Alexa Bourne is a teacher by day
and a romance writer by nights, weekends, and all school holidays. She also
teaches online classes for writers throughout the year. She writes romantic
suspense and contemporary romance and is thrilled to have the chance to share
her stories with readers everywhere.
When she’s not concocting sinister
plots and steamy love scenes or traveling and exploring new cultures, Alexa
spends her time reading, watching brainless TV, and thinking about exercising.
Okay, she also spends way too much time interacting with readers and writers on
social media sites. But don’t tell her editors! Find out more about her and her
books on her website, www.alexabourne.com.
Thank you to Teri for inviting me for a visit! Today I’m
bringing with me some fascinating details of the heroine in my book, LIAR,
LIAR. Here’s the blurb:
Unable to
protect her mother from her father as a child, Devin McQueen has made it her
mission as an adult to protect as many abused women and children as she can.
The rare moments she’s not consumed with work as a victims’ advocate, she
limits her involvements to safe, predictable men….until she meets bounty hunter
Grady Cooper. He is big, bold, brash, and has no problem speaking his mind.
Growing
up in a broken home, Grady realized early on that good deeds had a price.
To survive, he learned to weigh every decision by what he could gain. Unfortunately, the successful,
solitary life he’s worked so hard to create spins out of control when demons
from his past shake his confidence. His boss has given him one last
chance—bring in Devin’s latest client quickly, and quietly and maybe he’ll
still have a job. It didn’t sound unreasonable until he met Devin.
Suddenly, Grady must make a decision: save his
career or follow his heart?
The heroine in my book LIAR, LIAR is
a great role model for women… to some degree. She suffered mentally and
physically as a child at the hands of her father, but she doesn’t let that keep
her down. She’s chosen to overcome the fear and learn to take care of herself. She’s
never taken pity from anyone and she never tried to hide her past. Devin and
her mom believe the past is what makes you who you are and we decide which way
our futures will go.
As Devin grew up and grew
stronger, she decided to be the link to a new, safe life many other women need.
With the help of some friends, she opened a business called Soul Survivors,
which legally assists victims. (Okay, occasionally she has one toe on each side
of the line of legality, but she’ll never apologize for that.) In her mind and
heart, everyone deserves to feel safe.
In the opening scene of LIAR,
LIAR, we (and the hero, Grady) walk into some disturbance in Soul Survivors. Grady
thinks he might have to come to her rescue, but Devin quickly proves she can
handle trouble herself.
But Devin also has some less than
stellar qualities. She has difficulty trusting people, especially men, and needs
to be in control. Sometimes she balks at plans if she’s not the one in charge.
Wherever she is, she thinks about an exit strategy and scans her surroundings
for anything to use as a weapon. She absolutely hates showing any fear or
vulnerability. Although she’ll tell people she’s over the past, the only one
she’s fooling is herself. So of course, throughout LIAR, LIAR she must again
face her own demons and somehow put them to rest. Luckily, she doesn’t have to
do it alone. Even if she’s not sure she wants him around, Grady stays by her
side.
What about you? Do you believe
your past makes you who you are and you shape your own future? I think I’m
right there with Devin and her mom. But…can I have a Grady of my very own to
help me through the rough times? J
Today is DAY 3 of my
LIAR, LIAR Blog Tour! Come follow me on this path, tweet about the tour and
share the details on Facebook. For each comment you make (or tweet or Facebook
post) along the way, you’ll move closer to winning one of three great prizes!
3/20-3/21- http://www.justromanticsuspense.com/
Excerpt:
If
Grady Cooper had any hope of salvaging his professional reputation, he needed
to charm Devin McQueen into giving him what she’d never given any other man.
He
tucked his keys into his cargo shorts, stared up at the five-story office
building and cursed the humidity.
And
his dilemma.
Needing
anyone was bad enough. Being forced to rely on a complete stranger to help
prove he wasn’t a menace to society was as appealing as the Red Sox using his
head for batting practice. If she refused to help him, he’d lose his job
for sure.
“That’s
not going to happen,” he whispered. He’d do whatever he had to, promise her the
world even, to get himself out of this mess and restore his reputation. By the
time she realized he had no intention of honoring his pledge, he’d be a free
man and he could get back to chasing the bad guys instead of being labeled one.
Whatever
it took.
He
pushed the glass door open and flew up the stairs two at a time to the third
floor. As he walked down the hallway, he glanced at the business names on the
doors: law offices, non-profit offices, save the bleeding heart offices. Rooms
of people he’d probably chased a bail jumper for at one time or another.
Loud
thumps filtered into the hallway from somewhere up ahead.
The
hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Trade rule number one: Always expect
the worst. Still, the noises could have been any number of things: a fallen
chair, a muffled voicemail message, boxes of printer paper being dropped. It
could have been nothing connected to this woman.
As
he got closer to the door with Soul Survivors carved on it, the name of
McQueen’s business, the noises got louder. Glass shattered. A series of thumps
passed from behind the door. A woman’s voice flew through the walls like a
high-pitched war cry.
What
if someone wanted Devin McQueen even more than Grady did?
Too
bad. He had to put his own needs first.
Adrenaline
pushed him. He turned the doorknob.
Damn
it. Locked.
He
shoved his shoulder against the wooden door. It budged. Barely. Inside, more
glass broke. A male voice growled through a string of swear words.
Whoever
stood on the other side of this door could not have her.
Grady
gritted his teeth and jammed his shoulder against the door again. This time, it
flew open and hurled him into the office.
Silence
reigned across the room. With his shoulder throbbing, he scanned the scene. One
upended chair, one thug cradling his nuts, the other, older one, bleeding from
his nose and one wild-eyed woman in the center of it all. The bleeding man had
his arms wrapped around the woman’s chest, crushing her…assets under his
forearms.
Grady bit back a grin. If this was Devin
McQueen, then some of the rumors were true. She could hold her own. But
now she didn’t need to. “What’s the matter, guys? Couldn’t find anyone your own
size to pick on?”
Decadent: http://www.decadentpublishing.com/product_info.php?products_id=883&osCsid=kvlpem3v3hhlkreki53dnagu46
All Romance Ebooks: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-liarliar-1385179-153.html
