Spotlight & Giveaway: The Bastard by Lisa Renee Jones

Posted November 15th, 2018 by in Blog, Spotlight / 42 comments

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Lisa Renee Jones to HJ!
Spotlight&Giveaway

Hi Lisa and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Bastard!

 
Thank you so much for having me!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

The Bastard is the first book in a sexy and suspenseful duet between Eric and Harper. He is a devastatingly sexy billionaire and ex-Navy SEAL, and she is the off-limits corporate princess and his new stepsister. Eric wants nothing to do with the family who wanted nothing to do with him years ago, yet Harper is trying to reel him in to help save the family company. Amidst the corporate turmoil, Eric and Harper are to-die-for obsessed with one another while they navigate a mine field of secrets, lies and emotions neither of them were ready for.
 

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

He’s a bastard by his own admission and we both know he revels in living up to that title. He’s also trouble, but my God, I have long hungered for another taste of that trouble.

 

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

  • This book is taking me back to my more suspenseful type of book and I am SO excited to delve back into that world
  • This was possibly the most difficult book I have ever written due to life circumstances that were when I was having to write it.
  • I had to write this book without a playlist, which is wildly abnormal for me, but these two characters don’t fit into a rhythm that isn’t their own

 

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

It’s a bit of an insta-love situation for Eric and Harper. Their eyes meet across a pool and BAM! Though I will say, there is an immense amount of emotion that these two carry for each other even throughout their beginning lust phase. For Eric, I think it’s more a forbidden feeling that attracts him to Harper the most, but as he learns who she really is (not who he assumes she is) he simply can’t deny his appreciation of her tenacity, her beauty inside and out, and her strength. For Harper, her attraction stems from what Eric represents to her: freedom. Freedom from everything – his family, her mother, the legacy of her father. All the pressure seems to fade away when she’s with Eric, or at least he helps carry the burdens she’s been solely responsible for until him.

 

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

Okay, please don’t hate me, I actually can’t tell you which scene it is, but it’s the last scene of The Bastard (which is book one of the Filthy Duet). It’s the scene that just about tore out my heart, and it hurt to even go back and edit it for corrections. I’ll leave you with one line: My emotions are suffocating me. I can’t take it.

You’ll know the scene once it begins. All the raw emotions from both Eric and Harper in that scene would be the kind of exactness and perfection that I would like anyone auditioning to be able to reenact.

 

Readers should read this book….

If they love a demanding alpha who’s got a sweet spot for his woman and a sweetheart of a heroine who will still stand up to her man.

 

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

Right now I’m working on The Princess which is Eric and Harper’s second and final book – I can’t wait to get it in readers’ hands! I have a few books coming up, the follow-up books to Dirty Rich One Night Stand and Dirty Rich Obsession – these are the couples’ happily ever after books. Those will both be out in December. And then I have the third book for my Lilah Love series, which will actually be a standalone, out in March – LOVE ME DEAD!
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

 

Giveaway: Signed copy of The Bastard

 

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Eric is a literal genius. As in graduated college and entered law school early, before he took leave and went into the SEALs. He has trouble sometimes with information coming too hard and too fast at him to make sense of everything, but he uses his Rubik’s cube to calm he mind and see the information clearly. So my question to you is: What is your calming technique? Mine is coffee. I probably drink far too much of it, but the warmness and caffeine helps me chill out a bit.

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Excerpt from The Bastard:

“Eric,” I whisper, and not because I want to break the silence. Because I have this sense he’s waiting on me, needing something I don’t understand.
His answer is instant, not in words, but actions. His mouth closes down on mine, and I feel the snap of tension in him; whatever hesitation was in him moments before is gone, and I welcome the deep thrust of his tongue, the press of his hand under my shirt, his touch caressing over my ribcage. My breasts are heavy, heat pooling low in my belly with anticipation of what comes next, and then his hand is on my naked breasts, fingers plucking my nipple.
He pulls back to look at me, the deep blue of his stare flecked with amber heat scorching me inside and out. He drags my tee over my head, tosses it away, and then that smoldering stare of his is raking over my breasts, devouring me in ways that inexplicably no other man ever has. Just him. My sex clenches and when I grab his sleeve, tugging him toward me, he doesn’t make me wait.
His gaze collides with mine, and the punch of awareness and attraction between us steals my breath even as his hand returns to my neck as he drags my mouth to his. “God, woman,” he says, his voice low, rough, almost guttural, “what the hell are you doing to me?” And this time when he kisses me, I sense the barely caged control, the edge of hunger clawing at him, and me with him.
I reach for the buttons of his shirt and he responds by backing me up until I’m against some wall. I don’t even know what wall, and then he releases me just long enough to pull his shirt over his head and toss it. I don’t play shy. I’ve waited too long for this to hold back. My hands go to his hard, really perfect chest, my fingers twining in the light brown hair there. Hair I happen to know forms a line of hair that trails beneath his waistband. I want to lick my way down that path, but there is so much with this man to explore, to experience, even as I contemplate that journey, I’m distracted by his tattoos and my hands move to his new ink, the right shoulder that is now a giant jaguar.
“I love your ink,” I dare.
Shadows flicker in his eyes, an edge to his mood now that isn’t about sex, but that talk we haven’t had. “Do you now?”
“Yes,” I say, looking him in the eyes. “Why is that a problem? What just happened? Because I do love it. Very much, and I want to—”
I never finish that sentence, I never get to tell him how much I want my mouth on his ink and his body before his cheek is pressed to mine, his lips at my ear, breath warm on my neck as he declares, “I want you naked” his teeth scrape my earlobe, “in every way, Harper.”
My lips part on those words that I don’t fully understand and once again, just like six years before, he turns me to the wall and forces me to catch it with my hands. It’s a power thing, I know, and it should perhaps bother me. He wants to control me, he needs control. It’s about him ruling over the royalty, and to him, I’m that royalty and there’s nothing I can do about it. He feels like I’m the girl on the throne who’s fucking beneath herself.
He yanks my pants down and in seconds they’re over my bare feet and I’m completely naked. His hands are all over me, and when he leans in, his lips at my ear, his hands on my breasts, my breath hitches in my throat. “You’re mine now, princess. All mine. You get that, right? There’s no turning back now.”
“I don’t want to turn back.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 

Book Info:

I’m the bastard child, son to the mistress, my father’s backup heir to the Kingston empire. He sent me to Harvard. I left and became a Navy SEAL, but I’m back now, and I finished school on my own dime. I’m now the right hand man to Grayson Bennett, the billionaire who runs the Bennett Empire. I’m now a few months from being a billionaire myself. I don’t need my father’s company or his love. My “brother” can have it. I will never go back there. I will never be the mistake my father made, the way he was the mistake my mother made.

And then she walks in the door, the princess I’d once wanted more than I’d wanted my father’s love. She wants me to come back. She says my father needs to be saved. I don’t want to save my father but I do want her. Deeply. Passionately. More than I want anything else.

But she’s The Princess and I’m The Bastard. We don’t fit. We don’t belong together and yet she says he needs me, that she needs me. We’re like sugar and spice, we don’t mix, but I really crave a taste. Just one. What harm can just one taste do?
Book Links:  Amazon | B&N | iTunes | kobo | Google |
 
 

Meet the Author:

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones is the author of the highly acclaimed INSIDE OUT series.
In addition to the success of Lisa’s INSIDE OUT series, she has published many successful titles. The TALL, DARK AND DEADLY series and THE SECRET LIFE OF AMY BENSEN series, both spent several months on a combination of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling lists. Lisa is also the author of the bestselling the bestselling LILAH LOVE and WHITE LIES series.
Prior to publishing, Lisa owned a multi-state staffing agency that was recognized many times by The Austin Business Journal and also praised by the Dallas Women’s Magazine. In 1998 Lisa was listed as the #7 growing women owned business in Entrepreneur Magazine.
Lisa loves to hear from her readers. You can reach her on Twitter and Facebook daily.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | GoodReads |
 
 
 

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42 Responses to “Spotlight & Giveaway: The Bastard by Lisa Renee Jones”

  2. Sonia

    My calming technique would be to have a mental talk with myself and breathe through the anxiety or distress.

  5. janinecatmom

    Most of the time petting my cats helps me calm down. But for those times when my stress level gets too high and my cats don’t help, I usually have a glass of wine or a mixed drink.

  6. HEATHER SCULLY

    I have a mantra. Breathe. Just breathe. As long as I can draw in breath, and let it out, everything’s going to be okay. In theory. Lol ❤

  7. Sue Galuska

    It takes a lot to get me that riled up, but I guess for me I would just need to walk away from the whatever it is.

  12. orioles4ever

    My glass is usually half full, but when moments come of negative thought they move by quickly with anything I can think of for a good laugh. Memories of funny things my late cats did, having my dog chase me, and also relax with an angst Harlequin…LOL

  16. Debra Branigan

    My calming technique is a hot cup of tea with a bit of honey and then a good book to read.

  17. carol L

    My calming technique is to simply go to a quiet room, listen to soothing music, lay my head back and take slow even breathes.
    Carol Luciano
    Lucky4750 at aol dot com

  19. Veronica Pinho

    I like to close my eyes and breathe deeply. I find that always helps calm me down and I can pretty much do it anywhere

  34. erinf1

    I love coffee too! I have, no joke, 5 different coffee creamer flavors in my frig. Thanks for sharing!

  35. rkcjmomma

    I like to clean and organize when im stressed and need calming. But first i go somewhere with no noise and do a few deep breaths and kinda chill for 5 mins before doing anything else.