Ella James Stopped by on Her Blog Tour!

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 Q & A For you!

1.What made you want to write?

Honestly it was the only thing I was ever good at, at least in school. I noticed as a young child that language just made sense to me... reading and writing were easy, and I never struggled with them even for a second. But I can hardly do math - that is not an exaggeration; I can barely work a monthly budget! - and I have the organizational skills of a snail. Which really may not be fair to the snail. So I was kind of a lousy student. My dad was (is) big on reading and always encouraged me in that way. Combine that with most of my teachers thinking I was a poor student not capable of much...and then being shocked when I turned in a paper - I guess it made me feel good at writing and also eager to prove my teachers wrong, in terms of being successful. Also...writing is just awesome and so freeing.

2.If you could be a fictional character for a day, who would you be?

Okay... this is going to sound kind of strange, but I have always been firmly convinced that I was born at the wrong time, and despite knowing that my life expectancy would be like, 29 and I would probably die of blood poisoning from an abscessed tooth... I want to go back in time and just plant myself in this little cabin by a creek or something and make my own soap and dye my own clothing and wear firs without feeling like a murder and... yeah, we can all see now that I am hopelessly delusional. BUT! The point of this is, I'd like to be Claire Randall from Outlander. Also, she's a doctor, and I'm still flirting with the idea of going back to medical school one day.

3.Which book that you wrote is your favorite?

Probably Over The Moon, an adult romance which should be released in late May. I worked on it on and off for a few years and I guess I formed an attachment to it.
4.Any plans for a new book once the sequels are done?
My next non-sequel will either be the shifter book, the U-PLOT-IT project being plotted on my blog and my Facebook page... or this YA sci-fi romance called Azalea & The Makers of Zen, which came to me in a dream and has been plotted and staring at me from its musty drawer intimidatingly since 2006.

5.Are there any books that you have read that you really admire by other authors? If so which ones?

I enjoy a lot of other authors... As for the ones I really admire, they tend to be authors who have either done something I'd like to do and done it very well, or have done something I think I couldn't do. For example, the author of Outlander is a writer I admire because I know I would never have the patience to do as much research as she did. I'm lazy and prefer to make things up. On the other hand, the author of Under The Never Sky or Anne Eliot, who wrote Almost, have both recently written books like some of the things I want to write (and haven't yet) and done a very solid job. There's another category for writers who just plain scare my pants off and make me feel like I should be submitting medical school applications or, heck, serving fruit at my local farmer's market, because they are so brilliant I feel like I could never measure up. My usual strategy for dealing with them is to study their work until I feel like I can tell what strategies they use and then try to incorporate them into my own work.

Q & A for Cayne and Julia

Julia and Cayne
1.What have you been up to lately?Julia: "Um... I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a secret, but..."  She looks at Cayne, who is sitting in a high-backed leather chair in the great room at what appears to be a swanky ski resort. "Cayne, what do you think?"
Cayne shrugs.
"We're at this awesome resort in the Swiss Alps. And we're trying to find the other Chosen. You know, the ones that are...I dunno... rouges or whatever. We're trying to-" She looks pointedly at Cayne as if to ask for assistance, which he doesn't offer. Then she casts a reticent look toward le Squirrel. "Trying to find out some more stuff about me."
Cayne makes a lips-zipped motion, and Julia looks down at her lap. "Sorry, but I think that's all I can say. Security, ya know?"

Cayne
2.If you were plan a romantic date for Julia..what would that entail?

Cayne smiles a Cheshire cat smile. "If I tell you now, Julia wouldn't be surprised."  He raises his brows at her, then gives le Squirrel a serious stare. "And I am NOT letting her out of my sight."
He taps his fingertips together, as if thinking. "Let's just say this: If I ever get a chance to do anything like that, you'll be the first to know."

Julia
3.If you could spend a day not having to worry about anything at all what would you do?

She glances at Cayne, then puts her fingers to her mouth. "Hmmm..." She smiles at Cayne. "That's a good one."
"I want to hear this," he says.
Julia looks bashful. "It's not a secret or anything. We just never have time."
Cayne snorts. "We're at a five-star resort."
"And you won't let me relax!" She wags a finger at him, then turns back to le Squirrel and folds her hands in her lap. "I think I would go flying with Cayne... and maybe he would take me to one of the lochs in Scotland. I know it's kinda lame, but I like that sort of stuff. In Memphis I was always around the river and...I kind of miss it now."

Cayne and Julla
4.What is the one thing that makes the other special to you?Cayne gives Julia a funny smirk, and she looks shyly at her hands. When it's clear Cayne is not going to answer first, Julia says, "Well..." She glances over at him; Cayne is staring out at her impassively, but the corner of his mouth tucks up when she smiles. "There's more than one thing. But if I had to pick just one... It's hard. But I think I would say-" she laughs- "can it be two? Like, a combo of me being able to trust him to do what he says he will... and - this is cheesy, but - he can actually be really sweet - and I like that, too. Now, Cayne-" she waves his way- "it's your turn to be embarrassed."

Cayne looks Julia right in the eye and says, "I like everything about her."
"Wow." She grins.
Cayne and Julia
5.Any Pet peeves?

Julia snorts. "Don't even get him started. He'd say 'everything' again." She smiles in a frustrated-but-charmed kind of way. "But me...? I don't like it  when people leave the peeling from an orange in like...a little pile. It's gross, even though it smells really good. And I don't like it when people don't do what they say."
When Julia finishes talking, Cayne glances around, like who, me? And when it's obvious that it's his turn to answer and le Squirrel isn't going away, he says, "Everything."

An Excerpt From Chosen..We are VERY honored that Ella has given us an Excerpt
(Disclaimer: This has not been given to her editor so First draft material people!)

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, drawing the eyes 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 quiet 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, he clutched her hair and swept her boneless body through the doorway, moving in the direction of escape.      

I would like to Thank Ella James,Cayne and Julia for letting me pick your brains.It has been an honor.You all have an open invitation back anytime!Please Don't Forget to Check out Ella's other amazing books that are on amazon!