Thursday, January 3, 2013

Guest Post with Author Ellie James

Hello everyone!  Happy New Year!  So far in 2013 I've only posted reviews, but I'm going to break that string by posting a guest post and giveaway, featuring the AWESOME Ellie James!!


~Her Books~

Shattered Dreams
by Ellie James
Series: Midnight Dragonfly #1
Pages: 342
Release Date: December 6, 2011
by St. Martin's Griffin

Sixteen-year-old Trinity Monsour wants nothing more than to live a normal life. But that isn’t as easy as it seems. Trinity is different. She is special. She sees visions, and for those she’s seen, it’s already too late. Trinity arrives on her aunt’s doorstep in New Orleans with virtually no knowledge of her mysterious heritage. She begins settling into life at a new school and even starts making friends. But all too quickly her dreams accelerate; twisted, terrifying visions of a girl locked in a dark room. And when the head cheerleader, Jessica, goes missing, Trinity knows she has no choice but to step forward with what she’s seen. But people believe that Trinity has information about Jessica’s disappearance not because of a dream, but because she is involved. She kind-of dating Jessica’s ex-boyfriend, Chase, and Jessica  pull a nasty prank on Trinity. Revenge seems like the likeliest scenario.Nothing prepares Trinity for the dark odyssey that ensues while searching for Jessica, including the surprising romance she finds with Chase, or the shocking truths she learns, not just about the girl who has gone missing, but the past that has been hidden from her.



Broken Illusions
by Ellie James
Series: Midnight Dragonfly #2
Pages: 352
Release Date: May 8, 2012
by St. Martin's Griffin

It’s Mardi Gras, but for 16 year-old psychic Trinity Monsour this is no time for celebration. Another girl is missing. Haunted by visions she doesn’t understand—of an empty street lined by crumbling old buildings, a terrified voice warning her to be careful, and a body lying motionless in the grass—Trinity embarks upon a dark odyssey she could never have imagined. She'll stop at nothing to better understand her abilities, convinced that doing so is the only way she can make sure the terrifying images she sees never actually happen. But it seems everyone wants to stop her. Her aunt is worried Trinity might discover secrets best left in the past. Her best friend, Victoria, is afraid Trinity is slipping away, her boyfriend, Chase, fears she’s taking too many chances, and the lead detective will barely let her out of his sight. Only one person stands by her side, and in doing so, he slips deeper and deeper into her heart—and her dreams—blurring the lines of reality and illusion. 


Fragile Darkness
by Ellie James
Series: Midnight Dragonfly #3
Pages: 352
Release Date: November 27, 2012
by St. Martin's Griffin

Goodreads / Purchase
Mystery, suspense, romance and a touch of the paranormal, makes Fragile Darkness a strong, unique entry into the YA market!   How do you stop someone you can’t see? For as long as she can remember, sixteen-year-old psychic Trinity Monsour has seen things before they happen. But now, in the wake of tragedy, her visions have gone dark. She can still feel, though, and the danger she senses swirling around a new friend sends her into the New Orleans party scene, where nothing is as it seems, surprises wait at every turn, and the last guy she wants to see is the one she needs the most: the mercurial Dylan Fourcade, part stranger, part friend, part so much more.But whether she wants him there or not, he’s by her side, shadowing her every step of the way, until the darkness clears, and a shocking truth emerges—a truth that changes everything. 



~Guest Post~


When The Perfect Guy…Isn’t  We’ve all been there. You meet a guy, or maybe you just see him across the classroom or at a party. And he seems so perfect. He’s that guy, the one everyone wants. Good looking. Quarterback of the football team. Popular. Charismatic. The kind of smile that makes you feel like you’re the only one in the room. He’s perfect.  You fall for him hard and fast, and miracle of miracles, he notices you. You get together. You go out. You become a thing, and suddenly it’s like you’re living your own amazing story. Everything is…perfect.
 It’s a story as old as time. Girl meets boy, boy meets girl, everything is perfect. The End. But in reality, that’s just the beginning, right? So what happens next? What happens after you and the perfect guy hook up? It’s your dream, your fantasy. It’s what you wanted—he’s what you wanted. And yet… Ah. The and yet. That’s where things get complicated. Everything’s perfect. You keep telling yourself that. He’s that guy, the one everyone wants, and he’s yours. You’re so lucky. And yet, sometimes you catch yourself not feeling the way you want to feel. Maybe it’s a jealous streak that sometimes feels controlling, or the way he checks up on you that feels like he doesn’t trust you. Or maybe it’s those little half-truths you discover, the times when he tells you he’s going straight home after dropping you off, but instead stops by a friend’s house—or party. You tell yourself that’s all part of it, that everything is perfect, remember?
 Or maybe none of that happens. Maybe everything really is perfect. He’s awesome and nice and treats you like a princess. But then it happens. You’re at a party or maybe at work or a hundred other places, and you meet someone. It’s casual, unplanned. But the second your eyes meet his, this place inside you comes surging to life. It’s overwhelming. Everything inside you in humming and buzzing, and you feel alive, alive in ways you never have before. But you think it’s wrong. You’re with someone else… Wow. Yeah. Has this ever happened to you? It’s happened to me, and it’s one of my pet peeves about fiction. In fiction, the first guy is almost always the right guy. In real life, not so much. In real life there are usually lots of guys, some pretty darn nice, others not so much, before the right guy comes along. And that guy who seems so perfect? The one who looks the part and acts the part, the one everyone wants…that doesn’t make him perfect for you. Perfect for you is the guy that makes you sing inside, the one that, when you so much as see him, little ripples go through you. Ah, but what to do? What to do if you’re with one guy, a perfectly nice guy, when the right guy comes along? Are you a bad person for feeling what you feel? Is it wrong?
 Those are all questions I played with in the Midnight Dragonfly series. With all the drama and uncertainty swirling around teenage psychic Trinity, I set out to give her a guy who would be her safe place. Chase. I wanted to explore the emotional whirlpool of having the one person who should doubt you the most be the one person to stand by your side. And so that’s what I wrote for the first 200 pages or so of SHATTERED DREAMS. A nice guy. A guy who stood by her. A guy who trusted her, believed in her. In fact, Chase was so nice some readers were suspicious of him, while others lamented that he was boring and wimpy. Then Dylan came along and everything changed­—for Trinity, and for me.  Chase had the resume of perfection, but it was Dylan who brought Trinity to life. Dylan who made that place inside her sing. And suddenly I had a problem. Chase was slotted to be the guy. Dylan was not. But clearly Dylan was the one.
 What to do…what to do? At first I considered going back and rewriting the first 300 pages giving Dylan a bigger role and minimizing Chase, but then I realized life didn’t play like that. We move forward not backward, and sometimes, frankly, we’re just plain wrong.
 So I plowed along, letting my dilemma play out on the page. Letting Trinity struggle. Letting her try to be loyal to the first guy, the one who had been so good to her even if sometimes he was a little jealous and overbearing. Making her try to resist the draw she felt to a guy she viewed as wrong, wrong, wrong, but who kept slipping into her dreams anyway. And as this played out in the stories, some readers got pretty vocal about her being with the wrong guy. It was so obvious to them—just as it’s obvious to our friends when we’re with the wrong guy. J  Suddenly Trinity’s struggle with the illusion of perfection versus the reality of it turned into a major plot point, and I loved it. I loved it because it was real. It was human. And, honestly, I loved that she discovered that sometimes the perfect guy…isn’t. It’s not about how popular or good looking he is, if everyone else wants him. It’s about something more, something deeper. It’s about that place inside of you, the place that sings, the place that knows. Like so many other things in life, we just have to be dialed into the clues we’re getting.  Sometimes we want so badly for something to be perfect that we’re blinded to what really is.
 Sometimes the right guy comes along at the wrong time, in the wrong clothes, with the absolute wrong resume…but stirs all the right feelings. It’s happened to me—what about you?


~Get to know Ellie James~


Bio:

Most people who know Ellie think she’s your nice, average wife and mom of two little kids. They see someone who does all that normal stuff, like grocery shopping, going to soccer games, and somehow always forgetting to get the house cleaned and laundry done.  What they don't know is that more often than not, this LSU J-School alum is somewhere far, far away, deeply embroiled in solving a riddle or puzzle or crime, testing the limits of possibility, exploring the unexplained, and holding her breath while two people fall in love.  Regardless of which world Ellie’s in, she loves rain and wind and thunder and lightning; the first warm kiss of spring and the first cool whisper of fall; family, friends, and animals; dreams and happy endings; Lost and Fringe; Arcade Fire and Dave Matthews, and last but not least…warm gooey chocolate chip cookies.


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Ellie Jame would also like me to mention that she has a giveaway going on right now on Goodreads where you can win a Broken Illusions.  To enter click >>>>>here<<<<<!!!

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