Spotlight & Giveaway: Written for You by Robin Bielman

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Robin Bielman to HJ!

Hi Robin and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Written for You!

Hi! Thank you for having me! I’m so happy to be here today to share my new release with everyone!
 

Please summarize the book a la Twitter style for the readers here:

Never-crosses-a-line Cam Radcliffe has a very big problem: he’s secretly crushing on his best friend, Reese. She’s driving him wild in the best possible way, but as their professional lives intertwine, keeping his feelings hidden becomes impossible.
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

A deadline loomed over Cameron Radcliffe’s head and the one thing he thought he could count on had just been yanked away. By the two most important women in his life, no less.
“Reese is in the guesthouse?” he asked his mom, a little cranky and a lot surprised Reese had arrived this soon. He’d spent the last eight hours on the road, many of those hours spent driving at a snail’s pace due to traffic on the two-lane stretches of highway from Los Angeles to Rustic Creek, and now fatigue seeped into every muscle in his body.
Julia Radcliffe, mom extraordinaire and affectionately known around town as Pixie, returned his surprised look. “I assumed you knew. Besides, it will be nice having you under the same roof for a change.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• Cam’s mom’s nickname is Pixie. Pixie was my mom’s nickname when she was a kid and when she recently told me that, I knew I wanted to pay her tribute by using it in a loving way. I say loving because my mom hated the nickname. (Mom, I hope you like it now!)
• Cam and Reese love Earth, Wind & Fire and this love came directly from a road trip my hubby and I took where we listened to the band’s playlist and sang and bopped around in the car while we drove. It made the traffic along the California coast totally bearable.
• Cam is a screenwriter and after I graduated college, I had dreams of writing the next Academy Award winning screenplay. I worked in film and read scripts, and tried my hand at writing them, but nothing came of it.
• The swan pedal boats in the book are real! They’re at Echo Park Lake about an hour from where I live. (My hubby and I have plans to rent one to celebrate my release!)
• There’s mention of chocolate covered bacon in the book. I love bacon. I love chocolate. But I recently tried them together and it was gross!! (Apologies to all you chocolate covered bacon lovers.) 🙂

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

Cam and Reese have been best friends forever, but now that they’re working in the same “field” they start to notice each other in a new way.
 

Using just 5 words, how would you describe Hero and Heroine’s love affair?

Once in a lifetime devotion.
 

The First Kiss…

She didn’t push him away.
Or seal her lips together in shock.
She didn’t shout, “What the hell are you doing?” or knee him in the groin.
No.
She took. And then she gave back. Fisting her hands in his shirt. Moving her luscious mouth against his. Letting him sweep his tongue inside with barely a coax.
Jesus, she tasted good. Like cupcakes and sunshine. Like nothing he’d ever tasted before, her lips so soft and arousing and pliable, that this had to be a slice of heaven.
His body wanted more. Wanted everything.
He abruptly pulled back. Took a step waayy back. He’d not asked for permission. Or inched his way closer so she had time to retreat. He’d been so overcome with desire for her—for gorgeous and cheerful Reese—that he hadn’t given a second thought to crushing his mouth to hers.
“Shit. I’m sorry,” he said, noting a well-kissed Reese was even more beautiful. He stifled a groan. “I don’t know what came over me.” Except I’ve been craving your mouth for months.
She blinked, stunned or swept away or pissed at him, he wasn’t sure.
“I got caught up in the moment. It won’t happen again.”
She covered her mouth with her hand. Stayed silent. Time slowed.
“Please say something. Tell me I didn’t just ruin us.” His heart beat an unsteady rhythm and his cheeks burned hot with shame.
“It won’t?” she asked softly.
“Was that a question or a statement? I couldn’t tell.” He swallowed thickly, shifted from foot to foot. “I’m being tortured here, Reese.”

Without revealing too much, what is your favorite scene in the book?

It’s hard to pick just one! LOL Let’s go with the scene where she issues him a screenwriting challenge…

“Is there anything else I can do?” she asked. “I am a professional script reader now, you know. I could read your pages, offer feedback or ideas. We could do some sprints.”
“We?”
“Yeah, maybe I’ll write a screenplay this month, too.”
“During all your free time,” he pointed out. A hint of a smile tugged at his full mouth and she wiggled in her seat, happy about the direction of their conversation.
Shoulders back, chin lifted, she said, “What? Like it’s hard?”
He almost choked on his food. “Did you just Legally Blonde me?”
“I did.” She raised her eyebrows in challenge. This was it! A way for the two of them to work together toward his goal. They loved challenging each other and holding friendly competitions. They did it with pickleball and the crossword puzzle in the back of the TV Guide and the number of times Nash would throw a touchdown during his games, to name but a few.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Not at all. You know I love movies as much as you do. I think I could do it. Especially if it gets your butt in gear.”
“What are we talking?” The glint in his eye filled her with satisfaction.

If your book was optioned for a movie, what scene would be absolutely crucial to include?

As I’ve mentioned, Cam and Reese have known each other almost their whole lives, but their meet cute in the first chapter is crucial because it shows Cam’s new awareness of her. They’ve fallen into the swimming pool, moved to the shallow end, and now…

He dropped down to her level with his shoulders barely above the water and reached for her ankle to tug the Queen of Change under. Her arms flailed as her pretty face disappeared beneath the surface. He let go and two seconds later she popped back up, standing and sputtering.
“You are in big trouble, mister.”
He definitely was, but not because he feared retaliation. The sheer material of her dress clung to her breasts. He’d never seen her quite like this before and his dick stirred.
She didn’t have a modest bone in her nubile body, which completely wrecked him in this moment.
She stood above him, hands on her hips.
“Hello! Eyes up here. It’s like you’ve never seen boobs before,” she said so nonchalantly that any embarrassment on his part quickly fled. Not the mental picture he’d taken of her, though. He’d keep that forever.
He forced his eyes up. “Not yours.”

Readers should read this book …

For a fun, emotional, family oriented story that I hope leaves you with a smile on your face.

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

Next up is The Wedding Crasher and the Cowboy releasing on October 26th! I can’s wait for you to meet Maverick and Kennedy!

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Signed mystery paperback by Robin Bielman

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Thanks for being here with me today! What is your favorite romcom?

 
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Excerpt from Written for You:

“Please tell me we’re going on the Swan boat.” The spring in her step told him she liked the idea.
“Okay, I won’t tell you.” The Swan pedal boats were a popular attraction, especially in the summer, and lucky for them his family owned one for spur-of-the-moment occasions like this. Typically, whenever Reese visited, they took a ride.
“Yes!” She swung their arms in joy, making him glad he’d brought her to the lake.
They bypassed the rental shack and walked down the dock to their boat. Cam grabbed the two life jackets tucked in the back behind the seats, handed one to Reese, and when they were both fitted for safety, they sat down.
He let her pedal first, picking up on her rhythm after a few cycles.
“Hold on!” She put her good hand around the steering handle between them and thrust it forward. The sudden force jerked the boat to the right.
“Easy, Nitro.” He covered her hand with his. “Remember you have to drag the handle slowly to turn.” He helped pull the handle back.
She looked down at his hand enveloping hers. “I didn’t forget how to do it, you know.”
“I know.”
Attraction crackled between them, the air around them full of electricity, like this time their hands were magnetized, reminding them of the pure enjoyment they gave each other. Only now it reached a new level. A level he didn’t think he could back away from. He rubbed his thumb across her fingers, hoping she felt the same flash of intensity he did. When—because at this point there was no more if—they got their hands on other parts of each other, he had no doubt the contact would change him forever.
The chemistry between them didn’t just flicker, it blazed.
They quietly tooled around the lake in perfect pedaling sync. Her ponytail swayed like she had a song in her head. And with a perpetual happy lean to her full lips, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. They’d pedaled together many times before, but as they’d already discovered, this summer was different.
“If you get tired pedaling, I can do it alone,” she teased, steering them toward the middle of the lake.
“Any pedaling you can do, I can do.”
“I could probably go all day,” she countered, her mood much better than it had been after hurting her finger.
“Me, too.” And then, because even without them touching anymore his body still burned for her, he added, “And not just in pedal boats.”
A sexy as hell flush crept up her neck. She batted her lashes. “Maybe I’ll let you prove that to me sometime.”
He was ready to turn their boat around and prove it to her right now. “It would be my pleasure.”
“And mine.” Her breathless tone had his pulse pounding.
“100 percent. Multiple times,” he promised.
Her teeth sank into her plush lower lip, drawing his eyes there. She stopped pedaling. Stopped steering. “We can’t let this go, can we? Not until we do something about it.”
He slid her ponytail over her shoulder. “I’ll follow your lead, Ree. This is your call.”
“I don’t want it to ruin our friendship.”
“Agree wholeheartedly. What if…”
“What if what?”
“We follow our attraction for the next week. See where it leads us. It doesn’t have to end with us in bed. Maybe it’s more kissing. Maybe it’s skinny-dipping. Whatever it is, we don’t question it. We go with whatever we’re feeling and at the end of the week we go back to being just friends.”
“You think we can do that?”
“Yes,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes. He’d do whatever it took to preserve their friendship.
She studied him. “Promise you won’t break my heart?”
“I promise. Promise you won’t break mine?” That was definitely the more likely scenario. He’d had these feelings for much longer than she had, and he decided that one week would be better than nothing.
“I promise.”
He leaned closer. Closer still. Giving her time to change her mind. To tell him kissing each other again would be too big a mistake.
A mistake that would feel so good.
She gravitated closer. Her lustrous blue-gray eyes dipped to his mouth, inviting, urging, solidifying her consent. “What are you waiting for?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”

Excerpts. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Cam Radcliffe is on a deadline to write his next blockbuster action film, but all he can think about lately is writing romance. The inspiration? His best friend, Reese.

They’ve known each other for years, but suddenly working in the same office has given him a whole new appreciation of her. Reese is driving him wild in the best possible way, and Cam only hopes it isn’t obvious. If she knew, he’s certain their friendship would reach The End.

So, of course, Reese figures it out. But the awkward, negative response he expected is nothing like the reality—like they’re living their own romcom.

A romcom that’s giving him the worst case of writer’s block at the absolute worst time in his career. Especially when the secret Reese has been forced to keep comes out…and threatens to ruin everything.
Book Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes | Goodreads |
 

Meet the Author:

USA Today bestselling author Robin Bielman lives in Southern California with her awesome family and her very cute dog, Harry. She writes both sweet and sexy contemporary romances with one goal in mind: to leave you with a smile on your face. When not attached to her laptop, she loves to read, go to the beach, and frequent coffee shops with friends. She also dreams of traveling to faraway places and loves to connect with readers. Keep in touch on social! xoxo
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