Welcome back Kris Kennedy!

Get Lost in This Story…

Irishman Kieran has a history of staggering successes and one truly awful failure. Now he's on a misson of revenge, and the men who betrayed him are about to pay. He planned everything, from how he'll lure them out, to how he'll hammer the last nail into their coffins.

Everything except the appearance of the woman who can bring the whole thing crashing down around him.

She wants the same thing he does.

And neither one is backing down.

Please welcome back to the blog my friend, Kris Kennedy, who is celebrating the release of her latest novel, DECEPTION!

Since we’ve interviewed Kris a couple of times in the past, today we are handing over the keys of the blog to her…

Everything’s Different Now

This is my favorite part of a book or a movie, that moment when the hero or heroine suddenly realizes nothing’s ever going to be the same again.  They know, with a deep, often unsettling certainty, that everything is different now.

Sometimes it’s a huge, life-altering realization, like in Star Wars when Luke Skywalker finds out...(spoiler coming—Darth Varder is his father.  Everyone here knew that, yes?)   Sometimes it’s a much smaller awareness, like that tingle up the heroine’s spine when the hero walks in.  But those smaller moments are like pebbles rolling down a mountainside: you know there’s more coming.

In great stories, this irrevocability happens over and over, with increasingly crushing implications, and the stakes get higher and the situations get worse.

I love it  when this happens at the start of a story, when the first moment of ‘everything’s different’ comes.  When everything seems same-old, same-old, then suddenly the bottom drops out.     I love that moment early on in a story, when the hero and heroine get ‘stuck’ together somehow, whether it’s a common goal between common enemies, or some other reason that forces them onto a joined path.   The connection has been forged.

In DECEPTION, the heroine Sophia is a woman who’s been pushed a little too far, a little too often, by men who are much too powerful, and she’s finally said ‘enough.’   She’s about to break into somewhere she doesn’t belong and steal something that is technically not hers.  But that’s not the real problem.  The REAL problem is the man who got there before her, and is sitting in the dark, watching her break in.   As for the hero, Kier,  he knows he’s facing a moment of irrevocability the moment he sees her, when he recognizes who she is and thinks, “It was as if someone had punched him in the chest...She. His battle coming.”

I also love those great, middle-story turning points, when people have a moment of choice to go all-in, or to turn away.  The stakes have been raised, the characters know what’s at risk, and they know danger is mounting.  They realize if they keep going, they’ll be stepping off some sort of cliff.  There’ll be no turning back.   And, even when they lie to themselves about why, they step anyhow.

In DECEPTION, Kier, the con man hero, knows his schemes are incredibly dangerous, and Sophia might get hurt.  Fatally so.  He might get hurt, if he follows his heart in the matter of Sophia once again.  But without him, she’s a dead woman, and he knows it.    And Sophia, well, she’s spent her entire life around criminals.  She knows very well not to trust her roguish criminal lover.  But with everything at stake, including their hearts, they join forces and dive deeper into his con.

But I especially love those late-in-the-story moments, the big shining moment of  “everything’s different now.”  The hero and heroine have been hemmed in, forced to make more and more difficult choices, which makes their path higher and narrower, and the options for escape fewer and fewer, and the stakes for failure worse and worse.  And then, when things look their blackest, when all hope is lost, then the hero and heroine have their choice to make, a sacrifice to get on with, and their choice reveals they are an entirely different person than they were at the start.  Because everything is different now.

In DECEPTION . . . .  Well, actually, I think you’ll have to read to find out.  :)    And I hope you love.

I’m giving away a copy of my previous release, Defiant, another sexy medieval set on the eve of Magna Carta with a very dangerous hero and an extremely—did I mention extremely?--determined heroine.   Just let me know some of your favorite “Everything’s different now” moments from your ‘keeper’ books or movies!

You MUST leave your e-mail in the comments section to be eligible…

Kris Kennedy writes hot historical romances about heroes and heroines who make irrevocable choices that lead to lots of sexy drama.  Her current release DECEPTION, received 4 1/2 stars from RT Book Reviews and is available now. Visit her website http://kriskennedy.net or excerpts, updates, newsletter sign-up, or just to drop Kris a note!

Please come back tomorrow, where we will celebrate the release of Heather Snow’s second novel, SWEET DECEPTION, that releases in stores Tuesday!