Beauty of the Dark - Book Tour and Giveaway

Beauty of the Dark: The Complete Trilogy
by Amanda Leigh
Genre: Mature YA Paranormal Romance

Delicious. Tantalizing. Mysterious."

For the first time, the Beauty of the Dark trilogy is bundled together, including an exclusive short story. Experience the intrigue, magic, romance, and heartbreak with Kiara, Trent, and Kaleib.

From a sinister demon to unthinkable betrayal to forbidden feelings...can they overcome their differences? Will Trent and Kiara give in to their connection? Find out who prevails in this epic battle.


SCARRED – Book 1

A sassy witch, a vampire sworn to protect her, and a vampire that’s falling for her...? All bets are off.Kiara was born with power. At eighteen, her powers are peaked, and she's destined to destroy the demon threatening her home town. But even with her power and the help of Kaleib, a vampire who’s like an older brother to her, they're not strong enough to stand against the evil. Enter Trent, a vampire with a secret past, and the tables turn, giving them a fighting chance.
Kiara shouldn’t feel anything toward Trent, especially since Kaleib hates him, but a strong attraction builds between them during their mission. Trent has successfully avoided caring about anyone for over one hundred years, and he plans to keep it that way. When Kiara asks for help, he can’t seem to deny her. Never would he imagine that he’d run into Kaleib, someone from his past--a vampire who knows his secret. Trent convinces himself he's aiding Kiara for his own selfish amusement, but the little witch seems immune to his charms and she's chipping away at his walls. To his dismay, he finds himself beginning to care for Kiara.
Between the demon that wants to kill her and two fighting vampires, how will things play out for Kiara and Trent? Will this demon let them live to find out?



BURNED – Book 2

Just when it seems things can’t get worse…they do.When Kiara wakes up as a vampire, she knows things will never be the same. Her best friend is dead and the demon that killed her is still out there somewhere. They're back to square one and Kiara’s newfound thirst hovers over everything they do. The hostility between Trent and Kaleib still brews just below the surface. Will Kiara hold it together or will she lose control? Will her new thirst be too much?
Kiara blames Trent for Sarah’s death and hates herself every time she feels something for him. Their budding trust is tested. Despite everything, he tries to be there for her. By her bedside when she wakes, helping her figure out how to tell her godparents what she is now, even staying in her house when she can’t sleep.
When Kiara’s dreams are plagued with visions of Sarah threatening her, Kaleib and Trent say that it's coincidence. Her mind dealing with the loss. But as the visions come while she’s awake, it looks less like coincidence and more like something sinister.
Is it her anger over Sarah’s untimely death or is it something more? Something dangerous?



ANGEL – Book 3

The epic conclusion of Amanda Leigh's Upper YA Paranormal Romance trilogy.
With a battle close at hand, Kiara must face the darkness inside her.The only way for Kiara to save her loved ones from a sinister demon is to turn herself over. But doing so would ensure the destruction of not just those she loves, but the whole world. When she refuses, someone close is taken from her in warning, sending her into hiding with Trent and Kaleib. While a battle looms, Trent and Kaleib must put aside their hostilities toward each other to protect Kiara. They help her navigate the impending fight, not to mention the hunger fighting within her.
As the final fight draws near, Kiara and Trent grow closer, the limited space ramping up tension and making their passion hard to deny. Will their feelings strengthen them or be their undoing?
When the time comes, will Kiara yield to the darkness within her to destroy the monster haunting her?



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Excerpt From Scarred


Chapter One
Trent
Her voice.
That’s what drew me to her. It was gorgeous, perfect, angelic.
Ironic, that a demon should be drawn to the voice of an angel.
Or that’s what she sounded like to me. I was out hunting, the bitter, cool air rushing across my skin as I tried to catch a whiff of a young woman’s blood. Someone vulnerable. The young women were so easy. If I found the right one, with some charm and a well-placed compliment, they would be mine. But in the middle of hunting, my ears picked up the angelic sound of someone singing. I was drawn to the peaceful melody. I hadn’t experienced real peace in so long. I had to discover who this beautiful voice belonged to. I soon found the source of the singing. It was coming from the second story of a white house with a big wrap around porch. I scaled the tree next to the window to get a better look at the singer.
She had hair the color of gold, flowing down the length of her back. Her eyes were the color of the late evening sky and she had fair skin. I stayed and watched her, losing track of the time.
I slipped away before she could notice me. But I couldn’t stop with just that one night. Something unnameable kept me coming back. I watched and listened to her for six nights until one night as she sat down on her bed she stopped singing, and seemed to pass out. I leaned forward in the tree, trying to get a better look. At this point, it was merely curiosity that was driving me. I’d given up caring about anyone long ago.
“Who are you?” a voice beside me on the tree branch said. I spun my head towards the sound. It was the girl. In my nearly two hundred years on this Earth, I’d come to know there was more than what met the eye. Even so, I wasn’t always privy to the inner workings of such things. I raised my eyebrows and then crinkled them in confusion.
“How did you get up here?” I asked, turning back to her room. Her body was still there. Is she…?
“Am I dead?” she asked the question for me. “No. I astral projected. You know, my soul or consciousness or whatever you like to call it, exited my body? I’m a witch. What are you?” She volunteered that information so easily. Wasn’t that careless?
She was even more stunning up close. Gold hair cascading down her back and over her shoulders, framed her delicate face perfectly. Her ivory skin made her dark blue eyes stand out. The light tinge of peach to her cheeks. Her dark pink stained lips. My eyes raked over her body. I’d been with countless women and none of them had ignited a desire this strong within me. There was a pull almost hypnotic. I hadn’t felt that since…
“Well?” her words cut through my thought and my eyes snapped back to hers.
“A vampire,” I said. She didn’t look at all startled.
“What?” she snapped at me.
“Normal people would be scared.”
“Well, in case this little detail escaped you, I’m not normal.”
“No detail escapes me.” I grinned, showing my fangs. I had just been hunting and made no effort to hide them.
“Well, I beg your pardon,” she said. She wasn’t startled by my fangs either. If she was, she hid it well.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
“I thought no detail escaped you.” She smirked.
“That particular detail I was never in a position to figure out,” I explained.
“I see,” she said. I cocked my head, waiting for an answer. “My name is Kiara. And yours?”
“Trent.” I held out my hand. She glanced at it warily for a moment and then joined her hand with mine. Her skin was like touching velvet. My leather jacket brushed her hand as we shook. I could tell she was eyeing my jacket. Perhaps it wasn’t the apparel she expected a vampire to wear. She let her eyes meet mine. The way she was looking at me it seemed like she was studying me. Sizing up her opponent. Trying to see what my next move would be.
“So,” she said, drawing her eyes away from mine for a moment. “Why have you been watching me?”
I smiled at her and wondered how long she’d known I was watching her before she confronted me.
“I was curious,” I said finally.
Her forehead creased. “What about?”
“About your voice….have you heard of sirens?”
“Mythological creatures that used to lure sailors? Yeah, I’ve heard of them. You’re saying I remind you of a Siren?”
“Just your voice,” I answered.
Her eyebrows rose briefly and one side of her pink mouth lifted up in a quick half smile. A breeze blew through the tree we were in; making the scent of pine even stronger to my nostrils. “Why thank you very much,” she said.
“You’re not a siren are you?” I threw her my best smirk. She was really quite beautiful. Maybe she’d be a potential source of blood later on. Best to flirt now.
She laughed; a tinkling noise like jingling bells. “No.” She shook her head, her dark gold hair swinging from side to side. “Just a witch.” ​

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Amanda Leigh has had a love of words since before she could write them herself. Once she learned to read and write herself she just couldn't stop. She reads any genre as long as the book sounds interesting. Which may explain why she can't and never will be able to stick to one genre in her writing. From Contemporary Romance to Women's Fiction to Paranormal Romance to Poetry and more to come. When she's not writing or reading she enjoys getting swept away in a great TV show, going to the theater, listening to music, cooking and many different forms of art. She has a cat she adores and also loves Psychology, tea, coffee, chocolate and Elvis Presley. Not necessarily in that order. Feel free to get in touch with her.


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Do your characters seem to hijack the story or do you feel like you have the reigns of the story?

I start out in control of the story. At least I think so. Stories come to me a bunch of different ways. Sometimes it’s a concept, sometimes it’s the plot, sometimes it’s the characters. Often it’s a combination of characters and plot that comes to me. The characters (at least for my Beauty of the Dark series) were far stronger than where I thought the plot was going. I got to know these characters very well. The plot for the first book went pretty much as I expected it to in the beginning. The second book had some major changes and rewrites. But it was really the third book where the characters mostly took the reigns. I do a rough outline of my books before I write them (usually). I had one for Angel (the last book of my Beauty of the Dark trilogy) and as I was writing a scene in probably the last quarter of the book, things took a much different turn. I actually ended up scrapping the entire last quarter of my outline and just writing where the characters took me.
Veering away from plot though, my characters most certainly have a life of their own. I make an outline, like I said and for this trilogy I wrote out detailed character sketches and backgrounds of my three main characters (Kiara, Trent and Kaleib.) So I had a very good idea of their histories and motivations and all of that. I also thought I knew…well, that I knew everything about them but boy, did they teach me stuff that I was not expecting to hear. And this is how it goes during my writing. I wrote another book in this world just about Kaleib and I found out about him AS I wrote it. When I would speak to my mom about it (about the book I’m writing now, as well) I would say things like “You won’t believe what I found out about Kaleib today!” Which does sound sort of funny, doesn’t it, because I’m the one who made Kaleib up? But that’s how it works. I have questions about these characters, too and I discover the answers as I’m writing the story.

Fun Facts/Behind the Scenes/Did You Know?'-type tidbits about the author, the book or the writing process of the book.
The Beauty of the Dark trilogy started out because of one sentence scribbled in a notebook from when I was 17 years old. “A witch and a vampire fall in love.” I thought it was going to be a short story and even wrote the first chapters during my senior year of high school and into the firs month or so of college (late 2009). I put it aside and forgot about it until September 2013. I found that notebook and those chapters again and began taking notes. About these characters, the world, the rules of the world, their histories, all of that.

Originally, the story was in third person limited perspective. When I was looking it over I decided that wasn’t going to work so I rewrote those first two or three chapters in first person perspective.

First I thought it was going to be a short story. Then a stand alone. Then a duology. Now it’s a trilogy. (With other stories in the same world to come.) Who knew? hahaha.

The book is told in alternating Points of View. Alternating between Trent and Kiara. I toyed with the idea of having Kaleib’s POV in there, too but decided against it. (He is getting his own stories, though and probably even a book with his accounting of the events of the trilogy.) However, I still consider Kaleib an absolutely integral character to this trilogy.

Trent was the easiest character for me to write in this trilogy. Actually, he’s probably the easiest character for me two write period. Out of any I’ve published or written. That doesn’t mean he’s an easy character to write, exactly, but he was/is the easiest for me. When I sat down to write Trent, Kiara and Kaleib’s character sketched and histories Trent’s backstory came flying out of my fingertips onto the keyboard as if it had always been there in my head. Just waiting to finally be let out. He’s the character that i know best, followed by Kiara. Really, those three are. Knowing them so well has its drawbacks, though. Especially with Trent because…he’s a complicated fellow. haha. So when I write something seemingly irrational and unexplainable that he does I know why he does it and sometimes don’t consider that the person who’s reading may not and they might just think he’s a jerk.

Trent wrote a poem for Kiara. I have this poem all written out and it’s even included in one of my poetry collections (Beautiful Broken.)

I always, always have playlists for my books. I sometimes make one for when I’m writing and a separate one for the official playlist I put in the back of the book. This is the playlist that includes every single song in all of the Beauty of the Dark playlists: https://spoti.fi/2PEaarQ

I keep a small wooden turtle on my desk that my best friend brought back from Europe for me. I keep it with me when I write for luck.

My mom bought my Vampire perfume while I was writing this trilogy. I put it on only when I’m going to be working on a story in this world.

I almost always wear my Wuthering Heights fingerless gloves when I work on this trilogy/world because the book is Trent and Kiara’s favorite (as well as mine) and is mentioned throughout the trilogy.


What are your top 10 favorite books/authors?
Oh boy!! I had to answer this one even though it is definitely a tough one. Only because it’s so hard to narrow it down to only ten. Is it cheating if I list ten favorite books/series (sorry but I am counting series as one) AND ten favorite authors? ….I don’t think so, I’m going to do it.


Ten Favorite Books:
1. The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronté
3. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
4. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
5. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
7. Hamlet by William Shakespeare (yes, this is a play but it counts)
8. I don’t want to be crazy by Samantha Schultz
9. The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
10. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson


Ten Favorite Authors:

1. J.K. Rowling
2. Emily Bronté
3. S. E. Hinton
4. William Shakespeare
5. Maggie Stiefvater
6. Neil Gaiman
7. Trisha Wolfe
8. Victoria Scott
9. Emily Dickinson
10. K. Webster

If you could spend time with a character from your book whom would it be? And what would you do during that day?
Just one?? I want to pick all three of these characters!! Kiara, Trent and Kaleib!! If I HAVE to pick one…..hmmm. Alright, I’m being absolutely honest, it would totally be Trent. As I said, he’s the character that came easiest to me, the character that’s the easiest for me to write and probably the character I know best. And honestly, I think I feel the closest to Trent out of all three of those characters (Trent, Kiara and Kaleib.) I understand him really well and so it would be him. Trent would be the one I’d spend the day with.

What would we do? This day is a full twenty-four hours, right? I would want him to take me around and show me some of his favorite places. I mean, he’s been alive like two hundred years, so he’s seen a lot. And is extremely intelligent. We have the same favorite book (lol) and a few of the same favorite authors. Maybe he could show me around New Orleans (one of his favorite cities.) Or make we’d take a road trip or hop a plane somewhere. He could show me some really old libraries or ruins somewhere or something…I see Trent as a pretty spontaneous, unpredictable person. That’s half the fun, though, isn’t it? And certainly one of the reasons I chose him. ​

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