Spotlight & Giveaway: AWAKENED by Lauren Dane

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Lauren Dane to HJ!

Hi Lauren  and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Diablo Lake: AWAKENED!

 
Hey, all! Thanks so much for having me.
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Super sexy single wolf shifter, works in pack leadership, good with his hands seeks smart, sexy, powerful witch back in town to make it better and healthier for everyone. Gorgeous face and confidence along with a powerful need to nurture makes you my dream girl. Must accept nosiness and interference from pretty much every member of my very large extended family group. Will provide root beer floats in exchange for kisses and very excellent advice.

Beautiful, single, powerful and confident witch from a founding town family is back home and looking to make a real difference in Diablo Lake with brand new medical clinic. I’m not all work though. I’m seeking a partner to make hot chocolate for after a long day of getting things done. A grown up who shares my commitment to this community. Must tolerate nosy extended family and friend group. Loyalty, a sense of humor, compassion and a need to protect those he loves makes you my choice. Must love dogs.

This is the personals ad version of the romance between Ruby and Damon. He’s the protector, but there are times when she protects him, especially as the secret that’s been hurting the lives of many families in town, particularly Damon and his brothers, comes to light. She’s the defender and there are times he’s the nurturer because he recognizes the deep well of kindness that drives Ruby to do all she does for others and needs some caring herself.

Secrets that have been kept for decades have finally begun to bubble to the surface. Truth will out but at what cost?
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

Ruby pushed her buggy down the produce aisle. She’d been so smug about avoiding the one with the rickety front wheel, but the one she’d chosen instead would randomly lurch to the right and Ruby had only narrowly avoided colliding with an end cap of canned green beans.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I’m always hungry when I write books in this series. Ruby is a kitchen witch. A healer and her love language is baking for and feeding people so every time she baked cookies or a quick bread I had such cravings!
• I’m super musical so every book has a tracklist – this one was all about H.E.R.(Damage in particular), Elaine (Changes) and Summer Walker (Body)
• There are two dogs in this one – Biscuit and Kenny the Magnificent. They’re cairn terriers and I just love them. I based them on a few different terriers I’ve known. Writing scenes with them and (wolf shifter alpha) Damon was so much fun.

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

It’s always tricky when a character in the final book in a story arc comes from outside the setting of the previous books. Readers know characters they’ve seen before, become invested in their stories. So there’s a line to walk where the new person needs to be given the space and time for readers to become as invested in them as they are returning characters.

Ruby has been away during some turbulent times the rest of the town had to face over the last two books. She’s a healing force exactly when Diablo Lake needs it most. Definitely nurturing and soothing, but also strong. Fierce. Talented. Dedicated to making the town better and to serving her community. She’s got roots as old as the town and she takes her responsibility as a Thorne witch seriously. I loved that about her so much. She’s very close with her family and those she considers family. The other two books feature close female friendship and Awakened echoes that. She’s already very close with Katie Faith and Aimee (MCs of Moonstruck and Protected) so that felt surprisingly easy to write.

She’s a woman and a witch who knows her worth. She’s confident of her power and allure. In that, she and Damon are a match and they both find it so intoxicating in the other. She sees past the tough wolf job, past the good looks (though she’s absolutely a fan of how good he looks with and without his clothes) and to his heart.

Damon has grown up in the shadow of an event that happened while he was little more than a baby. Has had to grow up and mature out of his wilder, younger ways and into a real leader of the pack he helps his oldest brother run.

He’s smart and charismatic. Uses his charm when he can but claws and fangs when they’re called for. Trying very hard to do the right thing to deserve all the trust resting on his shoulders. And then Ruby comes back to town and into his life.

Writing the charm of Damon was easy. He’s one of those very handsome, charming men who all the older ladies bake for while he listens to their gossip and flatter them. It was also easy to write the relationship between him and his twin brother.

Ruby just sort of wakes him up all the way. He’s not confused about her, not even for a second. He just sets about to charming her and wooing her into falling for him. I think what surprised me though was how tender he was beneath it all. How he wanted her to see the best aspects of him and was a little shy about his flaws. That’s new for him and was uncomfortable at times – which is not fun for the characters, but it really is for me!

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

Damon and Ruby were already friends and had dated a few times many years before, but there was just a sweet, slow, sexy charm offensive he puts on for her that she’s just so delighted and disarmed by. I loved these little moments between them such as when he shows up at the health clinic she runs with a root beer float and asks her on a date. It allowed me to have this sweet moment but in so many Diablo Lake ways. A bench in a patch of autumn sunshine enjoying a treat with a handsome man in full view of a small town where gossip is king? I love it!

Ruby looked his way again and raised her nearly empty root beer float. “Okay. I forgot to say thank you. Sure is nice when a friend brings ice cream by to enjoy in a spot of afternoon sun. How’s your Monday so far?”

“Boring and annoying until now. Now it’s really good. I think you should come out on a date. With me, I mean in case I wasn’t clear on that point,” he told her.

He’d meant to be more suave and charming and shit, but as usual, she befuddled him and got his wolf all goofy.

“All right.”

“All right?”

“All right to the date. All right to the date with you,” she said and smiled, revealing her dimple. God. That dimple.

“Excellent. This moment right here is my favorite part of today.”

Her laugh brought his own. “Mine too.”

“I was a little unsure if you’d say yes,” he admitted.

“Because of the utter lack of chemistry between us?” she asked, deadpan.

That made him laugh again. “It’s pitiful, really.”

Ruby leaned in and slid her arm through his, squeezing him close. It had just been a quick thing but he still felt it though she’d moved away and was already talking about something else.

He took Ruby’s glass and spoon back. He’d drop them at Katie Faith’s on his way back to the Mercantile.

“I missed the simplicity of this. When I lived out there.” Ruby pointed off to the distance, away from Diablo Lake. “A root beer float in a glass with a tall spoon is a simple pleasure. But a really wonderful one.”

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

Connection matters. Compassion matters. These three books have shared a story arc about secrets and how those secrets have hurt lives. In the end, it’s the connection these characters have, the love and trust they inspire in one another that created an ending they all deserved. I hope, certainly, to do justice to female friendship/bonds because it’s such a central factor in the world of this series. And because I’m blessed to have a group of friends who are absolutely one of the best parts of my life. Being loved like that, warts and all, is important!
 

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

After AWAKENED comes out October 26, I’m shifting back to contemporary romance. I’m keeping the details quiet for a little while longer as I figure out what to do (self pub or traditional pub), but I will say this new series will be connected to several others.

Then it’s back to paranormal/urban fantasy (gotta keep things fresh).
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: 1 Digital copy of AWAKENED by Lauren Dane
Signed copy of Moonstruck, Protected and Awakened – print/ or digital copies of all three with signed bookplates to be sent to winner (open internationally where the books are available in chosen format)

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: I absolutely love the autumn. It’s my favorite time of year and I love reading books set around that time (and writing them too!) Do you find yourself seeking out books set in your favorite season?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Excerpt from Diablo Lake: AWAKENED:

“I think we should dance awhile.”

“That so?” The attempt at super-confident sexy bravado was undercut a bit by the way her pulse thundered in her ears. She knew without a doubt he heard it too.

“Don’t move,” he murmured after kissing her quickly. A few beats later, music began to play. “In Case You Didn’t Know” by Brett Young. “Dance with me,” he said and she took the hand he held her way and in a few steps, she rested her body against his. His arm banded her waist, holding her close and her cheek rested on his chest, over his heart.

Damon had danced his share. Had always loved the dance floor because that’s always where the girls and the fun were. But this was different. This was different even from the times he’d held Ruby against his body before.

The stars wheeled overhead as the fire in the firepit crackled. He buried his face in the curve of her neck and breathed in deep with a groan of pleasure he hoped didn’t scare her. She snuggled closer and he smiled against her skin.

By that time, her scent had burrowed into him, snagging his attention. Teasing. Sensual. Delightful.

Anticipation rode his spine as the few seconds it took for Ruby to turn her face up to his for a kiss stretched and heated. It was no time at all while also feeling like hours.

His gaze flicked from her lips, parting on a sigh, to her eyes and the way her lashes had swept down.

Damon bent his knees and met her lips with his. A soft, warm brush as she opened on a gasp. A good gasp, that had a little teeth at the end as she grazed his bottom lip. When he returned the nip of teeth, she gasped again and he knew he’d never, ever tire of that sound.

She grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him along with her to the footstool she stood on to bring herself closer to his height.

Fuck. Yes.

With a snarl, he stepped closer and banded her waist as she slid her arms around his neck and pulled him impossibly nearer. His heart beat so hard Damon was sure she heard it too.
And then they were kissing. Lips, teeth and tongues a tangle of need and pleasure.

It went on, an endless loop of kissing that seemed to spin a web that bound them together.

She was fire in his arms, her body against his, every brush of contact sending sparks of desire through him. Damon wanted to strip her down slowly and worship every inch of skin he revealed.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

New York Times bestselling author Lauren Dane welcomes you back to Diablo Lake, Tennessee: a town founded by witches, governed by werewolves and brimming full of secrets

It’s autumn in Diablo Lake and the town is buzzing with preparations for Halloween, Samhain, Collins Hill Days, and the wedding of the newly elected mayor and her wolf shifter fiancé.

Ruby Thorne can’t think of a better time of year to come back for good and open the health clinic she’s been planning for the last six years. Her connection to the town and its veins of magic have snapped back into place, flooding her with a power eager to jump to her call.

She has a sense of rightness. This witch is exactly where she’s supposed to be. So it’s not much of a surprise that he comes back into her path just like he was meant to…

Damon Dooley has spent the last few years learning how to run the pack at his older brother’s right hand. There’s been upheaval. Outrage. Violence. Old rules have created a silence so crushing it’s collapsed the fabric of not just the wolf shifters, but the town as a whole.

And yet, Ruby has returned. Man and wolf agree she needs to be in their life regularly, and before long, things move from serious to something magically deeper.

Bound to one another heart and soul, both committed to what’s best for Diablo Lake, Ruby backs Damon as he pushes for much-needed change. But when something falls into Ruby’s lap and she learns the whole, terrible truth, secrets need to be spilled. How—and by whom—becomes the only question.

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Meet the Author:

Lauren Dane is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over seventy novels and novellas including the Whiskey Sharp and Brown Family series and the Goddess with a Blade series. She’s written across the romance genre from contemporary rock stars or small towns, to universes we haven’t discovered yet, along with witches, shifters and a human vessel for a triple goddess to keep things interesting.

She lives surrounded by trees in her beloved Pacific Northwest where she wrangles some kids with her ever patient spouse and tries to get work done.
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