Spotlight & Giveaway: One in a Million by Beverley Kendall

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Beverley Kendall to HJ!

Hi Beverley and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, One in a Million!

 
Hi, Harlequin Junkies!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Grammy Winner and Oscar Nominee Whitney “Sahara” Richardson’s life is looking up until a call from a doctor at the fertility clinic where her eggs are stored changes everything. She’s the biological mother of a six-month-old baby girl.

When she discovers things aren’t as they appear with the couple raising her daughter, she’s determined to be a part of Haylee’s life. The only problem is the biological father, who has made it clear that he has no plans to share parenting duties with her.

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

“She likes you,” Sam told Myles an hour later as they watched Whitney and her friend exit the gym and step out onto the sidewalk.
“Of course she does. I’m a nice guy,” he replied lightly, ignoring his friend’s transparent-as-glass inference. “Everyone likes me.”
Okay, maybe not everyone. The opposing counsel might respect his command of the law, but that was as far as any positive feelings went.
Laughing wryly, Sam gave him a knowing look. “I mean, she wants to fuck you, likes you.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

Years ago, I came up with the idea for a book called The Surrogate. It was about a woman who agreed to be the surrogate for a dear friend who couldn’t have children of her own. Then something happened to her friend before the baby was born, and suddenly the child she was carrying (the heroine’s) was motherless. That is where the idea for Whitney’s book came from. I have so many books to write, and I didn’t know when I’d get around to writing The Surrogate, so I made some changes and came up with One In a Million.

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

Yes, Myles is attractive, but what really attracts Whitney is how much he loves Haylee and the way he puts her first when his wife gave him an ultimatum: her or me. She knows it would have been too easy for him to turn his back on Haylee, given the circumstances. He didn’t sign up to raise a biracial child, but his love for their daughter is pure and absolute. Whitney loves how protective he is of Haylee, even as it angers her at times.

Despite resenting his physical attraction to Whitney, what initially reels Myles in is how good she is with and to Haylee. She’s also down-to-earth, personable, and easy to talk to, not at all how he’d imagined her– or feared she’d be.

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

“She likes you,” Sam told Myles an hour later as they watched Whitney and her friend exit the gym and step out onto the sidewalk.
“Of course she does. I’m a nice guy,” he replied lightly, ignoring his friend’s transparent-as-glass inference. “Everyone likes me.”
Okay, maybe not everyone. The opposing counsel might respect his command of the law, but that was as far as any positive feelings went.
Laughing wryly, Sam gave him a knowing look. “I mean, she wants to fuck you, likes you.”

Readers should read this book….

Readers get to watch two strangers meet for the first time, knowing they have one thing in common: a child. Then, readers get to watch them take on the challenges that come with co-parenting while fighting their attraction to each other. One In a Million has conflict, tension, humor, angst, and heat.

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

I’m currently working on the next book in my historical romance series, The Temptresses. I’ll be self-publishing the prequel, The Road to Temptation and Book 2 of the series, A Wicked Temptation, this summer.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Win a digital or print copy of TOKEN AND ONE IN A MILLION. Print books are open to continental US residents only.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: What would you do if you discovered you had a child with a stranger? Would you want to be in the child’s life? What if the child was biracial? Would that change things?

 
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Excerpt from One in a Million:

Downstairs, she found Myles reclining on the sofa in the sunroom, a glass of bourbon in his hand, the open bottle on the side table beside him.
He held up his glass, his gaze never wavering from her as she passed through the French doors. “You didn’t tell me I shouldn’t be long translates to thirty minutes,” he said with an engaging grin. “I hope you don’t mind me helping myself to some of your bourbon.”
Whitney’s face warmed as she shifted on her bare feet. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to be gone that long.”
His lids lowered to half-mast as his gaze slowly toured her body. Finally he said, “You changed.”
“I just freshened up a bit.” She certainly wasn’t going to confess to the showering and lotioning part of her prolonged absence. Then he’d correctly believe she had prepared for the in case of sudden nakedness, grab a condom part of the evening, should it come to pass.
“Because you weren’t fresh before.”
Whitney wasn’t imagining the sexual undertone in his voice.
“Are you hungry?” she asked, needing to change the subject and tamp down the growing tension between them.
Myles’s lips twitched, and his eyes darkened. “You did promise to feed me.”
Whitney wasn’t sure they were talking about food anymore. “And I don’t go back on my promises. What do you want?”
His gaze briefly dropped to her bare legs. “What’s on the menu?” He took a large swallow of his drink.
Everything he said sounded so damn sexual, reminding her how long it’d been since she’d had some. And even longer since she’d had good sex.
“There’s an excellent Thai restaurant not too far from here. But if you prefer Italian, I use Julia’s a lot.”
“Hold on a second,” Myles said in mock affront. “When you said you’d feed me, I was expecting a home-cooked meal.”
“What gave you that idea?” Whitney laughed, her hand landing on her hip. “I’m pretty sure I already told you that I don’t cook.”
“You also said you’d have to learn for Haylee’s sake.”
“I can only multitask so much. I’m already learning how to drive. I have to pace myself. Plus, I have some time since Haylee isn’t on that type of solid food yet.”
“Are you saying that you lured me here under false premises?”
“Lured?” Whitney chortled. “You’re the one who said you didn’t want to go home. And I can’t believe you think I’m the kind of woman who has to lure unsuspecting men to spend time with me with promises of home-cooked meals,” she said, feigning offense.
The amusement in Myles’s eyes dimmed and began to smolder as he regarded her. Placing his drink on the side table, he pushed to his feet until he was looking down at her. “I think you’re the kind of woman who has to beat men off with titanium baseball bats.”
Whitney’s breath caught in her throat, noting the stark heat in his eyes. “I don’t condone violence.” Her words came out in a whisper.
Everything after that seemed to happen in slow motion, as he was giving her time to get away, walk away from the fire that erupted and now threatened to engulf them. She shivered when she felt the light press of his hands on her hips, and then he was pulling her until her body was flush against his. She could feel him hardening against her. Her hands instinctively went up, her palms flat against his chest.
She stifled a moan. Oh, that feels nice.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

World-famous Whitney “Sahara” Richardson is at the top of her game. With four Grammys, an Oscar nod, and a billion-dollar clothing line, her career is skyrocketing. Even her headline-grabbing dating life is looking up. And if everything goes as planned, marriage and children are just a few years away—and they will come in that order.

That is…until a mix-up at the fertility clinic where her eggs are stored puts the cart before the horse. Oops. Sahara suddenly has a daughter…whose father has made it clear that the last thing he wants is to share her.
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Meet the Author:

After almost two decades working in IT, Beverley decided to make her lifetime dream of writing romance fiction a reality and has been on the ride of her life ever since. From traditional publishing to self-publishing, she’s done it all but knows there’s so much more to accomplish and so many more stories to tell.

Beverley has lived on two continents, in three countries, two provinces, and four states. No role is more important to her than that of being a mother to her son. In her downtime, she enjoys reading, coding, knitting, sewing, crocheting, baking, and brisk walks. All things artistic feed her creative passion, but none more than writing.
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