Spotlight & Giveaway: His Lost and Found Family by Tara Taylor Quinn

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Tara Taylor Quinn to HJ!

Hi Tara Taylor and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, His Lost and Found Family!

 
Thank you! I’m happy to be here!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Michael is a world-renowned architect who has all the money and power he needs. He has the life he needs. One without family by his choice. Family was the one thing he screwed up and his baby sister paid the price. She threatened to call the cops on him and he hasn’t heard from her in years. And then he gets an emergency contact from an attorney telling him that his sister has been killed in a storm and he’s the guardian to her three-year-old daughter. He hires a Sierra’s Web child life expert to live in his home, to care for the child, while he sets forth to find her the perfect family. And then he finds out that he’s not the ruler of his world. But he also discovers that he’s not as bad a guy as he thought.
 

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

I can’t say I have a favorite, but I love this scene with Michael when he’s just learned that he’s ‘inherited’ a child and calls his personal attorney who is also his only close friend in the world.

““Yeah, uh, Len, I need you to find out what it takes to transfer guardianship.”
“Seriously, Michael? This is June’s kid you’re talking about. You’ve spent ten years hating yourself for leaving her alone with your old man, ten years trying to gain back her confidence, to help her, ten years of throwing money away on rehab and tuition she never used, and now you’re going to give up her kid?”
He made a mental note, reminding himself to get a new attorney.’

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• My step-daughter is a child life specialist at a children’s hospital and while I used her for research for the story, she discovered an aspect of her field that she now wants to pursue – natural disaster field operations.
• I went to college in Searcy, Arkansas and used things from my college days in this book.

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

I think he’s first attracted to the way she stands up to him, though I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t agree. He’s still in denial. He will admit that he really likes how she mothers his niece.

She’s attracted to the hero’s sense of honor, of family. She loves the genuine emotion she sees when he looks at his niece.

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

A few did, but one in particular…Four-year-old Harper is having a PTSD moment in the middle of the night, re-living the super storm that killed her parents. The only way Mariah can settle her is to lay with her, but Harper isn’t satisfied with that. She lost her Mommy AND her Daddy in the storm and she insists that the uncle she doesn’t seem to like lie down with them, too.

“Harper cried softly. She hiccupped. Sometimes it seemed as though she was falling asleep, her head cradled on Mariah’s breast as she took a deeper breath and shuddered, but then thunder would sound or lightning would flash and the child would flinch, cry out, clutch frantically at Mariah again.
Mariah didn’t look at him. Didn’t even seem to know he was there as she gently rocked against the back of the sleeper sofa, crooning to Harper. Letting her know, not that it was going to be okay, but that she was right there.
“When you get afraid, you need to try to think about not being afraid,” she said. “Think about being happy. Hug Shadow, because that feels good, huh?”
Harper sniffed.
“And find something that feels safer. Like now. The bed was scaring you because of the last time, so now we’re not in a bedroom. And it’s a different kind of bed. See? It’s not the same. We changed it. And fear, it’s not as smart as us. It doesn’t know that when we change things it can’t hurt us as badly.”
Truth. Always tell her the truth. But only as much of it as she can comprehend. She’d told him that the first day he’d met Harper.
“It’s going to be over soon,” he spoke while still standing, not sure what to do with himself. How to help. “And it’s not the kind of storm that hurts,” he added. It was possible Harper had always been afraid of thunder and lightning, but it was also pretty obvious to him that the recent supercell storm that had torn through her house and taken her parents from her was terrifying her still. .
“This kind of rain is called a single cell,” he told her, and then remembered Mariah’s mandate about keeping it simple. “It’s like a kitten storm instead of a cat storm. Like if Shadow had a baby.” She’d be less afraid of a baby, right? “It only lasts a little while, no more than an hour—which is about two of the StoryBots show you watched last night. Remember how quick that went?” She’d been told she could watch one before getting ready for bed. The episode had passed so quickly she’d tried to bargain for two.”

Readers should read this book….

Because it will help you feel good!

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

I’m currently working on a Sierra’s Web romantic suspense book that will be out next year. It features a woman whose ex-husband kidnapped her daughter.
And upcoming releases! There are plenty this year:
May – Reluctant Roommates – Special Edition
June – Love Off the Leash – Special Edition
July – Colton Countdown – Romantic Suspense
August – Tracking His Secret Child – Romantic Suspense
November – Untitled Sierra’s Web – Special Edition
December – Untitled Sierra’s Web – Romantic Suspense.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: (3) e-Book copies, one to each of three winners, of Gabe’s Special Delivery – a Valentine story about a man who finds a baby on his doorstep on Valentine’s Day!

For EVERYONE: Trusting her Betrayer – the prequel to Sierra’s Web. Read it free here

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Have you ever heard of Child Life specialists?

 
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Excerpt from His Lost and Found Family:

Didn’t matter how he felt; he couldn’t condemn a four-year-old to life with him. Michael could feel Mariah Anderson, with her long red curls and big green eyes, trying to make sure he took his niece home, but it wasn’t going to happen.
“I’m quick to understand things,” he told her. “I speak to others as though they get them, too, and don’t slow down enough to realize when they don’t.” When he realized she probably had no idea what he was talking about, he added, “Those are a few of my faults. I’m also gone more than I’m home, I put work first without even realizing it, and sometimes, when a building is in construction and a site challenge arises, I have to travel on a moment’s notice.”
As she’d said, they didn’t have a lot of time. He had to get through to her. She was smart. She’d catch on if she’d just listen. The woman was a walking load of compassion. She’d protect Harper once she saw the true picture.
“I think I know best, often because I do, but I have a tendency to expect others to accept what I say as right, and that tends to frustrate people,” he continued when she remained silent. “And then, sometimes, to anger them.”
“You anger your clients?”
“Not generally, no, unless I have to tell them that the design options they want don’t meet safety codes.”
“You have friends?”
“Yes.”
“You anger them?”
“They’re used to me. And they only deal with me in spurts.”
She nodded, seeming more like the counselor she’d said she wasn’t. He knew how they worked, sitting there, thinking if they waited long enough he’d spew.
And he knew he had to spew and do it quickly if he had a hope in hell of accomplishing the goal in front of him.
“When I know I’m right, I shut down on other perceptions.” That’s what had angered the old man the most, he’d finally figured out. That fact that Michael wouldn’t admit that he was wrong when he wasn’t. That he wouldn’t admit the old man was right when he wasn’t.
He hadn’t known then that he had a higher IQ than normal. Hadn’t understood that his father hadn’t had one. He should have just listened to the man—who’d been trying to do his best raising two kids after his wife was killed in a car accident—agreed with him even when he knew he was wrong or, at the very least, just shut up. It would have kept the peace from the beginning. He got it all now. With the hindsight of an adult.
“And when others know they’re right, do you allow them the same privilege?”
He’d never been asked the question before. Considered it. “I guess so.” Usually, if it dealt with an area of expertise with which he was unfamiliar, he got familiar with it. And then ended up in agreement. Maybe. From what he could recall. But… “People don’t often argue with me.”
There was no threat, or warning to his words. Just fact.
She smiled.
His groin twitched.
What the hell? He was there to see to the welfare of his sister’s kid and he was attracted to her advocate? Another sign that he wasn’t a family man.
One he’d most definitely be keeping to himself.
“I’m a pressure cooker.”
With a frown that only heightened those big green eyes, she said, “You have a problem with your temper?”
Like his old man?
Would that get Harper off his hook?
“No.” He wasn’t going to lie. “I somehow manage to stay calm when others get riled, which only riles them further,” he told her. “I’m told it’s infuriating and that it seems like I have a superiority complex.”
In Harper’s mother’s own words.
“At least you’re aware and can work on that.”
He could. Did, actually. But was she willing to risk Harper’s future on the chance that he’d get it right?

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

From Harlequin Special Edition: Believe in love. Overcome obstacles. Find happiness.
Sierra’s Web

Can an orphaned little girl create the family she needs in USA TODAY bestselling author Tara Taylor Quinn’s first book in the new Sierra’s Web series?
Is he ready…
to be a father to this little girl?

Learning he’s guardian to his orphaned niece sends child-averse architect Michael O’Connell’s life into a tailspin. He’s floored by the responsibility, so when child life specialist Mariah Anderson agrees to pitch in at home, Michael thinks she’s heaven-sent. Michael is shocked at the depth of his own connection to Mariah, and when she moves in, he opens his heart to her in ways he never could have imagined. But can an instant family turn into a forever one?
Book Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes | kobo | Google |
 
 

Meet the Author:

A USA Today bestselling author of 100 novels in twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinn has sold more than seven million copies. Known for her intense emotional fiction, Ms. Quinn’s novels have recieved critical acclaim in the UK and most recently from Harvard. She is the recipient of the Reader’s Choice Award, and has appeared often on local and national TV, including CBS Sunday Morning.

For TTQ offers, news, and contests, visit http://www.tarataylorquinn.com!
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