Naomi's Reading Palace: Guest Post/Excerpt/Giveaway

Welcome to my stop of the Underneath book tour which has been brought to you by Bewitching Book Tours. Here you can read an excerpt, a summary of the books and learn a little more about the Author Jes Young. Don't forget to visit the other blogs on this tour for more information about this book and the author.

Title: Underneath

Author: Jes Young

Series: Princess of Twilight and Dawn #2

Genre: Fantasy/Urban Fantasy

Published: December 1^st 2012

Book Description:

Six months ago, when her long-hidden heritage came to light, Tab Bennett reluctantly let go of her past and embraced her future as an Elvish princess on the cusp of her gifts and the edge of her destiny. She never wanted a fairy tale life, but as the daughter of the Dark King and the Light Queen, that’s exactly what she got.

Raised in exile away from the kingdom of the Inbetween, Tab has never even met the parents who ruined her life. Her mother is dead, but Tab’s father, Daniel, is alive and well, the mad ruler of the kingdom of the Underneath. He’s made it clear he wants to meet her and now that she knows all the sadness and heartache in her life can be traced directly to the Dark king’s door, Tab wants to meet him too. After all, it's because of him that the first twenty-five years of her life were a lie. It’s his fault she gave her heart to Robbin when she should have been saving it for Alex, the prince who is destined to be her Homecoming. But, most importantly, King Daniel is the one responsible for her mother’s suicide and her sisters’ murders.

Now Tab wants justice – but she’ll settle for revenge and Finnegan Blackthorn, an Elvish warrior with secrets of his own, is going to help her get it. Together, they’ll embark on the dangerous journey to her father’s stronghold in the kingdom Underneath. Once she's there, far away from the Light in which she was raised, Tab will be forced to confront the seductive nature of Darkness and her own potential to truly become her father’s daughter.

Excerpt

Unless you’ve spent the night in a cave in the Underneath, way below the crust of the earth, down where the sun has never touched and never will, you have no idea how cold it is, how wet. In the damp chill of the air, your skin slicks with moisture that freezes and glazes over, crackling like ice. Your bones ache with it. When you blink, your lids snag on tears that have already frozen before they even had a chance to fall from your eyes. Before long, you forget what it feels like to be warm. You begin to doubt that such a thing is even possible.

Even fully clothed in my sleeping bag, my teeth chattered. I didn’t think I’d be able to fall asleep until suddenly, I was lounging in a chair on the most beautiful beach I’d ever seen, on the most perfect, sunny day. I was wearing a red and white polka dot bikini and drinking a pina colada from a hollowed out pineapple.

I was waiting for Alex to come, wondering if making love to him in the surf would be sexy or just sandy, when something passed in front of the sun. I looked up as a thousand starlings became a man. I knew who he was even though I’d never seen him before.

“Behold the prodigal daughter,” King Daniel said as he sat down on the lounger across from me. “Come home at last.”

Even in the dream I could feel the tingle of magic on my palms as the Gift of Light and Air welled up around me, preparing for a fight.

“This isn’t my home,” I said, “and I am not your daughter.”

I could deny it, but proof of who I was, of how I had come to be, was all over the Dark King’s face. Robbin had been right—I looked exactly like him. His hair was like mine, almost black and slightly wavy. We had the same straight nose and pointy chin.

Like all They of the Dark, his eyes were red. My mother’s were blue. Mine are purple. You’re familiar with the color wheel, right? Good. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

“This could be your home,” he answered, “if you chose it.”

The palm trees waved back and forth in a soft breeze that tousled his hair. I caught the familiar smell of strawberry shampoo on the air.

“So I get to choose?” I laughed. “Light or dark? Inbetween or Underneath?”

“Of course.” He had the nerve to look insulted. “I would never try to force you to be anyone other than who you are.”

“You killed my sisters, one by one, to bring me here. What is that, if not force?”

“Regrettable,” he said. “But necessary. And they weren’t really your sisters.”

I felt something hot and sharp growing, glowing, inside of my chest. He watched with interest as my magic swirled around me, bathing me in a golden light. Daniel sat just outside of it, wrapped in the kind of darkness that even the brightest light can’t chase away.

The look on his face was, unmistakably, one of parental pride. I can’t even tell you how much that pissed me off.

I want King Daniel dead, I told the magic. It surged up, ready when I needed it. But instead of pouring over him, it split in two, leaving him on an island of shadow amidst the currents of light. I tried again, and once again the magic rushed forward but went nowhere.

Do this for me now and I’ll start practicing more as soon as I wake up.

Blistering heat and light built up around me. I want King Daniel dead.

That time it hurt him, just a little, I could tell.

“Enough,” he roared. With a wave of his hand, he turned the sunny day to nighttime. There was only a sliver of moon left. Even in its dim light I could see that whatever kindness or fondness he had for me was gone, replaced now with fury. He’d killed people for less than the tweak I’d managed to give him. “Do you know who I am, child? What I could do to you? There are thousands of ways I could tear you apart without moving from this spot.”

“So do it,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “None of this is real anyway.”

“Real is a very subjective concept,” Daniel explained, sounding exasperated. “Let’s not test the bounds of reality on our first meeting.” He reset the sunny afternoon and his pleasant face. He pulled a pair of sunglasses from the pocket of his linen shirt and slipped them on, stretching out in the lounge chair next to mine.

“Why are you here?” I asked when I couldn’t stand the silence any longer.

“I wanted us to have a chance to talk in private, so I arranged to visit you somewhere that neither your guard nor mine could get in our way.”

“Nicholas isn’t coming? That’s too bad. I’m looking forward to seeing him again.”

Daniel laughed. “You intend to kill him.”

It wasn’t a question. He was Daniel’s second, his enforcer. He had orchestrated the attack on my mother; and later, the ones that took my sisters from me one by one. Of course I wanted to kill him.

“That’s part of the plan.”

“I will give him to you as a gift if you agree to stay with me. He’ll be yours to do with as you wish.”

“You’ll just give him to me? After he’s been your right-hand for centuries; after he’s killed for you?” I asked. “Where’s the loyalty?”

Daniel smiled—all teeth and menace—revealing a glimpse of the heartless, beautiful monster he really was. “As the humans say, my daughter dear, blood is thicker than water.”

About the Author:

After graduating from Emerson College with a BFA in creative writing, Jes Young was a copywriter at Random House (Ballantine Books and Crown Publishing Group) for nearly ten years. Currently she is the development manager of a small non-profit and the mother of two children under the age of ten. Her writing is done primarily between the hours of 11 p.m and 3 a.m.

My blog: http://www.JesYoung.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jesyoung3.tab

Twitter: @JesYoungWrites

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/jesyoungwrites/

Giveaway

Win the first 2 ebooks in the Princess of Twilight and Dawn!! Fill in the Rafflecopter to win!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway