She’s a Spitfire (Tough Love, #2)
by Chloe Liese
Publication date: June 24th, 2019
Genres: Adult, Romance, Suspense
One fiery-haired, sexy scientist finds her perfect complement in a dark and handsome soccer star. Opposites attract, and they’ve got chemistry that’s explosive—literally.
Physics calls it entropy. Philosophy calls it Murphy’s Law: If something can go wrong, eventually it will. Professionally and personally speaking, Zed’s familiar with the principle.
After a decade of trying to alter the atomic makeup of the mafia from its nucleus, now he’s set on leaving The Life and pursuing his heart. Problem is, the sassy, hot-headed spitfire he can’t quit is meddling in his slow burn escape plan, and turning it into full-on combustion.
Not to mention, Nairne’s got a painful history she won’t talk about and more secrets than she has lab instruments—which is really saying something. In an ideal world, the bad boy footballer would follow the brainy beauty overseas and they’d live happily ever after. But Murphy’s Law is proven true, as Zed finds his world imploding and his escape plan foiled. These enemies turned lovers end up discovering how costly it can be to meet the right person at the wrong time.
A present he can’t escape.
A past she can’t forget.
A future they won’t stop fighting for.
They say all’s fair in love…and war.
Book Two in the Tough Love Series—an enemies to lovers, suspenseful romance, full of sexy Italians, feisty heroines, globe-trotting action, and an ending that’ll both satisfy you and leave you ready for more!
~AUTHOR INTERVIEW with Chloe Liese~
1) What gave you
the inspiration for the storyline?
Nairne came to me in a season of life
where I was reclaiming a lot of lost identity. As I found myself learning to be
my authentic self, to take pride and put my energy into my work and interests
in life, this fierce, resilient woman was born in my mind. A woman who epitomized resilience;
who’d been through hard times but had reclaimed her life and had a pretty
controlling attitude toward how life played out. Then she just had to meet a guy
who had similar control impulses to deal with his crazy life, and Zed came to me at that
point. Their fire and combativeness is born out of their similarity—they’re
both intensely driven, seeking to survive and make it through life, and when
they fall for each other, they have to sort through prioritizing their coping
mechanisms or prioritizing making their relationship work.
2) Are there any hidden (or not so hidden) themes in the book that you hope readers will discover?
I’d say the themes are
pretty evident. Self-preservation versus the vulnerability required to build
intimacy. Obligation and duty versus self-care and self-discovery. I’d say all
my themes circle around the work it takes to figure out your authentic self, to
live that honestly, and to entrust it to someone you want to share intimacy and
a relationship with.
3) Are any of the characters based on real people you know?
No, they’re all purely
fictional!
4) Who has
influenced you most as a writer?
Toni Morrison. Her writing is potent. She
takes liberties with conventions, writes graphically and honestly, with a kind
of unapologetic realism and grittiness that many people want to shy away from
in reading or writing. Other than her, I appreciate so many different styles of
writing and storytelling, and I think it’s good to read a diversity of
approaches. It gets me thinking about form and technique, and even if I simply
say to myself, hm,
I don’t think I’d do that, or, that wasn’t how I would have written it, it
helps me continue to introspect and grow as a writer.
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?
What a fun question! I think rather than
characters, I’d probably want to spend the night with writers. Oscar Wilde, Virginia
Woolf, and Toni Morrison. I’d serve a full bar, dessert and coffees, and
hopefully we’d just have incredible conversation about culture and its
representation in fiction. Then we’d play charades. Virginia Woolf would be
incredibly sarcastic and derisive about it; Oscar Wilde would be over the top
hilarious; Toni Morrison would be all calm and collected—that guest that gives
one clue and makes you guess it right away J.
6) Do you feel that you can ever have too many books?
Absolutely not. You only have too many
books if you don’t value their stories, if you don’t have a connection and history
with them. I’ve passed books on that I outgrew, whether for their themes or
subject matter, but it’s not because I think they’re bad now or they don’t
belong—they’re just meant for someone else. And that’s the beauty of writing
and books. No story is for everyone; no narrative will please each person.
Books are personal. They’re an invitation to introspection as well as
connection. They create worlds, and they make us better understand our own. So
long as the books you own mean something to you, you can never have too many.
Author Bio:Chloe’s always been a sucker for a suspenseful steamy romance, ever since she managed to find the one saucy mystery series hiding in her high school’s prim little library. Nothing drives her crazier than a story that cranks up the heat, then closes the door on the reader’s face, so don’t read her books if you don’t want to know what actually happens when the lights fade to black…
When she’s not writing, Chloe’s busy reading books of all genres, rereading Harry Potter (which she can’t help but make her characters similarly obsessed over), and playing catch-up with her bad@$$ little girls. She’s also been known to scramble around the pitch for a pick-up soccer match and run along the river while dreaming up her next book.
