Happy to be hosting fellow Wild Rose Press author, J M Stewart at my blog today - JM is here promoting her second contemporary romance, "A Second Chance at Forever" and as I was lucky enough to read this book before it was published, I cannot wish her enough luck with the success of it. Welcome, J M!
Introducing
my hero.
I thought I’d introduce you to Alex
McKinley, the hero of my novel, A Second
Chance at Forever. Of all my heroes, and of all my books, he’s one of my
favorites. Alex touched me. There are some characters that just…get to you. For
me, Alex was one of them. Sounds, silly right? A part of me says they’re going
to cart me off any day now. He’s just a character. But for me, he wasn’t. He
was a friend.
My heroes are a usually a mixture of Alpha
and Beta. It means they’re strong, take charge when they have to be, but soft
at heart. And so is Alex. Alex McKinley is a New York City attorney. He works
for the District Attorney’s office. He fights for the little guy. The abused
kids. He’s good at his job and he gives a hundred and ten percent to it. He can
be very take charge when he needs to be.
At the start of the book, Alex is a man
completely out of place in his world. His entire life has been dumped on its
ear. Work has become that thing he does in order to forget. He buries himself
in the job in order to get a moment’s peace from the pain.
A year before the book opens, Alex suffers
a huge loss. His wife and his four year old daughter have been killed in a
drunk driving accident. Sadly these days, accidents like these happen all the
time. I read an article that said someone is injured in a drunk driving
accident every 90 seconds. According to the MADD (Mothers Against Drunk
Driving) website, every day in America, twenty-eight people die as a result of drunk
driving accidents.
Unfortunately for Alex, I based his wife and
daughter’s death off an accident that made the news. A family was killed
because their car was hit by a drunk driver going one hundred miles an hour
down the wrong way on the highway.
At the beginning of the book, Alex is struggling
to come to terms with his loss. He’s struggling to move on with his life. Alex
describes it as like living in a dream—so surreal he’s sure any moment now he’s
going to wake up. He isn’t sure how he got there. He wasn’t planning on going
there, nobody warned him it was coming, but suddenly life as he knew it ceased
to exist. He’s been forced to change directions at the drop of a hat.
Now he’s trapped in a never ending cycle.
What he wants at the beginning of the book is simply to move on. He wants his
life to start again. He wants to pick up and move on, but he doesn’t know how.
Enter Angela. A beautiful woman who lights
him up like no one has in a long time. For him, she’s a spark in the darkness,
bright and beautiful.
Excerpt:
She turned to the bartender. “White wine,
please.” When he nodded and went to make their drinks, she turned back to Alex,
her eyes alight with a mixture of amusement and curiosity. “You look like
you’re having fun.”
He caught her eye, that spark lighting
between them once again. “I assure you it’s the company.”
She bit her lip and lowered her gaze, and a
flush crept across her cheeks. There was that sweet shyness that drove him
crazy. That made him yearn for nothing more than to kiss her until she sighed
and melted into him. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her left ear, and
he wished like hell those were his fingers on her skin.
“If I’m being honest, I haven’t enjoyed
myself this much in a very long time.”
Something as simple as dancing with a woman
left him feeling lighter and more carefree than he had in…well, twelve months.
For a while he’d forgotten himself. Forgotten his life and the eternal
emptiness that waited for him back home. Exactly why he’d come to Vegas in the
first place. Mission accomplished, and Candy was the cause. He had the sudden
urge to tell her that, but decided to keep it to himself. Instead, he offered
her a gentle smile.
He picked up one of her hands and stroked
his thumb over her knuckles. “I’m glad you called me tonight, Candy.”
She lifted her gaze to his, need expanding
between them in that one single glance. “So am I.”
Author
Bio:
J.M. writes what she likes to call sweet
and spicy contemporary romance. She’s a stay-at-home mom who lives in Seattle
Washington, with her husband, two boys and their two very spoiled puppies. She’s
been devouring romances for as long as she can remember. Writing them has
become her passion.
Where
you can find me on the web:
Thanks for having me, Rachel! It's a pleasure to be here!
ReplyDeleteThe book sounds wonderful. I'm rooting for him just from the excerpt.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Liz! Of course, I'm hoping everybody loves him as much as I do.
DeleteJoanne,
ReplyDeleteI think I'm half in love with Alex already. I love a story with a lot of deep emotion.
So do I. Okay, that's probably a duh, lol, but I mean I love to read them. I love a tortured hero. Thanks for stopping by, Debra!
DeleteHi ladies
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
Alex sounds wonderful - and very easy to love!
Hi Lyn! Thank you! And thank you for stopping by!
Delete