Day After Blog Tour: excerpt, guest post & giveaway

Welcome to our blog. We are today's stop on the After Dark Blog Tour hosted by J. Taylor Publishing. It is great to have author Emi Gayle back on our blog. The last time we hosted was for one of her adult paranormal books, today we are featuring the second book in her Young Adult series, The 19th Year, which is Day After. I recently finished reading the first book, After Dark, and started on the second. Today, we have an excerpt, a guest post, the book trailer and a giveaway. My reviews will be up soon. Thanks for stopping by.

Day After (The 19th Year, Book 2) by Emi Gayle

YA paranormal*Paperback/eBook, 328 pages 

Release Date: May 6, 2013 by J. Taylor Publishing

Demon crypts. Vampire lairs. Glowing angels. Sexy sirens. The stuff of fiction. 

Or so Winn Thomas always thought. 

Since being accepted into the fold of the supernatural, he knows better. None of what he imagined is true, but everything he feared is, and binding himself to his Changeling girlfriend until her nineteenth birthday will give him an education far beyond what he’d get at his human high school. 

Luckily, Winn’s not giving up, he won’t back down, and he definitely isn’t going to run away with his tail between his legs. After all, only werewolves have tails. Right? 

In this, the second of the 19th Year trilogy, Winn’s facing the challenge of one lifetime. If he doesn’t learn the truth about mythological creatures, his girlfriend Mac Thorne won’t either. That means, in six months, when she chooses her final form, she won’t know what to pick. 

Winn, though, has his own ideas about Mac’s final selection—plans she knows nothing of. 

He intends to have her pick human.

Whether she can or not. 

Excerpt: 

Sitting in front of the twelve most powerful non-humans on the earth would have shaken a lesser guy. In my case, I’d almost thrown up. Twice. 

‘Don’t worry,’ Mackenzie Thorne, my girlfriend, had said. ’'It’s just a formality."

She hadn’t known I’d have to go alone.

Only the intake and exhalation of air in the room made any sound. Eerie light flickered from the tips of candles mounted along dark, oak-paneled walls.

I refused to look anywhere but ahead of me. To the long, wooden, medieval-length table.

Waiting.

Watching.

Holding my own breath.

For a moment, it seemed the walls began to close in on me.

At almost midnight on the first day of the year, I prepared to accept a fate no other human had ever taken on, been given or even offered. In response, sweat pooled under my armpits as alternating cold and hot ran through me.

The scratch of wood against wood had heads turning. Mine included.

Nahir, the oldest of the twelve, rose from his chair. “Winford Richmond Thomas, please rise.” His voice had a gravelly, hoarse sound.

I did as requested, my knees pressing against each other.

Nahir moved closer to me, his grandfatherly, human form disappearing under protruding scales of deep green. His arms lengthened into dinosaur-like paws and hit the rock floor, making the room around us shake. Thick wings extended from his body, and a tail lashed out against the wall behind him, rattling the candles.

A dragon, in the color of tropical ocean water, stood before me, huffing air from horse-sized nostrils.

Oh. God. I’m going to die.

Not going to die. It’s part of the test. Remember, you have to see them all. Mac’s words flowed through my mind.

Keep breathing.


“Master Thomas.” Josie, a siren and one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met, rose, her long flowing gown matching the color of her reddish-gold hair. I couldn’t help but stare at her. “You’ve been asked by our current changeling, Miss Maya Mackenzie Thorne, to be her teacher. Have you willingly agreed to take on this duty?” As Josie talked, she stalked forward, shimmering, shifting, the already-pretty woman becoming deadly man-hunting female—according to the legends I’d read.

Vibes ebbed from her like the rocking tide. If she sang, throwing up would be the least of my worries. I’d be dead by sexual self-implosion.

With a rough cough, I gathered my wits. “Yes. I have accepted. Willingly.” Every nerve ending in my body urged me to go to Josie, to let her take me and do with me whatever she wanted. A groan built in my throat, tension straining my limbs, most particularly, my crotch. Not now! The need to shift what grew sent heat to my cheeks even as Mac’s words played through again. Force yourself not to react to any of them. They’ll think you’re stronger than you are since you’re only human.

Only human. Problem number one.

The allure of the Changeling

What is it, about a Changeling, that’s just so ... much a ... draw? For anyone, for humans, for the supernatural and/or for Winn Thomas himself?

You see, Mac’s a Changling and Winn’s human. So this list of things comes from Winn ... the things that make him want to know about Mac.

• Changelings aren’t supposed to exist, but they do; who wouldn’t want to know more?
• Changelings have huge decisions to make - worse than anything a human would have to. How does one even pick?
• She’s hot
• She’s super smart even though she does everything to prove she doesn’t
• She can be a fairy or a vampire or a demon ... she can be anything
• Oh, you mean Changelings, not Mac, right?
• Changelings can shapeshift
• Changelings know magic (or some have)
• They get to work with vampires, demons, dragons, all sorts of beings
• They don’t need much, if any, sleep; you realize how much stuff I could learn by not sleeping?
• They don’t seem to need any food, or not any good food, though I can’t say that’s one I’ve want to live by
• School really doesn’t matter, but that’s probably something most other people would like. I like school.
• They get to train with vampires; gym class doesn’t matter, but sword fights do!
• Oh, and my favorite thing ... the one and only Changeling ... likes me.

About the author:

Emi Gayle

Website

Emi Gayle just wants to be young again. She lives vicariously through her youthful characters, while simultaneously acting as chief-Mom to her teenaged son and searching for a way to keep her two daughters from ever reaching the dreaded teen years.

Ironically, those years were some of Emi's favorite times. She met the man of her dreams at 14, was engaged to him at 19, married him at 20 and she's still in love with him to this day. She'll never forget what it was like to fall in love at such a young age — emotions she wants everyone to feel.

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