Spotlight & Giveaway: Reckless Curves by Bronwen Evans

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Bronwen Evans to HJ!

Hi Bronwen and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Reckless Curves:Bad Boy Autos – Drive Me Wild Book #1!

 
Waving from New Zealand where we are in Covid-19 lockdown. I know many of you around the world are in similar situations. It’s hard to be releasing a book at this time, but hey, I’m trying to carry on and keep myself busy. I’m writing and of course doing loads of reading. Thank goodness for eBooks!
 

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

R is for Reunion. Yip it’s a reunion story with loads of baggage
E is for Everyday – taking life and love one day at a time
C is for Cancer and kicking it’s arse…
K is for Kendra – my heroine’s name
L is for Love and how it can change your life if you learn to trust
E is for Everyone. As in keeping the relationship secret from Everyone until they know exactly where it’s heading
S is for Sexy. Yep. It’s a sexy read.
S is for Sister. She’s in love with her brother’s best friend and he’s not pleased.

C is for Charm. My hero Tom is working it for all he’s worth to win Kendra’s love again
U is for Useless which is how Tom feels when Kendra gets sick again
R is for Romance. That’s a given but it’s such a heart-warming story of trust and forgiveness
V is for Victory because as we know love always wins
E is for Emotional. When hearts are involved, everything’s emotional.
S is for Sensational – it’s a Sensational read

Please share the opening lines of this book:

Kendra slowly eased off the pedal as she sped down Hollywood Boulevard, least she speed her way into a ticket. She didn’t want anything to kill her buzz today.

She was driving like her brother Marcus Black drove on the race circuit. Speed kills you idiot. She laughed out loud. She was on a natural high from her successful meeting this afternoon and she knew it. Finally, she understood why her brother craved speeding around a race-track—the adrenalin. The feeling was addictive.

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

I usually find people, and therefore characters, are shaped and moulded by their upbringing. My H/h are no exception.

My hero is Thomas (Tom) Lorde. Tom’s mother walked out when he was 12 leaving him with a drunken non-functioning father. Needless to say he has no real idea about happy families.

My heroine is Kendra Black. Kendra spent her early teenage years battling leukaemia, and her family life left a lot to be desired too. So her view of life is very different. She wants to live it to the fullest.

What I found fascinating was something that Tom says right at the beginning of the book, would be the key to what he really wants out of life, not what he thinks he wants or deserves. At the end of the book it took Kendra to point this out to me, and I thought how wonderful! She is so insightful and she tells Tom in the epilogue.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I got to interview a famous motor racing journalist to learn more about how and why, high end luxury cars are customised. I found several firms in Europe who specialize in customization and one was recently bought by Mercedes-Benz.
• I’d picked Bad Boy Autos as the business name a few years ago when I was developing this series. Unfortunately, back then it was an actual business in Portland, I think, but it’s since closed down so I could use the name.
• There is a bit of medical information in the book and it was interesting to research the different names USA uses to NZ and the different health services we have. NZ has a very good and substantial FREE public health system with very few people having private insurance. In fact, in NZ most surgeons cannot survive working in private practice only. Most work in public too.

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

Tom is attracted to Kendra’s bravery and fighting spirit. She’s a battler and goes after what she wants in life. She never gives up.

Kendra is attracted to Tom because he’s never treated her like a sickly, fragile woman. Her brother thinks she should be wrapped in cotton wool. While Tom pushed her to follow err dreams and told her she can do anything.

The First Kiss…

“You look different tonight,” Tom said as he took the chair Stella had vacated.
“I’m celebrating.” At his raised eyebrow Kendra added, “I signed to be a backup singer for James Tan.”
His grin widened. “Way to go. I knew you could do anything you set your mind to it.”
She wanted to hug him just for those words. At sixteen when she’d been declared in remission, he’d been the one to tell her that you shouldn’t let anyone stop you from reaching for your dreams. He’d never treated her as the sickly, weak, fragile girl most people saw when they looked at her.
He signaled for the waitress. “A bottle of your finest champagne.”
She couldn’t help herself. “Aren’t you scared Marcus might see us talking.”
“Even he won’t mind me helping you celebrate such a milestone. Besides he looks as if his mind is elsewhere.”
She tore her gaze from Tom and looked at her handsome brother. Yip, Stella was working her magic. Her best friend could make guys beg for just a smile and it appeared Marcus was no different.
“I’m waiting for Marcus to see you are here, and wonder how you got into the bar.” Her face heated. “I suspect with you looking like that the bouncer didn’t really look at the ID very closely,” Tom added with a naughty grin on his lips.
“Are you going to tell on me?”
He leaned closer. “I’d be stupid to do that. I’d rather ask for a reward for not ruining your evening.”
This time it was her turn. Her lips formed a naughty grin. “Reward?”
Tom winked. “A kiss should do it. My lips would be sealed.”
They had flirted like this hundreds of times before. Tonight she wasn’t going to back down. “For that kind of kiss, I’d most definitely need your lips unsealed.”
Tom threw a glance over his shoulder. She followed his gaze and she saw Marcus was no longer standing there. Nor was Stella.
“I like how you think,” and he took her chin between his fingers and slowly lowered his lips to hers.
OMG he’s finally going to kiss me. She held her breath.
When his lips touched Kendra’s, her whole body caught on fire. She moved closer, lifting her hand into his hair, bringing them closer. He deepened the kiss, slowly parting her lips, before driving his tongue into her mouth, sweeping and swirling his tongue with hers. She’d never experienced a kiss like it. Her dreams of a kiss from Tom… reality blew her imaginings out of the water. His kiss was filled with such passion, thank God she was sitting down or she’d have fallen. She put her whole self into returning the fire with fire, showing him what was in her heart.
When they parted it was only for air.
“Be mine for tonight. Only tonight, that’s all I have,” he breathed in her ear. “I leave for Europe tomorrow.”
She couldn’t talk, speechless with victory. She merely nodded.
“Let’s get out of here,” and with her hand swallowed by his very large one, they left the bar.
This was her night.
Their night.

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

I’d use the scene where they sit down and talk to each other like adults. Really go over the past. the sexual tension has to be there. I can see Paul Wesley and Nina Dobrev from the Vampire Diaries…

Tom twisted so that he faced her. “Did you ever wonder what would’ve happened if I hadn’t gone back to the racing circuit?” His chest muscles flexed as he rested his arm on the back of the couch behind her. “Did you ever think about what it would’ve been like to see where things might have gone between us?”
Kendra couldn’t speak. I must be dreaming. This can’t be real. It’s like he plucked my thoughts right out of my brain. “I did for a little while, but after a couple of months of not hearing from you I stopped having stupid fantasies. I had a baby on the way and he was my main focus.”
She could see the remorse in his eyes. “I get it. I do. I don’t blame you for hating me, but no more than I hate myself for not reading your emails or listening to your voicemails.” He lifted a hand and laid it against her cheek. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t here then, but I’m here now. Please give us a chance.”
Danger signs flashed in Kendra’s mind, but she smashed them with an imaginary hammer. His rough palm on her skin ignited a hunger that had lain dormant for so long. Tom was right. There had been a couple of guys since Connor had been born, but they’d been just brief, meaningless flings. When it came to sex, they’d paled in comparison to the way Tom had made her feel.
“I’m here and I’m not going anywhere,” he practically whispered.
Kendra tried so hard to keep her eyes on his, but she couldn’t help glancing at his sensual male mouth. Her breathing quickened as he leaned closer and cupped the back of her head. She should turn away, shove him away, and run away, but she was trapped by desire.
The first contact with his lips as he brushed them over hers, sent need coursing through her and any objection she might have made fizzled and died. It was a good thing she was sitting down when he kissed her in earnest because her knees would’ve turned to jelly. Oh, the hell with it!
Kendra gave up fighting against what her body wanted and wrapped her arms around Tom’s neck. Parting her lips, she invited him to invade her mouth, reveling in the warm, soft collision of their tongues.
She’d lied to him about not fantasizing about him like this.

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

• Maybe Tomorrow – Stereophonics
• For Today – Netherworld Dancing Toys
• Short Change Hero – The Heavy
• Lay Me Down – Sam Smith
• Better Life – Keith urban
• Someone Like You – Adele
• Over – Blake Shelton
• Try – Pink
• Waiting For That Day – George Michael
• The Climb – Hollie Cavanagh
• Catapult – Jack Savoretti

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

Gosh, that’s hard as I know the story and it’s the journey that brings them together.

I guess it would be to be brave. Open your heart and take a risk on love.

I think I want them to understand it’s never too late and that you never give up.

I’ll let one reviewer sum up the story and what I’m trying to show my couple and she does it perfectly…

“Reckless Curves is a book about regrets, trust once lost that has to be regained, forgiveness, and second chances. The story of Kendra and Tom just tugs at your heartstrings and you find yourself rooting for them to make it and get the HEA they want with each other.”

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

My next release in June is book two in my Drive Me wild series – Purr For Me: Bad Boy Autos. It’s up for pre-order.

But I’m now writing two new historical series.

1. The Lady Bachelorettes. It’s a series about a widow desperate to remarry and have children, but society thinks she’s barren. So she holds a house party but invites men only—men desperate for her money. At the end of the house party, she’ll select one man to marry. So, it’s a Regency Bachelorette story. Read the blurb for the first book, The Seduction of Lord Sin here, it will be a very comedic story.
2. The Sisterhood of Scandal. This is a very long series set across a group of friends, brothers and sisters and cousins. The females are sick of being treated like second class idiots so they challenge their male peers to a year-long investment challenge – anonymously. The series follows the trials of 8 females and their heroes. Book one is A Lady Never Surrenders.
 

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Excerpt from Reckless Curves:Bad Boy Autos – Drive Me Wild Book #1:

Tom motioned towards the ugly grey couch against the far wall. “Have a seat.”
Kendra’s gaze roamed around the room and her expression told him she hated the place. The distaste on her beautiful face made him laugh.
“Pretty ugly, huh?”
Kendra’s mouth curve upwards. “Yeah. Why do you live here when you’re rich?”
Tom said, “I bought it for the land. I’m going to tear this down and rebuild. I’ve always wanted to design my own house. I want a large garage to play in.” He wanted to show the world he’d made it. He’d escaped to the right side of the tracks.
“Men and their cars…” She perched on the right end of the couch, so Tom took the left, the anger that had been building the whole drive home barely under control.
He’d earned a fortune working in formula one and when Marcus had suggested the concept of Bad Boy Autos he jumped. He would be the head mechanic and oversee the team, while Marcus would take on operations, marketing, and finance. Plus it was the famous formula one world drivers champion, Marcus Black’s name that drew most of the clients. The perfect fit.
Their first year was looking like being very profitable.
Yet Kendra seemed to be struggling financially and he hated that.
“So, I’m responsible for you dropping out of law school and the estrangement with your father. Marcus kept me informed about your life when he learned you were pregnant. You really do know how to hammer a guy. I have a son I don’t know, and you’ve waited all this time to tell me. All you had to do was tell Marcus and I would have learned the truth about those emails and phone calls.”
He watched as Kendra breathed deeply before replying. “I would have dropped out of law school at some point anyway. I only went because father couldn’t get Marcus to go. He wanted one of his children to take over the family law firm. Getting pregnant actually was a blessing. It gave me the courage to stand up to my father.”
“Your father, like mine, is a bit of a bastard.” At least they had that in common.
“My father is a control freak, and while I don’t have much respect for the man, he made sure I got the best treatment when I was battling cancer. I can’t forget that.”
Tom considered her words. “I think you have a lot of your father in you. You’re stubborn and you also seem to like to control things. You could have told me as soon as I set foot in LA. I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for not telling me I had a son sooner. I know I’ll never forgive myself for not reading your emails or taking your calls.”
Again she was quiet maybe considering his words, then said, “Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I thought you didn’t want us and I was worried about your business with Marcus. But you are right. I should have done this age’s ago. Connor should have come first, not you or Marcus.”
He turned to her, some of the anger he held deep in his gut died. “Okay, start at the beginning, Kendra. And what I really want to know is why you didn’t tell me the minute I arrived back in LA.”
Connor was already three years old and he’d missed his baby’s early years. How did he forgive that? He swallowed back his anger, knowing part of this was his fault. He should have responded when she’d contacted him back then. He knew Marcus’s warning about his sister was merely an excuse. When he was younger he was not willing to have a steady relationship. After the disaster of his parent’s marriage he definitely didn’t want to go down that track at any speed. He had his plan to conquer the formula racing circuit with Marcus. It had been his dream for so long. Their dream. It would prove he could rise above his upbringing and get away from his father.
And he’d succeeded.
So he could not blame her entirely.…
“Kendra?” he prompted.
She was playing with a small hole in her jeans. Tom still thought it was ridiculous how ripped pants were the thing, but Kendra was concentrating on pulling them apart just as she started talking. “I haven’t had a lot of experience with men. You’re the second man I ever slept with. I hadn’t been with anyone for about four months before we slept together. I found out I was pregnant around seven weeks later. I called and emailed you right away, but you didn’t answer. I kept trying, but I never heard from you. So, after Dad threw me out, I had Connor by myself. My friend Stella helped me too.”
“What about your mum?”
Kendra scoffed. “She does whatever Dad says and he forbade her to see me.”
“You could have simply told Marcus. He would have let me know immediately.” With his fists, Tom thought.
“I didn’t want to drag Marcus in to this. At the time he had a real chance of winning the formula one driver’s world title that year. His first ever chance. I knew if I told him it would tear you two apart and destroy the team. I could not do that to him.”
Tom’s gut clenched. He couldn’t deny Marcus’s only shot at winning the title would’ve been ruined if all hell had broken loose over Kendra being pregnant… by him. “A part of me understands, but the other part, the part that has missed out on my son’s first three years is pissed. What about after his accident? You could have told me then.”
“Marcus crashed. You were his head mechanic, and Marcus always said only you could feel the car like he could. I thought you’d be blaming yourself for the car spinning out and I could not compound everything with blurting out you were a father too.”
She had a point. He had wondered if the crash was his fault, and he’d not left Marcus’s side until he came out of ICU, but a replay showed Marcus had clipped a competitor’s car. “But once he was better…. You could have told him then. He could have got hold of me and told me. I would have—”
“What would you have done? Come home? I don’t think so. The circuit was your world as much as it was Marcus’s. By then I was coping okay on my own and I didn’t want to be the one to bring Marcus’s world crashing down around him. I still don’t.”
He closed his mouth unable to deny that racing cars had been his world—both their worlds. “I don’t know what I would have done, but now we will never know. You made the decision for me.”
She looked like she might cry. “I did what I thought was right at the time. And as to when you came home… I assumed you had read the emails and didn’t want to know your son. I must admit, I’ve never pictured you as a family sort of a guy.”
Kendra rubbed her palms down her thighs, and he remembered the way her fingers felt on his skin. “I’m sorry but… Thinking you were rejecting us made me hesitate to confront you. Rejection is not easy to take.”
Tom’s jaw clenched. “So, you let your parents disown you and kick you out so that you didn’t screw things up for me? Even after you thought that I didn’t give a shit that I got you pregnant?”
Kendra sat back a little on the couch. “What would you have done if you’d known about Connor?” She held up a silencing finger. “You would’ve come back and tried to be a family, which would’ve been a disaster. Neither of us was ready for that. That’s what. And you would’ve wound up hating me for keeping you from reaching your dreams.”
Tom propped his right ankle up on his left knee. “Hell, we’re older and supposed to be wiser. Sometimes dreams change, Kendra. I mean, look at Marcus. He can’t race anymore since he hurt his back in the crash, so he’s making a different dream come true. So am I. It wasn’t as much fun out on the circuit without Marcus and we’d always talked about opening our own custom shop. It was the right time to make the move for a lot of reasons.”
Kendra shook her head. “You deciding on your own is far different than being forced to come back to LA because you found out you got a one-night stand pregnant and that you had a kid.”
“I never thought of you as a one-night stand.” He could feel a muscle in his jaw jump as his right fist clenched. “What if I hadn’t come back? Were you ever going to tell me or were you going to keep my son from me forever? What made you tell me now?”
A look of such fear and sadness swept her beautiful face that for one terrifying moment he thought her cancer had returned. The idea of her being sick again made his insides churn and all thought of blame vanished.

Excerpts. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Book Info:

From USA Today Bestselling Author, Bronwen Evans, comes her latest sexy contemporary romance! A secret baby, best friend’s little sister romance set in Bad Boy Autos. Think Fast and Furious but nothing illegal!

Thomas (Tom) Lorde’s morning couldn’t get any worse. One call changes everything. Apparently he’s a dad. He should be on the phone to his lawyer. He wouldn’t put it past a woman—any woman—to lie to get at his hard earned money. His mother trapped his father into marriage and then left them both for deeper pockets. But when the news is delivered from between the sweet lips of Kendra Black, his best friend’s out of bounds little sister, and his one major ‘fucking’ mistake, he knows he’s screwed and that she’s not lying.

Kendra Black knew contacting Tom would be a mistake. Three years ago, he’d made it very clear he had no feelings for her. He slept with her and then flew to Europe without a backward glance. However, he left more than a broken heart behind. He might not want her, but now that’s he’s back in California, her son, their son, Connor (Con) Black, deserves to know his father. What she hadn’t expected was Tom’s old-fashioned lap of honor. He wants to marry her. Why couldn’t he simply be a weekend dad like her father? She can’t deny the physical attraction is still there. He might be okay with a marriage based on hot, raw, animalistic sex and only sex, but she wants more. She deserves a man who loves her and she refuses to wave the checked flag until he gives her his heart.
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Meet the Author:

USA Today bestselling author, Bronwen Evans grew up loving books. She writes both historical and contemporary sexy romances for the modern woman who likes intelligent, spirited heroines, and compassionate alpha heroes. Evans is a three-time winner of the RomCon Readers’ Crown and has been nominated for an RT Reviewers’ Choice Award. She lives in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand with her dogs Brandy and Duke.

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