Sunday, September 16, 2012

Aurora Sky Cover Reveal & Giveaway

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Today I have a very pretty cover to show you for Nikki Jefford’s new book. She’s the author of Entangled that I read and reviewed on the blog recently, and I’m excited to find out what she’s got for us in this new vampire slayer book. Have a look, read the opening scene, and enter to win a great prize pack!

Aurora Sky: Vampire Hunter
Nikki Jefford
Series: Vol. 1, Transfusion
Publication date: November, 2012

Her blood is toxic to vampires.

If there is one thing eighteen-year-old Aurora Sky wants, it’s to get off the iceberg she calls home. Being kissed before she graduates wouldn’t hurt either.

Then a near-fatal car wreck changes everything. Secret agents step in and save Aurora’s life in exchange for her services as a vampire hunter. In Alaska.

Basically she’s a glorified chew toy. All thanks to her rare blood type, which sends a vampire into temporary paralysis right before she has to finish the job… by hand.

Aurora is alienating friends at school while attracting attention from the last person she wants noticing her – the dark prince of temptation himself: Fane Donado. And that can’t lead to anything good.

*This is a YA-Mature title for ages 16 and up.*

Aurora Sky book trailer
Excerpt
Opening scene
Aurora Sky: Vampire Hunter, vol. 1, Transfusion

     The fight broke out as I was passing the cafeteria. The expressions on passing students morphed from resigned boredom to anticipated glee. Aggression filled our eardrums. We surged forward—the sound like a rip-tide pulling us in.

     If I’d gone to fifth period I would have missed the smackdown altogether. Instead, I’d spent the last hour tucked behind the back aisles of the library with the juniors. My new friends were easy to get on with. They didn’t care about things like college and grades or extracurricular activities.

     Only one thing interested them. They liked boys who bit.

     My steps slowed as I heard the first antagonistic shout leave the cafeteria. I veered through the double doors and stalked behind the students who sprang forward for a closer look. The gymnasium-sized room was surrounded by windows, which did nothing to help North High’s freeze factor. By all accounts, I should have been shivering. I’d left the house in a pleated miniskirt—much to my mother’s horror—not even bothering to mask the white ghost flesh that were my legs.

     Every student in the area stopped what they were doing and gathered around the two boys whose taunts had turned to punching. The taller one got the shorter guy into a headlock and pounded his face.

     I didn’t recognize either student. They were just two more nameless hooligans going about the motions, which at the moment involved swinging fists.

     “Get him, Jason!” students cheered. “Harder. Knock that pansy to the ground.”

     A month earlier, I would have walked in the opposite direction instead of pushing my way closer until I was at the front of the horde encircling the boys. But that was before I’d been locked inside a room with a drooling, snarling lunatic and forced to kill him.

     “Stop!” the shorter boy yelled.

     “Don’t stop! Hit him, Jason! Harder!” the crowd screamed back. This was followed by an obliging smack against the smaller boy’s face.

     “Enough!” Shorty yelled.

     “You sure? You learn your lesson yet?”

     “Yeah, I’m sorry. You can stop. Stop already!”

     Jason pushed the boy forward and lifted his hands over his head in victory. His victim stumbled and nearly fell face first onto the squeaky cafeteria floor. The crowd began to disperse. I was planted to the ground, unable to move.
Something wasn’t right. A warning whispered up my spine.

     A look of murder settled deep within the beaten boy’s eye sockets. He staggered upright then walked to the nearest table. Shorty didn’t look dangerous. He was small and moved slowly. But to see his expression… it was unmistakable.

     He grabbed a fold-up chair and lifted it above his head as though it was no heavier than a textbook. Jason never saw him coming. The smaller boy approached silently from behind and slammed the chair over Jason’s head.

     I heard nothing. Sound ceased to exist. Blood sprayed the floor, landing in round droplets. It stained the ground inches from my black Mary Jane’s. I looked up and saw Fane Donado, dark as doom, staring at the blood with an expression of enrapture. I should have been disgusted, but when I looked at the blood again I felt something stir inside me.

     Jason lay flat on the floor. He wasn’t moving.

     The collected student population was momentarily gagged. The boy started towards Jason, chair still in hand. He’d kill Jason. He’d kill him and no one would do a thing to stop him. But I could.

     Sex and violence. They were my new specialties, after all, though at the moment I was looking far more forward to the violence.

     I stepped in Shorty’s path and yanked the metal seat from his fingers. I threw it aside. Sound returned like the clash of cymbals when the chair clattered to the ground. Something snapped inside me. I grabbed the boy by the hair and kneed him in the gut. He grunted in pain. His agony filled my ears like a sweet melody. I turned and jabbed my elbow into his ribcage. My skirt lifted several inches as I twisted into the punch.

     The boy howled. He couldn’t manage to fight back. He was too busy shielding himself from my blows. I pulled back a fist and socked him in the eye. Pain splintered across my knuckles, but Shorty was still standing so I aimed for the second eye. He couldn’t very well go back for the chair if both his eyes were out of commission.

     Suddenly I was falling backwards, being yanked from behind. I struggled and slapped at the hands that had latched onto my midriff.

     “That’s enough, young lady!”

     I went limp and allowed myself to be dragged out of the room by the arm and led directly to the principal’s office.

     The last thing I saw were the whites of Fane’s teeth as he grinned. A month earlier I wasn’t so much as a blip on that boy’s radar. Now he was everywhere, appearing at my worst moments, like Satan, witnessing my fall from grace.

     Fane should have been the last boy I’d crush on. He was trouble and he wasn’t going anywhere in life. Then again, neither was I.

     Not anymore.

     At the beginning of the school year I’d been counting down the months till graduation; starting college on the East Coast; new friends and freedom. But, no. The agents said I could never leave Alaska. I might as well have died in that car accident because I was trapped in hell—one complete with monsters. Now the only friends I had were groupies of the undead and the only boy I could think about might very well be a vampire.

     And if he was a vampire, I’d have to kill him.

As part of Aurora’s initiation as a vampire hunter, she’s thrown into a locked room with a rabid vampire. On a metal table inside is a choice of weapons. Which would you pick if you were in her shoes and why: Shotgun, ax, hunting knife, or the wooden stake?

Nikki’s Website / Goodreads / Twitter

Nikki Jefford is a third generation Alaskan who loves fictional bad boys and heroines who kick butt. She is the author of the Spellbound Trilogy and upcoming Aurora Sky: Vampire Hunter series. Nikki married Sebastien, the love of her life, while working as a teaching assistant in France. They now reside in the not-so-tropical San Juan Islands, 70 miles northeast of Forks, Washington.

Giveaway
Nikki Jefford has generously offered up an eARC of Aurora Sky along with some pretty awesome Alaskan prizes

Up for grabs:

-One Aurora Sky eARC (not pictured)
-One Deadman’s Reach Dark Roast Coffee made in Alaska
-One “Women Who Behave Rarely Make History” Magnet
-One Blueberry Hill Moose Magnetic Bookmark

Open to US & Canadian addresses
Giveaway ends October 7th, 2012
Use the Rafflecopter below to enter

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Giselle

Canadian blogger, wife, mother, coffee lover, and sarcastic at heart! She has had a love for all things bookish since before Amazon and eReaders existed *le gasp*. You can also find her organizing tours and other fun things at Xpresso Book Tours.

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37 Responses to “Aurora Sky Cover Reveal & Giveaway”

  3. Lena

    I would choose a wooden stake as well…. This book looks interesting and fun 😀 a dark brooding boy and his named is Fane… what a hottie 😛 haha

  8. TayteH

    I’d pick the wooden stake. What good does a shotgun with no silver bullets have? And a knife, it would hurt, but not kill. And I can’t carry an ax. The classic stake is always a good choice. 😀

  10. Jennifer Messerschmidt

    I love anything with vampire hunters! Also love it when their blood is poison. Read another series with that and it is awesome except that you have to let them take a chomp before the affects weigh in which would not be fun. I’d probably pick up the gun cause I’m most familiar with that and I’m too weak to use a big axe or put muscle behind a wooden stake. I just hope the gun has wooden bullets?

  13. Amy

    Great excerpt!! I just signed up for this blog tour through Supa Gurl Books. I would totally choose the stake. I mean I know that an ax could chop off the head, but if you are going to kill a vamp, you should do it the right way…stake through the heart!! (wait, would the wooden stake even pierce the skin? *runs around flailing*)

  15. warriorofdream

    Shotgun?? but they didn’t say it is has a bullet inside?? so I would choose Wooden stake, it’s always the best weapon for vampire!

    hmmm issue with blood remind me of “Blood + ” anime where Saya blood could damage vampires, but it sounds quite interesting!

  18. Mel - Thedailyprophecy.

    The axe! I don’t trust myself with a hunting knife, because you have to come really close. A shotgun sounds nice, but what if you ran out of bullets.. and a wooden stake doesn’t feel as comforting as an axe :p

  24. Rachel V

    Thanks for the exerpt. I would also pick the wooden stake and hope the vampire fell on it. LOL. If I was out in the woods I would pick the hunting knife because then I could make many wooden stakes from tree branches.

  27. Brittney Williams

    I would chose is definetely the ax. A shotgun makes too much noise, and if you dont have silver nitrate in those bullets, regular bullets wont do much.
    A wooden stake could easily break and splinter if things break out into a fight.
    The hunting knife wouldnt do much.
    I chose the ax because while it may be heavy and tiresome Im sure I can hack a vampire into pieces.

  32. Annwitch

    I think I would pick the ax if I were Aurora. She could slow him down with it and then chop off his head. I would pick the shotgun because it is NOT up close and personal, I am not that brave. Would hope to never be in a room with a rabid vampire 🙂

  35. ohdamnbooks

    i’ll definitely choose the ax. knifes are bad for close combat and i doubt a wooden stake would work if there’s no silver on it. guns are useless. only choice left: an ax to chop its head off. :3

  37. Raphael Temple

    I’d have to pick the axe, but I’d make the wooden handle on the axe sharp like a stake. This way, I can injure AND kill the vampy. But only a mean vampire. 😉