Interview and REVIEW with Alexa Bourne!!!

Hello again lovelies! As some of you may know, I'm a bit addicted to contests. I have a slight gamblers nature and who doesn't adore the opportunity to win something giving nothing but your name and email address? Well, I'd like to pay back the generous authors who hold contests by reviewing their books, although it's going to take me quite a while to squeeze in the reviews. Not like I'm busy or anything right? ;)

Today is one of those fantabulous authors, Alexa Bourne! Do you like Highlanders? If you don't, what planet are you from?! What's not to love about sexy, dominant, protective Highlanders? I mean, really come on LOL.

When I say Highlanders do you think medieval times? I know I did. Imagine my surprise and elation when I discovered Alexa writes modern day romantic suspense featuring Highlanders!! You heard me right people. You need to read her book Her Highland Champion. Ok without further ado, let's meet Alexa!

Interview

First of all, thank you again for giving away your books, it's given me the opportunity to discover them and I freaking ADORED Her Highland Champion! Let's get started. When did you know you wanted to be a writer? 

I’ve been writing stories for as long as I can remember, but I didn’t seriously consider getting published until I was out of college. 

That's awesome that you did seriously consider it. How else would I have gotten my Malcolm fix?! What has been the most difficult part about being a writer? 

Finding the balance between promotion and writing. Sometimes I’m overwhelmed because I love blogging, interviewing and interacting with readers, but I have to remember to write as well!

Alexa, sweetie, are we related? LOL I have the exact same problem, ask anyone ;) Who are your favorite authors? 

My absolute authors, the ones I always know I’m going to love are Laura Griffin, Jill Shalvis, Suzanne Brockmann, John Hart, Alexander McCall Smith.

Excellent choices and some I've never heard of...*sigh* that TBR pile grew again. What authors inspire you? 

Pretty much every author because it’s not an easy business and anyone who sticks with it long enough to get published and see their dream come true is an inspiration.

I'm the same way. I used to think, 'Oh this is easy to be a writer! You just sit and write!' Yeah, not so much lol. Do you like to plan your scenes out or do you just wing it? 

LOL. I have to wing it. I usually have a general idea of what the conflict is and who the characters are when I start a rough draft, but I find out all the details as I write. I once wrote a book starting at page 1 after plotting it all out and I was bored by page 20! (Needless to say THAT story never got finished!)

See? We're related, guarantee you. That's the exact way I am! What type of books do you like to read? 

It depends on my mood. Romantic suspense is my favorite, but I love holiday stories, historical, non-fiction true crime, soldier stories and inspirational. For example, I received a Barnes & Noble gift card or my birthday and with it I bought Laura Griffin’s newest book Scorched, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and Head Over Heels by Jill Shalvis.

Love those genres! Romantic suspense is one of my personal favorites :) What do you like to do in your free time? 

Free time? What’s that?

OMG I know right? If you ever figure it out, please tell me lol. Where is your favorite place to vacation? 

Scotland, England.

Now I'm jealous. Always wanted to visit Scotland. *wistful sigh* Maybe after hubby is done with his residency lol. Thanksgiving was last week so I've gotta ask. Do you have any special Thanksgiving traditions? 

Nope. I just spend time with the family and watch football. (I LOVE sports!) I’m not a cook so everyone always asks me to bring dessert or rolls.

Love it! Nice, relaxing, and no cooking. Could it get much better for you lol? Why did you choose to write romantic suspense? 

It’s what I love. I grew up on TV shows that focused on the bad guys getting what they deserved so that’s what I started to write. My 1st 100+ page story was written when I was in middle school. It was fan fiction for The A-Team and in it a couple of teenage girls helped the Team defeat a couple of guys who were holding hostages in the diner where the girls worked.

You know, best advice I ever got was from my husband who told me to write what I love. What has been the most fun about working on your books? 

I love to be surprised by my characters! (I’m one of those authors who believes the characters guide the story and I just write what they tell me.) 

I'm the same way. One of my characters was supposed to just have a very minor role then BAM! all of a sudden he had a whole backstory and was getting his own book lol. How do you come up with the premise for your books? 

Honestly, the premise usually comes from a TV show or a movie and I think, “What if THIS happened instead?”

I've done that too! See? Related. What has been the hardest scene for you to write? 

That’s a tough question. There are hard scenes in every story. 

Def agree on that one. Do you have any favorite characters from your books?

Yep. I love Meggie MacDougall from Her Highland Champion. She’s a secondary character and she’s the town gossip, but she’s got a great heart. She loves her family and is fiercely loyal to her friends. I’m actually working on a short story for her that I’ll hopefully be able to share with everyone in the spring.

Her character was so fun! I hope I get to read more about her :) Is there any reason why you chose to write about Highlanders? 

I love Scotland and I’d move tomorrow if I had a way to support myself. I read a lot of historical stories with Highlanders, but I wondered why people didn’t write about the courage and sexiness of contemporary Scotsmen. So, I decided to write my own.

All I can say is I'm so damn glad you had that opinion! Modern day sexy Scotsmen need love too! I love the fact that this is a contemporary Highlander book! Do you think you’ll ever write a historical Highlander book, or will you stick to contemporary? 

Funny you should ask this. My fantabulous senior editor asked me to write an historical short story set in Scotland for their new Tease line. I was excited to try, but after working on it for over 2 months and still not finishing, I realized and accepted that my voice just doesn’t mesh with historicals.  

Totally understandable. I'm not sure I'd be able to work within those confines either, but hey you gave it a shot right? With this being set in Scotland, did you find you had to do a lot of research? 

I did some, but I’ve been fortunate enough to visit Scotland several times. I had an English friend who went to university in Edinburgh so she helped me a bit too.

Still jealous you've gotten to visit Scotland lol. Her Highland Champion is part of your Honor Guard series. Can you tell us more about it and what we can expect from future books? 

Actually, Honor Guard is the name of the series of Decadent Publishing. All Honor Guard stories are set in countries other than the US and they include local culture. However, all my Honor Guard books are in a series, my International Protective Network (or IPN) series. All this means is each of my Honor Guard books has one character who works for the IPN. Readers don’t have to read them in order and won’t miss anything if they only read one. If you do read them all, though, some of the characters show up or are mentioned and sometimes it’s just a richer experience.

Ohh, ok. That makes sense :) We are running a bit short on time and I'm dying to give my review, btu tell us, what's next for you? 

My second IPN book came out November 6th. Fractured Paradise has a female IPN employee who visits Sunderland, England to do a favor for her favorite person in the world. Unfortunately, someone doesn’t want her there, but she finds an unlikely ally in a local tour guide.  My 3rd IPN book, Simple Treasures, will be released next month and for that we go back to Edinburgh during Hogmanay (New Year’s) where the hero must protect a woman in order to secure a job with the IPN. But the woman refuses to blindly follow his orders.

Did you hear that people? More books coming up so get reading! Thank you so much for joining me today, Alexa! Anything else you want your readers to know? 

I appreciate everyone’s support! Thank you! And thank you for having me. 

It was my pleasure! Well lovelies, seriously go read her books! But if you need more incentive, here's my review of Her Highland Champion!

Review of Her Highland Champion

About the book:

Publisher: Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

Price: $3.99

Length: 78 pages

Description:

Heather Winchester leads a charming life. With good friends, a beautiful flat in one of the most amazing cities in the world, and a promising future once she finishes her Ph.D., she is finally pursuing her own dreams instead of catering to everyone else’s…except she doesn’t remember any of it.

Malcolm Fraser has returned to his Highland village to forget his failings as a professional bodyguard. Believing he could just lose himself in the mundane activities of running his bed & breakfast, he finds a woman’s lifeless body by the loch instead….

Captivated by Heather as she regains her memory, Malcolm is thrown into the line of duty. As danger comes knocking on their doors, will he be strong enough to love her and keep her safe?

 Buy it:

• Amazon
• Decadent Publishing
• All Romance Ebooks
• Barnes & Noble

What I liked:

Where do I begin? This book was fast paced, featured a very sexy, protective Highlander, lots of plot twists packed into novella size. It was so well written and engaging, I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. Loved the instant attraction between Malcolm and Heather, but also loved how Malcolm tried to fight it. He couldn't hold out of course, but he gave it a valiant effort ;) I had to laugh when Malcolm kept trying to find a way to put some distance between himself and Heather at the beginning and kept getting thwarted :) This had me dying to find out what happened and how it was all going to end. Did I mention the sex scenes? They were HOT. Really left me wishing for a Highlander of my own :)

What I didn't like:

My one big complaint, and maybe this is just me or the fact that it was a novella, was the ending. I loved how it ended, but I wish the plot twist had been explored more. I think it was a great conflict and really wished it had played out for longer. It just wrapped up a little too quickly for me. Maybe I'm just greedy lol

That being said, this was still one of my favorite books I've read in a while, and I started rereading it immediately after I finished, always a sign I'm in love with the book :)

Overall Verdict: 4.5/5 Blue Duckies!!

Yes, I know I gave it 4.5 but there are 5 in the picture but could YOU cut one of them in half? Didn't think so. 

Definitely go read this book and every other one you can get your hands on by Alexa. I'm not kidding when I say this is one of my favorite books, despite my minor gripe :) It has it all, romance, sexy Highlanders (no I can't say that enough!), suspense, steamy scenes. Yeah, just go grab it and read it for yourself, you won't regret it!

About Alexa Bourne

Alexa Bourne is a teacher by day and a romantic suspense writer by nights, weekends, and all school holidays. She also teaches online classes for writers throughout the year. She is thrilled to be writing for Decadent Publishing and to have the chance to share her love of Great Britain 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. She loves to interact with readers, so visit her web page, hang out at her blog, follow her on Twitter or drop her a note at Alexa@alexabourne.com!

Connect with Alexa online:

• Website: www.alexabourne.com
• Blog: http://alexabourne.blogspot.com
• Twitter: @AlexaBourne
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorAlexaBourne
• Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5818611.Alexa_Bourne