Hardwiredby Andrea Bills
Publication date: September 1st, 2018
Genres: Adult, Romance, Suspense
When Navy Seal Operative Luke Kiersey is finally granted leave after five years, he finds himself driving to a house he doesn’t recognize in a town he’s never been to. The house is home to a beautiful woman and a little girl with big blue eyes. Day after day, he drives back only to hide in the shadows and wonder why he can’t seem to walk away from them.
His therapist says is PTSD.
His handler tells him he’s just not cut out to be part of the civilian world.
Luke can’t help but feel like it’s more.
The dog tags that once hung proudly around his neck, now feel like a collar; leashing him to a life that he fears he didn’t choose. After the terrible things he’s done in the name of freedom, could he possibly be worthy of something as precious as the woman and child he continues to watch?
When the two worlds collide, Luke needs his mind to be stronger than the implant the government placed in his back. They’ve told him he can’t survive without the implant they use to control him, but Luke’s wondering if he can survive without the little girl with big blue eyes and the gorgeous woman she calls mamma.
~AUTHOR INTERVIEW with Andrea Bills~
1) What gave you the inspiration for the
storyline?
I love this question when asked
specifically for this book. I was on a road trip by myself and Halsey’s song Gasoline came on the radio. That was it
for me, Luke’s story surfaced and I pulled over so that I could purge the
initial plot line from my mind immediately.
2) Are there any hidden themes in the
book that you hope readers will discover?
This is tricky. I don’t live a military
life, nor do I know anyone in the military so I can’t pretend to know what they
go through. However, I hope that the underlying theme of this book is that your
PTSD or your disabilities, or even your loss DO NOT define you. Jen deals with
loss and she loses herself in the grief, and she wonders if she will always be
the widow. Luke’s disability, so to
speak, weighs heavy on his mind, and he feels that it completely defines him.
He also deals with PTSD, but it goes further than that to include what everyone
around him thinks his PTSD does to him. So he knows how he feels and what his
PTSD is like, but he also has his therapist, his handler and his Commanding
Officer all telling him how his PTSD
makes him feel. Again I’m no expert but I feel like that has to be something
that happens to our Veterans, and to our military spouses, so I felt compelled
to bring that to the surface.
Our military men and women don’t deserve
to have everyone else’s preconceived notions about their struggles pushed on
them. They have enough to deal with, and I think sometimes helping is simply
listening and accepting.
3) Are any of the characters based on
real people you know?
Bella is based on my own daughter, and a
lot of her mannerisms and the things she says are things my daughter has done.
Also Jen’s mom and dad are based on my own parents, which my daughter does in
fact call them Mam and Pap. My daughter also demands to always eat with a fork
and spoon no matter what’s on her plate because one time my mom gave her both
for a bowl of cereal. Last but not least Shatara in the book is based on my
niece.
4) Who has influenced you most as a
writer?
There are so many influences on my
writing both from other authors to just people in my life. As far as literary
people, Julie Garwood is a huge influence, as she is and still is my favorite
author. I adore her ability to create suspense in her books, and I strive to be
able to do the same in my own.
As far as outside of the literary world,
my husband is a big influence just simply because he refuses to let me give up
on things. He’s definitely not a back seat driver when it comes to me. He’s in
my face, inspiring and encouraging me. My favorite is when he becomes angry on
my behalf of a bad review, he doesn’t quite understand that they’re going to
happen and it’s part of this world, he still gets all chivalrous and wants to
swoop in and save the day.
5) If you could have any three literary
characters over to your place for game night, who would you invite, what would
you play, what would you serve, and why?
Ugh, three is such a small number. I
mean is it a typo? Did you really mean like three hundred? Lol
Okay, okay. Sooo, I’d love to have Nick
over, he’s from my own work Exchange of Power. He and I just need to have a
chat is all so it would be great if he could pop over for dinner. If he came
over I would serve blueberry breakfast cake, and we would play, Clue. One
because he loves blueberry breakfast cake and the latter because he’s an FBI
agent, and his life is solving clues, so who better to play.
Jamie from Outlander is one. I mean do I
have to explain this at all? It’s Jamie Fraser; in my house, eating my food.
It’s EVERY woman’s fantasy. I would probably order a pizza, simply because I
don’t have time to cook when that mans in my presence, and secondly I
desperately wonder all the time what he would think of pizza, if Claire can one
day pull him into the future. We would play Chess, because I haven’t a clue how
to play it, and I feel like I would be learning from the master.
Lastly, Cole from Pam Godwin’s Tangled
Lies series. I fell in love with that man in that series! We would eat burgers
and fries, because he seems like a burger and fries kind of man, and I would
play Twister with him because come on….it’s a Pam Godwin character, that’s
bound to be exciting. ;)
6)
Do you feel that you can ever have too many books?
No. Never.
Author Bio:Andrea is a wife, mother and writer from small town West Virginia. She spends her time while she’s not dreaming up lovers and villains alike chasing after her two kids and husband.
Her overactive imagination and her husband’s wacky dreams attribute to her love of the written word. Guilty pleasures include reading all night and Reese Cups.
Thanks for being on the tour! :)
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