INBETWEEN (Kissed By Death #1) ::: Tara Fuller
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Since the car crash that took her father’s life three years ago, Emma’s
life has been a freaky—and unending—lesson in caution. Surviving
“accidents” has taken priority over being a normal seventeen-year-old, so
Emma spends her days taking pictures of life instead of living it. Falling
in love with a boy was never part of the plan. Falling for a reaper who
makes her chest ache and her head spin? Not an option.
It’s not easy being dead, especially for a reaper in love with a girl fate
has put on his list not once, but twice. Finn’s fellow reapers give him
hell about spending time with Emma, but Finn couldn't let her die before,
and he’s not about to let her die now. He will protect the girl he loves
from the evil he accidentally unleashed, even if it means sacrificing the
only thing he has left…his soul.
life has been a freaky—and unending—lesson in caution. Surviving
“accidents” has taken priority over being a normal seventeen-year-old, so
Emma spends her days taking pictures of life instead of living it. Falling
in love with a boy was never part of the plan. Falling for a reaper who
makes her chest ache and her head spin? Not an option.
It’s not easy being dead, especially for a reaper in love with a girl fate
has put on his list not once, but twice. Finn’s fellow reapers give him
hell about spending time with Emma, but Finn couldn't let her die before,
and he’s not about to let her die now. He will protect the girl he loves
from the evil he accidentally unleashed, even if it means sacrificing the
only thing he has left…his soul.
Look at that pretty cover!!! Love it so much, it's so simple yet very striking and I love the position of the series name (a KISSED BY DEATH book) and the tagline "Death doesn't fall in love. Usually." OMG I want to read this book now!
It comes out August 7th 2012 from Entangled Publishing. Have I mentioned that Entangled is releasing lots of amazing books this year?:P
And now for the big surprise!
A sneak peek excerpt from INBETWEEN!
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Chapter 1
Finn
Almost.
I sank down onto the side of her bed, amazed by the blazing wildfire that swept through me whenever Emma was near enough to touch. I took a deep, unneeded breath, and settled down on my side next to her. The mattress didn’t sink. The springs didn’t groan with the weight of an extra body. The distance between us was an impossible void. Inches that might as well have been miles. Miles that left me wanting in so many ways that I ached.
Even the sun couldn’t resist her. Its glowing rays caressed her skin, and stained her hair the satiny color of summer wheat. Before I knew what was happening, my hand followed their lead. Cells ignited. My skin burned, screaming with the agonizing need to touch—
“What do you think you’re doing?”
I jerked my hand away just as Easton melted up from the polished hardwood floor beneath the window. Like an oil slick coming to life, he unfolded his long, shadowy legs until he was just an ink blot against the square of tangerine sunrise behind him. His violet eyes pinned me like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Which, I kind of was.
“Nothing,” I lied.
“Yeah, looked like nothing.” He strolled across the room accompanied by a wave of sulfur and smoke, the black serpent tattoo on his neck glinting. “What were you planning to do, recite her poem? I swear to God, if you were still alive I’d confiscate your man card.”
I ignored the barb and scrunched up my nose. “Jesus, Easton. Don’t they have a shower somewhere between here and the afterlife?”
“Screw you. You didn’t just have to tow somebody’s grandpa to Hell.” He brushed something chalky and grey off of his cloak and a shudder worked its way down my spine. God only knows who or what it belonged to. “Besides I wasn’t the one about to feel up a sleeping human.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Save it.” He waved his hand. “We have work to do. I don’t have time for your useless obsession with the human today.”
“Will you please stop calling her that?”
“What?” Easton glanced up from Emma’s vanity, where he’d been inspecting the various lotions and bottles like he was on some alien planet. Then again, Easton had been dead for something like four hundred years, so all of her stuff probably was sort of alien to him.
“The human. You make me sound like a freak. It’s not like we’re a different species for God’s sake. We were humans, too, or don’t you remember that far back?”
“Were. Past tense.”
We could have gone back and forth like that for hours, but the call came. It always did. It started in my bones—a cold so cutting that it sliced through me like a machete. When I looked up, Easton’s jaw was clenched, his muscles taut and ready. He slowly closed his hand around the handle of his scythe that burned black and softly smoked at his side. I flexed my fingers as the icy ribbons of death worked their way through each one of my limbs.
“Can you take this one for me?” I asked. “You’re already going to be there, and I just got back—”
“No,” Easton said. “Hell no. I have my own job to do. I can’t keep covering for your sorry ass. Besides, you’re already on thin ice with Balthazar. Don’t push your luck, Finn. Just keep your nose down, collect your souls, and thank the Almighty that you don’t have my job. Now let’s go.”
“Yeah, but…” My eyes returned to Emma. Sleeping. Perfect. Safe.
“For the love of God. She’ll be fine, you pansy.” Easton clamped a hand over my shoulder and dragged me from the bed.
“How do you know?”
He shrugged. “I don’t.”
With that he vanished, consumed in a flash by the keening wails of the damned. The screams beckoned. Clawed at me from the inside out.
Rule one as a seeker: Death doesn’t wait for anyone.
And it sure as hell wasn’t waiting for me now.
UPDATE: New *romantic* excerpt from INBETWEEN feauturing main characters Finn and Emma!
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Finn
Emma just looked uncertainly at my outstretched fingers and chewed on her lip. “But if you touch me you’ll…”
“Then we won’t touch.” I pulled my hand back and smiled when she stood. “Just dance.”
Emma pulled her hands out of her sleeves and stared at her feet, looking lost. I stepped in closer. So close I could see my shimmer reaching out towards her skin, like metal to a magnet. I never needed to breathe, but now, in this moment, I couldn’t stop my lungs from pumping.
We moved together wordlessly. A step to the right. A smooth glide to the left. I wanted to do like I’d seen Pop do, tip her back and make her laugh like a girl in love. I didn’t. Instead, I settled for leaning in as close as I could, letting my cold, unnatural breaths coat her neck. She shivered.
“Hey, at least it won’t hurt if I step on your foot,” I said.
Emma chuckled and reached her hands up as if she meant to place them on my shoulders, then stopped herself and dropped them back down to her sides.
“I never know what to do with my hands,” she said.
“Well.” I leaned back and held up my hand. “If we were doing this for real, you’d put your left one here.”
She hesitantly raised her hand and placed it in front of mine so that our palms nearly touched.
“And in a very desirable world, mine would go right… here.” I placed my hand near her waist and she shivered, accidentally arching into my touch. My fingers scattered into a thousand iridescent particles, swimming around her like silver smoke. She gasped as I pulled my hand back and watched my fingers take shape again. I wiggled them at her and grinned.
Emma laughed. “Wow.”
I shrugged and kept moving. In the background, Billie Holiday crooned The Very Thought of You and somehow managed to put exactly how I was feeling into words.
“The mere idea of you. The longing here for you. You’ll never know, how slow the moments go, till I’m near to you,” I sang softly into Emma’s hair. Billie sounded way better of course, but the words felt too right not to say out loud.
“You’ve done this before,” Emma said. “I can tell.”
“What?”
“Danced with a girl.” She ran her palms experimentally over my chest, her skin just a breath away. I ached for her to close that space, but she never did.
I tried, unsuccessfully, to steady my voice. “Just once,” I said. “School dance.”
Emma smiled and did a little twirl. “What was her name?”
I couldn’t think. I didn’t want to think about anything that didn’t begin and end with Emma.
“Can’t remember,” I mumbled just as the flash of a girl in pink satin swaying nervously in my arms shook me. I smiled. “She wore a pink dress. I remember that. And I was so nervous, I thought I might throw up.”
“Did you love her?” she asked quietly. We stopped moving. Silence swallowed us. Then the crackling hiss of the record sounded and new tune began.
“No,” I said. “No, I didn’t love her.”
“Have you…” Emma took a step back and tucked her hair behind her ear. She wouldn’t look at me. “Have you ever loved anyone…like that?”
I may not have been able to say the words, but I couldn’t stop myself from moving towards her. Emma looked up at me, the question still lingering in her eyes. With one last spark of resolve, I went corporal. Caged her in with my arms and pressed my fingers into her back.
“Finn?”
Emma trembled. But I didn’t think she was afraid. No, this was something else. I breathed her in, clutching her to me, dizzy from all of this contact. Our chests pressed together, and I couldn’t stop wondering what it would feel like for our mouths to touch.
I had to know.
Find out more about INBETWEEN and author Tara Fuller:
Goodreads: Inbetween (Kissed By Death #1)
Website: Tara Fuller
Twitter: @tara25fullerPre-order a paperback copy from Amazon:
Add to your Goodreads To-Be-Read Shelf:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13055677-inbetween
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