The Midnight Dragonfly Series Blog Tour: Guest Post + Giveaway

Welcome to my stop on the Midnight Dragonfly Series blog tour hosted by Bailey from IB Book Blogging. Today, I have a guest post by Ellie James to share with you as well as a super special sekrit scene! Along with the tour, there are two giveaways going on--the one that you'll find here on my stop today as well as a swag giveaway hosted by Ellie James herself; deets more on that later on in the post. For now, help me introduce Ellie James to Books Over Boys!

Title: Midnight Dragonfly Series

Author: Ellie James

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Release date: December 6, 2011

Glimpses. That’s all they are. Shadowy premonitions flickering through sixteen year old psychic Trinity Monsour’s dreams. Some terrify: a girl screaming, a knife lifting, a body in the grass. But others--the dark, tortured eyes and the shattering kiss, the promise of forever--whisper to her soul. They come without warning. They come without detail.

But they always mean the same thing: The clock is ticking, and only Trinity can stop it.

Find out how in Shattered Dreams, Broken Illusions, and Fragile Darkness, available from Griffin Teen!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Welcome Ellie James!

Writing is a strange thing.

No matter how much planning and plotting a writer does upfront (or along the way), stories have a way of taking over. Plots change. Characters evolve. Some prominent mystery writers insist they have no idea who their villain is when they begin writing, just the knowledge that somehow, during the course of the story, everything will fall into place. And as bizarre as that sounds, with time, there’s comfort in that. A writer is merely the conduit. Like a river that finds the best path, so do stories. Characters come to life, and the right rhythm takes over. It’s the best feeling in the world.

With the Midnight Dragonfly series, I started with the protagonist, Trinity, a sixteen-year-old psychic in New Orleans. I knew she had visions. I knew the things she saw always came true. I knew she was haunted by what she saw, that she felt compelled to help, even if this sometimes got her in trouble. And I knew there was going to be a very special guy along the way. That’s where my knowing stopped. Oh, I thought I knew who the guy was, and I thought I knew his story. Their story. But all too quickly the rhythm of the story took over, and the plot flowed in a different direction. A better direction. The right direction. Suddenly I had a new guy on my hands, with a story as rich and fascinating as Trinity’s, and like Trinity, I found myself wondering about him, dreaming, wanting to know what he was thinking feeling.

But even though he told me, he didn’t want Trinity to know, and since the Midnight Dragonfly books are her story, told through her narration, I couldn’t share things Trinity didn’t know.

Until now…

She was starting to remember.

He stood across the small room, keeping as much distance between them as possible. There was more, he knew. More than what she was telling him. Something else had happened in the shadows of her dreams. She’d remembered more than just the fire that killed her parents.

Now she sat cross-legged on the dinky hotel bed, hunched over the journal open against the tacky floral comforter. Her hair hung in a long, dark curtain, concealing her eyes.

 “Some doors shouldn’t be opened,” he pointed out.

Slowly, she looked up. “That’s not what you said before. You said opening them was the only way to see what was inside.”

Four months. Four months had passed since he’d last seen her in the hall of the abandoned morgue. He’d tried to scrub the memory from his mind, but the memory of the knife to her throat, the silent pleading in the way she’d looked at him, haunted him. There was so much he wanted to say, not a word of it she was ready to hear.

Different. That was all he could think. She was not the same girl he’d kissed last fall. Her hair was still long and thick and wavy, her eyes still dark and like almonds. But there was a new confidence to her, a new curiosity.

It was the curiosity that worried him, and the confidence that made it almost impossible to look away.

“The past is different,” he made himself say, even though he knew she wasn’t going to stop. Not now. She’d learned, seen too much. She wasn’t going to stop until she knew everything. “We close doors for a reason.”

Watching him, she slid the hair back from her face, revealing the faint bruise forming at her temple. “What reason?”

“To protec—”

“Don’t.” Eyes flashing, she scrambled from the bed and started toward him—but the movement was too fast, and the lingering effects of the sedative hit her first. She swayed, stopping abruptly to balance herself—

He was across the room in a heartbeat, reaching for her, taking her shoulders in his hands.

Her chin came up. Her hair fell back.  “Don’t say protect.”

Two minutes.  If he’d been two minutes further behind her on the road, she would have been gone. The memory of coming around the corner to see her strewn  death-still on the side of the canal, with her clothes wet and her hair tangled out around her,  burned through him.  So did the memory of the guy with the syringe, and the knowledge of what he’d had in store for her.

“It’s not a bad word,” he muttered with a calm he didn’t come close to feeling.

She looked away, the wobble she tried to hide telling him that the room still spun.

Two minutes sooner, and the guy would never have gotten to her.

“Careful,” he said, supporting her. With his free hand, he eased the hair from the side of her face, wincing again at the bruise.  “Just breathe for me.”

So much glittered in her eyes, a confusion and vulnerability he knew she hated, and something else, something he wouldn’t let himself name. She was trying so hard to put on a brave, tough front, to pretend her world wasn’t blowing up in her face.  But he knew. He could tell.

“What’s happening?” she whispered.

Disconnecting himself from the moment, he helped her back to the bed. “You’re exhausted.”

She swayed again, sitting on the edge of the mattress with her hands braced on either side of her. “Maybe I should see a doctor.”

Closing his eyes, he slid his hands to her wrists and silently took her pulses. “You don’t need a doctor.” He’d seen enough shock to recognize the symptoms, and God knew she’d had more than her fair share in the past eight hours. First the accident, then the portrait.

It wasn’t every day you learned a complete stranger had been painting pictures of you, suspended somewhere between dreaming and dying, for years.

“Is that the Navajo in you talking?”

He stilled.

“Your dad told me,” she said, answering the question he hadn’t asked.

Absorbing that, he lifted his hands back to her face, gently inspecting the ugly swelling at her temple.

“It’s not your body I’m worried about,” he muttered.

This time she was the one who stilled, all except for the rapid flutter of the pulse point beneath his fingertips. It seemed like forever but was probably only a second or two before she lifted her eyes to his, revealing the dilation of her pupils, as if someone had slipped her another sedative.

“You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?” she asked quietly.

He tensed, realizing he needed to be more careful.  “Sh-h-h… ” Gently he skimmed a slow circle against her temple. “Quit fighting.”

Her shoulders rose, fell, the slow, rhythmic motion that of  sleeping pushing closer.

“Or maybe you would,” she murmured.  “It’s not like I really know anything about you.”

He went down on a knee, trying not to see her as she’d been in the portrait, trapped by a wall of watery glass. “What do you want to know?” he asked.

Her eyes, heavier now, lingered on his as the faintest smile played wither her mouth. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“Did you graduate?”

“G.E.D.”

“College?”

“Not right now.”

She blinked once, twice. “What do you mean…not now?”

“I had to drop out.”

“Why?” she pressed.

Gently, he eased her down to the pillow. “Because I had to.”

“That’s not an answer,” she murmured as, despite how hard she fought, she finally started to drift.

“Because someone needed me,” he added, but her eyes were already closed.

#

She was restless.

Sprawled in the cramped little wing chair with his legs stretched in front of him, he listened to her move around the hotel room but did not open his eyes. He kept his breath rhythmic, his ankles crossed. Curled around the gun, he kept his hand slack.

She got out of bed. She walked toward him. She stood there a moment, so close he could feel her. Watching him, he knew, but didn’t let himself move.

Two minutes later, the door opened, closed.

Springing to his feet, he crossed to the curtains he’d closed after tucking her in bed. He parted them enough to see her through the flash of the neon sign, walking along the empty sidewalk toward the front office.

A quick scan revealed the parking lot mostly empty. No lights glowed from the other rooms. Beyond the concrete, massive oaks stood like a shadowy wall, while toward the front, Main Street stood deserted.

At the vending machines she stopped and turned, the flash of the Vacancy sign revealing the phone in her hands, and the regret in her eyes. She stood that way a long moment, staring down at the device.

The memory of her tense call with her boyfriend a few hours before played all over again. 

No wonder she wanted to be alone.

A few minutes later she slid the phone back in her pocket and turned, not toward the hotel room, but the street. And before he even had the door open, he knew where she was going.

Silently, he followed, not to stop her, but to make sure the guy from before didn’t, either.

At the street with all of its sleepy, old-fashioned storefronts, he stood watching, making sure no one else was around. He’d been to Belle Terre a few times before, when he was a kid with his father. He wasn’t sure why his dad didn’t want Trinity there, but he knew her well enough to know if she didn’t get the answers she was seeking, she would only find a way to come back, and next time he might not be with her. He couldn’t force her back into hiding, into the unknowing, anymore than he could stop the sun from rising.

In front of the white chapel that housed the gallery, she turned—and he picked up his pace. He wasn’t sure why, he just didn’t like not being able to see her. He walked faster, faster, until he was running.

But when he reached the gallery, no one was there.

On a hard slam of his heart he lunged up to the huge gothic door and yanked, but nothing happened. Pivoting he vaulted down the steps to the far side—

A shadow slipped into the woods.

Yanking the gun from his waistband, he was halfway to the trees when a hiss from somewhere behind him made him stop. He pivoted—and saw the flames consuming the old white building. And from one breath to the next, he knew.

She was inside.

“Trinity!” On a dead run, he sprinted to the door, kicked it open, and ran inside.

About the author:

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.

Her next book, FRAGILE DARKNESS, is available from Griffin Teen November 27, 2012.

Find Ellie James online: Facebook | Website | Blog | Twitter

The Midnight Dragonfly Series Blog Tour Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway There is a preorder contest going on for Fragile Darkness: Everyone who preorders Fragile Darkness and sends their receipt to Ellie James will get a signed bookplate and temporary tattoo.

Check out more stops on the Midnight Dragonfly Series Blog Tour.