Happy Release Day to Laura Kaye and HARD AS IT GETS!
Please enjoy my review, a fun Q&A with Laura and the fab book trailer!
Thanks for stopping by!
Book links:
amazon
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Synopsis:
Tall, dark, and lethal…
Trouble just walked into Nicholas Rixey’s tattoo parlor. Becca Merritt is warm, sexy, wholesome — pure temptation to a very jaded Nick. He’s left his military life behind to become co-owner of Hard Ink Tattoo, but Becca is his ex-commander’s daughter. Loyalty won’t let him turn her away. Lust has plenty to do with it too.
With her brother presumed kidnapped, Becca needs Nick. She just wasn’t expecting to want him so much. As their investigation turns into all-out war with an organized crime ring, only Nick can protect her. And only Becca can heal the scars no one else sees.
Desire is the easy part. Love is as hard as it gets. Good thing Nick is always up for a challenge…
My review:
Hard As It Gets is the debut novel in a new series, Hard Ink, from Laura Kaye and oh my, what a mouth watering first course!
Being an ER nurse, Becca Merritt is used to dealing with chaotic circumstances and loss of life in her line of work. Unfortunately loss and chaotic circumstances have worked their way into her personal life as well. Becca had lost her mother and older brother years ago and most recently her Army Colonel father. He was killed along with half of his unit in Afghanistan. Now, the only family she has left, her younger computer wiz brother, is missing. The only glimmer of hope in a dismal situation she’d been trying to deal with is the note she’d found telling her to get in touch with her father’s former second in commend, Nick Rixey. Becca has had no luck with the police and there doesn’t seem to be anywhere else to turn to for help. Her last piece of faith depends on a total stranger helping her get her brother back and lands her at the Hard Ink tattoo shop, staring back at the very unwelcoming face of Nick Rixey. Will she be able to appeal to his sense of honor and loyalty to her father to gain his help? God, she really hoped so….or she’d lose the last family she had left.
To say that Nick Rixey was shocked to see the daughter of the man who betrayed him and his brothers in arms standing in his tattoo shop would be a gross understatement. One year later, and he was still trying to come to terms with the disloyalty of his Commanding Officer that had gotten half of his unit killed and the remaining men dishonorably discharged from the Army. The very last thing that will help him pick up the pieces of his old life and try to build a new one would be to help Becca Merritt. The wounds her father cut were entirely too deep and too raw. What would he care if Becca’s brother was missing and why in the hell would anyone have sent her here knowing damn well that he is the last person who would be willing to help? So why was it so hard to turn her away and why was he still thinking of her all those hours later after telling her to pound sand? Curiosity, and a pull toward Becca, has him suiting up to do a little surveillance on Becca and ends up throwing him into the middle of a mystery involving the biggest gang in the city and digging up the past. Now, Nick has to call on the remaining brothers in his unit for help and at a chance to right the wrongs Colonel Merritt caused in Afghanistan a year ago.
With so much at stake and with so many secrets being unearthed at such a breakneck speed, the only thing Becca and Nick have to hold onto is each other. Will something true and good come from such a dark and ugly situation?
I was SO looking forward to reading this after seeing the cover and reading the summary. Tattoos, military hunks and mystery…oh my! This kickoff to the Hard Ink series is a stellar one. Becca is an admirable book heroine in every way. She’s honest with her feelings and not once did she handle a situation in a way that annoyed me. Come on, you know a lot of book women get on your nerves with how long they drag things out and you’ve yelled at your e-reader telling her to just “SAY IT ALREADY!”…well, not with Becca. She’s strong and real and just gets it. She knows life is too short to not say all the things you mean or to give everything your best shot. She’s well rounded and also admits her fears and doubts and doesn’t sugar coat things. She was refreshing to read. Nick is a lost soul. His work with the Special Forces was the only thing he has done where he felt like he was home. Now, he’s trying to figure out a new home and it killed me to hear how lost he felt. He’s loyal and trustworthy and also learns quickly how to be real with his feelings. There was no yelling at him, either! Together, they work so well at balancing each other out. The sexual tension between them is delicious and really well done, too.
The introduction we get to the members of Nick’s old unit has me so flipping excited for the rest of the series! These guys are a cast of characters filled with guys who each have their own cross to bear after what happened in Afghanistan. I’m sure I will be shedding tears for more than a few of these guys. Broken heroes, each with a personality and story all their own….sign me up!
The pieces of the mystery we get to uncover while reading are just the very outer edge pieces of the puzzle. I can assume that with each book, we will find more and more pieces in the pile that will help create the puzzle as a whole. Hard As It Gets gave us just enough to start and it has me going over all the possible scenarios in my head. Laura nailed the suspense aspect for sure!
Overall, this book has everything I love….and kept me busy searching for pictures of yummy tattooed guys for an evening or two. If you love a suspense filled with emotion, mystery, lots of heated moments and super sexy tattooed ex-Special Forces soldiers, then by all means, get this book on your to-read list! You won’t be disappointed!
Five Loves
Q&A WITH LAURA KAYE
HARD AS IT GETS is one steamy read! How did you first get into writing?
Thanks so much! And thanks for having me here! I’ve been a writer all my life. I’m a historian by training, so writing non-fiction was a part of my job for the fifteen years I worked as a college professor. But I started writing fiction in 2008 in kind of an unusual way. I hit my head on July 4, 2008. I didn’t think much of it that day, but soon after I realized I’d really hurt myself, and it turned out I had a minor traumatic brain injury. As I recovered, I was filled with an amazing urge to be creative, so I started taking guitar lessons (still not very good at that!) and wrote my first novel in 12 weeks (fortunately, I’m better at that LOL!). The experience of writing that first book was truly transformative. It was what I was supposed to be doing, so I revised that book until it sold and kept writing new ones. And I haven’t looked back since!
Why did you choose to write romance?
I had been an avid reader of paranormal romance for years at that point, so I wrote what I loved. But I also picked romance—unconsciously, I think—because to me it’s an incredibly hopeful genre. Romance stories are inherently stories about people who can’t find love or think they don’t deserve it who overcome the odds and find it in the end. In the years leading up to starting writing, I experienced a number of very hard personal losses, so writing in this genre was one way I worked through those issues.
What does “Hard Ink” refer to? What importance do tattoos play in your story?
Hard Ink is the name of the Rixey brothers’ tattoo shop in the Hard Ink series. Nick and Jeremy Rixey are co-owners, though Nick (the hero of book one, Hard As It Gets) prefers to be more of a silent partner, despite Jeremy’s efforts to put Nick’s artistic talents to work. In this series, tattoos are a way people remember, pay penance, or highlight what’s important to them. The act of creating permanent marks on skin has deep meaning to them. And the shop creates a gritty setting where diverse kinds of people meet and interact in the series. I really love it!
Describe Becca—what do you love most about her? And Nick?
I’d love to! Because I really loved writing these characters!
Becca Merritt is smart and strong and honest and protective. I really loved the way she was willing to stand up for those she loves, even against people and forces who might be stronger and even a little scary. There’s a scene in particular when she dresses down Nick’s Special Forces teammates after a fist fight where I was particularly cheering for her! LOL
Nick Rixey is, omg, so freaking hot, you guys! He’s brooding and tortured and honorable and when he falls he falls so hard. I especially loved Nick’s mix of hard, alpha edges with his artistic side. When Nick shows Becca what her idea for a tattoo might look like on her skin, it’s just scorching!
What significance does the military play in the book?
Military themes are central to the whole Hard Ink series. The military isn’t just sexy window dressing nor is it just there to provide an intriguing backstory. The prior SF guys are this series are entirely defined by their military experience good and bad. It informs their identity, their sense of honor and duty, their view of the world, and of course gives them the skill set required to fight the battles they face in the series. The overall series mystery the characters are working to solve revolves around a military conspiracy in Afghanistan, so even though they’re out of the Army, the military themes are central.
If you could describe your book in a 140 character tweet, what would it be?
In #HardAsItGets, an ex-soldier joins forces w/his dead commander’s daughter to regain his tarnished honor & save her brother from a gang
Is there a particular author or book that has influenced your writing?
There are a number of authors that have influenced me, but if I had to pick one it would be J.R. Ward. A lot of what I know about how to write sexy, authentic male point of view comes from reading her books. And I definitely learned the importance of a good bromance to a romance novel from her Black Dagger Brotherhood series, too. Given my ginormous fangirling, you can only imagine how flipping excited I was when this happened:
“Edgy, sexy, and full of suspense! A great read from a great new author!”
~J.R. Ward on Hard As It Gets
You guys, I bawled like a baby in the middle of a huge workshop put on by my publisher. For real. LOL
What advice would you give aspiring writers looking to get into the publishing industry?
Here’s my advice:
1) Write, write, write. You can’t revise what you haven’t written and you can’t sell what you haven’t written. And the psychological and emotional boost you’ll get from writing “The End” for the first time cannot be overestimated.
2) Revise, revise, revise. That first time you type “The End”? Yeah, you’re nowhere near done. Your book will need to be edited, by you, several times before you ever put it in front of an agent or editor. You get one shot with them, so don’t waste it by not showing them your very best and most polished work.
3) Find critique partners. And your mom, siblings, and best friend do not count (unless you’re really lucky, like me, and your best friend happens t also be a professional author). You need other aspiring writers in your genre who will give you honest but constructive feedback about how to improve your manuscript. Let them catch all the embarrassing goofs and plot holes you thought you caught before it gets to an agent or editor.
4) Want to be a professional, then act it. And by that I mean join the professional organization(s) of the genre in which you write. Through them you will find classes to help hone your craft, critique partner match-ups, networking opportunities, calls for submission, and other opportunities invaluable to breaking into publishing.
5) Don’t give up. You will hear way more no’s than yeses, particularly early in your writing career. Stick with it. Believe in yourself. Give yourself one day to wallow in the rejection and eat a bunch of chocolate and then get right back on the horse. If your first book doesn’t sell, chalk that up to learning and write a second.
What can fans of HARD AS IT GETS look forward to next?
I’m currently writing four series: two contemporary (Hard Ink, Heroes) and two paranormal (Hearts of the Anemoi, Vampire Warrior Kings). I’ll have books from all four of those releasing in 2014. My next release is Hard As You Can (Hard Ink #2) coming 2/25/14!
About Laura Kaye:
Laura is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over a dozen books in contemporary and paranormal romance. Growing up, Laura’s large extended family believed in the supernatural, and family lore involving angels, ghosts, and evil-eye curses cemented in Laura a life-long fascination with storytelling and all things paranormal. She lives in Maryland with her husband, two daughters, and cute-but-bad dog, and appreciates her view of the Chesapeake Bay every day.
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Four Loves
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Jen McLaughlin is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. She writes steamy New Adult books for the young and young at heart. Her first release, Out of Line, came out September 2013. She also writes bestselling Contemporary Romance under the pen name Diane Alberts.Since receiving her first contract offer under the pen name Diane Alberts, she has yet to stop writing. She is represented by Louise Fury at The Bent Agency.
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was afraid; I learned to demand respect in a relationship; I learned about compromise and dreams and independence. Those are the stories I want to write, and I can only hope I give back some of the joy I received over the years.
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T.M. Franklin started out her career writing non-fiction in a television newsroom. Graduating with a B.A. in Communications specializing in broadcast journalism and production, she worked for nine years as a major market television news producer, and garnered two regional Emmy Awards, before she resigned to be a full-time mom and part-time freelance writer. After writing and unsuccessfully querying a novel that she now admits, “is not that great,” she decided to follow the advice of one of the agents who turned her down—write some more and get better at it. Her first published novel, MORE, was born during National Novel Writing month, a challenge to write a novel in thirty days.