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Saturday, March 22, 2014

Spotlight Author; Alexa Bourne!

Please welcome Alexa Bourne, fellow Decadent author, to my blog today!



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!



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?”

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