Today we are spotlighting K Bromberg's Slow Burn.
We have a Q&A with Kristy & don't forget to enter our giveaway for a signed copy of Slow Burn!
Book Description:
One Night. That's all it was supposed to be.Reeling from the sudden loss of her sister, Haddie Montgomery has sworn off relationships. All she wanted from Beckett Daniels was a sexy distraction to help her escape her pain for just a little while....There weren’t supposed to be any strings attached—so why can’t she shake the memory of that unforgettable night from her thoughts? Or the taste of his kiss from her lips?
No matter how hard Haddie tries to forget about him, Becks relentlessly tries to prove that she should start living for today. But she is determined to avoid romantic commitment, and she can always use her ex-boyfriend’s reappearance to help snuff out the slow burn within her that Becks has sparked....
Or will fate force her to realize that this kind of connection doesn’t come along very often and a chance at love is worth the risk?
Find it on Goodreads here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21536209-slow-burn
Our Review:
(Originally posted 24.02.2015)
**ARC received for honest review**
Reviewed by Donna ~ 4.5 Stars
“A life without passion and love is like slowly freezing to death.”
It is no secret that K Bromberg is one of my favourite authors and I was eagerly anticipating the release of Becks and Haddie’s story. After the huge success of Colton and Rylee I was anxious to see if Kristy’s writing would have the same effect, that intense draw into her characters, the emotional pull and the all compassing love for them you are left feeling at the end. Well after reading Slow Burn, I can say YES to all of the above.
We all know who Becks and Haddie are; they are both the BBF’s of both Colton and Rylee. Throughout the Driven series you could sense there was some underlying chemistry and attraction between the two but both seemed reticent to take it any further. I always wondered why and so I dove into Slow Burn anxiously awaiting answers.
Haddie always came across as the happy-go-lucky, slightly eccentric friend of Rylee, she was the go getter, the life and soul of the party, she was sassy, she had no filter and this only made you love her all the more. I never thought that underneath that façade the real Haddie was so very different.
“I silently chastise myself, tell myself to pull on my big girl thong and own it like a stripper does her pole.”
Haddie is still grieving for her sister, a sister that she lost to breast cancer, a sister that left behind an inconsolable husband and a devastated child. The breast cancer gene is hereditary and runs in her family and she is forever living under a cloud. A cloud of what if, a cloud of fear, a cloud of complete and utter devastation. It is because of this that she refuses to open herself up to love, after all, she fears her days are numbered and she doesn’t want to put a man through what her sister’s husband is currently experiencing.
Becks is the BBF of Colton, he is Colton’s right hand man, he has been there for Colton through thick and thin, he is Colton’s wing man, partner in crime and in charge of Colton’s racing team. Becks is the smooth to Colton’s rough, he is cool, calm and collected, he is meticulous, he is the guy that you would never be ashamed to take home to meet the parents.
The story starts the night of Colton and Rylee’s wedding. The best man and the maid of honour are left in charge…very drunk…very enamoured with the day’s events…feeling frisky…very hot…and so they embark on a night of passion, no strings, hot sex kinda night, a night that starts a connection that neither can deny, despite Haddie’s protestations. These two were friends, so that faze has already happened, Becks has admired and wanted Haddie from afar for a long time and he knew that this would be emotional suicide for him, but he was willing to go for it, for a taste, just to see if what he was feeling really was the voodoo pussy that Colton had always been so vocal about.
“Incredible, mindblowing, balltightening, toecurling sex, but sex nonetheless.”
This is one emotional rollercoaster, so be prepared and have tissues!! The one thing that Kristy writes well is emotion; she never fails to grip me with her characters. It is like she has bled onto the page and you cannot help but be sucked into the emotional vortex that her writing creates. The intense emotional pain and anguish that Haddie was experiencing comes to life and you feel it, every single fear, every single tear, I was scared for her, I cried with her and yet I wanted her to seek out the love and friendship that she desperately needed and wanted. That love and friendship that Becks was offering, what Becks was willing to give, what Becks needed to give, even if she wasn’t willing to admit it.
“The click was our initial connection. Now? Now it’s the clanking…”
There is a lot of push and pull from Haddie; I have to say that Becks has the patience of a saint. Any other man would have walked away, but Becks knew that the voodoo pussy had claimed him and he would fight tooth and nail for the end goal. At times it was frustrating but you could hear the cogs whirring in Haddie’s mind, her tumultuous thoughts trying to justify moving forward and then pulling her back again. The warring in Haddie’s mind though was real, it was honest and trying to picture myself in the same situation I feel I would have been the same. You never know how you would react in those circumstances but I personally felt that Kristy delivered that message, she hit home with an honest portrayal of Haddie’s mental anguish.
“Because he’s a forever. And I can only focus on todays.”
I loved that this book was written in dual POV’s, Beck’s voice was the calming one yet it was raw, it was brutally honest, extremely sensual and downright intoxicating at times. It was his voice that perfectly balanced this book. Haddie’s voice was full of despair, back and forth, crazy at times, yet you were still treated to her sassy, ballsy nature, she was sexy, she had her vibrant moments but she was in emotional pain and it seeped through her words.
“Time is precious. Waste it wisely.”
This is not all doom and gloom, this book is balanced with some witty dialogue, some insanely hot moments that we all know Kristy pens like a demon possessed. It will have you crying with sadness, laughing with joy and will have your panties combusting. But most of all you will have been on an amazing journey with two insanely loveable characters that will have embedded themselves into your heart and mind by the end. Our lovable duo, Colton and Rylee make their appearances but this is definitely Becks and Haddie’s story.
“Welcome to the oestrogen vortex, dude, where mindfucks are the norm and understanding them is as common as a fucking unicorn in your front yard.”
Once again K Bromberg has penned a fantastic story, one that will not leave me in a hurry and one that had me thinking for days. I just love this author’s voice, she always manages to suck me in hook, line and sinker and I was engrossed from the first to last word. I loved this book, totally and utterly loved it.
“I’m all for him ruining your lipstick, but if he ruins your mascara, you need to come let his mom know so I can put him back in his place.”
Q&A With K
Bromberg:
Kristy, the things I love about your books are they are so emotional and super sexy, you always manage to draw me in at the first line and never let me go till the end...what is hardest to write...emotion or sexy?
Thank you. That’s a huge compliment because every author wants to know they can draw the reader in. For me, the ‘sexy’ is the hardest part to write. The emotional side of a character just comes naturally to me. When it comes to the ‘real life issues’ I address in my books, I don’t research the emotional aspect but rather try to put myself in the character’s shoes and just write how I think I’d feel if I were them.
As for the ‘sexy’ parts…to be honest I always feel ridiculous writing those particular scenes. I giggle like a school girl, blush, and hope that I never have to read them aloud. Sexy is hard for me because I need to make sure the mechanics, the emotions, and the verbiage is all there without making it sound redundant. Sex scenes by far take me the longest to write in all of my books.
Your fan interaction is second to none and you now have such a huge following, how important was social media to you in getting known and noticed?
Social media is a necessary evil in this business. To be honest though, I didn’t even know much about social media before I started this venture. I made a Facebook page, had never heard of twitter before, and Goodreads? What was that? In addition, I’d never really frequented blogs nor did I know anybody in ‘book world.’ All I knew was that if people were going to hear about the book with the lady’s bum and checkered flag on the cover (Driven) it was going to be from me or by word of mouth.
I set out trying to figure out how to post on Facebook, on making sure that anybody who reviewed my book, received a personal thank you from me via Goodreads messenger…I didn’t know if it was going to work at all. The only thing I had to go on was how disappointed I was when I’d emailed a few authors and received either a curt response or none at all. That feeling stuck with me. I’d love to say that I masterminded this all and set out to treat this like I was a reader and that drove me to create this following of readers…but I didn’t. Instead I got caught up in the excitement people had for this book I’d written that I never thought would go anywhere. It was easy to interact and post and make friends since someone actually knew and liked the voices in my head.
And that’s worked for me. I do spend about 40% of my day on the social media aspect and many think I’m crazy for it but that’s the precedence I’ve set.
I do have to add a caveat though in regards to what I said above about receiving curt responses from some authors. I now understand the volume of correspondence they had and why they might not have had time to reply. I don’t hold any grudges and am in fact friends with some of those ladies today.
What is your writing process? Do you plot and plan or do you let it flow organically? Has any book changed because the voices told you otherwise?
I’m a heavy outliner. I have to plot out a story, chapter by chapter before I start writing. With that said, the story always evolves as I write and things get moved around or deleted all together. So while I’m a stickler on my outlines when I start, by no means do I stay on task while I’m writing. For instance some things that were never outlined in the Driven series were the superheroes, the I Race you, the scavenger hunt…that was all after the fact so structure is good…but you need to listen to where the story is telling you it wants to go too.
Slow Burn is actually one of the books that I went way off course from my outline while writing. The outline that Penguin approved is nowhere near like the finished product they ended up with. As I wrote, I just kept feeling that emotion was being forced and that if I were Haddie’s friend, I’d tell her to suck it up and deal. So one thing led to another and as much as I never thought the storyline would ever end up where it did, Haddie kept pulling me there. I went with it and am so glad that I did.
Slow Burn is another emotional read, is Haddie's situation drawn on from personal experience or did you have to research?
Haddie’s situation is another one of those let me step in her shoes and see what she feels like things. Fortunately, I do not have personal experience with this topic. With that said, I am so humbled by the amount of readers that have contacted me to tell me that either they, themselves, or a family member was in the same situation and reacted the same way. That type of feedback is so very important to know that I got the emotion right.
Which character of yours has been the hardest to write? They are all so different have their own issues and flaws, has this posed any problems?
This is a hard question because I think they are all so unique. I do think that Becks was hard to write at first because the only other male point of view I’ve written is Colton, so I had to work really hard to make him have his own voice. I think Haddie was hard because so many readers expected a book full of her sarcastic one-liners and while she does have them in Slow Burn, I also had to make her ‘real’ by making her not be ‘on’ all the time.
Thanks for your time ladies.
Giveaway:
Win a signed copy of Slow Burn by K Bromberg
No comments:
Post a Comment