Kinsey W. Holley - Ready To Run + Giveaway

Do you enjoy alpha's with a sexy Texan drawl and 

heroine with a dangerous secret?

Kinsey W. Holley is the author for you then.
 

Kinsey W. Holley is with us today talking her idea of a perfect man and her NEW RELEASE that just came out yesterday- Ready to Run!!

Welcome Kinsey,
Thank you for stopping by I know it's busy right now with the release and all. I'm so eager to read this new book in the Werewolves in Love series!  I love the first two and cant wait to read what happens next. Okay enough of me, let's move onto our Perfect Man questions for you....




Dawn: What makes the “Perfect Man” for you?

Kinsey: Oh Good Lord. How long do I have?

Ok – he’s got to have a sense of humor; it can be a cynical, snarky, grumpy sense of humor – I have a weakness for alpholes – but he’s got to make me laugh.  And he has to be nice to me – doesn’t have to pamper me, just needs to be nice, you know? I’m very low key, I don’t have much of a temper and I can’t handle someone who’s easily angered. He also has to be low-maintenance because I can’t stand men who need lots of attention. And he has to like sex.  So – humor, sex, no anger issues, give me plenty of space. That’s it.

Dawn: If you had to pick one, who would be your favorite literary Hero of all time?

Kinsey: Hm. Well, my smart, “serious,” for-public-consumption answer would be Mr. Darcy – and I do love Darcy because really, who doesn’t?  I also love the Marquess of Dain, from Lord of Scoundrels  - he’s like my ideal of the grumpy romantic hero.

You know who SHOULD be my favorite literary hero of all time, but can’t be because he never got his own book? Cat, from The Windflower. If you’ve never read The Windflower – it was first published in 1982, in the bad old days of the rapey Old Skool romance—trust me, you need to. Best romance of all time, hands down.  Cat is the most fascinating secondary character ever and he’s especially impressive when you remember (you’re too young, so you can’t remember) that in 1982, romance novels didn’t have compelling secondary characters. I think Tom and Sharon Curtis, writing as Laura London, may have invented the compelling secondary.

Ok, you want to know who’s REALLY my favorite hero of all time? Vishous. There. I admitted it.

Dawn: Which of your heroes do you have a particular soft spot for?

Kinsey: Nick Wargman, the alpha of the Houston pack. He hasn’t gotten his own story yet but I feel for him. He’s hot, and rich, and Alpha of the second biggest pack in the country.  But he had a very unhappy childhood;  his only family is his half brother, who’s in Colorado with Cade MacDougall, and they don’t talk much. And he’s desperately in love with his assistant, TJ, but she doesn’t date werewolves, and besides, she doesn’t seem interested in him that way. Plus, she thinks he’s a slut. Which he is – but he’s like hey, I can’t have the one woman I love so I might as well get laid. It’s not a happy position to be in. He’s watching his friends fall in love and settle down, but he doesn’t see any chance of that happening. 

Dawn: Talk to us about Bryan Keeton . What’s his story?

Kinsey: Bryan Keeton is a Marine (retired) and a private eye. He’s in the Houston pack. When Nick finds out that Dominic Kuba’s gang of drug dealing, weapons smuggling, sex slaving werewolves are still in Texas (which will be covered in a short prequel that I’m going to self publish soon), he’s pissed off.   He calls the FBI to alert them, because they’ve basically gotten nowhere in spite of following and investigating these guys across many states. The only person who’s ever gotten their hands on them was Taran Lloyd, and he wound up killing them. So they’ve never managed to arrest even one werewolf, and meanwhile the gang is still kidnapping fae women and taking over drug operations.  So Nick insists that the feds let Bryan participate in the investigation. They send him up to a tiny little East Texas town called Luxor.

And he winds up getting more than he bargained for.

Dawn: The romance genre has been getting a bad press of late (Not by us! We love it :D) Why did you choose to write in your genre?

Kinsey: Because I feel like the romance genre offers me the necessary width and freedom to write what I want. Romance stories are, first and foremost, stories. Stories about people and things that happen to people. Unlike in “literary” fiction, in romantic fiction stuff actually happens. You have characters and you have plots and you have emotions.  I’m an English major. I’ve read the classics, and many of them I enjoyed. And there are some literary fiction writers whom I like to read – Amis, Barth, Chabon, the guy who wrote The Russian Debutante’s Handbook. But most literary fiction either puts me to sleep or annoys me—it’s like they’re doing everything BUT telling a story. At least when I read a romance, I know I’m getting a story. And since I’m not interested in writing experimental fiction, or stories where everyone dies or nothing happens, I write romance.

I’m working on a steampunk now which isn’t primarily a romance, although it does have strong romantic elements. I would love to write hard science fiction but I don’t have the head for it. And I love the kind of stories Charlie Stross writes.

Besides romance, that’s what I read most often—SF/urban fantasy, the weirder the better.

Also, my favorite author is Terry Pratchett, who writes satirical fantasy, and fantasy attracts almost as much scorn as romance.

Dawn: Do you have anything new in the works for us? Don’t be such a tease, tells us.... Can we get a sneak peek, maybe?

Kinsey: I’ve got the steampunk, which is set in Galveston in the 1840s and I’m worried because I think it’s really, really good. I just need to finish it. I’m also working on Seth’s story – Seth is a secondary character from Yours, Mine and Howls-he’s the heroine’s cousin. He has to go back to Louisiana when his mom dies, and of course he ends up staying longer than he wanted.

Book 2 Yours, Mine, and Howls   Book 1 Kiss and Kin

I just finished working a full, 40 hour work week – normally I work 30 hours a week but this week my boss has been out of town. I love my day job, I really do, but I don’t like getting home at 6:30 at night.  I’ll be glad to go back to half days so I can write more—let’s face it, I’m a slow-assed writer so I need time. I’d love to write full time one day but until I can, my day job is awfully sweet.

Thanks for letting me hang out here today.  I need a drink now. You need a drink? I’ve got a bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge…

While Kinsey and I enjoy her nice bottle of wine (no boxed wine here Kelly), why don't you enjoy a look at her new release Ready to Run, that came out yesterday from Samhain Publishing.

Book 3 in A Werewolves in Love story

Sometimes a girl’s gotta save herself.

Sara Hedges had planned to escape the backwater, bigoted town of Luxor, Texas on the wings of a college degree—not on the back of a Harley, riding for her life.

Just a couple months shy of loading up her Miata, however, betrayal bares its ugly fangs. Her scumbag uncle has sold her to a pack of werewolves willing to pay any price for her special bloodline and it looks like there’s no way out. She never expected the new-in-town, sex-on-a-stick loner to come riding to her rescue. Or to discover he’s a werewolf, too. A good one...with one too many secrets.

Bryan Keeton waited two months deep undercover for the chance to get his hands on one of the gangster Eurowolves wreaking havoc across the South. After calling in the FBI to blow the lid off Luxor, he’d planned to leave town before he did something he might regret—like get involved with the suspect’s niece.

But Sara makes him stupid. And now they’re on the run from the Feds, who aren’t interested in her innocence, and from the wolves who want her for their own personal squeaky toy…

---

Excerpt - 

“You’re really not like everybody else around here, are you?”
She never could seem to look him in the eye. There was something about him that intimidated her, but in a very “God, I hope he backs me up against a wall” way, not a “God, I hope he doesn’t kill me” way. So she stared at his mouth instead, and the gooey feeling got worse. “No, I’m not.” It gave her a huge, dangerous thrill to sit here and admit something like that. “You’d be surprised how different I really am.”
His eyes searched her face for a long moment. They were sitting there, next to each other but not touching, and just before she became unbearably itchy (and gooey) beneath his scrutiny, he said gently, “I think I have a pretty good idea. And I’m glad you didn’t say anything, angel.”
“You are?”
“Yeah. I’m not from around here, and I’m not going to be here for much longer. I don’t have to care what people think. This is your home. You’re gonna have to see these folks for the rest of your life, so—”
“The hell I am.” Her throat constricted at his casual mention of leaving town soon. Well, she would be leaving town soon too. If she hadn’t already been so good at hiding her feelings, the urge to cry, or maybe throw up, would’ve been hard to resist. But a long-term relationship with Nash had never been in her future.
Why did she have to keep reminding herself about that?
He looked surprised. “You’re not going to come home for holidays or anything?”
“Hell, no. When I’m gone, I’m gone. There’s no one here for me but Wendy, and she can visit me in Marshall, or wherever I end up.”
In fact, she planned on dragging Wendy out of Luxor at some point. But she had to rescue herself first.
“Staying away might be harder than you think, Sara. No matter how much you don’t like this place, it’s your home.”
“It won’t be, not once I’m out of here. I hate this town! I swear to God, I do. I hate every person in it except for Wendy and maybe three other people.”
“What about the rest of your family?”
“Especially the rest of my family.”
The force of it overwhelmed her, leaving her shaking all over. “I hate this backwards-ass, narrow-minded, locked-in-a-fucking-time-warp piece-of-crap dump.”
“Hey. Hey, come here. It’s all right.” Nash took the beer from her hand, setting both hers and his on the coffee table. Then he wrapped one strong, warm arm around her shoulders and pulled her in tight against him. She inhaled deeply, savoring the scent of him, shivering as he gathered her hair at the back of her neck and laid a kiss atop her head. “You’re getting out.”
“December isn’t soon enough,” she said against his chest. “Tomorrow wouldn’t be soon enough.”
He laughed into her hair. “Well, I’m glad it’s not tomorrow. I need more time.”
“What for?”
“To get to know you better. Every time I turn around, you’re surprising me. I keep thinking I’ve got you figured out and then it’s like, hey, here’s something new.”
She shrugged, even as his words set her heart to pounding inside her rib cage. “There’s a lot of stuff I don’t know about you too.”
Her face was still pressed against his chest, and she liked it there, but he’d stopped stroking her hair. Something in his body, some subtle tensing, made her look up.
He wasn’t smiling. His brows knit together as he stared at her with an unreadable gaze. She got a sudden, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach—a feeling nothing like the excitement and arousal of two hours earlier, or the warm comfort of one second ago.
“What? Please don’t tell me you’ve got a wife stashed away somewhere. Or a girlfriend or a murder conviction or something like that.”
He mouth quirked in an embarrassed kind of smile. “No. No wife, no girlfriend, no felony convictions. Come here.”
“What? I—whoa!”
He put his free hand under her knees and scooped her into his lap. Now both his arms, with those chiseled, bronzed biceps, were wrapped around her. One hand rested on her thigh—between her legs, scorching her right through her blue jeans—while the other one warmed her back through her cotton shirt. Lord, he smelled good. Whatever cologne he was wearing, she wished she could spray it on her sheets and roll around naked.
“What’d you do that for?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“Trying to get comfortable, so we could talk.” His smile said he knew he was turning her on. Somehow the hand on her back had slipped inside her shirt, where it now traced tiny patterns of fire across her skin.
She twisted a little, trying to get comfortable on his legs.
“Hmm. That’s good,” he said. “I like that.”
“Like what?”

“The way you’re wriggling in my lap.” He ran his hand up to her stomach. She gasped as heat flared through her body, her legs going limp and tingly. Instinctively she covered his hand with hers, pressing it harder against her. If he moved it the teeniest bit downward, she’d start ripping her clothes off. It had been so long since—
“I didn’t know you didn’t like your family.”
“Huh?” Hadn’t he been about to kiss her?
“Your family. I didn’t know you didn’t like them.”
“Oh. Um, yeah. We’re not close.”
“Your grandmother raised you, right?”
Why were they talking about this? Why didn’t he kiss her?
“Yes. But I moved out when I seventeen.”
“Why? Why didn’t you stay there ’til you graduated and then go to college?”
“Because…it’s a long story. It just— It wasn’t a good place for me. I needed to get out.”
“Okay.” He reached up to pull a strand of hair out of her face. “What about your uncles? Are you close to them?”
“I don’t—no. No, not at all.”
“Why?”
“That’s a long story too. Why are you—wait.” She froze as she realized where this was heading. “Wait. Did someone tell you about my family? Is that why you’re asking?”
“Huh? No, I— Wait a minute, where you going?” She was wiggling again, only this time it was to get off his lap. He tightened his arms around her. “Wait. Wait a minute, stop. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to— Okay, yeah, I was prying. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to figure you out.”
“Figure me out how? What’s there to figure out? I don’t like my family. I didn’t have a happy childhood, and now I avoid them, even though it’s kind of hard to do in a town this size.”
“So that’s why you’re moving to Marshall?”
“It’s one reason, okay? If you want to know about my family, ask the guys at JP’s, but it’s not really something people talk about around here.” He’d either understand what she meant or he wouldn’t.
“No, that’s okay. I’m interested in you, not them. What about the werewolves?”
“What?”

High-res →

“The werewolves. You knew something about them. I don’t think most people around here know about werewolf culture, and if they do, they sure as hell don’t talk about it.”
“I wasn’t really thinking. It slipped out.”
“But it means you’ve read about werewolves, right? You’re interested in them?”
He still wouldn’t let her off his lap, but she put her hands on his chest to push him back. “Nash, why are you asking me these questions? Why do you—?”
“Look, I’m sorry, I—damn. I sound like a freak, don’t I?”
“No. Well, yeah, kind of.”
“Okay. Let’s start over.” He finally loosened his hold and she scooted back, her legs still in his lap. She tried to smother her moan when he started rubbing her foot, but she couldn’t help it. So, smiling, he went to work with both hands while he talked.

“It’s just that you’re nothing like I thought you’d be, you know?”
“No. What are you talking about?”
He let out a frustrated sigh, as if having trouble finding the words. She didn’t mind waiting, because what he was doing to her feet was almost—almost—as good as sex.
“All those times I sat in your section and talked to you, I had no idea, and even after I first asked you out, I assumed you were like everyone else around here.”
“Oh. And I’m not?”
That made him laugh out loud. “No! And don’t act like you don’t know that! I figured you were some sweet, backwards Apocalyptic babe who was working in the diner ’til you found someone to marry and have babies with. And then you’d spend the rest of your life in Luxor, hiding from the big bad world.”
That was exactly how she thought of everyone else in this town, even Wendy, and exactly what she didn’t want to be. But for a second, she was tempted to defend Luxor. Even if she hated it, even if she wanted out more than anything, it stung to hear an outsider talk that way about the people she’d grown up with.
“Well, if you thought I was so backwards and everything, what the hell did you ask me out for?”
That grin again. “Because you were so hot. And I was lonely.” His strong, supple fingers were massaging the balls and arches of her feet, and she decided that this was, in fact, better than sex. “And then I find out you’re taking college classes and you don’t want to birth a bunch of babies and grow old in Luxor. And that was cool, that was interesting. Then, tonight, I find out you don’t like your family—” now his grin turned evil “—and you have a thing for werewolves!”
“Hey!” Embarrassed, she slapped feebly at his arm, but she was too blissed out and enervated by the foot rub to sit up and really hit him. “I do not have a thing for werewolves.”
He reached under her to pinch her butt. “Maybe you do and you just don’t know it.”
“I don’t!” God, it was like he read her mind sometimes. Was he hacking her Internet account? How could he know about her fascination with shifters, or her desperate dream to meet someone, anyone, with fae blood? “I think they’re interesting, all right? I don’t think they’re evil. Just because they’re not human doesn’t mean they’re not, like, you know…”
“People,” he said quietly.

See what did I tell you!! I so can't wait to get my hands on this and curl up and read away. Thank you again for visiting with us Kinsey and  I'm really looking forward to Seth's story and the new steampunk. Stop by anytime I love talking to you, that cute little Texas accent and the wine are just too nice to pass up.
Kinsey is in the giving mood, it's release week! She has so lovely offered up 2 copies of Ready to Run. Want to win ? We have made it easy - Comment  here and you will be entered into the international drawing. Please be sure to include a contact email so we can contact you, if you win. The closing date will be the 17th of August.



You can find Kinsey W. Holley around the web at:

Website - http://www.kinseyholley.com/
Group Blog - http://ninenaughtynovelists.blogspot.com/
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/kinseyholley
Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/kinseyholley

 You can purchase her books at:

Amazon, B&N and Samhain

*Remember when you purchase books from Samhain on release week you get a 30% discount!

Copyright © 2011 Kinsey W. Holley
All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication

“You’re really not like everybody else around here, are you?”
She never could seem to look him in the eye. There was something about him that intimidated her, but in a very “God, I hope he backs me up against a wall” way, not a “God, I hope he doesn’t kill me” way. So she stared at his mouth instead, and the gooey feeling got worse. “No, I’m not.” It gave her a huge, dangerous thrill to sit here and admit something like that. “You’d be surprised how different I really am.”
His eyes searched her face for a long moment. They were sitting there, next to each other but not touching, and just before she became unbearably itchy (and gooey) beneath his scrutiny, he said gently, “I think I have a pretty good idea. And I’m glad you didn’t say anything, angel.”
“You are?”
“Yeah. I’m not from around here, and I’m not going to be here for much longer. I don’t have to care what people think. This is your home. You’re gonna have to see these folks for the rest of your life, so—”
“The hell I am.” Her throat constricted at his casual mention of leaving town soon. Well, she would be leaving town soon too. If she hadn’t already been so good at hiding her feelings, the urge to cry, or maybe throw up, would’ve been hard to resist. But a long-term relationship with Nash had never been in her future.
Why did she have to keep reminding herself about that?
He looked surprised. “You’re not going to come home for holidays or anything?”
“Hell, no. When I’m gone, I’m gone. There’s no one here for me but Wendy, and she can visit me in Marshall, or wherever I end up.”
In fact, she planned on dragging Wendy out of Luxor at some point. But she had to rescue herself first.
“Staying away might be harder than you think, Sara. No matter how much you don’t like this place, it’s your home.”
“It won’t be, not once I’m out of here. I hate this town! I swear to God, I do. I hate every person in it except for Wendy and maybe three other people.”
“What about the rest of your family?”
“Especially the rest of my family.”
The force of it overwhelmed her, leaving her shaking all over. “I hate this backwards-ass, narrow-minded, locked-in-a-fucking-time-warp piece-of-crap dump.”
“Hey. Hey, come here. It’s all right.” Nash took the beer from her hand, setting both hers and his on the coffee table. Then he wrapped one strong, warm arm around her shoulders and pulled her in tight against him. She inhaled deeply, savoring the scent of him, shivering as he gathered her hair at the back of her neck and laid a kiss atop her head. “You’re getting out.”
“December isn’t soon enough,” she said against his chest. “Tomorrow wouldn’t be soon enough.”
He laughed into her hair. “Well, I’m glad it’s not tomorrow. I need more time.”
“What for?”
“To get to know you better. Every time I turn around, you’re surprising me. I keep thinking I’ve got you figured out and then it’s like, hey, here’s something new.”
She shrugged, even as his words set her heart to pounding inside her rib cage. “There’s a lot of stuff I don’t know about you too.”
Her face was still pressed against his chest, and she liked it there, but he’d stopped stroking her hair. Something in his body, some subtle tensing, made her look up.
He wasn’t smiling. His brows knit together as he stared at her with an unreadable gaze. She got a sudden, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach—a feeling nothing like the excitement and arousal of two hours earlier, or the warm comfort of one second ago.
“What? Please don’t tell me you’ve got a wife stashed away somewhere. Or a girlfriend or a murder conviction or something like that.”
He mouth quirked in an embarrassed kind of smile. “No. No wife, no girlfriend, no felony convictions. Come here.”
“What? I—whoa!”
He put his free hand under her knees and scooped her into his lap. Now both his arms, with those chiseled, bronzed biceps, were wrapped around her. One hand rested on her thigh—between her legs, scorching her right through her blue jeans—while the other one warmed her back through her cotton shirt. Lord, he smelled good. Whatever cologne he was wearing, she wished she could spray it on her sheets and roll around naked.
“What’d you do that for?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“Trying to get comfortable, so we could talk.” His smile said he knew he was turning her on. Somehow the hand on her back had slipped inside her shirt, where it now traced tiny patterns of fire across her skin.
She twisted a little, trying to get comfortable on his legs.
“Hmm. That’s good,” he said. “I like that.”
“Like what?”
“The way you’re wriggling in my lap.” He ran his hand up to her stomach. She gasped as heat flared through her body, her legs going limp and tingly. Instinctively she covered his hand with hers, pressing it harder against her. If he moved it the teeniest bit downward, she’d start ripping her clothes off. It had been so long since—
“I didn’t know you didn’t like your family.”
“Huh?” Hadn’t he been about to kiss her?
“Your family. I didn’t know you didn’t like them.”
“Oh. Um, yeah. We’re not close.”
“Your grandmother raised you, right?”
Why were they talking about this? Why didn’t he kiss her?
“Yes. But I moved out when I seventeen.”
“Why? Why didn’t you stay there ’til you graduated and then go to college?”
“Because…it’s a long story. It just— It wasn’t a good place for me. I needed to get out.”
“Okay.” He reached up to pull a strand of hair out of her face. “What about your uncles? Are you close to them?”
“I don’t—no. No, not at all.”
“Why?”
“That’s a long story too. Why are you—wait.” She froze as she realized where this was heading. “Wait. Did someone tell you about my family? Is that why you’re asking?”
“Huh? No, I— Wait a minute, where you going?” She was wiggling again, only this time it was to get off his lap. He tightened his arms around her. “Wait. Wait a minute, stop. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to— Okay, yeah, I was prying. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to figure you out.”
“Figure me out how? What’s there to figure out? I don’t like my family. I didn’t have a happy childhood, and now I avoid them, even though it’s kind of hard to do in a town this size.”
“So that’s why you’re moving to Marshall?”
“It’s one reason, okay? If you want to know about my family, ask the guys at JP’s, but it’s not really something people talk about around here.” He’d either understand what she meant or he wouldn’t.
“No, that’s okay. I’m interested in you, not them. What about the werewolves?”
“What?”
“The werewolves. You knew something about them. I don’t think most people around here know about werewolf culture, and if they do, they sure as hell don’t talk about it.”
“I wasn’t really thinking. It slipped out.”
“But it means you’ve read about werewolves, right? You’re interested in them?”
He still wouldn’t let her off his lap, but she put her hands on his chest to push him back. “Nash, why are you asking me these questions? Why do you—?”
“Look, I’m sorry, I—damn. I sound like a freak, don’t I?”
“No. Well, yeah, kind of.”
“Okay. Let’s start over.” He finally loosened his hold and she scooted back, her legs still in his lap. She tried to smother her moan when he started rubbing her foot, but she couldn’t help it. So, smiling, he went to work with both hands while he talked.
“It’s just that you’re nothing like I thought you’d be, you know?”
“No. What are you talking about?”
He let out a frustrated sigh, as if having trouble finding the words. She didn’t mind waiting, because what he was doing to her feet was almost—almost—as good as sex.
“All those times I sat in your section and talked to you, I had no idea, and even after I first asked you out, I assumed you were like everyone else around here.”
“Oh. And I’m not?”
That made him laugh out loud. “No! And don’t act like you don’t know that! I figured you were some sweet, backwards Apocalyptic babe who was working in the diner ’til you found someone to marry and have babies with. And then you’d spend the rest of your life in Luxor, hiding from the big bad world.”
That was exactly how she thought of everyone else in this town, even Wendy, and exactly what she didn’t want to be. But for a second, she was tempted to defend Luxor. Even if she hated it, even if she wanted out more than anything, it stung to hear an outsider talk that way about the people she’d grown up with.
“Well, if you thought I was so backwards and everything, what the hell did you ask me out for?”
That grin again. “Because you were so hot. And I was lonely.” His strong, supple fingers were massaging the balls and arches of her feet, and she decided that this was, in fact, better than sex. “And then I find out you’re taking college classes and you don’t want to birth a bunch of babies and grow old in Luxor. And that was cool, that was interesting. Then, tonight, I find out you don’t like your family—” now his grin turned evil “—and you have a thing for werewolves!”
“Hey!” Embarrassed, she slapped feebly at his arm, but she was too blissed out and enervated by the foot rub to sit up and really hit him. “I do not have a thing for werewolves.”
He reached under her to pinch her butt. “Maybe you do and you just don’t know it.”
“I don’t!” God, it was like he read her mind sometimes. Was he hacking her Internet account? How could he know about her fascination with shifters, or her desperate dream to meet someone, anyone, with fae blood? “I think they’re interesting, all right? I don’t think they’re evil. Just because they’re not human doesn’t mean they’re not, like, you know…”
“People,” he said quietly.