Spotlight & Giveaway: The Fiery Crown by Jeffe Kennedy

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Jeffe Kennedy to HJ!

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

 
Hi everyone! Thanks for inviting me to “visit.”
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

THE FIERY CROWN is the second book in my Forgotten Empires trilogy, following THE ORCHID THRONE. The trilogy is about an embattled queen, Lia, trying to save her small corner of the world and a rebellious escaped slave (and exiled prince), Con, leading a ragtag army to wreak vengeance on the corrupt emperor. In this book, Lia and Con have found themselves forced into marriage and an uneasy alliance. They’re facing a looming attack from the emperor, trying to figure out how to work together, and battling themselves as well.
 

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

We had no choice now but to travel through the fire and either perish or emerge on the other side. If anyone could change the outcome of this conflict, perhaps my wild wolf could.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• When I was writing it, I kept trying to make the conversation between Lia and Con in the carriage shorter, but the scene continued to grow. Then it was my editor’s favorite scene and she wanted even more. Now it’s two full chapters!
• Also, when I turned in the book to my editor, Jennie Conway at St. Martin’s Press, it was just shy of 82,000 words. I knew I needed to flesh out the ending, but by the time I was done with revisions, we’d added almost 26,000 words!

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

Con finds Lia beautiful, which is no surprise, given her reputation, but he doesn’t expect to find a sharp and canny political mind behind the extravagant makeup and costumes she wears. Instead of lazing about in paradise, Lia runs her kingdom with artful efficiency. And instead of being an empty-headed pawn of the emperor, she has a core of strength and determination he can’t help but admire.

For Lia, she finds that Con is also far more intelligent than his brutish reputation indicated. He’s physically attractive to her, with his muscled bulk and potent sexuality, but he’s also not intimidated by her. Con also has a way of seeing through her elaborate masks and cultivated poise, and he recognizes the woman inside the queen. She begins to see that he is someone she can trust—and depend on for honest advice.

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

I’m not really the blushing sort, though I might get warm in other ways! 😉 Crying, yes, but I can’t tell you about those scenes without spoiling them. So, I’ll go with laughing. I laugh at my characters all the time.

One of my favorite characters for this is Sondra, Con’s second in command, and a scarred, very sarcastic warrior woman. She’s always poking at Con in ways that make me laugh. Con tends to be grumpy and impatient, so it’s always amusing when the other characters yank his chain.

“Tea and crumpet, syr?” Sondra inquired in a posh accent, handing me a plate and a fragile-looking cup decorated with more roses.
“Don’t start with me,” I growled, very glad I’d at least already had coffee.
She snorted. “Teach me to be nice to you.”
While she retrieved her own plate, I chewed the pastry savagely. It was flaky and buttery, and more delicious than I wanted it to be. Good thing Lia had agreed to leave for Cradysica the next day. I’d grow soft as Anure eating like this and lounging about, forever talking and never taking action.
“Why so cranky, Conrí?” Sondra asked with fake sympathy. “Didn’t get enough sleep?”
“Were you on watch last night?”
“Ayup.” She crooked her fingers as she sipped her tea, giving me a malicious smile. Like mine, her hands weren’t the sort that normally held pretty dishes. Not anymore. With permanently stained skin, thickened nails, and gnarled knuckles, she made a mockery of the cup just by pretending to hold it like a proper lady. “You two were sure ‘studying’ that map for a long time.”

Readers should read this book….

Because it’s a lovely escape into a world where the leaders are intelligent people with integrity and a driving need to save their realms from corruption and greed. Plus Con and Lia have great banter and lots of steam.

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

I just turned in book #3 of this trilogy, THE PROMISED QUEEN. (So it was really hard to remember to talk about THE FIERY CROWN events instead!) I’m working up a New Thing that I just started yesterday. It’s still in the early stages, of course, but readers who follow me might know I think of it as the dark wizard story. Next I’m planning a novella in my Twelve Kingdoms/Uncharted Realms and Chronicles of Dasnaria series. THE LOST PRINCESS RETURNS will tie up Jenna/Ivariel’s story.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Paper copy of THE FIERY CROWN, US only

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: I loved getting to do this trilogy where I could follow the romance between the same couple over several books. Do you like a slow-burn romance like this, or do you prefer a different couple in each book?

 
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Excerpt from The Fiery Crown:

Con looked so earnest, eyes soft with concern in that roughly handsome face, that I couldn’t resist. And I’d missed touching him. I leaned in, tilting my head just enough to meet his lips and keep the crown balanced. The crowd roared jubilation at the kiss, showering us with flowers and delighted cries. Con slipped a hand behind my neck, holding me there a moment longer, deepening the kiss, which turned quickly hot. Laughing breathlessly, I broke off, straightening. His gaze held mine, molten gold. I wanted you in the garden, even with hundreds of people watching, his voice echoed in my head, hoarse with desire, and I trembled, the need hitting me hard and fast. Worse than ever for the one night of denial.
“A crowd-pleaser,” I managed to say, waving out both sides of the carriage to roaring approval. A fountain of magical flowers bloomed above, jetting from Ambrose’s staff and raining down on us with soft sparkles. “I wish Ambrose wouldn’t do that,” I commented, jumping at the distraction, working to keep the pleased smile on my lips instead of letting them firm with disapproval.
“Why not?”
“Magic work attracts attention. I’d think the wizard would know as much.”
Con shrugged. “Probably. But if it’s the Imperial Toad’s attention you mean, I’d guess that Ambrose knows this journey is partly designed to make sure we draw Anure’s eye.”
I supposed he had a point. “How can he know? He wasn’t at the meeting where we discussed it.”
“Apparently he told Sondra he’d be ready to travel to Cradysica before you even came to visit me in the map tower and I asked you about the place.”
I tried to focus on that extraordinary information, not on what we’d done on that visit. How Con had spread me out naked on the representation of my island, sending me mindless with erotic release. Still, I had to search for words. “You’re saying Cradysica was . . . inevitable.”
Con nodded, then shrugged. “I don’t know how this stuff works.”
“When did you know that the wizard said this?”
“Right before the meeting started. Sondra told me about a minute before you convened it.”
I considered that with some surprise. “But you didn’t use that in your arguments.”
He met my gaze, a raw honesty in his eyes. “I never wanted to bully you, Lia. I know I can be an ass, and I’m always sure I’m right, but I wanted to convince you we can win. I believe we can. I didn’t want to . . .”
“Use predestination to push Me into capitulation?”
Smiling slightly, he shook his head. “You’re about as easy to push around as I am.”
I found myself smiling back, the unexpected understanding humming between us. Another shower of showy magical fireworks went up and I glared in the wizard’s direction, much good as it did.
“I’d say you should order him not to, but we both know that Ambrose does as he likes.” Con sat back, folding his arms, muscles bulging in his shoulders beneath the closely tailored black silk and leather. He’d been so annoyed about the pastel-blue outfit my ladies had pranked him with—and so relieved to see the real one—that he’d simply put it on without comment. He looked good in those clothes, though. Deadly, physically powerful, as always, and also regal. More like the king of Oriel as he’d been destined, instead of the Slave King. “If you can figure out how to govern the wizard, you will truly be a ruler to fear.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

WILL THEIR LOVE STAND THE TEST OF TIME
Queen Euthalia has reigned over her island kingdom of Calanthe with determination, grace, and her magical, undying orchid ring. After she defied an empire to wed Conrí, the former Crown Prince of Oriel—a man of disgraced origins with vengeance in his heart—Lia expected the wizard’s prophecy to come true: Claim the hand that wears the ring and the empire falls. But Lia’s dangerous bid to save her realm doesn’t lead to immediate victory. Instead, destiny hurls her and Conrí towards a future neither could predict…

OR TEAR THEIR WHOLE WORLD APART?
Con has never healed after the death of his family and destruction of his kingdom—he’s been carefully plotting his revenge against his greatest enemy, Emperor Anure, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. When Lia’s spies gather intelligence suggesting that Anure is planning an attack against Calanthe, Con faces an agonizing choice: Can he sacrifice Lia and all she holds dear to destroy the empire? Or does his true loyalty exist in the arms of his beguiling, passionate wife—’til death do they part?
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Meet the Author:

Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author whose works include novels, non-fiction, poetry, and short fiction. She has won the prestigious RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America (RWA), has been a finalist twice, been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) as a Director at Large.
Her award-winning fantasy romance trilogy The Twelve Kingdoms hit the shelves starting in May 2014. Book 1, The Mark of the Tala, received a starred Library Journal review and was nominated for the RT Book of the Year while the sequel, The Tears of the Rose received a Top Pick Gold and was nominated for the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2014. The third book, The Talon of the Hawk, won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2015. Two more books followed in this world, beginning the spin-off series The Uncharted Realms. Book one in that series, The Pages of the Mind, was nominated for the RT Reviewer’s Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2016 and won RWA’s 2017 RITA Award. The second book, The Edge of the Blade, released December 27, 2016, and was a PRISM finalist, along with The Pages of the Mind. The final book in the series, The Fate of the Tala, will be out in January 2020. A high fantasy trilogy, The Chronicles of Dasnaria, taking place in The Twelve Kingdoms world began releasing from Rebel Base books in 2018. The novella, The Dragons of Summer, first appearing in the Seasons of Sorcery anthology, finaled for the 2019 RITA Award.
She also introduced a new fantasy romance series, Sorcerous Moons, which includes Lonen’s War, Oria’s Gambit, The Tides of Bàra, The Forests of Dru, Oria’s Enchantment, and Lonen’s Reign. She’s begun releasing a new contemporary erotic romance series, Missed Connections, which started with Last Dance and continues in With a Prince and Since Last Christmas.
In September 2019, St. Martins Press released The Orchid Throne, the first book in a new romantic fantasy series, The Forgotten Empires. The sequel, The Fiery Crown, will follow in May 2020.
Her other works include a number of fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns; the contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion; an erotic contemporary serial novel, Master of the Opera; and the erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under, which includes Going Under, Under His Touch and Under Contract.
She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine.
Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com, every Sunday at the popular SFF Seven blog, on Facebook, on Goodreads and pretty much constantly on Twitter @jeffekennedy. She is represented by Sarah Younger of Nancy Yost Literary Agency.
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