Here (Here Trilogy Book 1) by Ella James

 

 Milo Mitchell lost her dad almost two years ago.  Now it was just her and her mom.  Her mom was always working.  Milo, still in high school, just had to worry about homework and keeping track of the mule deer her dad had been researching before he died.  She had decided to take up his work, unknown to her mom.  While out in the woods looking for a deer that needed tagged, she accidentally tranquilizes a guy instead.  He looks to be right around her age and very handsome.  However, he doesn't remember anything about who he is.  When this guy showed up out of nowhere he was wearing a tux.  Who wears a tux in the middle of the woods?  So she names him Nick for the time being and brings him home, feeling extremely guilty for hitting him with her tranquilizer gun.  Milo decides to help him figure out who he is and in the process some strange things start happening.  He has massive headaches that come and go and seems to know literally everything.  Pretty much anything fact based Nick has the answer to.  They eventually find out he looks just like a boy missing from a crash near the area Milo had been in when she saw Nick for the first time.  He tells Milo that he is pretty sure he is not this boy though.  And when they go to a party together, Nick ends up melting a statue and possibly killing a girl, then bringing her back.  After that he is afraid he will end up hurting Milo, whom he cares for much more than he admits.  So he leaves to find this family he is supposedly a part of, only to run into trouble and come running back to Milo.  What's worse is now the "Men in Black" are chasing the both of them!

   Here is a good read for any alien/extraterrestrial fans out there.  It is an interesting story about a being coming from somewhere out there in the universe, looking for something that Earth can give his people.  But along the way he becomes very close to a human girl and what the alien is there for is now somewhat compromised.  But this alien has no idea he is an alien for quite some time during the book because he completely loses his memory.  The only thing is that the end cuts off just when you start to wonder what will happen next!  The next book in the series will be coming out March 19th!

Exalted (Stained Series Book 4) by Ella James

 "I've observed humanity for fifty thousand years.  For much of that time, you understood your place in the world.  Only in the last few centuries have you forgotten it."- Methuselah 

   The fourth and final book in the Stained Series starts off with a bang.  Cayne and Julia are separated.
They were betrayed by Edan to Nathan and his group of goons.  Cayne is subjected to a world of horrors as he finds out his true identity...he is the son of the devil himself.  He has the Celestial blood flowing through his veins, just like his father, The Adversary.  And The Adversary has big plans for Cayne.
   Julia has been taken back to Alexandria where The Three are residing in a pyramid that is way more archaic than their last residence.  Julia meets with Methuselah and figures out rather quickly that he is not the old man everyone thinks he is.  He's also a snake.  Although Julia is his descendant, Methuselah is just using her as a means to an end.  It could kill her in the process.  He tortures her, and Edan, as well.  Apparently putting more power into someone requires them being beaten down, literally.  But Methuselah has turned torture into an art form.  And he is willing to use it.
   Meanwhile, Nathan wrestles with the idea that perhaps The Three are not all that they seem to be.  He always thought they were just in their dealings until Julia and Cayne came into his life.  They rocked the boat and brought out the true colors of Methuselah.  And what was worse was the idea that he might actually be working with The Adversary.  As much as Nathan wants to deny it, he starts realizing the truth.  And now he must protect Meredith, Julia, and the others from the harm's way that he put them in.
   Edan, a Demon it turns out, is one of the most conflicted Demons ever.  As much as he likes the carnal pleasures of this world, and as much as he likes being a Demon, he also seems to have some kind of conscience.  Methuselah makes him whip Julia and it causes him a lot of pain and he feels the need to make up for it.  But on top of that, he is also being played by The Adversary.  Because of his demonhood, he must do The Adversary's bidding.  And because he continually bucks the system, he is demoted to a Shade for a while.  Being a Shade is unbearable to him and he agrees to play the part of the hero to bust Julia out of the pyramid.
   Once freed, Julia and her friends all trek to Hell to save Cayne from his own father, who is also torturing Cayne to put more power into him as well.  He and Julia have a part to play in the apocalypse to come.

      "What The Adversary wants, The Adversary gets, so long as he's made his home in this realm..."


   Well in the last book the conflict comes to an apex.  The Adversary does place the net around Heaven where no Authorities can come or go to Earth.  However, Demons and Nephilim abound and are wreaking havoc in Las Vegas where The Adversary is.  Even Cayne underestimated The Adversary.  Apparently he had planned this down to the last detail.  The only thing he didn't plan for was being stopped.  But Julia and Cayne and their friends are determined to save the world, no matter the cost.  And that cost is great indeed.  A dear friend is lost in the midst of it all, and the book leaves you wondering to the very last whether this is the end of the world.  If The Adversary will reign.  In the midst of it all, Julia and Cayne still love each other no matter what they find out about their pasts and their parents.  They desperately try to stay together and keep each other safe.  The whole group is driven by a duty to this world and to the next to rid the earth of The Adversary.  This question still remains: Will Cayne and Julia get the happily ever after they want so badly?
   

Just finished reading Exalted, the last in The Stained Series by Ella James.  Awesome series!  Take a bit of time and read one of these great books!  But if you do, start from the beginning.  Here is one of my favorite passages from Exalted:

Hell was like that: uniquely personalized.  Unless you were in a group.  Then the rules got even weirder.


*quote via Ella James

Stained by Ella James

   Normal?  Never.  Freak?  Oh yeah.  Alone?  Almost always....

  Yes that was a good summing up of Julia's life.  Her parents had died before she could even remember them.  Then she had been shifted around in foster care.  But she was different than other kids.  She had a gift that tended to freak most normal people out.  She could see people's auras.  Julia could tell what mood they were in, if they were lying, and if they were hurt.  She could see injuries and could heal them as well.  The power Julia had was not something she really understood.  In her early teen years she was adopted by Suzanne and Harry and they were good to her.  They bought Julia nice things and lived in a nice, safe house. There were no other children to torment her, unlike previous experience.  She became close to her new

parents.  

   Four years later Julia sneaks out of the house to help some friends with their homework.  On her way back she begins to smell smoke.  By the time she reaches her block she has realized that it's her house on fire!  As she is watching her house burn she sees something that looks like the angel of death to her.  "Huge, dark wings, pasted onto a monstrous creature with glowing coals for eyes and an eerie-low, chuckling laugh.  The Angel of Death..."  In an instant the creature is gone and so are her parents.  Instead of going back into foster care, Julia makes a run for it and ends up all the way from Overton to the muddy Mississippi River and takes up a temporary residence in an abandoned warehouse.  Still in shock from all that happened, Julia sleeps a lot while at the dirty, grimy warehouse, and she steals necessities, like food and drinks, to get her by.
   The third night a fight ensues above Julia in the warehouse.  The fight is so intense the floor falls through the upper story down to where Julia is.  A very hot guy named Cayne is laying at her feet injured.  She heals him only to find out that he had been fighting Samyaza, the half-demon that killed her parents.  Samyaza is the king of the Nephilim, the half-demons.  She quickly agrees to help Cayne draw out this monster so that they can kill him.  For quite some time the two of them try to draw him out only to find out that Samyaza had moved on elsewhere.  Cayne and Julia decide to track him down.  And during their tracking, they become closer to each other.  Cayne wants to protect Julia, but he also wants to know more about her and why Samyaza wants her dead.  Their findings along the way are somewhat gruesome.  Samyaza leaves a path of destruction and death.  All of the people he is killing has the same mark as Julia has.  It is the mark of the Stained.  They are a special group of people that have certain talents, such as healing, like Julia.  Cayne, however, is not one of them.  He turns out to be a Nephilim as well.  During a fight three years ago with Samyaza, Cayne hit his head and lost his memories.  When they finally return, they are very painful and full of death.  During their trek across the country to find this half-demon king, Cayne and Julia are captured by other Stained ones and Cayne is to be put on trial.

   Ella James told a very captivating story of two young adults on their way to finding out who they really are.  Julia has no idea about her family history or why she has the power she has.  And most  of her power still lies dormant within her.  Cayne doesn't remember who he is.  And when he does, it's almost too much.  His memories and past threaten to keep he and Julia separated.  Keeping her at arms length would be keeping her safe.  After all, Cayne was not a good person.  He was half-demon.
   Cayne and Julia are two very lonely people who have had more than an unfortunate past.  They have much in common.  They both have lost people they loved to Samyaza.  Both are different than the others around them so acceptance is almost impossible.  And neither know where they belong in the world.  For them to find each other and become romantically involved is a very satisfying part of this book.  They are no longer alone in the world no matter how difficult it is for them to see that they are better off together.  Even if it is hinted at that this is a forbidden love.
   The story unfolds in such a way as to not give away too much.  In fact, there are many questions left unanswered.  You don't find out a lot about who the Stained really are or why they want to get Julia back so bad.  Why is she so special?  We are virtually clueless about her parents, although we can rightly claim that they were most likely Stained ones as well.  Why is Samyaza going around killing everyone with the mark of the Stained?  We see a little of Cayne's history.  But there is still much to be seen in that area as well.  It leaves just enough curiosity to make you want to read the next book immediately!

                                          For more information on Ella James visit her blog at:
                                                   http://ellajamesbooks.blogspot.com/

*quotes via Ella James (Stained Book 1)
*image via Ella James (Amazon)