Spotlight & Giveaway: Her Impossible Baby Bombshell by Dani Collins

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Dani Collins to HJ!

Hi Dani Collins and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Her Impossible Baby Bombshell!

 
Hi Harlequin Junkies! I’m so excited to visit you again!
 

Tell us about the book with this fun little challenge using the title of the book:

I took only one word, since Her Impossible Baby Bombshell is really long!

Impossible
Marriage of Convenience
Passion
Opulence
Surprise
Shanghai
Introvert
Baby!
Luxury
Emotional

Please share the opening lines of this book:

Love. Yuck. Ivy Lam was over it.

Please tell us a little about the characters in your book.

After following her banking career to Hong Kong and Toronto, Ivy is looking forward to a fresh start in her hometown of Vancouver. She attends a friend’s engagement party and accidentally winds up in a car with Jun Li, a Chinese billionaire. They spend a whirlwind day together that ends in what she thinks is a reset after ending a long, dead-end relationship–except she winds up pregnant.

Jun Li lived in Vancouver for much of his youth, schooling there as an international student. He had enormous responsibility running his family’s worldwide conglomerate and, due to a betrayal when he was younger, has had a vasectomy. He is convinced he can’t get a woman pregnant–until Ivy appears and tells him differently.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• It starts out set in my hometown of Vancouver, BC (I was actually born and raised in the suburbs.)
• I wanted to flip the Secret Baby trope around so the hero truly didn’t expect he could get a woman pregnant so this really throws him for a loop.
• It was written during lockdown and was a much-needed getaway to sunny, bright, exciting places.

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Ivy is dazzled by Jun Li’s sexy looks and equally sexy car, but he urges her to seize the day and she is eager to shake off the shackles of her old staid life.
Jun Li is equally enraptured by Ivy. She’s funny and helps him feel more carefree than he’s ever felt.

The First Kiss…

He wanted to kiss her. She knew it and she wanted that, too. She turned and lifted her gaze to meet his. They were both smiling.
She didn’t let herself wonder what any of it meant. This day was a gift for both of them.
When his mouth settled on hers, lips firm and smooth and hot, her whole body grew charged with electricity.
This was her chance to take another step toward moving on, she realized with a flash of possibility. Indulging herself with Jun Li was liable to wipe her memory clean all the way back to her first kiss in grade school, but that was exactly what she needed.
The conscientious woman inside her, the one still longing for love, marriage and a baby carriage, warned that a man like him could set a bar that no other man could reach. He could destroy her without even meaning to.
She told that fearmongering voice to pipe down and kissed him back.
They kissed until they were both breathless. When he lifted his head, she discovered they were pressed together, arms wrapped tight around each other.
He licked his lips.
“How do you feel about being used in a rebound situation?” she asked before she could think twice.
“I feel great about it.”

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

Can I say first that I pictured Simu Liu as the hero?

I don’t know if I would use this as an audition scene, but it’s one of my favourites:
She was so deep in thought, she only distantly heard Jun Li say, “Do you see anything you like?”
His question didn’t make sense. A shadow unexpectedly descended in front of her face. It startled her so badly, she reflexively struck at whatever it was, sending it flying into the pool.
Sparkling droplets flashed as they scattered and rained into the water with soft plinks. Something square and flat landed on the surface and sat there like a boat that was taking on water.
“Apparently not.” Jun Li straightened and peeled his shirt up and off, blinding her with his tawny, muscled chest and small dark nipples and abs that were so perfectly defined, they were like stacked blocks of store-bought masculinity.
“What was that?”
“Rings.” He opened his belt and peeled himself down to his boxer briefs, stepping out of his slippers.
“Like…diamonds?” She looked with horror into the settling water to see glints of ice and gold sitting on the bottom of the pool. “Why would you stick them in my face like that?”
“Why would you throw them in the pool?” He took a breath and dived in without waiting for her answer.

If your hero had a sexy-times play list, what song(s) would have to be on it?

I’m terrible at this question – I don’t have playlists for my books and prefer silence when I write. If I do listen to something, it’s ambient without lyrics and probably only playing to drown out whatever noise is coming in through the open window.
I don’t listen to enough music to suggest something contemporary so my answer would be something like How Deep Is Your Love by the BeeGees, lol. Yes, I’m that old!

If you could have given your characters one piece of advice before the opening pages of the book, what – would it be and why?

Oh, gosh, Ivy. Leave the bum you dated in high school. He will waste eight years of your life!
But having said that, I think it’s a very easy mistake for anyone to make–putting up with a situation for way too long because you are convinced that it will change any day now. It’s only when you look back that you see that other choices could have been made.
As for Jun Li, be kinder to yourself. He holds himself to very high standards and I think that’s also very human, but he winds up getting in his own way.

What are you currently working on? What are your up-coming releases?*

I’m working on a twenty-four hour snowbound marriage reunion that will be titled One Snowbound New Year’s Night. The hero is Canadian and I’m having a ball with it!
This fall, look for my Secret Sisters duet. It’s a twins-separated-at-birth trope with loads of twists. I hope you’ll enjoy it!
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: One signed print copy of Her Impossible Baby Bombshell open internationally.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: I did a lot of armchair traveling in Asia for this book – Singapore, The Great Wall (which didn’t make it into this book) Shanghai… Have you been to Asia? Where?

 
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Excerpt from Her Impossible Baby Bombshell:

“Drink?” he invited.
“I can’t, thank you.” She cleared her throat and dug deep in search of the woman she’d pretended to be that day with him. Experienced. Detached. This was a compliance error, she reminded herself. That’s all. “I’m not here to attempt an extension of our…” Relationship? “Association,” she decided in a strained voice. “I only thought you should know that I’m pregnant.”
Her heart pounded so hard, she thought the whole building must be pulsating with the sound. Her skin felt hot, but clammy with sweat.
His expression didn’t change. “Congratulations?”
“It’s yours.”
His breath hissed out in a humorless snort while his shoulders slanted with fatalism. He gave a small shake of his head that asked Why are you wasting my time?
“Hear me out.” She held up a hand, noticed it was trembling and tucked it under her elbow, folding her arms defensively. “I broke up with my boyfriend last Christmas. You’re the only man I’ve been with since. Does this look like a full-term pregnancy to you?” She opened her arms to indicate the subtle curve in her middle.
It was nearing the end of July. She was seventeen weeks along, looking more like she’d been indulging at an all-inclusive buffet than pregnant.
“Whether you’re pregnant or not I couldn’t say…” His attention traversed all over her, like a paintbrush making several long, thorough strokes to leave a thick coat. When he dragged his gaze back to hers, his was sparking with heat that was smothered with cynicism. “You’re not the first woman to make a claim like this, you know. They don’t usually have the information I confided to you—”
“Don’t,” she warned, heart wrenched by the contempt she could hear in his tone. The one that censured her against being desperate and foolish. The one that said she had grossly overstepped by coming here.
She was used to powerful men dismissing her. The truth was often inconvenient, but this wasn’t a gray area in a policy or regulation that she was suggesting he abide by. It was way more personal than that. And even though she’d known he would react this way, it hurt to be accused of dishonesty. She might tell white lies, but she was dead honest when it came to life, death and tax implications.
She swallowed and hugged herself again.
“I’m not here to ask for money or a ring. I’m telling you because it’s information you deserve to have. I’m perfectly capable of raising this baby on my own and plan to.”
“Great. Consider me informed. I’ll escort you to your room.”
It was a bluff. She could tell he was testing her resolve to see how she would react to such a callous dismissal.
She wanted to cry. Everything about this was going exactly as she had expected—except for the fact he had the power to cut her in half with a few dispassionate words. She wouldn’t beg him to believe her, though.
“I’m not staying here.” She spoke with as much poise as she could muster, biting back pointing out his hotel was way beyond her budget.
“I’ll ask the doorman to cover your taxi fare, then.” He waved at the stairs.
“That’s not necessary,” she murmured, hesitating.
She wanted to ask one more thing, but it was such a blood-chilling worry, she could barely give voice to it.
His brows went up with exaggerated patience. A muscle pulsed in his jaw, betraying he was finding this interaction disturbing. He was probably already thinking he ought to take a test to be sure and probably annoyed with her for making him think it.
“These things are very easy to disprove, Ivy,” he said, but she didn’t take any comfort in having read him correctly. “Even if you go to the press, I’ll be vindicated very quickly. There’s nothing for you to gain. We had a nice time. I’d like to remember it that way.”
“They are,” she agreed. “Easy to disprove.” The sting of adrenaline in her system intensified as her head whirled. All she’d been thinking for three weeks was a replay of, I have to tell him. He won’t believe me. But I have to tell him…
“And that’s what you want?” he asked in a clipped voice. “For me to do a pointless paternity test? I’ve had a vasectomy,” he reminded.
“So you said.” It was a petty retaliation to let her skepticism hang in the air with such disdain. She added lofty, skeptical brows out of pure malice.
He snorted, and a brief flare of outrage in his expression warned her it was unwise to provoke such a powerful man.
With a shiver of apprehension, she looked to her unpainted nails. “All I’m saying is, if you’re having sex, you should be careful.”
“I am careful,” he shot back. “I always wear a condom.”
“Do you?” Because after the first one had broken, they hadn’t bothered using one the second time.
He swore under his breath. “You want me to believe the one time I had unprotected sex, my vasectomy spontaneously reversed itself and I made a baby?”
“Believe what you want. I’m telling you there’s a baby inside me and there’s only one man who could have put it there.

Excerpts. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

He’d planned for everything…

Except becoming a father!

A life of hardship and crushing responsibility left billionaire Tsai Jun Li never wanting a child to suffer the same. He made sure he couldn’t have children. So when Ivy Lam, the woman he shared one mesmerizing encounter with, appears claiming she’s pregnant, he needs proof!

After a painful relationship, Ivy’s night with Jun Li was a magical fresh start. Now she’s preparing for unexpected motherhood…but she didn’t plan on being whisked away to Shanghai! Because it’s suddenly clear Jun Li won’t relinquish his claim…to his baby or to Ivy!
Book Links: Amazon | B& N | iTunes | Google |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Award-winning and USA Today Bestselling author Dani Collins thrives on giving readers emotional, compelling, heart-soaring romance with some laughter and heat thrown in, just like real life. Mostly she writes contemporary romance, but her backlist includes self-published erotic romance, romantic comedy, and even an epic medieval fantasy. When she’s not writing—just kidding, she’s always writing. She lives in Canada with her high school sweetheart. They have two grown children whom they haven’t seen in way too long…
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