Kindle Giveaway!

A few Intrigue authors got together and are running a contest. We all write for Intrigue and write other books that are available digitally. In an effort to introduce you to our digital books, we’re giving you an opportunity to try them or to just try ebooks, in general, by winning a Kindle. The rules are simple. You sign up and are entered to win your choice of a Kindle or $100 worth of ebooks. The contest runs through July 31st. So hurry and sign up!Check out the contest here.

An Excerpt for HAUNTED

 

HAUNTED 

by ELLE JAMES

An accident leaves Cecilia Lovelace's body in a coma while her spirit is free to roam. The only person who can see and hear her is her first love. Zachary Alston can't believe that Cecilia is a ghost and that she has a message from his dead son. Together, they learn the accident was an attempt to kill Zachary. While solving the mystery, they fall victim to love.

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Excerpt:

White walls, the sharp smell of antiseptic and the muted squeak of nurses’ rubber-soled shoes bombarded her consciousness. Cecilia recognized the place as Brackenridge Crash Unit from the many visits she’d made. First to her mother’s deathbed and then to cover human-interest stories for her father’s newspaper.

She shook her head to clear the lingering haze. Had she come to cover a story? Was someone she knew in the hospital? Was she dreaming? If not, the gaping holes in her memory worried her. She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten here or why she’d come.

Just inside the inner sanctum of the bustling emergency room, Cecilia stood with her back to the entrance. The swoosh of swinging doors close by startled her. Before she could jump out of the way, a tingling sensation, similar to a minor electrical shock, sizzled through her body. Two paramedics appeared in front of her pushing a gurney with a small figure buried in I.V. tubes and breathing equipment.

Cecilia swung around. The emergency personnel couldn’t have made it through the doorway at their current speed without knocking her on her face and rolling over her with the heavy-duty gurney wheels. She’d been standing in the way. How’d they get by her? Compelled by an unknown force, she turned to follow. Something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what that something was. She wished the fog around her brain would clear.

The paramedics, gurney and all, disappeared into a room at the end of the hallway.

When the door closed behind them, Cecilia hesitated in the busy corridor. Why was she following those guys? Shouldn’t she ask a nurse for help? She moved toward the nurses’ station.

Just then, a doctor stepped in front of her, his face not four inches from the end of her nose. He glanced down at a clipboard and up into her eyes, staring as if he looked right through her.

What’s wrong with everybody? Why are you acting like I’m invisible? She reached out to shake his arm.

“Any change in Cecilia Lovelace?” the doctor asked.

Cecilia’s hand paused midair. Was he asking her about herself? She stared at his severe expression and then looked around the wide corridor.

“No, none at all.” A nurse stood to one side of Cecilia, balancing a folder in one hand. She scribbled on a page, closed the folder and handed it to the doctor, trading for the clipboard he’d been reviewing. “Her vital signs have stabilized but she’s still unconscious.”

What do you mean? Blood pounding in her ears, Cecilia looked from the nurse to the doctor. I’m not unconscious. I’m standing right beside you.

The doctor studied the chart. “Has anyone notified her father?”

Heellloooo. Yoohoo. Cecilia waved a hand in the doctor’s face.

He didn’t flinch as he read the notes on the page.

No need to call Daddy. I’m fine. See? She held out her arms and stared down at herself then back to the doctor and nurse.

Still, no response from the man standing so close she could spit in his eye.

A gentle tug on the hem of her short black dress stopped Cecilia’s next words.

“They can’t hear you,” a child’s voice said from behind her.

Cecilia spun to face a small boy with reddish-brown hair and deep brown eyes. “What do you mean, they can’t hear me? Why are they ignoring me?”

“They can’t hear you,” he repeated.

“Why?”

“Because you aren’t really here.” A gentle smile lifted his lips.

Gray shadows gathered around the edges of her vision. She recalled the paramedics rushing through the emergency room doors across the very space where she’d stood without knocking her down. Her heart hammered in her chest.

“Has the kid’s father shown up yet?”

The doctor’s words pulled Cecilia back to the present.

He capped his pen, stuffed it into his pocket and stepped right through her.

Cecilia reeled, expecting to be knocked to her backside. Instead, a warm tingling accompanied the man’s pass through. When he’d moved on to the nurses’ station, Cecilia stood cold and empty.

A soft hum grew, building into a deafening roar that filled her ears. The hall spun out of control. The doctor and several nurses rushed past her to a room several doors away.

Cecilia fell, sucked into a gaping vortex, the kind she’d seen in science-fiction films, where pitch black interspersed with brilliant flashes of color. Her world tipped and whirled, dragging her into darkness.

She clawed at the air to still the momentum drawing her away from the bright lights of the hospital corridor.

When the roar subsided, the world settled into the blurry focus of the not-so-distant past.

“I remember,” Cecilia said.

She’d been sitting behind the wheel of her sporty white BMW, traveling the side roads to the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

“The streets were slick.” A gentle mist had blanketed the sky, muting the late afternoon sunlight pushing Austin into an early dusk. Limited visibility and the slippery film on the pavement only added to Cecilia’s nervousness. She’d been tapping her fingers on the steering wheel in rhythm to Lady Antebellum’s latest hit, hoping the upbeat music would calm her.

She was headed to the airport to talk to the owners of Air Trans Solutions. Normally, she wasn’t panicky about meeting business owners to get background on a story, but this time was different.

“I was going to see Zachary,” she whispered. Her gut clenched with the mere mention of his name.

Zachary Alston was one of the owners. She hadn’t seen him in so long; would he remember her as clearly as she remembered him?

“I was so afraid he’d still hate me.” When he’d proposed marriage in their junior year at college, she’d turned him down and run home to hide, not from him, but from herself.

“All my life, I’d dreamed of traveling the world and writing powerful stories.” She paused and gazed down at the boy. “I didn’t want to fall in love. Not then. But I did.” She shook her head, her lips curving upward in a sad smile. “And I threw it all away.”

She’d been afraid of her lingering feelings for Zachary and even more afraid he’d be indifferent to her. After all the years, she didn’t think she could bear it if he only remembered her as some insignificant fling he’d enjoyed in college.

Cecilia had never forgiven herself for choosing to leave him to pursue her career. A career she’d never achieved. “I remember reaching down to turn up the radio.” She wasn’t there to wallow in the past. She was following up on an anonymous tip indicating Zachary’s company might be connected to drug trafficking in Austin. She rolled her eyes at the child. “As if Mr. Straight-As-An-Arrow would be involved in anything illegal,” she muttered beneath her breath.

“Then I looked up, and that’s when I saw them.” Cecilia’s heart had stopped and her breath caught in her throat. A red SUV and a black car screamed around the corner taking up both lanes of the two-lane road.

“They were coming so fast...” She’d jammed her foot on the brakes. The black car slammed into the side of the SUV and then swerved in front of it, forcing the red vehicle off the road. The black car blasted toward Cecilia, still occupying her lane on the narrow road.

“I didn’t have time to think. All I could do was react.” Cecilia had jerked her steering wheel to the right and plunged over the edge of an embankment. The BMW bumped and scraped over rocks and bushes, rushing headlong into a ravine. The front left wheel glanced off a mound of earth and the entire vehicle flipped sideways, tumbling over and over until coming to a crunching halt upside-down.

The latest in the TIME RAIDERS SERIES is available now

Time Raiders: The Whisper

Nocturne Bite Download Available now!

Air Force officer Marisol Vasquez was chosen for a dangerous time-travel mission for her ability to see through the eyes of animals. Sent back nearly six hundred years to the Incan empire, she's committed to finding the precious alien artifact she's been assigned to recover.



But Marisol's mission hits a snag when she's given as a gift to the emperor's shaman, a mysteriously sexy man who is determined to seduce her. Suddenly Marisol's devotion to her task faces an entirely unexpected threat: the hazard of fierce, all-consuming lust....

Buy Time Raiders: The Whisper

TIME RAIDERS SERIES WEBSITE

Join Elle's Newsletter to Win!

Join my newsletter between now and the end of 2010 for a chance to win your choice of two books from my backlist! I'll post the winner on my blog in January. So join now! Click on the picture to join...............

Roses Contest!

And the winners of the Roses Contest is

....drumroll please....

LuAnn & Desere Steenberg

Congratulations LuAnn & Desere Steenberg!!!

As part of the Roses Colored Glasses contest for December, I'm offering a copy of Killer Body and a copy of Bundle of Trouble to two lucky contestants. All you have to do is leave a comment in my blog naming my November 2010 book. I'll draw two winners on December 13th and post the winner here on my blog then. Check my website for the answer! Thanks for stopping by!







Happy Holidays!


And if you think that this contest is cool, check these other Roses blogs for more chances to win!

Brenna Zinn

Myla Jackson

Shayla Kersten

Delilah Devlin

Cerise Deland

Eve Savage

Desiree Holt

Allie Standifer

Friday Football

It's fall, the weather is cooling, the trees are dropping their leaves and high school football is in full swing! Yay!

I love being at the games, watching the players hussling across the field, putting their all into the sport. I love rooting for the underdogs and yelling until my throat hurts. Most of all, I love getting together with my friends to share the fun and excitement and getting together afterwards for a late night dinner.

Fall is such a wonderful time of year.

I feel GOOD!

The James Brown song comes to mind as I celebrate another major milestone birthday. I count my blessings and tally up all I've accomplised in the past 10 years and thank the powers that be that I've been so fortunate. I'm fairly healthy (a bit on the overweight side), I walk 4 miles every other day, I have beautiful intelligent children and supportive and loving husband and I'm doiong what I love most, WRITING! Life can't get much better than this. My birthday wish is that everyone have as wonderful a day as I plan on having.

Bundle of Trouble is Out

My August Intrigue, BUNDLE OF TROUBLE, is now available at your local bookstores and Wal-Mart! And it made the Bookscan top 100. Help me bring it up above #76 for next week's bookscan by going out and getting it at the bookstore closest to you.

Sylvia Michaels had raised her son for four short months before he was cruelly snatched from her arms. Desperate and alone, her investigation led to Texas and the ranch of multimillionaire Tate Vincent. The ruggedly handsome bachelor was an intriguing man...and the father of a child who looked suspiciously like hers!

But what was supposed to be a joyous reunion was shattered by a hail of gunfire--and an empty cradel. Now both parents were on the hunt for the kidnappers and the child they each claimed as theirs. Tate couldn't deny that Sylvia fought with a mother's passion, and Sylvia couldn't help but notice that the protective man made the perfect father. But would their dream of a family be shattered before it even began?

RWA Nationals 2011 Orlando

It's been over a week since I got back from RWA Nationals in Orlando and I'm finally getting caught up. Next week I jump into writing a new Intrigue. Can't wait!

RWA Nationals was a hoot! I had the pleasure of rooming with my favorite Intrigue author, Delores Fossen. Since I only get to see her maybe once every other year if that often, it was great to catch up on everything happening in each other's lives.

As always, the Harlequin part was to die for. The Harlequin martinis were a hit with me. Loved the flower in it. Think I had one too many. Went to sleep with my head spinning. Or was that a residual effect of the great music and the floor full of dancers?

The literacy booksigning was a success with a ton of authors there signing donated books All proceeds going to improve literacy.

Hope your summer is going well. Enjoy what's left of it!

Baby Bling makes TOP PICK and Waldens-Borders List!

Okay, I'm stoked! Not only did my April Intrigue release BABY BLING get 4.5 stars and TOP PICK from RT Magazine, but it also made the Borders-Walden's bestseller list. Yay! It's so cool when a book you totally enjoyed writing makes it to a list, but this one was even more special because it's in a series called Diamonds and Daddies. A series that four authors came together to create. And it turned out to be a action-packed, fast-paced series we all loved writing. Here are the books in the series if you want to check them out:

Platinum Cowboy by Rita Herron (Feb 2009)
Desert Ice Daddy by Dana Marton ( Mar 2009)
Baby Bling by Elle James (April 2009)
Priceless Newborn Prince by Ann Voss Peterson (May 2009)

All are set in Texas and all of the heros are alpha male rich men targeted by someone out to destroy them and those they love.

Deadly Beauty

Ack! It's an icy winter nightmare out there! Beautiful but deadly is what I'd call it. We got hit by an ice storm yesterday and it's continuing into today and only promises to get worse. I'm typing madly to get this post in before the power goes out, because surely with all the ice on the trees, some poor branches will snap under the pressure, maybe even trunks! Outside the rain falls slow and steady, stealthily accumulating, freezing into ice in the frigid temperatures. The roads are silent, the airport is still, even the dogs in people's yards are shut in the house, their barking muffled by walls and insulation on this Tuesday morning. Anyone crazy enough to be out on the roads will surely wreck. I hope everyone has the good sense to stay home, hunker down and wait for warming temperatures to thaw the icy ground.

Ewwww, I feel a murder mystery coming on, a couple trapped by the ice, a killer willing to risk his neck to terrorize....

Writing Sprints!

I've had a tough time getting focused on writing. I spent all of December remodeling my kitchen. That translates to refinishing cabinets, getting new countertops and tiling my backsplash. Almost done. Had to wait on a backorder of my grout, but I can see the homestretch. But I have a goal of finishing my December Intrigue by the end of January. That's a tough one. I only had 3 chapters written as of last Friday!

So I've been doing writing sprints with my sister Delilah Devlin. We get on an IM chat and shame each other into writing! That is, it's a competitive thing. Write fast and furious for 45 minutes and report in the number of words completed. It's a challenge to see who can write the most words! And it's helped. I've completed four chapters in four days! Now I have to get to work on the next chapter! I'm headed to AIM to log in and start the race! Wish me luck!

Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that you're looking forward to a sparkling new year.

Nick of Time - Top Pick!

I'm excited, NICK OF TIME is a Romantic Times Top Pick! Yay!
Here's what they said:

"Elle James' Nick of Time (4.5) is a terrifically suspenseful holiday tale with lots of action, chills, humor and just the right amount of romance."

—Pat Cooper

It's my Birthday!

Yay! I made it another year! And you couldn't pick a better fall day to have a birthday. It's cool, it's sunny and the leaves are changing. I should be working, but I'm having more fun doing whatever. And I have a new book out next month. I got my author copies today. What a great birthday present!

What do you like to do on your birthday?

Roses Newsletter is up!

Roses Colored Glasses

October Newsletter

http://rosescoloredglasses.com/NewsOct08.htm

What’s inside?

Announcements!
From an Editor's Perspective
Superstitions as Plot Devices
Building Suspense
Fantasy or Paranormal?
Face the Fear
Weather as Setting
It's NaNo Time!
Dear Rose

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Upcoming Workshops

Join us for this fabulous Roses Workshop
Roses Self-Editing Workshop!
October 19-25th
Clean up your manuscript with these tips and tricks

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Back in January to kickstart your writing year!
Roses Plotting Bootcamp
Jan 5 - 31st

No One Heard Her Scream

I just finished a book by a new author I had to share! No One Heard Her Scream is incredible. Jordan Dane has launched herself into a promising career as a suspense novelist with flare and an incredible story. Run, don't walk for your copy of this book. It'll keep you up at night reading into the wee hours with seat-of-your-pants suspense, action and characters to die for. Great job, Jordan! Check out Jordan's scheduled releases back to back. http://jordandane.com/

A relentless detective with the San Antonio Police Department is barred from an investigation into the disappearance and murder of her younger sister and forced to take another assignment. Skeletal remains buried in the wall of an old theatre destroyed by arson make an intriguing new case. But when the bones turn out to be of a woman, close in age to her sister, the hunt for a killer gets personal—a vendetta for justice.

A seductive enforcer to the mob, with secrets of his own, stands between the detective and a powerful man she believes is linked to the murder. Will the reluctant henchman become an ally or betray her to his treacherous 'benefactor'? Drawn into the sinister world of human trafficking, the modern-day slave trade, the detective unravels a grim trail of destroyed lives—leaving her little hope for vindication in the death of her sister and a nameless young woman buried alive.

Fun in NYC!

It's been a week since I returned from the Novelists Inc conference in New York City and I already want to go back! NYC is such an exciting place to be. I started the trip by driving 4.5 hours to where my sister lives, so that we could drive up to Little Rock the next morning at o-dark-thirty to take the red-eye flight to Chicago andfrom there to New York City. Once we arrived, the fun began with our first taxi ride.
OH MY GOD, the taxis!!! I swear they are all kamikazes out to prove who's the bravest or most insane! We took the taxis from our hotel to visit our editors at places like Harlequin down near ground zero and Kensington and Avon Publishing. The traffic was insane. I could never drive there. Oh wait...most normal people don't! I strapped on my seatbelt every time I got into one of the yellow tombs of death and held on for dear life. For the most part, the drivers weren't originally from New York, or from the US for that matter which made giving directions interesting.

On our first day out, we managed to flag a cab to get us to our first visit at Avon. When we left, it was rush hour and we couldn't flag a cab to save our lives. So we opted for a ride in a bicycle-powered rickshaw. The entire way we giggled and pretty much felt sorry for the guy pedaling the weight of two hefty women uphill for several blocks. Don't worry, he got a hefty tip for his efforts. Of course if we thought kamikaze taxis were bad from the inside...trying riding in a rickshaw with none of the metal of a car protecting you from those kamikaze taxi drivers! It was fun and dangerous, giving us the same thrill as a dueling-with-death roller coaster ride.
We stayed at the Affinia Manahattan Hotel about 10 blocks from Times Square and basically around the corner from the Empire State building. the photo of the taxis above is a photo taken from our hotel window. When they say NYC is a city that never sleeps, they were right. Taxi drivers not only drive crazy, they think everyone else does and they honk all day and all night. If you're a light sleeper, bring your earplugs! Not only that, but we had a fire department at the base of our hotel and a police department around the corner. It was non-stop noise. Gotta love it! Thank goodness I can sleep with all that going on. I consider it the pulseof the city.
On the second day of our visit, we traveled across town to the Harlequin New York offices. They're located in the old Woolworth Building. The entrance was fabulous with tile mosaic ceilings and beautiful wood molding. The Harlequin offices were newly remodeled and beautiful in pleasant, modern, soft blue-green tones. It was fun to walk down the hallways and peer into the offices of all the editors we've met over the years, to see where they work. Thank goodness the editor we met with walked us down to the subway and showed us how to get to our next stop, Kensington! After the taxi drive there, we were still kinda shaky about getting into another! The subway was an entire new adventure for me. I've been to NYC two other times and never gave it a shot. Let me tell you, I'll do it again! It was easy and fun and the people were helpful. I guess they figured we were pretty lost. One woman yelled across the car, "This is your stop!". If she hadn't, we would have missed our exit!
Other fun things we did while in NYC was to eat hotdogs from street vendors, shop for purses we didn't need and take in a show on Broadway. We couldn't get tickets for Wicked or Spamalot, but based on a recommendation from a friend, Sylvia Day, Delilah and I went to the Saturday matinée to see David Hyde Pierce in Curtains. Talk about a hoot! I loved it! NYC is the best! But the most fun we had was visiting with other writers and talking the language of writing. A lot of us writers live a solitary world in our offices and don't get out much so the hustle and bustle of the big city can be overwhelming. But if you take along a friend or meet up with some, it makes it an adventure worth traveling half way across the country. Like I said, I'm ready to go back for another visit!

Love Those Cowboys!

A Cowboy...is a Cowboy... is a...huh?

I’m excited because the book I have out with Harlequin Intrigue this month Texas-Sized Secrets has a cowboy in it! What’s more sexy than a man in leather and a cowboy hat, rough-ridin’ over your heart?

When I decided to write an entry on cowboys, I went hunting for inspiration. And boy did I find it! I’ve decided to dedicate this blog entry to the different types of cowboys.

Singing Cowboys – Legendary favorite Gene Autry - love the shirt!

Dancin' Cowboys - yum!

Riding Cowboys – yee-freakin-ha! (not me, buddy, never in a million years)

Roping Cowboys - love how he makes it look easy

Drinkin' Cowboys - looks like he was ridden hard and put up wet!

Outlaw Cowboys - I'd go to the dark side with him any day!

Naked Cowboys - NYC's finest!

Dallas Cowboys – uh, well, okay

and last but not least....

Sexy Cowboys – yeah, I saved the best for last

Heath Ledger

Last night I found out Heath Ledger died! He was only 28 and a rising star. I first fell in love with this actor when I saw him in the remake of Taming of the Shrew, 10 Things I hate About You, playing opposite Julia Stiles. That movie became one of my all-time favorite romances. He was equally appealing in A Knights Tale. He was a talented man who will be missed.