Spotlight & Giveaway: The Cowboy’s Redemption by Paula Altenburg

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Paula Altenburg to HJ!

Hi Paula and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Cowboy’s Redemption!

To start off, can you please tell us a little bit about this book?:

The Cowboy’s Redemption is a story of forbidden love and self-discovery. Dana Barrett is an up-and-coming barrel racer who is a crowd favorite, mostly because her fans love tragic stories. Hers is that her former lover was killed in a bull riding accident—except it isn’t the tragic love story everyone wants to believe. Levi Harrington is the bull rider’s best friend, and he’s been in love with Dana forever. He believes he’ll always be viewed as second best—the guy Dana settled on in a desperate attempt to cling to the past. They both want to move forward, but it’s hard to shake off the past when all eyes are on you.
 

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

I’ve spent a long time building the town of Grand, Montana, and sometimes there are secondary characters who steal the show. Ford Shannahan is one of those characters. I mentioned him in The Montana Doctor, and he first appeared in The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby. His story is already under contract, and I love this description of him:

Ford shared his family’s blond, Nordic good looks, but that was as far as the familial resemblance went. He was a big man, with none of the Irish affability his surname implied, or that his siblings possessed, but every stitch of some marauding Viking ancestor’s terrifying charisma. If any neighboring villages around Grand were ever plundered in the dead of night, fingers would point his way.

What inspired this book?

I really can’t! The Cowboy’s Redemption is my eighth book set in Grand, Montana. Grand has grown so much over the past five years that every time I introduce a character, their story starts writing itself in the back of my head. Ford Shannahan is an example. If you’ve read The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby, you’ll have no trouble figuring out who his love interest will be, because she pushes every single button he owns.

Dana Barrett started off as Tanner Shannahan’s girlfriend, but I’d killed Tanner off because he was part of his twin sister Tate’s character growth in The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby, so that romance wasn’t going anywhere. And then Levi popped up in The Montana Doctor, and I needed a heroine for him, but I’d set him up as a little bit too nice and I had to rethink him. What would make a boring guy a more interesting character? Someone who’s in love with his best friend’s girl, of course. (I just heard Rick Springfield singing in my head.)

How did you ‘get to know’ your main characters? Did they ever surprise you?

Levi and Dana both made brief appearances in my other Grand, Montana books. Levi had a coffee date with Hannah Brand in The Montana Doctor before Dallas Tucker stole her heart. Even though I set Levi up to be somewhat boring and predictable, that’s what Dana needed.

Dana had an uneasy relationship with Tate, her ex-boyfriend’s twin sister. They each blamed each other for events surrounding the brother’s death. She gets the most character growth in the story because she’s got the biggest issues to deal with. She was the harder character for me to pull off, and at least one advance reader had a hard time warming to her, which is exactly what I’d intended. Can you imagine how dull the romance would be if both characters are nice every single moment?

What was your favorite scene to write?

There’s a scene early on in the book that always stands out for me. Dana has been struggling to move on with her life and she’s finally starting to take notice of Levi, who’s loved her for years:

Levi stopped. “Hey, darlin’,” he said.
For a startled second, she thought he was talking to her. Then she saw they were surrounded by horses. So much beauty and power in one place stole her breath, reminding her of why Otto Hart was so famous and how lucky she was.
Tanoa had nuzzled up to a gorgeous blood bay mare. Her bright buckskin coat gleamed deep gold against her partner’s dark red. Twin black tails flicked in tandem as they picked at the grass with a blithe lack of concern for the human invaders.
Dana longed to approach Tanoa herself, but the horses clearly knew Levi and were at ease around him, so she hung back and let him take the lead. He kept the halter in Tanoa’s line of sight while he approached her. She responded by turning her head toward him and emitting a soft whinny of greeting. He stretched out his free palm and rubbed her nose, and she nudged him, bumping his chest, then blew air in his face. The blood bay jostled Tanoa aside, seeking out her share of his attention. Dana’s heart squeezed tight with delight. How could anyone not appreciate a man horses adored?
He slipped the halter on Tanoa and gestured for Dana to join them. The other mare dropped her jaw on his shoulder, refusing to allow him to ignore her. He handed Tanoa’s lead line to Dana.
“This is Nova,” he said, stroking the blood bay’s neck in a way that made Dana shudder by proxy with joy. “She can be a little jealous of my affection.”
No wonder. If Levi ever smiled at a woman the way he smiled at Nova, he’d have them both eating out of his hand.

What was the most difficult scene to write?

The first love scene is always the most difficult. How much detail to write depends on the characters and what they’re willing to reveal. They’re attracted to each other, and maybe one of them is already invested, but as a writer, you know there’s a whole lot more story to unravel than them just peeling their clothes off. The first love scene also gives the writer a chance to show another side to the characters, and this scene is where Dana discovers that Levi’s not nearly as “nice” (meaning dull) as he seems:

She’d assumed that she’d be in charge. That he’d do her bidding. That he’d be a considerate but passive lover, favoring a slow burn over a hot flame. His kiss said how mistaken about that she was. She wanted him so badly right now, she didn’t care. She’d always enjoyed sex and the one thing she was sure of was that Levi had put a lot of thought into this.

“We have several options,” he said, proving her right about this much, at least. “We can take the edge off with fast and dirty, which is okay, because then we can slow things down for the rest of the night.”

He took his shirt off as he spoke, and she lost all interest in any other options he might have in mind. He was broader than she’d imagined. More muscular through the chest, with a narrow waist and flat stomach. A thin line of dark hair arrowed into his zippered jeans, drawing her eye and drying her mouth.

“Fast and dirty,” she said quickly. She reached for the buttons on her shirt so she could take hers off, too. She wore the pretty bra and matching thong she’d bought at the lingerie shop and couldn’t wait to see his reaction. Levi was a man who paid attention to detail.

He caught her hands before she could undo more than the top button. “Not that fast. Not until you’ve heard all the options.”

Would you say this book showcases your writing style or is it a departure for you?

I’d say this book is fairly typical of my contemporary romance voice.

What do you want people to take away from reading this book?

What an amazing place Grand, Montana is! After five years, it feels like home to me now.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have planned?

Right now I’m working on The Cowboy’s Downfall, Shauna Walsh and Nix McCray’s story. After that is Ford Shannahan’s story. Like I said—if you want to take a wild guess as to who his love interest will be, you’ll have to read The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby.

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Winner will receive one ebook copy of THE COWBOY’S REDEMPTION plus one Tule ebook of the winner’s choice!

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: How do you feel about a long-running series that takes place in one town? And how do you feel about different writers writing in it? (Because spoiler alert—another Tule author will be joining me in Grand in the very near future, and if you’ve followed my series, you’ll spot some familiar faces.)

 
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Excerpt from The Cowboy’s Redemption:

Prologue
Three years earlier…
Dana Barrett found it hard to believe how something that had started with so much promise had turned into such a disaster, but the proof stared her straight in the face.
That line was pink. No mistake.
She tossed the pregnancy test in the garbage can of the cramped motel bathroom, then slumped to the floor with her back against the door and covered her head with her arms. She hadn’t gone on the pill because she hadn’t made up her mind as to how long the relationship would last. She normally avoided bull riders, the rock stars of the rodeo world, because of their egos and the danger they chased, but Tanner, with his good-natured charm, had won her over. He was fun and she’d fallen a little in love.
She should have listened to her head, not her heart. When things seemed too good to be true, it meant they usually were. Fun wasn’t enough. Not for her. She had her barrel racing career to consider. She’d finally begun to make money. How had this happened?
Thinking back, there had been a few mishaps early on when Tanner hadn’t withdrawn when he should. He’d been wound up after a ride, and they’d burned off enough excess energy between them that he’d claimed he was too tired to move. She’d straightened him out in that regard.
Apparently, not soon enough.
He knocked on the bathroom door. “Everything okay in there?”
No. It most definitely was not.
She had to tell him.
She pulled herself together and opened the door. “I’m pregnant.”
The smug, satisfied smile. The lack of surprise. They told her more than she wanted to know.
“This is fantastic!” he said.
Her brain ceased to function. Blood drained from her head to cradle the tiny bundle of cells sprouting limbs in her belly. She must have misheard. Must have misread his reaction. She groped for a chair. She needed to sit.
She stared at him. “Are you out of your mind? What’s fantastic about this?”
He went to one knee and took her cold hand. “We’re a couple, sweetheart. We’re in this together. Think positive. We’re starting a family.”
A couple. Together. Family.
She could think of only one thing. “What about our careers?”
“What about them? Come on, Dana. Neither one of us is going to Las Vegas.” He shrugged off all their hard work, as if they hadn’t spent years trying to make it to the Wrangler National Finals.
Maybe only one of them had. How well did she know him?
They’d partied together. They shared a lot of the same friends—the circuit was a close-knit community. He’d introduced her to a few of his friends outside of the rodeo world, too, and she knew his sister—another barrel racer—quite well.
But she couldn’t say how they’d ended up sharing motel rooms when they were at the same rodeo events, other than that the walls of her trailer were thin, and the neighbors didn’t need to know the details of everything they were doing at night. On that, they agreed.
Especially since lately, all they seemed to be doing was disagree. He had a jealous streak in him that she’d attributed to a bull rider’s competitive nature. He expected her to align her schedule with his. When they did line up, he had to have her complete attention. And she was exhausted.
He continued to talk. She continued to stare. He had it all planned. Between them, they had money saved. They’d buy a small place in Grand, Montana. His hometown. They’d have a dozen babies. She had no idea where any of this came from. She had the horrifying suspicion he did.
“You wore me out, baby. Just give me another second to recover.”
She held up a hand and waved it, trying to get his attention and stop the flow of nonsensical words. “Tell me you didn’t plan this.”
She saw the guilt in his eyes before belligerence took over. “You’re a little commitment-shy, baby. So this speeds things along. So what? Tell me we aren’t perfect together.”
Was he trying to shift the blame for this mess onto her shoulders? The shocks kept on coming. How could someone so sweet, and so beautiful to look at, and with so much potential, be so insecure and selfish and spoiled? How had he seized so much control over her life? When had he become so dismissive of her hopes and dreams?
She shook her hand free of his. She stood. She crossed the small room to her suitcase, picking up scattered clothes off the floor as she went.
“What are you doing?” Tanner asked, curiosity, more than alarm, in his voice.
He thought he had her. That the future he envisioned for them was a foregone conclusion. That he’d won. She’d never been as angry with anyone as she was with him in this moment.
Anger solved nothing. Actions spoke louder than words. Especially with Tanner.
“I’m leaving,” she said, and snapped the clasps closed on her suitcase.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

She’s done with cowboys for good…

Cowboy Levi Harrington oversees the innovative breeding program at the Endeavour Ranch. He knows how to read aggression, personality, and mood in bulls and horses better than anyone in Grand, Montana. When he sees the fiancée of his best friend, who died during a rodeo several years ago, struggling to control her horse, he wants to help. He’s loved Dana from afar for years, but she’s always been off-limits—even now.

Barrel racer Dana Barrett’s relationship with a popular bull rider killed in the arena was complicated, messy, and not at all the fairy tale love story rodeo fans chose to see. She’s ready to step out of the tragedy’s limelight and move on, starting with taking her career to the next level. That’s hard to do when everyone still sees her as a tragic heroine and when her beloved champion horse is at the end of her career.

Dana needs a fresh start, starting with a new horse. When a twist of fate throws Levi and Dana together again, can they move beyond the past and forge a future together?

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Meet the Author:

USA Today Bestselling Author Paula Altenburg lives in rural Nova Scotia, Canada with her husband and two sons. A former aviation and aerospace professional, Paula now writes contemporary romance and fantasy with romantic elements. You can connect with her at www.paulaaltenburg.com.
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