Spotlight & Giveaway: Broken With You by J. Kenner

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author J. Kenner to HJ!

Hi Julie and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Broken With You!

 
Hello! Thank you so much for having me!
 

To start off, can you please tell us a little bit about this book?:

The most important thing is how much I love it! It was a challenge to write, though, as it’s an amnesia romance, the love for his wife is at the core of their quest to find out what happened to Mason and stop the bad guys. In the end, of course, love pulls through.
 

Please share your favorite lines or quote(s) from this book:

“Now, my lips tingle from the memory. I can still recall his scent. Can still hear the way he drew in a sharp breath in surprise at my boldness.”

“He loved you. Which makes me pretty sure I love you, too. Or I will. Right now, it might just be all about the sex.”

What inspired this book?

The short story, Shadows Of You was the primary inspiration. Denny had appeared in Lost With Me and Damien, and I used her as the heroine for an original short story for an anthology. At the time I wrote it, I didn’t know there would be a full book, but as the characters came to life … well, they inspired themselves! In the actual writing, I’m sure I drew a lot from some of my favorite TV shows that are actually mentioned in the story like Alias and Lost.

How did you ‘get to know’ your main characters? Did they ever surprise you?

As I said with the first book in this series, I spend a lot of time thinking about them, but I don’t really get to know them until I’m actually writing the story. And yes, they surprise me ALL the time!

What was your favorite scene to write?

I would say when they first see each other… there is the tension of will he know who she is — and what does it mean for them if he doesn’t?

What was the most difficult scene to write?

Probably the first two chapters, as they are told from Mason’s point of view.

Would you say this book showcases your writing style or is it a departure for you?

It’s definitely a J. Kenner book!

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

The power of love!

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

Just finished up Indulge Me, a Nikki & Damien 1001 Dark Nights Novella, and I’m already working on Ruined With You, the 3rd book in the Stark Security series featuring Liam soon. And… quite a few secret projects!

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: An electronically personalized copy of Broken With You (this is a new feature of my printer, and it’s really, really cool!)

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Leave a comment with your thoughts on the book…

 
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Excerpt from Broken With You:

I sigh, overwhelmed by the sight of him and the situation. But no matter how horrible everything is, that is my husband in there. Mason. The dark hair that appears so thick and coarse, but is as soft as silk to my fingers. Those deep-set eyes that can steal my breath with a single glance. His rugged face highlighted by the slight, kissable cleft in his chin.

And his body. Tall and muscular and vibrant and mine.

We’ll get past this. Somehow, I’m going to get him back.

As if he can hear my thoughts, Mason turns and walks toward the mirror. Toward me. He stops in front of it, completely naked, his head tilted slightly down so that our eyes meet, though I know he can’t see me. My pulse kicks up, and I let my gaze roam over every delicious inch of him, soaking him up like candy.

“That’s Mason,” I whisper, my attention focused especially on the tribal band tattoo on his left arm. Mason doesn’t like rings—not since he saw his cousin’s finger get ripped off after the seventeen-year-old got his hand caught in construction equipment during a summer job. Instead of a ring to symbolize our marriage, he’d chosen to get a tattoo. I’d considered doing the same, but in the end, I’d gone with my platinum band.

I press my palm against the glass and sigh. “He may not realize it, but that’s definitely Mason.”

Seagrave’s back is still to the glass, so I can easily see the way his forehead creases as he studies me. “If you’re about to give me a run down on specific physical attributes, don’t bother. I’ve gotten a full report from the med team already.”

I smirk. “I definitely recognize every inch,” I say, choosing not to comment on the spider web of scars that make me want to weep. “But that wasn’t what I meant. I’m saying that he’s Mason. With Mason’s habits. His—I don’t know— programming.”

“Programming?”

I shake my head quickly. “I don’t mean he’s gone all Manchurian Candidate on us. I just mean that people develop certain patterns over a lifetime. He hasn’t forgotten those. Even if he’s forgotten where they came from. That has to be a good sign, right?”

“He walked naked into a room that he may well believe is private. So what? Tell me what exactly that means to you.”

“Defiance,” I say, grinning at my bare-naked husband still standing in front of the mirror, looking hard at us even though I know that all he sees is himself. “We both know he understands what that mirror is—don’t try to tell me you think otherwise. So that’s one clue. Here’s another—Mason never leaves the bathroom naked. He always wears a towel or dresses in the bathroom.”

That, in fact, is a quirk that I’ve always found unfortunate since the man has an incredible body. But he shared a room with his sister until he was fourteen and now the towel habit is deeply ingrained. He’s broken pattern only twice in our marriage—our wedding night and the night before he left on this mission. Mostly because I’d cajoled him into—and out of—the shower with me.

Not that I’m going to share those details with Seagrave.

“But he’s not Mason,” Seagrave says. “That’s the point. That’s why he’s breaking pattern. No towel. No old habits.”

“Maybe. Or maybe this is his way of flipping you the bird.”

I watch as Seagrave’s mouth curves into a frown. He spins the chair, then stares at Mason, who’s still standing in front of the mirror. “He knows we’re here. And so he’s purposely acting against instinct, knowing full well I’d be watching.”

At first, I think he’s mocking my theory. Then I realize he means it. “You agree with me.”

“That he knows we’re behind the mirror and that he is, as you say, flipping us off? Yes. I do.” Seagrave’s shoulders rise and fall. “But as to whether he’s in defiance of the habit of the towel, too … well, that I can’t be sure of.”

I shrug. “Fair enough,” I say. “It’s enough that I’m certain.”

I think about what he’s just said. “Why do you say he knows about the mirror?”

“We weren’t twiddling our thumbs in the days before I called you. We’ve been doing a series of tests and interviews. He recognized his Special Forces tattoo. He admits to a level of familiarity regarding intelligence work, though no specific assignments.”

“Familiarity,” I repeat. “Like habits. Behavior.”

“Yes.”

“So he knows he’s an agent. A spy.”

“Or that he was. But what we didn’t know—and what he couldn’t tell us—was if he’d been compromised.”

I feel the blood rush to my face. “Brainwashing. Triggers.” I think about my Manchurian Candidate quip and wish I’d said nothing. The idea that some enemy of the state or vile mobster brainwashed my husband to blow a gasket when he sees a particular pattern or hears a trigger phrase or verse … well, the possibility is too horrible to even think about.

“No,” Seagrave says gently. “He’s undergone hours of testing and interviews with Dr. Tam, and we’ve reached almost one hundred percent confidence that he hasn’t been compromised that way.”

I nod slowly. I trust the SOC’s staff psychiatrist, but in the intelligence world, nothing ever reaches one hundred percent certainty.

“I want to see him now,” I say simply.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

True love never fades…

After surviving a troubled childhood, Denise can’t believe that she’s blissfully married to her partner and soulmate. She’s confident that not even Mason’s long-term, deep-cover assignment will shake their bond. And she certainly doesn’t anticipate that when he finally walks back through her door that he’ll have no memory of her, himself, or their time together…

When Mason is pulled out of an operation gone bad, all he knows is what he’s told — that he was a covert agent, that he has information vital to national security somewhere in his head, and that they can tell him no more for fear of burying those hard-fought secrets even further. They tell him nothing else; not even that the beautiful woman who makes his heart beat faster is not just his partner, but also his wife.

The secret she must keep wrecks Denise, who wants only to return to Mason’s arms. But despite the desire that still burns hot between them, she can’t tell him who she is—or that she’s carrying his child.

But when dark forces threaten both their lives in order to retrieve the information trapped in Mason’s mind, it’s not their past that will be tested, but the tenuous new love now burning hot between them.

You don’t want to miss this sexy, suspenseful amnesia romance!

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Meet the Author:

J. Kenner (aka Julie Kenner) is the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, Wall Street Journal and #1 International bestselling author of over one hundred novels, novellas and short stories in a variety of genres.
JK has been praised by Publishers Weekly as an author with a “flair for dialogue and eccentric characterizations” and by RT Bookclub for having “cornered the market on sinfully attractive, dominant antiheroes and the women who swoon for them.” A five-time finalist for Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA award, JK took home the first RITA trophy awarded in the category of erotic romance in 2014 for her novel, Claim Me (book 2 of her Stark Trilogy) and the RITA trophy for Wicked Dirty in the same category in 2017.
In her previous career as an attorney, JK worked as a lawyer in Southern California and Texas. She currently lives in Central Texas, with her husband, two daughters, and two rather spastic cats.
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