Spotlight & Giveaway: Her One and Only Hero by Sharon Hartley

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Sharon Hartley to HJ!

Hi Sharon and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Her One and Only Hero!

 
Thanks for stopping in to learn about my new release, my secret baby story!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Fran and Dale fall madly love in high school, swear to remain together forever, and don’t know she’s pregnant when she flies home to Italy after her year as a foreign-exchange student in Miami. Fran’s disapproving old-school parents will not allow her to contact Dale, force her to marry another man, and she gives birth to a daughter, Bella. Twelve years later, while trying to locate her father, Bella falls into the clutches of human traffickers. Fran has no choice but to turn to Dale, now a police detective, for help in locating a child he didn’t know existed. Trusting the Enemy is their journey to find their daughter and rediscover their love.
 

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

Torn between raging anger, confusion and the sheer pleasure of seeing Fran again, of finally knowing she was alive, Dale stared at the girl—no, she was a woman now—who had shattered his soul when he was eighteen years old.
That was one hell of a long time ago. A war zone ago, a lifetime. He finished his beer in one long swallow.
He was a different person now. He was a man, not a boy.
“What I have to say is…quite personal,” she said with a glance at Trice and Lana.
Personal? Like the pain that had seared his heart hadn’t been personal? She’d promised to love him forever and had disappeared without a word or any explanation. Yeah, she’d been seventeen, but what she’d done had been beyond cruel.
Dale slammed the mug to the table. “Whatever you have to say to me, you can say it in front of my friends.”
“Whoa there, big boy,” Lana said.
Trice leaned forward, interested.
“Dale, please,” Fran said in her soft, accented English. “Can we not go somewhere and talk?”
Lana jumped to her feet. “I need to go to the ladies’ room. How about you, Trice?”
“No, I’m good,” Trice said, sitting back.
“No, you’re not.” Lana grabbed Trice’s arm and pulled her out of the booth.
And just like that his friends deserted him, leaving him with Francesca.
He didn’t want to be alone with Francesca, a woman he’d convinced himself was dead. Because if she were alive, it meant she hadn’t loved him the way he’d loved her all those years ago. As a kid, he hadn’t wanted to face that fact, so he’d killed her off in his head. When he got home from Iraq, he put Fran out of his mind and never tried to find her again.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

I love a secret baby story, and I adore Rome, a city full of layers of history. So I combined the two… sort of. Anyway, my heroine is Italian. I wish I could have managed a trip to Italy to research the book, but, alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

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

They meet in high school and at first it’s purely a physical attraction: lust fueled by teenaged hormones! As they get to know each other, Dale is impressed by her artistic talent – she becomes an award-winning sculptress in Italy — and Fran loves how honest and fair Dale is.

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

This is a snippet of when Fran and Dale identify a body in the morgue, possibly the remains of their daughter. I once toured the medical examiner’s office in Miami with a citizen’s police academy and writing this scene plunged me back into that horror: unpleasant odors, chilly temperature, seeing a partially-covered body that at first I thought was my sister…. my imagination was working overtime because of the surroundings. Of course it wasn’t!

Fran’s gaze jumped immediately to a gurney in the corner which contained a lump covered by a white sheet. The lump was the size of a twelve-year-old girl. The size of her Bella. Dark hair spilled from under the covering across clear plastic.
Hair the same color as her Bella.
Dale spoke to the attendant in hushed tones. Fran did not try to listen or understand. Her focus remained on the gurney.
And she knew. That lump was what was left of her daughter. Her daughter’s remains. Bella was dead.
The room spun. She reached out blindly to hold on to something. Anything.
Dale shouted her name and grabbed her before she collapsed to the floor.
When she came back to herself, she sat in a chair with her head between her knees. Dale squatted on the floor in front of her, rubbing her back, murmuring to her.
She inhaled deeply, slowly raised her head.
Dale’s troubled green eyes—oh, mio Dio—Bella’s eyes, searched her face.
She leaned against the back of the chair. “I am all right.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
She nodded.
The attendant handed Dale a plastic water bottle. He twisted off the cap and gave it to her.
“Grazie,” she murmured. After a long swallow, she returned her gaze to the gurney. She did not want to look, did not want to see what was under that sheet, but she had to.
“Just sit here another minute,” Dale said.
“I must do this,” she said. “I must know for sure.”
Dale rose and glanced back at the attendant. The attendant nodded. “That’s your Jane Doe. She came in about an hour ago.”
Jane Doe. Fran inhaled deeply and the odor of ammonia slammed into her, making her stomach turn. She pushed herself to her feet. I have to do this. No matter the cost, I have to know.

Readers should read this book….

Because human trafficking is real and remains a problem in the world.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

My next release from Harlequin, “Trusting the Enemy,” will publish in May 2020. This is book five of my miniseries, “The Rookie Files.” For my next project, I’m switching gears a bit – well, a lot! I’m working on a story set a century and a half in the future on a planet (earth) immeasurably changed by global warming.
 
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Five winners will receive a print copy of Trusting the Enemy. One winner will receive a $10 Starbucks Gift Card. (United States Only)

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Would you purchase clothing that you knew had been made by child laborers who had been taken from their homes and forced to work? What if the clothing was beautiful and really inexpensive?

 
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Excerpt from Her One and Only Hero:

“There’s a Taco Jack at the next exit.”
“Do you want to grab a taco?”
She shook her head. “I had forgotten all about Taco Jack.”
“I’m sure there’s one or two in Rome.”
She turned in the seat to face him and smiled. “We used to eat there every day on our lunch break from class.”
“That’s right. I remember we’d walk across Sunset Drive. We had to hurry to make it back on time, but, man, you loved their bean burritos.”
“They were so good,” she said. “You preferred the hamburger place, but always gave in and went with me to Taco Jack’s.”
“You had your ways,” Dale said, remembering days when he wanted to spend every second of his life with Frannie. Time away from her had been torture. Maybe because he’d known she had to go back to Italy at the end of the school year.
“I’d have done anything you asked me to do.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “You were sweet.”
Sweet? Dale shook his head. I was putty in your hands.
“My parents disapproved of fast food,” Fran said. “That’s probably why I liked it so much.”
“That settles it.” Dale put on his blinker and moved into the exit lane. He hadn’t seen Fran this animated since their reunion. If a bean burrito would keep that smile in place, he’d buy her a dozen. Make that two dozen.
“Settles what?” she asked.
“Now I have to have a spicy chicken taco.”
“Do we have time?”
“We’ll use the drive-through.”
“The drive-through! Mio Dio, I had forgotten about those, too.”
“Are you telling me they don’t have drive-throughs in Rome?” he asked in mock horror.
She laughed, the sound filling the interior of the vehicle, filling him with emotions he couldn’t name. He hadn’t heard that carefree laugh in thirteen years. Her giggles used to delight him, that silly sound one of the things he’d missed about her the most.
“Maybe Rome has drive-throughs, but I do not use them. I seldom drive.”
“Public transportation is great,” Dale said.
“I suppose.”
She didn’t elaborate, making Dale frown. But she leaned forward as he drove into the parking lot of Taco Jack’s, excited about visiting her old hangout again. The logo on the signage appeared exactly the same: a Chihuahua holding a taco instead of a bone in his grinning mouth.
Dale stopped next to the speaker and turned to Fran. Her eyes dancing, she bent low to study the huge menu out the driver window.
“How many?” he asked.
“Two.” She bit her bottom lip. “Do they still have those little packets of hot sauce?”
“I’m sure they do.”
“A couple of extra of those, please. And a diet soda.”
“A diet soda?” He glared at her. “You could use a few extra calories.”
“But I want the full experience,” she protested. “Exactly as it was.”
Yeah, and she hadn’t needed to lose weight in high school either. But he said, “You got it, babe,” and placed their order.
In less than five minutes, with the fragrance of chili pepper and onions floating through the vehicle, they were back on I-75 driving toward Tampa. Dale sucked on his icy cola. Watching Fran eat had been an erotic experience in high school, but he’d only be able to steal the occasional glance unless he wanted to crash his SUV.
She partially unwrapped his taco for him and handed it to him—just like she’d done in high school when they ate on the move. Which was often. They’d always had somewhere to go, something fun planned. Hell, being with Fran made everything they did fun.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Non e niente, amore mio.”
Dale froze. Amore mio. She’d called him her love.
He released a breath. She didn’t mean anything by that endearment. That’s just what she’d always said in the past. Fran was merely recreating her full Taco Jack experience.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

A frantic search…and a second chance? Francesca Scarpetta is desperate—her twelve year-old daughter trusted the wrong people and now she has disappeared. Fran’s last hope is Miami detective Dale Baldwin, her high school sweetheart and the father of her child. Only, he doesn’t know he’s a father. Will they be able to overcome the pain of the past in time to rescue their daughter?
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Meet the Author:

Sharon Hartley is so fascinated by cops and the dangerous people who complicate their world that she attends every citizens’ police academy she can find. Having worked as a court reporter for many years, Sharon plays “what if” on her old cases and comes up with fictional ways to inject them into her stories. After time on the computer creating plots where good always prevail over evil, she calms herself by teaching yoga, plus hiking and birding in the natural world. Sharon lives in St. Petersburg, Florida with her soul mate, Max, hundreds of orchids and a Jack Russell Terrorist. Please visit her website at sharonshartley.com
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