Spotlight & Giveaway: Finding Paradise by Barbara Dunlop

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Barbara Dunlop to HJ!

Hi Barbara and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, FINDING PARADISE!

 
Hi, all! Welcome to my FINDING PARADISE interview with Harlequin Junkies!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

In Book #2 of the Paradise, Alaska series, Los Angeles lawyer Marnie Anton joins her friend and client Mia Westberg in Paradise, Alaska for a far-fetched matchmaking project. Marnie plans to stay well to the sidelines of the event, since she prefers urbane men who are nothing like the rough and rugged Alaskans.
Enter Cobra, the buff, burley, former military aircraft maintenance engineer with a snake tattoo who reminds Marnie unsettlingly of the men in her past life.
Cobra wants nothing to do with the Paradise matchmaking scheme, but when he’s forced to give up his living quarters for the citified Marnie, he discovers she’s not what he expected. Far from being delicate, as her elegance suggests, her rural roots make her tougher and more accomplished than any woman he’s ever met.
Marnie struggles to keep her emotions in check, but Cobra is not who he appears. His rough exterior hides a compassionate, intelligent, and loyal man—exactly who you’d want by your side when the chips are down.
The town soon learns that Marnie’s hidden skills are exactly what they need to win the upcoming Klondike Challenge competition and they co-opt her for the team. But when Cobra learns Marnie’s troubling past has come back to haunt her, his protective instincts bring her into his arms and into his heart.
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

Enjoying the last sip of a bubbly Dom Perigon from her blown-crystal flute, Marnie Anton paused beneath the vaulted ceilings of LA’s Lafayette mansion to ponder irony and the twists of fate.
“I see you need more champagne,” Hannah Lafayette observed, her voice light and cheerful as she approached Marnie in the great room, giving a discreet wave to a nearby waiter who was standing at the ready.
Hannah had grown up in the mansion and was completely comfortable in its grandeur and opulence; Marnie, on the other hand, had grown up behind an auto shop in Merganser, Kansas.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• My husband and his fellow northern bush pilots inspired the book and the series.
• The far north is full of real-life stories about big-city women who came up on vacation, met that special man, and stayed forever.
• Some of the zaniest events in the Klondike Challenge competition really do take place in the far north.

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

My heroine Marnie was a minor character in the first Paradise, Alaska novel MATCH MADE IN PARADISE She was such an interesting person in that story, that I knew she needed her own.
I was surprised by the detail of her past life and how different it was from who she appeared to be. She seemed to have it together—a settled life and successful career. Turns out, she’d been running from a dark and complex family history, and it was about to catch up with her.

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

I’d use a scene early in the story where Cobra is back in his room in the West Slope Aviation living quarters for a shower and to pick up a few items—Marnie is living in his room for the weekend. It’s their first meaningful conversation, and it reveals their opposing personalities along with their early attraction.

Sippet of the scene:
“Unknown number,” Marnie said, which was the truth.
Cobra considered her for a moment. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” she said breezily, dropping her phone back into her bag and setting the bag on the stripped-down bed, next to a pile of folded sheets and blankets.
“You really shouldn’t play poker,” he said.
“Who says I play poker?” She understood what he meant, but the call was none of his business.
He seemed amused by her misdirection and moved past her to the little closet where he extracted a blue and gray duffel bag. “I take that back. You should definitely play poker with me.”
She knew she should let it go. “Are you saying you can guess what I’m thinking?”
“I’m saying you’re bad at bluffing.” He spread the bag open on his bed.
“It really was an unknown number.” She hadn’t blown off a friend or colleague or anything like that.
He passed by her again, moving to the dresser. “I could almost hear the debate inside your head.”
She knew he was exaggerating. “Now who’s bluffing?”
He lifted a neatly folded stack of three T-shirts from the top drawer.
She couldn’t help sneaking a peek inside the dresser. It looked every bit as tidy as the room. It seemed he wore boxers, black boxers. She quickly averted her eyes, realizing she’d seen too much already.
“Right there,” he said, pausing to point at her eyes, stopping just short of touching her face. “It’s a tell. You had an emotional reaction to the number.”
It took her a second to speak. “I didn’t know the number.”
“Hmmm.” He went silent.
She shook her head at the trick. “Oh, no, no. You don’t get to say hmmm and then wait. You’re fishing, like a carnival tarot card reader, looking for me to give something away so you can sound smart.”
He quirked an amused grin. “I’m not trying to predict your future. I’m just saying, you’ve got no more than a pair of sixes.”
“Three of a kind,” she said, stifling her own grin. “Queens.”
“Then I guess you take the pot.” His gaze was warm now, full of good humor as he set the T-shirts in the bottom of the duffel.

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

I’d like people to enjoy the lighthearted story and maybe think a little bit about family and forgiveness and consider the value of looking beneath the surface to see who people are underneath.

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

FINDING PARADISE is my next release in November. And I’ve just finished Book #3 in the Paradise, Alaska series. STRANGERS IN PARADISE from Berkley is scheduled for release in May 2022.
I also have two new stories from Harlequin coming out in my Gambling Men series. MIDNIGHT SON will be out in January 2022 while HUSBAND IN NAME ONLY will be out in March 2022.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: (1) One physical copy of FINDING PARADISE (US only, 18+).

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Has anyone thought about traveling to Alaska, or perhaps another adventure travel destination?

 
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Excerpt from FINDING PARADISE:

From FINDING PARADISE, Berkley, November 2021
Marnie tried to come up with the right secret, something innocuous enough to share with a stranger, but juicy enough to get Cobra to dish when it was his turn. She wanted to know what lurked beneath that tough, scarred exterior.
“I’m a thief,” she said.
His eyes widened. “You steal things?”
“Stole. Once. It was before I passed the bar.”
He made a show of glancing around the room. “Are my things safe around you?”
“I’m over it.”
“What did you steal?”
“Cake, a cupcake. A beautiful, wonderful cupcake. It was confetti vanilla, piled high with fluffy pink buttercream icing with silver sprinkles and a little star on top.” Even now she fondly remembered the sweet creamy taste.
He looked distinctly entertained by the confession. “Why did you do that?”
“My family wasn’t very well off, so we never spent money on frivolous things. I was thirteen. My mother had died that year, and it was my birthday, but nobody remembered.”
“Your family forgot your birthday?” Cobra’s brow furrowed, his expression going from entertained to troubled.
“It was only my dad and my brother then, plus my uncle. They were . . .” She chose her words carefully. “Well . . . focused on work and . . . on other things. But it was grocery day. So, my dad took us all to the Town Market. I spotted this elaborate cupcake just sitting there on the bakery table in a little plastic container that would fit so neatly into my shoulder bag.” It was crystal clear in her memory to this day. “I couldn’t resist. I snagged it, took it home, and when everyone else had gone to bed, I lit a candle. I didn’t have a real birthday candle, just the regular kind. So, I lit it and held the cupcake in front, so the flame danced over the icing and kind of looked like a birthday candle.” She smiled, remembering the satisfying effect. “I sang happy birthday to myself, really quiet so nobody would hear, then I blew out the candle.” She paused for a breath. “Best cupcake I ever ate.”
Cobra sat still, his dark eyes clouding. “That’s a really sad story.”
“You think?” She looked back on it with a bit of amusement now, a little bit of guilt too since a willingness to steal had to say something about the core of her moral fiber. The memory sometimes gave her a shiver of fear, because she would have been in deep trouble if she’d been caught. “I cut the container into teeny, tiny little pieces before I hid it way down in the trash bin. And nobody in the world knows except you.”
“I can’t believe your family forgot your birthday.”
“We weren’t a celebrating kind of family, not for anything. Your turn now.” She waited, but he didn’t speak. She inched a little closer. “You can’t wimp out on me, Cobra.”
He cleared his throat. “Mine’s nowhere near as endearing as yours.”
“Thievery’s not endearing. Come on. Give.”
“All right. I betrayed my brother.”
“You have a brother?”
“That’s your question?”
“Yeah. You have a brother?”
“Two. Barrick and Miles.”
“Are you oldest?”
“In the middle.”
“Which one did you betray?”
He cocked his head. “Are you going to let me tell the story?”
She made a zipping motion over her lips.
“It was Barrick. He had this girlfriend in college. He went to UW, so he still lived at home. Anyway, the two of them had a big fight one night. I was out in the garage working on a car, and she stormed from the house and saw me there. For some reason, she decided I needed to know what an ass of a brother I had. I didn’t disagree, and well, one thing led to another and we—”
“You slept with your brother’s girlfriend?” Marnie was thinking that definitely beat a pilfered cupcake.
“No.” Cobra looked appalled. “I kissed her.”
Marnie sat back. “You kissed her? That’s your big secret? Some little kiss back in college?”
“It was a big kiss, a long kiss, a kiss that almost turned into something else. But I stopped just in time.”
“But that’s it?”
“I felt guilty about it for years. I might not have been crazy about my brother, but it was a jerk move.”
“Did you steal her from him? Did you start dating her yourself?”
“No.” Cobra compressed his lips over what looked like a smirk. “They made up. They’re married now.”
Marnie fought her own reflexive grin. “That must make for one awkward Thanksgiving dinner.”
“She pretends it never happened, and I sure never gave her away. Plus, I moved to Alaska, so we don’t see each other much.” He paused. “Nobody knows that secret either. Well, Josephine, but she’s not telling.”
Marnie couldn’t help but think about the burden that had to cause for Josephine. “That must be hard. To be married to someone and have to hold that in your soul forever.”
“It would bother you?”
“I’m barely over the cupcake, and I don’t live with the baker.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Passion heats up in Paradise, Alaska, for two people who couldn’t be more different in this sweet, sizzling romance from New York Times bestselling author Barbara Dunlop.

Accomplished Los Angeles lawyer Marnie Anton has always been sensible, but when her friend Mia Westberg asks for help with a ridiculous matchmaking project, she can’t say no. The idea of transporting city girls into the small town of Paradise, Alaska, is so crazy it just might…work? Against her best judgment, she tags along. Having grown up in a family of intimidating men, Marnie developed a preference for the urbane lawyers and clients in her life in LA. But when she meets a mountain of a buff Alaskan man with an intriguing snake tattoo, intimidated is definitely not the first thing she feels.

Conrad “Cobra” Stanford was skeptical of the matchmaking event from the start. Big-city women weren’t adventurous, they were judgmental. They’d take one look at him and scorn his lifestyle, just like his first love did. Cobra planned to give the women a wide berth, but one of them won’t be ignored. Marnie’s everything that’s wrong and everything that’s right for him all at the same time. Just when he thinks he’s got her pegged, she blindsides him with a startling past, falling into his arms and igniting his protective instincts and so much more….

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Meet the Author:

Barbara Dunlop is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over sixty romance and romantic comedy novels. Brought up in a lively metropolis, she moved to the far north with her bush-pilot husband, raising two children on the edge of a wilderness city. Barbara draws inspiration from the vibrant enthusiasm of her urban friends and from the independent spirit of her northern neighbors. Published in multiple languages across a worldwide market, her work has received numerous awards with a number of her stories optioned for film and television.
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