Spotlight & Giveaway: How To Resist Your Rival by Rachel Dove

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Rachel Dove to HJ!

Hi Rachel and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, How To Resist Your Rival!

 
Hello!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Love Hypothesis meets Grey’s Anatomy – Harper is a dedicated and highly driven robotics scientist, and the one thing she needs to get to fulfil her life’s work turns out to be Dominic Nash – neurosurgeon, grumpy, spiky, Mr Darcy-esque neuroscientist and accidental nemesis! Cue snarky emails, a very quirky working relationship…and of course, what we expect from Mills & Boon – tongue tying lust and love.
 

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

It’s an odd line, but it always makes me chuckle!

P.S. Johnny hates you too, and his hand gestures are next level and very expressive.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I loved the Love Hypothesis, and it gave me the idea of finally writing my own scientist book.
• The banter between Dom and Harper was a lot of fun, and being ADHD myself, I am very proud to have written an ADHD heroine who is so true to, and unapologetically, herself.
• The working title for this book was The STEM Project, and I love How To Resist Your Rival as a title. It fits so well.
• For Harper Collins I wrote a book called The Long Walk Back, about a soldier who loses a limb to an IED, so I had a lot of prosthetic research under my belt and the fields of both prosthetics and neuroscience have always intrigued me. Combining both was a no-brainer! (Pun intended)

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

I have to feel connected to the characters before I start writing, or it’s just me trying to write a stranger. I have to know what makes them tick, and how they would react in a circumstance, and that involves a lot of talking to myself. Making character profiles, seeing how one can challenge the other. What drives each of them. By the time I have written their story they are old friends.

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

The email scene was a LOT of fun! My books are also getting a little racier, and I blush when I write the naughty bits for some reason!

Readers should read this book….

to escape into a different world, to see Harper and Dom repel and attract each other like magnets. We all know romances have a happier ever after, but I want to give the reader a hell of a ride getting there! This book is perfect for STEM lovers, and if you like sunshine/grumpy, you are in luck!

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

I have a lot of books coming out! My next Mills & Boon Medical is already written, out in May 2024 and is called A Baby to Change Their Lives. It’s a beautiful, heartfelt story with a lot of twists along the way. I can’t wait to share it, and I have Mr Right Next Door out with Boldwood books, with more rom-coms coming out next year. I am very excited to share them all with you in 2024!
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Signed (by me) double edition of How To Resist Your Rival with Annie O’Neil’s Snowbound Christmas With The Italian Doc as a gorgeous extra read! (I have 2 to send out to winners, globally)

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: If you could invent something to change the world for the better, what would it be and why?

 
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Excerpt from How To Resist Your Rival:

‘Just give me it. I thought we were friends. Good friends. We spend time together. I, for one, cherish our little interactions. You’re right by my lab—we’re neighbours! I paid for that snack you’re withholding, fair and square.’ She banged her fist against the glass, but the bar didn’t move. ‘Come on, please!’
She tried to press the buttons again. The ones she pressed most days she was in the lab. Who was she kidding? Every day. Nothing. The little screen on the front of the vending machine mocked her.
Insert coins…
Insert coins…
Insert coins…
Insert coins…
‘I’ve inserted the damn coins already!’ she shouted at the machine, fumbling around in her lab coat for more change.
She was out. She’d saved just enough to buy her coveted bar. The peanutty goodness sat there, half hanging out of its spiral prison, leaning against the inside of the glass as if it were a rescue puppy, reaching for its eager new owner.
‘Cough.’
Bang. She slapped her hand on the glass.
‘It.’
Bang.
‘Up.’
Nothing. A tiny little jiggle, but the bar held fast. She leaned against the glass, her forehead feeling suddenly cold from the contact.
‘I swear,’ she whispered low and deep, ‘if you don’t give me what I paid for, I will go get my tools and dismantle you piece by piece. Don’t think I won’t.’ She slapped her hand against the glass, hoping that would somehow persuade the machine to play ball. It didn’t. She should have taken her intern Trevor up on his offer to buy her some in bulk the other week.
Damn me and my independence, leaving me to grapple alone with rogue machines.
Clearly, she was spending too much time with objects, and not enough with people. ‘Come on! I paid, and it’s my last chunk of change!’ she whined, before realising that this particular machine wouldn’t pick up on her tone of voice. Even knowing this, the next time she spoke, her voice was a low, threatening rumble.
‘I will turn you into something awful. Like a meat-grinding machine, or one of those grabber machines they get in the arcades. Do you want that? People breathing over you all day long, kids licking your glass? Eh? ’Cos I’ll do it. Give me the damn snack!’ She kicked it, and all that produced was a stinging big toe. ‘Ouch! One last chance, and it’s arcade time for you, buddy!’
‘I don’t think the threat of dismantling will scare a machine, somehow.’
A deep, sarcastic voice behind her made her jump, and she headbutted the glass to boot.
‘Ow!’
Recoiling from the impact, she fell backwards, straight into a pair of solid arms. Looking straight up, she saw two rather large and unimpressed-looking jade eyes glaring down at her. Whirling around, she extricated herself from the arms and folded her own over her lab coat.
‘Sorry! Thanks, for—er—catching me.’
Dominic Nash.
Of all the people she could bump into. Literally. His brow was lifted, and he was now looking beyond her at the vending machine with interest. He didn’t come down here. Ever. He was normally in the next block, in the neuroscience and neurology department—when he wasn’t seeing patients, or protecting errant machines from human attack, apparently. She’d never seen him anywhere near her robotics department before.
The man was a double threat—neurosurgeon and neuroscientist. Which, along with the fact that he worked in the same university, was exactly the reason that she knew just who he was. She’d done her research on him, dug deep into his credentials, and the work he’d published so far. Which was a little harder than she’d expected it to be. The man was a bit of an enigma away from the university and hospital. Trevor was in awe of him, like the rest of the staff around here.
The guy was not someone you forgot, once you learned about him. It was rather a shame that Harper herself didn’t have that persona. From the look on his face right now, he obviously didn’t know her from Eve. Which she found irritating, even though she shouldn’t.
Why would he know who I am? You keep your lab office shut tighter than Fort Knox.
Trevor didn’t even share the same space. He had his own area, away from the main lab. The man in front of her knew everyone and anyone in the place, the total opposite to her. Hell, even her line manager kept his interactions with her ghost-like.
She figured that he preferred it that way, too. Harper wasn’t a woman who relinquished control. She could work well with people, but with her work, she didn’t like too many cooks sticking their spoons in. The man scrutinising her with his eyes right now was the only spoon she’d coveted.
Maybe this is my shot, she mused.
‘Sorry if I startled you. These machines get worse every week, I swear.’
He shrugged, as if catching a ranting scientist was just a normal part of his day.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Hypothesis: working with a hot doc will lead to temptation!

Robotics scientist Harper dreams of helping prosthetics patients worldwide. The problem…? Infuriating neurosurgeon Dom. This man raises her temper—and her pulse! But, despite a series of heated clashes, the layers of his cold exterior are beginning to melt. Soon, cautious Harper finds resisting her rival an impossible task, as days—and nights!—in the lab blur the lines between professional and deeply personal…
Book Links:  Amazon | B&N | iTunes | kobo | Google |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Rachel Dove lives in leafy West Yorkshire with her family, and rescue animals Tilly the cat and Darcy the dog (named after Mr Darcy, of course!). A former teacher specialising in Autism, ADHD and SpLDs, she is passionate about changing the system and raising awareness/acceptance. She loves a good rom-com, and the beach!
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