Lauren Dane Interview and Giveaway

The Brown series has a special place in my heart because when I read about Erin, I was hooked.  We had a child about the same age and I remember being in tears when I read what had happened to her.  Now, her best friend, Raven, has her own book and I am so excited that Raven finally gets her chance for a happy ending.  Lauren is here today to discuss her new book, Drawn Together, and I am very excited to have this fabulous author here on Books-n-Kisses.

1. Tell me about your new release Drawn Together.

Drawn Together is the story of Raven Smith and Jonah Warner.  Over the Brown Family series we’ve seen lots of prickly behavior from her and had a few glimpses of her softer side but she’s always had this backstory– this reason she acts the way she does and I didn’t want to tell her story until I had the right match for her.

As it happens, Jonah Warner, uber alpha, came along at just the right time and I was so excited to write this book and give her the HEA she needed.

She doesn’t totally change because of love.  She’s still Raven.  But Jonah gets her and he’s worth opening up for.  And he’s sort of pushy and bossy and so totally patient she can’t resist.  She finds herself breaking all her personal rules for him and sort of liking it too.

It’s a love story on a few levels, not just between Raven and Jonah, but also between these characters and their friends and family too, which is the heart of this series.  Oh and smoking hot sexytimes too 😉

2. Where did you come up with the idea for the Brown Family series?

Erin was the heart of it from the very start.  I had this scene come to me and it ended up being the opening scene for Laid Bare – a woman on stage, boots, dreds, tats and piercings.  I wanted her to be bold and strong and vivid but also to have this darkness.  Laid Bare was born and at the start it was just a one book sale to fill a slot in the Berkley schedule.  I knew I wanted to do books for Brody and Adrian but as I was about halfway through Coming Undone, I realized I wanted a book for Cope and that he needed to be with Ella.

Eventually, I wanted to write Raven’s book but she needed a few years to be ready for her HEA.  She’s a fitting close for this generation of Brown/Keenan/Copelands and friends.

I love this tight knit group of friends and intentional family.  I love how colorful and artistic they are.  I love how much they love and support each other while retaining their edges.  I’m happy I wrote them all!

3. What kind of research did you have to do for this series?

Mostly fun stuff.  I watched a lot of videos of people playing instruments – Erin is a bass player, Adrian a guitarist so lots of that.  Concert videos.  Tattooing stuff for Brody and Raven (piercings too).

The criminal justice stuff I knew (I’ve got a law degree).  I did domestic violence advocacy work post law school so I knew all the protection order stuff really well (for Ella’s situation in Laid Bare and Inside Out). I did ask my dad some stuff about sentencing in California (he was a parole office before he retired several years back).

I live in the Northwest so many of the places they go are my favorites (Zeek’s Pizza, Red Mill, The Dahlia Lounge, etc.) and I know the neighborhoods I set parts of the story in. Written On the Body doesn’t exist, but that neighborhood does, for instance.

Other stuff is made up totally like Happy Bend – although I hear there is an actual town in Arkansas called Happy Bend, it’s not the one from the book! I promise you real citizens of Happy Bend I would not insult your town that way, LOL.

4. I love the Browns, especially Erin, and I was wondering if you are planning any more books for them?

This part of the series is over.  I’ve written books for everyone and I don’t want to drag it out and have readers thinking, “She should have ended this three books ago.” But there’s a whole new generation of Brown/Keenan/Copelands coming up as well as Jonah’s brothers so we haven’t seen the last of these characters.

5. What are you working on now?

I just finished a novella called All That Remains that will be in the Marked anthology out in February.  It’s an earth set futuristic erotic romance menage (say that ten times fast!) and the start of a new self published series I’ll be doing.

Now I’m working on Fool’s Gold, which is book one in my HURLEY BOYS series and features Paddy Hurley (Damien’s brother from LUSH).

6. Any advice for aspiring writers?

The only real takeaway that I think applies to everyone is that you can’t be a writer unless you write.  Don’t talk about it.  Do it.  If that’s 100 words a day, or 45 minutes a night or at your lunch break, or every other day or weekend, whatever.  Put your butt in that chair (or wherever you work) and get working.  You can fix whatever you get on the page, but it has to be there to fix.

Thank you so much for answering my questions and I just want to say that I love all your book and am looking forward to everyone learning more about Raven.

Thank you and thank you so much for having me. 🙂

About the Author:

The story goes like this: While on pregnancy bed rest, Lauren Dane had plenty of down time so her husband took her comments about “giving that writing thing a serious go” to heart and brought home a secondhand laptop. She wrote her first book on it before it gave up the ghost. Even better, she sold that book and never looked back.

Today Lauren is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over forty novels and novellas across several genres. Though she no longer has to deal with Polly Pocket and getting those tiny outfits on and off, she still has trouble blocking out the sound of iCarly so she can write a love scene.

Website/ Twitter/ Facebook

Jennifer’s Review of Drawn Together

TITLE:  Drawn Together

SERIES #: Brown Family Series #6

CHARACTERS: Raven Smith and Jonah Warner

AUTHOR:  Lauren Dane

PUBLICATION DATE:  10/1/13

ORDER LINKS:  Amazon | B&N

BOOK SYNOPSIS: Beauty is more than skin-deep…..Tattoo artist Raven Smith is blunt and hard, broken and jaded, dark and beautiful.  While she doesn’t hide her painful past, she does keep a wall around her heart.  She’s free sexually–but no one gets to the real Raven beneath the prickly exterior.

With a voice like smoke, Jonah Warner is a smooth-talking, highly successful attorney, with a body that should never be hidden by a suit. He’s the kind of man who never takes no for an answer and always gets what he wants.  And what he wants is Raven.  She’s a survivor, and he finds that incredibly alluring.

Jonah gets under her skin in a way Raven has never experienced.  He makes her break all the rules–including her no-monogamy rule.  But when a figure from Raven’s past shows up at the tattoo parlor and drops a bomb into her life, their relationship will face the ultimate challenge…

REVIEW PROVIDED BY: Jennifer             NUMBER OF STARS: 4.5 Stars

REVIEW: Raven has always been such a mystery to me throughout the series.  A tough free-spirit, who lived by her own rules and at first, I didn’t like her because she just seemed like a mean person.  Slowly, she started to grow on me, especially because of her interactions with Erin and Erin’s son, Alexander.  I had loved Erin from the very beginning and if Erin loved Raven with such an intensity and protectiveness, I knew there had to be more to her than meets the eye and I was glad that we got to see that side of her in Drawn Together.

Raven is a beautiful, smart, artistic and strong woman that most people don’t cross because of the image that she portrays.  She had such a hard life growing up and that life has made her who she was an adult.  Jonah was exactly what she needed.  He was an alpha in his own world and he was able to break down her walls with his love and devotion and at points in this story, those walls are made up of pretty strong raw emotion.  She needed someone that she could finally trust to help her lose a little bit of the tight control in her life and the fact that she was able to do that with Jonah was a huge step for her.  She didn’t feel the need to run like she had in the past, she just felt that being with him was the right thing and he proved to her that he was in it for the long haul.  The sex scenes were very hot and steamy and I will warn people that Raven and Jonah’s sexual relationship was perfect for them but may not be for everyone.

Everyone knows that Lauren Dane is one of my absolute favorite authors and I purchase every book that she has ever written.  The Brown Family series is one of the best series out there and Drawn Together is a perfect addition to these great books.  I am so happy for Raven to finally get her happy ending and I can’t wait to read what happens to the next generation of these great characters.

Giveaway

I’m excited to give away a ARC copy of Drawn Together. This giveaway is for US Residents only.  To be entered in the drawing by October 6th, leave a meaningful comment for Lauren below: