Spotlight & Giveaway: A Good Day for Chardonnay by Darynda Jones

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Darynda Jones to HJ!

Hi Darynda and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, A Good Day for Chardonnay!

 
Thank you so much for having me!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Sunshine Vicram has survived her first months as the sheriff of Del Sol with her reputation and her sanity intact. Mostly. When a boy who’s been missing for over five years shows up on surveillance footage at a convenience store, Sunshine is stunned. His abduction was her first case as a detective in Santa Fe. It was also her first utter failure. Add to that a bar fight gone bad, a raccoon that just doesn’t know when to quit, and a crush she can’t seem to shake. Chardonnay to the rescue.
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

Sunshine stared into her cup of coffee as though it were a witch’s cauldron, a window revealing all the ways she could kill her parents. Their deaths would be slow and methodical and painful. Much like the date she was on now.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• Randy the raccoon is named after one of my older brothers because he is rather like a raccoon. He’s a schemer, sneaky, and always in trouble.
• I wanted a wine that rhymed with “good day” for the title, and because I can’t drink and know nothing about wine, it took me forever to come up with one. Once I did, I thought chardonnay was a red until I saw a mock-up of the cover. I learned a lot writing this book!
• Sometimes ideas come at the most inopportune times. The big twist in this book came during sexy times with my husband. Yep. Smack dab in the middle of it all. Afraid I would forget, I told my husband, “Don’t let me forget ‘Sorry’.” His reply? “You say the weirdest things.” (This is true.)

Please tell us a little about the characters in your book. As you wrote your protagonist was there anything about them that surprised you?

Our main characters are Sunshine, her daughter, Auri, and our love interest, the sexy bad-boy-gone-good, Levi Ravinder. Sunshine is the reluctant sheriff of a small tourist town in New Mexico. Auri has an insatiable curiosity and a knack for getting into impossible situations. (And almost getting herself and others killed.) And Levi is a town hero after taking his family’s illicit moonshining business legit and employing half the town.

I feel like Sunshine was more jaded in this book, maybe? A little more irreverent? Which made the whole book all the more fun to write. And the big revelation at the end was a surprise. I knew it was coming, just not in this book. I’m so excited for everyone to read it!

If your book was optioned for a movie, what scene would you use for the audition of the main characters and why?

I think the chemistry between the love interests are of the utmost importance, so I would love to see any scene with banter between the two of them, like this one:

“JX?” the deputy asked.
“Yeah,” Levi said, twisting the cap in his hands. “That’s all I got.”
One corner of Rojas’s mouth lifted. “You’re lucky you got that much. I’ve never been hit by a truck, but I don’t think I would’ve been trying to memorize the license plate while it was happening.”
Sun’s pride swelled just a little. She’d had a good feeling when she blackmailed Poetry Rojas into joining the team. She knew he’d make a great deputy, and so far he had yet to prove her wrong. He was observant, sharp, and good with people.
She unclasped her hands—thankful she wasn’t in uniform and tainting the professionalism of the station with her actions. She stepped close enough to notice the subconjunctival hemorrhage in his left eye, the blood trapped beneath the clear surface already spreading and encircling his whiskey-colored iris.
Alarm shot through her again. She cleared her throat and addressed the EMT. “He could have a concussion.”
All heads turned her direction, including his. He didn’t seem surprised to see her, which, why would he be? Then again, Levi had a perpetual poker face. He wasn’t the easiest person to read.
“Sheriff.” The EMT stood and offered his hand. “I’ve told him that very thing. I really think he should go in for a couple of X-rays.”
Levi looked up at her, studying her for a solid minute before dropping his gaze. “I’m fine,” he said, the sharpness in his tone impossible to miss. “If I weren’t, you, Sheriff Vicram, would be the first to know.”
Sun tried not to read too much into that statement. She failed. A million interpretations sprang to mind when he was obviously being sarcastic.
Rojas raised a questioning brow toward her.
“Thank you, Toby,” she said to the EMT. “They’re right, Levi. You need to be checked out by a doctor.”
He bit down, his stoic façade cracking. “I need to be on the road chasing down that fucking truck. And I would be”—he gave his uncle a lethal glare—“if someone hadn’t hidden my keys.”
Surprised, Sun offered the stocky brunette watching from the sidelines a look of bemusement. Clay Ravinder was the last of Levi’s uncles still in the area, and he was about as warm and caring as a pit viper. If he was keeping Levi from going after the truck, he had a reason, and it had nothing to do with Levi’s well-being.
“Thank you,” she said to him regardless, curious as to what he would say.
He said nothing. Instead, he sucked on a toothpick and let his gaze rake over her.
Nice. She turned back to the frustrated man sitting before her. Stepped closer. Lowered her voice. “I could arrest you.”
Not one to let a foe seize the upper ground, he released an exasperated sigh and stood to his full height of sexy feet, AF inches. “For what exactly?” His voice, as deep and rich as the dark auburn in his hair, flooded her nether regions with warmth.
Holy hell, she had to get a grip. She swallowed, then said, “For being a stubborn asshat.”
He let a mouthwatering smirk soften his battered face. “Is that a misdemeanor or a felony?”

What do you want people to take away from reading this book?

I write for pure escapism. Pure entertainment. I want my readers to become immersed in the story. To catch their breaths at the surprise twists. To long for the bad guys to be caught. To squirm—in a good way—when Sunshine and Levi light the pages on fire.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have planned?

Right now I’m having a blast working on the third in this series, A Hard Day for a Hangover, and the fourth in the Betwixt and Between series, Moonlight and Magic.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A signed hardcover and swag for the FIRST book in the Sunshine Vicram series, A Bad Day for Sunshine (International entries welcome!)

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: I’d love to know how the Harlequin Junkies consume their fiction: Hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook? I love it all, but I’m turning more and more to audiobooks to get my reading in. The narrator of the Sunshine books, the amazing Lorelei King, also read both my Charley Davidson books and my YA trilogy. She is incredible!

 
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Excerpt from A Good Day for Chardonnay:

Sun and Levi didn’t wait for backup. The minute the bright yellow orb crested the horizon, they headed out. They’d parked in a valley at the base of the Sangre de Cristos. It was going to be a long hike up to the mine.
They grabbed water and power bars from her emergency stash along with various supplies and a first-aid kit. Sun insisted on wearing the backpack, since she hadn’t been hit by a truck as recently as he had, but he practically ripped it out of her hands and slid it over his shoulders despite her protests.
Men. Especially men who picked fights with Toyota Tundras.
“Thank you,” Sun said, as they walked an overgrown trail.
“For?”
“I’m not sure I would’ve realized Elliot meant to write Sawry, as in the Sawry Silver Mine, without your prompting.”
“You figured it out before I did, and without knowing how much Eli loves that mine.”
“He loves the mine?”
“Seabright mentioned it a couple years ago.”
“Either way, thank you.”
He looked down at her, the trail wide enough at that point for them to walk side by side through the brush, and the appreciation she saw in his eyes went straight to her head. And other parts of her body. Like a margarita might. Or a hit of acid. Not that she’d ever done acid. Much.
She turned back to the trail. There was a time they could’ve gotten a vehicle up to the mine. It would’ve been rough, but it could’ve happened. Disuse and overgrowth put a stop to that, and while the mine had been boarded up for decades, kids still managed to find a way in. It rarely ended well.
Quincy and the gang were bringing ATVs, but the overgrowth would slow even those down, and Sun didn’t want to wait.
“I don’t care how much Elliot loves that mine, it’s dangerous. And now he has a seven-year-old with him.”
“He knows it like the back of his hand. He trains in there with Seabright.”
“But Adam doesn’t. And he’s only seven. The pit has a way of sneaking up on you.”
The pit was a massive hole deep in the mine and impossible to see until you were falling into it. It dropped thirty feet and led to another level. More than one kid had fallen into it over the years, despite it being boarded up. When a middle-school boy died after falling in a few years back, Sun’s parents started a petition and tried to have it filled in with cement, but the city council dismissed it, arguing it would be impossible to get a cement truck up to the mine.
Difficult, yes. But not impossible. And worth the added cost, in Sun’s opinion. She could hardly blame kids for their curiosity. She’d been one.
“By the way,” Levi said after they’d been walking about forty minutes.
She liked walking with him. And driving with him. And watching him drive. “Yes?”
“We were followed.”
She almost tripped but managed to keep her feet on solid ground. Staring straight ahead, she said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wasn’t positive.”
“But you are now?”
He nodded.
“It has to be the Delmar family,” she said. “There have been men stationed in town for a few days now. I’m certain they work for them. But they’re still after Elliot? After all this time? They have to know Matthew Kent doesn’t have the money.”
He stayed silent for a long time, then said, “Revenge?”
A shiver raced up her spine. “Not on my watch. How do you know they’re still following us?”
“They’re keeping a watch with binoculars. Or a scope. The lens is reflecting in the trees off to the left.”
“I’m thirsty,” Sun said, turning toward him. She motioned for him to turn around.
He grinned down at her, his powerful frame like a mountain towering over her. When he didn’t move, she rolled her eyes dramatically and walked around him, playing her part and taking the opportunity he’d provided to scan the distant tree line. A single lens flare reflected the sun then disappeared.
She fished a bottle of water out of the backpack and used the cover to depress the push-to-talk button on her mic clip.
“Zee, you there?”
“I’m here, boss.”
“Your mom called. Your house is on fire. You need to go home immediately.”
“Ten-four, boss. Thanks.”
She reached down and turned the knob to change the channel from their standard to their tactical channel.
Zee came on almost immediately. “How many?”
“We don’t know.”
“We’re coming up on your six,” Quincy said.
“They left town early this morning,” Rojas said, turning off his ATV. “Something got their attention.”
“What time was this?” Sun asked.
“My guy at the front desk said they took off about three.”
She glanced at Levi. “Right after Elliot took Adam?”
“That can’t be a coincidence,” he said.
“Sorry about this, guys. Hope you wore comfortable shoes.” They would have to abandon the ATVs for the time being, but at least they’d almost caught up to her and Levi.
“Thank God I changed out of my heels,” Quincy said.
She laughed softly and offered Levi the water bottle. “Signal when you have them in your sights. We’ll distract them.”
Zee came back. “You got it, boss.”
Levi took a few shallow sips before eyeing her with a mixture of humor and interest. “I don’t have any explosives on me.”
After a pitying assessment, she tsked and said, “I thought all you Ravinder boys carried dynamite everywhere you went. How ever are we going to distract them now?”
The breathtaking grin he flashed her implied he had a few ideas.
She had to kickstart her heart to get it beating again. The things he could do to her with a single glance bordered on obscene. She looked around and sat on a fallen log, making the time-out sign with her hands. To an observer, it would look like she simply needed a break. Which she did. She hadn’t slept in what felt like days.
He sat beside her and leaned against the tree behind them. Placing the backpack on the ground at their feet, he ferreted out a couple of power bars.
She took one and said nonchalantly, “I can’t even imagine what my hair looks like at this point in my life.”
“Hair has never been your strong suit,” he said, a teasing sparkle in his eyes.
“Oh yeah? Well, brains have never been yours.”
He chuckled and took a huge bite while she tried to come up with a legitimate distraction. Just something to keep their quarry’s eyes trained on them.
“How about a fight?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Could work.”
“Or,” she said, excited, “I could slip and break my leg!”
“That might be hard to pull off.”
“True.” She took another bite.
Several minutes later, the radio clicked three times.
“That was fast.”
“You thirsty?” Levi asked her.
She’d bent to stuff her wrapper into the backpack. When she straightened, she felt a firm hand wrap around to the back of her skull. She looked up at him. He pulled her closer and lifted the bottle to her lips. The hard plastic of the rim pressed against them. Cool water filled her mouth.
She tried to swallow but a memory consumed her. Her breath caught and she coughed, but only slightly.
He lowered the bottle and licked his own lips as he studied hers. The image of her rescuer fifteen years ago, hood and shadows concealing his face, flashed in her mind. He held her the same way. An arm draped behind her back, supporting her. A large hand around her neck. The bottle at her lips, cool and wet against her hot mouth. A warmth spread throughout her body.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice whisper soft.
“There are only two things that will keep their attention focused on us while your team overtakes them. Either we fight or fuck.”
She swallowed hard. “You’re assuming they don’t have a sniper rifle pointed at our heads as we speak.”
“They clearly want the kid. Why would they blow their lead?”
“Fine. We fight.”
His gaze traveled over her face. “Chickenshit.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Running a small-town police force in the mountains of New Mexico should be a smooth, carefree kind of job. Sadly, full-time Sheriff—and even fuller-time coffee guzzler—Sunshine Vicram, didn’t get that memo.

All Sunshine really wants is one easy-going day. You know, the kind that starts with coffee and a donut (or three) and ends with take-out pizza and a glass of chardonnay (or seven). Turns out, that’s about as easy as switching to decaf. (What kind of people do that? And who hurt them?)

Before she can say iced mocha latte, Sunny’s got a bar fight gone bad, a teenage daughter hunting a serial killer and, oh yes, the still unresolved mystery of her own abduction years prior. All evidence points to a local distiller, a dangerous bad boy named Levi Ravinder, but Sun knows he’s not the villain of her story. Still, perhaps beneath it all, he possesses the keys to her disappearance. At the very least, beneath it all, he possesses a serious set of abs. She’s seen it. Once. Accidentally.

Between policing a town her hunky chief deputy calls four cents short of a nickel, that pesky crush she has on Levi which seems to grow exponentially every day, and an irascible raccoon that just doesn’t know when to quit, Sunny’s life is about to rocket to a whole new level of crazy.

Yep, definitely a good day for chardonnay.

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Meet the Author:

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Darynda Jones has won numerous awards for her work, including a prestigious RITA®, a Golden Heart®, and a Daphne du Maurier, and her books have been translated into17 languages. As a born storyteller, she grew up spinning tales of dashing damsels and heroes in distress for any unfortunate soul who happened by. Darynda lives in the Land of Enchantment, also known as New Mexico, with her husband and two beautiful sons, the Mighty, Mighty Jones Boys.
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