Spotlight & Giveaway: Reclaimed by the Powerful Sheikh by Pippa Roscoe

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome romance author Pippa Roscoe to HJ!

Hi Pippa and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Reclaimed by the Powerful Sheikh!

 
Thank you so much for having me!
 

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

• R – Reunited! One of the things I love most about this story is that Mason and Danyl get a second chance at love and happiness.
• B – Bound! Throughout the story Danyl is bound to his duty as future King, and bound to the past and the woman he loves.
• T – Time! which is running out for Danyl who must find a wife in order to ascend to the throne.
• P – Passion! And the undeniable connection Danyl and Mason still have.
• S – Secrets! In order to resolve the hurts of the past, Danyl and Mason must shine a light on the secrets they kept from each other, but more importantly, the ones they kept from themselves.

Please share the opening lines of this book:

Mason McAulty couldn’t tell if she was breathing.
It was highly likely, an automatic physical directive obeyed by her body through necessity, but often during a race she didn’t have the time to remind herself to do it.

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

Mason McNaulty is spirited and fiery. I fell in love with Mason’s determination and strength which is layered over the grief from the past. There’s a vulnerability to her, even though she’s more than willing and most definitely capable to stand up to the powerful, proud Sheikh-to-be!

Danyl Al Arain, Prince to a Desert Kingdom, is powerful and proud and has never forgotten Mason, nor forgiven her for walking away from him years ago. But now she’s back in his life at the worst time possible for him!

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• The story is told with one chapter in the present and one chapter in the past which was so much fun to write and felt like the perfect way to explore the whole relationship between Mason and Danyl from the very beginning.
• The model for the hero was Sendhil Ramamurthy – who I have actually met and is just as gorgeous in real life as on the screen!
• It’s the last book in the Winners’ Circle Trilogy and it was a delight to bring back the two previous book’s couples. (We had a lot of fun deciding where the comma would go for grammatical correctness!)

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

Mason is whisked off her feet by literally a handsome prince. He’s charming and funny and she can’t believe that he’s interested in her! Danyl is blown away by her, she’s down to earth and accepts him for his true self, not the position he holds on the money he wields.

The First Kiss…

From the streets and out of the surrounding buildings, voices began to cry out. The countdown to the New Year had begun. The cries rose up around them, breaking into the moment of silence Mason might have held for ever. They were standing so close she could feel the heat from his body.
Ten, nine, eight…
He was so much taller than her, she had to angle her head back to look up at him. Rather than making her feel small, as her diminutive height usually did, it made her feel protected, surrounded by him.
‘Would it be inappropriate for me to kiss you at midnight?’ he asked. His voice, lower and huskier than it had been before. She felt, rather than saw, his palms flatten out against his legs, as if he were preventing himself from reaching for her. Until she gave him permission. Until she allowed it.
She shrugged her shoulder as the subtle tension that had hummed between them since leaving the Langsford built to fever pitch. Her heart was pounding in her chest. The way it had been as she’d led them further away from the hotel. It increased as the time to midnight decreased. Was she really going to let a prince kiss her?
Seven, six, five…
‘I suppose it’s not as if you’re spoilt for choice,’ she replied, looking around them briefly at the few groups that had spilled onto the roads around the park, before being pulled back to his gaze—the one that had not left her.
‘There’s always a choice, Mason.’
Four, three two…
He was giving her an out. He knew it, she knew it. But, looking into his deep smoked-whisky-coloured eyes, she thought she might drown, thought she might not be able to breathe if she didn’t take the chance…the chance to act on the heady desire sparkling between them.
In answer to his question, she reached up to his tie and gently tugged his head down towards hers.
One.
His firm lips pressed against hers, sending a thousand little bursts across her skin…but it wasn’t enough. As his tongue gently swiped over her bottom lip, flames licked up her spine and shivered out over her entire body. Another swipe begged entry, a third demanded it, and she opened her mouth and met his tongue with hers. Her hands came up to the lapels of his coat, pulling him towards her, clinging to them as if she could no longer stand on her own two feet. Need and desire almost crushed her. Adrenalin poured through her veins as she pulled him deeper into a kiss she would never forget.

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

I love this scene in the book and it always makes me smile. I like the touches of humour here that works to balance the deeper emotions in their past.

‘Will you put the gun down now? Or are you really going to shoot me?’ he asked.
‘It’s tempting. What are you doing here?’ Mason asked, without the accompanying sounds of her putting the gun away.
‘Can I turn around?’
‘Slowly.’
‘Slowly? For heaven’s sake, would you put it down before you hurt yourself? Or worse, me,’ Danyl said as he made a very slow turn on his feet.
‘I’m not stupid, I do know how to use—’
Danyl pushed the barrel of the gun away from both of them, leaned in, grabbed the toe of the gun with his palm and pushed up, effectively releasing her grip whilst tangling her arms up in each other. He pulled the shotgun towards him slightly, breaking her hold, and dropped it to the floor. The resulting force, however, brought her forward against him, and left her flush along his chest.
He didn’t know what angered him more, that she could have hurt herself, or that his body hadn’t got the message his head had spent the better part of ten years telling him. He let the former win the silent mental argument.
‘Are you mad?’ he demanded, his voice cutting through the miles of silence around them. ‘If that had gone off by accident, you would have just shot a prince!’
She peeled herself from his chest as if he were something contagious, muttering under her breath. He was pretty sure she’d just said that it would have been worth it.

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

Be kind to your younger selves.

It’s something I have to remind myself sometimes! We are our own worst critics and can often be crueler to ourselves than we would anyone else we love or care about, so it’s really important to be kind and understanding of our younger selves.

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

My next book, Virgin Princess’s Marriage Debt, is out in October. It’s a story of revenge, a not-so-convenient marriage, and happy ever afters. And I can’t wait for everyone to see the beautiful cover!
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: I have two sets of the complete Winners’ Circle Trilogy to give away (A Ring to Take His Revenge, Claimed for the Greek’s Child, Reclaimed by the Powerful Shiekh). Open internationally.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Danyl and Mason must attend a lavish party in the royal palace of his desert kingdom. If you were to throw the most amazing party, where would it be?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Excerpt from Reclaimed by the Powerful Sheikh:

‘I don’t want you digging around in my past, Danyl.’ She was almost shouting now.
‘Don’t you mean our past?’ he bit back.
‘No! I mean mine. For all intents and purposes no one knew you were there. You weren’t mentioned in the press, you weren’t involved. So no. My past is where you’ve been digging and I want you to leave it alone. Leave me alone.’
Mason turned to walk away, but Danyl’s fingers wrapped around her forearm and brought her spinning back round and almost smacking straight into his chest. She had to look up at him, craning her neck back just to see his face.

‘But it’s not just your past, is it? It’s mine too.’ Danyl’s voice was rough and scratchy. Not from desire, or need, but hurt and pain. ‘And you’re cutting me out of it, just like you did last time. We can’t avoid this any more. We have to face this so we can move on.’
‘Is that what you want? To move on? With a practically perfect queen who will want nothing from you, demand nothing more of you? Tell me, Danyl, why on earth did you hire a matchmaker?’
‘Who told you that?’ he demanded roughly.
‘Your mother. She seems very well informed.’
‘It is none of your business.’
‘But you’re allowed to meddle in mine?’
‘I am when it stops you from doing what you want to do with your life.’
‘Did you ever stop to think that maybe I was? That I’m happy working on the farm with kids that need help?’
‘No. I don’t think you’re happy, because I know what you look like when you’re happy, Mason.’
‘And what about you, Danyl? What is it that you want?’
‘I want free of this!’ he shouted, no longer able to hold back all the emotions she provoked in him. ‘This hold you have over me. You think it’s easy for me? You being here? Look at you!’
‘What, dressed up like some wannabe princess? Is the rugged Aussie girl showing through a little too much?’ The bitterness in her voice threw petrol on the flames of his anger.
‘No, dammit, beautiful! You’re beautiful!’ For about a second everything was quiet, as if she was as shocked as he that he’d finally said it. ‘Every time I look at you it hurts, because I know how you taste, I know how you feel under my skin, I know how your eyes darken when you climax, and I know the sound of my name on your lips when you do is like nothing else in this world.’
They were trembling now. Both of them. He’d never spoken to her like this before, with this raw passion that seemed to frighten them both. Ten years ago their relationship had held an innocence, a sweetness, but this… This was like nothing he could have expected or imagined.
She was about to run again. He could tell. He could see it in her eyes. But he couldn’t just let her go. Not this time.
His hand released its grip on her upper arms and moved to her neck, anchoring her in place. His lips crashed against the softness of hers, punishing and powerful. Hard against soft, heat against cool. He thought—feared—for a moment she had turned to stone. But a second before he was about to pull away her mouth opened and his tongue danced with hers. Need like a firestorm swept through his body, blocking out all thought, all awareness other than that of her.
Fireworks tingled over his skin, beneath his clothes, flames scorched his neck as her arms swept up around it, clinging to him with the same desperation he felt.
It wasn’t enough. The kiss just wasn’t enough.
He drew her against his chest, relishing the feel of her soft breasts against the hard muscles there. His hands swept down over the sides of her body, his thumbs reaching to outline the curves of her breasts. Her gasp fell into his mouth as she must have felt his hands, gasps, sighs, but it still wasn’t enough.
He reached to her thigh, pulling behind her knee, bringing it up to wrap around his hip, pressing his aroused length against her core, and relished the way her body sank into his. They had fitted together perfectly. Something he’d marvelled at ten years before, and still now today.
He pressed open-mouthed kisses down the side of her neck, leaning her back into his arms in an embrace that left her chest exposed to his lips. Her skin tasted exactly the same—honey and warmth and that taste of her that was unique.
It was pain and pleasure all mixed together.
His hand pulled up the skirt of her dress. He needed to feel her skin, needed to know this was real and not the fevered imagining that had distracted him even when she was a million miles and ten years away from him. The thin material covered in thousands of crystals poured over the fine wool of the tuxedo jacket, and his hand met the silk of her skin, pushing up her impossibly thin ankle, over the smooth length of her shin, up to the strong, muscled thigh and round to her backside, pulling her towards him, pressing her against the strength of his arousal. It was enough to nearly undo him right there.
He jerked his head back in shock. How had he forgotten? The gala, the palace, the past…

Excerpts. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

“The past will never be forgotten.”

And his request won’t be denied…

Ten years ago, Mason McAulty was swept into an overwhelming affair with Prince Danyl Al Arain—which ended tragically. Now Danyl has arrived at her struggling Australian farm with a million-dollar demand to attend his royal gala. She cannot refuse—or deny their still-burning fire. As memories pull Mason back into the arms of the sheikh, will their secret pain be overcome by their intense desire?

Book Links: Amazon | B&N | Goodreads 
 
 

Meet the Author:

Pippa Roscoe lives in Norfolk near her family and makes daily promises that this is the day she will leave the computer and take a long walk in the countryside. She can’t remember a time when she wasn’t dreaming of gorgeous alpha males and misunderstood heroines. Totally her mother’s fault of course – she gave Pippa her first romance at the age of nine! She is inconceivably happy that she gets to share those day dreams with you! @PippaRoscoe www.pipparoscoe.com
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