needed.

So, I guess the short answer as to how you make a love interest in a story is, it basically makes itself. Well, at least for me and my characters.

Again, a super big thank you to Maja over here at the Nocturnal Library for having me, as much as I sound like a psychopath when I look into my writing process, I do so enjoy sharing it!

Until next time,

Patty <3

Thanks, Patty! 

We respect tradition here at The Nocturnal Library, and guest posts are always followed by giveaways. One lucky winner will receive an e-copy of Divinity. Entering is very easy, all you have to do is follow this blog, although spreading the word gets you additional brownie points. If you're a US resident, make sure to stop by my friend Heidi's blog, Rainy Day Ramblings, and enter to win a paperback copy. All the other tour stops have giveaways as well. 

Good luck!

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Miss World Tour Stop

I was ten years old when Kurt Cobain died. I remember the moment I found out so vividly: my best friend (a boy) and I were walking back from school and he just sort of mentioned it in passing, like it was not a big deal at all. Having lost someone extremely important to me at a very young age, I had a pretty unique concept of death and I was far beyond the point of taking anyone’s tragedy lightly, let alone someone who’d already been so present in my life. (To make things just a little bit clearer, I should mention that I grew up with two significantly older siblings, both musicians, and that I was a somewhat unusual child to begin with.) At that moment I felt that ache in my chest for the first time, the ache that will become as familiar as breathing and in many ways comforting in years to come.

As I entered my teen years, both my siblings moved to a new town, and I was suddenly an only child in new, frightening surroundings, with no one to stand up for me. I went from being the youngest, cherished and protected to being all on my own in the matter of days. But through it all there was this beautiful, blue-eyed guy, who seemed to be intimately familiar with every form of grief in this world, including my own. As his hoarse, mesmerizing voice sang about pain and anger, my own pain quieted down to listen. There was just something magnetic about this man who tried so hard to be happy, but simply didn’t know how. I think every miserable person on the face of the Earth could somehow identify with him, if only they tried.

Kurt’s suicide note, read by Courtney Love.

So you see, I didn’t even have to read the entire description of Miss World to know that it’s something I desperately want to read.

I started reading Randi Black’s debut as someone who still remembers what being a misunderstood teen feels like, but somewhere along the line I began reading it as a mother instead. Let me tell you, this book is every mother’s nightmare. It is a horrifying example of failure as a parent and as a human being. A 16-year-old girl who’s been told again and again that she’s ugly, clumsy and worthless by her very own parents doesn’t really stand a chance – she is bound to get caught up in self-destructive behavior, just as our heroine, Kim Ho, did.

How often do we use the words raw and uncompromising to describe a novel? I, for one, will think twice before using them again. Randi Black took raw realism to a whole new level. She didn’t hold anything back. Even though her prose seemed disconnected at times and despite several flaws I noticed on a purely technical level, her book needs to be out there and it needs to be read. Although Miss World tells the story of two young adults (and quite a few messed up adults), it is in no way a young adult book. If you have problems with swearing, extremely graphic sex scenes and abuse, maybe you should skip this debut. It’s not easy to stomach at all, but I dare say it’s worth it.

Just one more quick and shallow observation: I loved the little bombs that marked breaks in the chapters. They seemed somehow appropriate since this is a book that really blows up in your face.

Alright, darlings, you can now enter not one, but TWO giveaways: the first to win a signed copy of Miss World (woohoo) and the second to win an iPod Shuffle. All giveaways are international! Make sure to visit the other tour stops for more chances to enter the second giveaway. Go HERE to check out the tour schedule.

A big thank you to the lovely ladies at Paranormal Wastelands, but most of all, thank you to the amazing Randi Black for having the guts to write something that most people won't have the guts to read.