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Making the Play (Hidden Falls #1) US Only
By: T.J. Kline
Releasing
January 17, 2017
Avon Impulse
In Daring to Fall (Hidden Falls #2) by TJ Kline, Emma Jordan always thought she was going to run the animal sanctuary alongside her father, but after her father's death she's returned home to run her family legacy alone. Except someone isn't happy about the fact that she's now in charge, and is out to make trouble for her. Trying her best to make the animal sanctuary a success, Emma knows all her focus should be on her new job, but she can't seem to get hot firefighter, Ben McQuaid, off her mind soon after she meets him. Together, will they be able to find the person responsible for causing trouble, or will Emma lose everything dear to her?
Having loved the first book of this series, I couldn't wait to dive into this one, and I've got to say that it does not disappoint. In fact, I loved this story more than the first one because of the main characters growing relationship, the good dose of suspense and how the McQuaid family interact with each other. The way this story started with the favor Ben's brother needs him to do sets the fast-pace of this story, because I wanted to discover what the favor was. Would Ben make his brother owe him a favor? Would he be able to do what his brother wants him to do successfully? Being a firefighter, I'd definitely say he would be up to the task, but in the end it isn't that simple.
As for the dialogue, it was intense due to everything Emma goes through from the person causing trouble. How is she going to keep herself and the animals safe? Will a distraction cost her everything her father had worked hard for? Also, the dialogue was intense due to the main characters back stories. Ben and Emma haven't been very successful at relationships, and both are wary of getting involved with the other for fear of repeating past mistakes. Emma is strong, brave, independent and very dedicated to her job. How is she supposed to make time for a relationship? And yet, if anyone can understand being dedicated to a job, it's the hero.
While Ben, he's a fantastic hero. He's courageous, protective and I liked how stubborn he could get at times when Emma thought she could handle things herself, yet it was palpable that she couldn't without help from Ben and others of his family. He was determined to help her whether she wanted him to or not and I liked that most about him. I also liked how Ben showed the heroine that he was different to her ex. He understood how much her work meant to her and he wasn't about to let that fact come between them. She could have both without him thinking she was neglecting him, especially when he was interested in her work to.
Overall, this was a really good second book for this series, which has me looking forward to more of the McQuaid family because of how they interact with each other. Certainly, there's plenty of teasing and Emma fits in easily with Ben's family, even if the trouble she's facing has her at odds with certain members of the hero's family, because they initially have doubts about the way she's running the sanctuary due to all the things that are happening there. The way this story ended was delightful, as Ben proved to Emma that he would be there for her through thick and thin and I liked the surprise he had for her right at the end. Really, they're good together and have such great chemistry that spills over onto the pages wonderfully. That is when Emma isn't trying to push him away because she has trust issues. I would recommend Daring to Fall by TJ Kline, if you enjoy the friends to lovers trope, small town romances or are looking for a contemporary romance that encompasses a good dose of suspense where the author keeps readers guessing as to the identity of the person causing the trouble.
OVERALL RATING:
BLURB:
T.J. Kline returns to Hidden Falls with
the sweet and fun story of a small-town firefighter and the stubborn woman who
refuses to fall for his charms.
Emma Jordan
has returned home after her father’s death to run the animal sanctuary that had
been his legacy. But strange things start happening, and it seems that someone
is out to shut her down, someone who doesn’t mind putting lives in jeopardy to
see it through. When Hidden Falls’ sexiest fireman starts to ask
questions, Emma needs to make sure his charm doesn’t distract her from keeping
her dreams alive.
Ben McQuaid
has an obligation as a local fireman to protect the community, even from a
well-meaning wildlife veterinarian who’s in way over her head. But, it’s
becoming hard to keep his loyalty to the town and his desire for the pretty vet
separate. As Ben and Emma become caught in a dangerous game of cat and mouse,
their feelings for each other are growing.
Will they
let duty drive them apart or will they dare to fall?
“Hey, Ben, I have a favor to ask.”
Ben McQuaid rolled his eyes skyward. Of course, his
brother Andrew needed another favor. Lately, Ben seemed to be the one doing the favors more often than receiving any. But, that’s what
brothers did for one another, right? And with six siblings, most of them
younger, that added up to be a lot of favors.
“Make it quick, I’m on my way into the fire station for
my shift.”
“Good, because this is more of an official call than a
favor anyway. I need you to head down to the Quinn place on Mosquito Road.
Apparently, there’s a cat stuck in a tree. It seems stupid to call it in to the
firehouse and drag the engine out for a cat. See? I’m actually doing you a favor and saving you all that cleaning and polishing you
have to do just for driving a truck out of the garage.”
They’d be cleaning the engine anyway. Plus, without an
engine, Ben had no ladder to get up the tree. “So, what you’re suggesting is
that I shimmy up the tree the way I did when we were ten to get the football
you and Grant would get stuck.”
Andrew’s chuckle sounded through the receiver. “Pretty
much. Look, the call just came in from dispatch and you’ve got to drive by
there on your way into town anyway. No sense in making it an official call.”
There was nothing about this that was a favor
for Ben. “What’s wrong, is there an apple fritter with your name on it? This
way you save yourself the effort of having to fill out another police report,
right?” Andrew wasn’t fooling him.
“There’s that too.” Ben heard Andrew address someone
else in the background. “Hey, I have to run. There’s a domestic dispute at the
winery. You got this, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll take care of it,” Ben said with a sigh.
“Thanks. I owe you one.”
“One?” Ben muttered to himself as the receiver
disconnected in his ear and he took the turn off onto Mosquito Road. “You owe
me more than that.”
He wasn’t looking forward to this. Hollister Quinn was
one of those old guys who spoke his mind, loudly and often. He’d been the first
in line to protest the latest upgrades being done to spruce up their small
foothill town. Said he liked it rustic, the way it’d been for years and that it
should stay that way. However, now that there was talk about Hidden Falls
trying to become more of a tourist attraction along the way to Tahoe, an idea
that would bring higher profits for local businesses which, in turn, kept the
town thriving, Quinn was complaining even more. A visit with Quinn, even to
retrieve a kitten, was sure to bring a lengthy lecture about how the people of
Hidden Falls were selling out. Ben rubbed the knots of tension already building
at the back of his neck.
Pulling into the circular driveway in front of the
Quinn house, he maneuvered his pickup between several other vehicles, none of
which were Hollister’s. A crowd was already gathered under one of the tall
pines in the front yard.
“Great,” the old man complained as Ben edged closer to
the chaos. “Please, tell me you’re here to do something productive, not just
here to gawk like everyone else. I need someone to get that damn thing outta my
tree.” He pointed to where a tabby kitten yowled loudly from a high branch on
the tree.
Ben squinted, following the old man’s gaze. “Are you
sure that’s a cat? It doesn’t look—”
“What else would it be?” Quinn rolled his eyes before
glaring at Ben and shoving him toward the god-awful howling the cat in the tree
was making. “Do your job, fireman, and get that thing down.” He turned away,
muttering something about the woman running the animal sanctuary down the road
but Ben didn’t quite catch it and he wasn’t about to risk having the old man
rip him a new one again.
“Sure thing, Mr. Quinn,” Ben agreed, wondering again
why he’d wanted to be a firefighter. Sweating it out with the cattle on his
parents’ ranch sounded a hell of a lot better right now than climbing a tree to
get the shit clawed out of him by a frightened kitten.
He glanced around at the large group of neighbors that
had come to watch, curious at the interest for a simple kitten stuck in a tree.
It wasn’t a big enough deal to warrant this sort of hullabaloo. The kitten
yowled louder and Ben had just lifted his foot onto the ladder Quinn had left
braced against the side of the tree when Ellie Quinn, the old man’s daughter,
hurried to his side.
“Ben, I’m sorry. I tried to get my dad to just leave
the poor thing alone, but you know how he is.” She shot him a coy smile and her
eyelashes fluttered.
Ellie was a nice woman. The same age as his younger
sister and obviously interested in him. She was sweet, kind to everyone she
met, a member of the local women’s shelter planning committee and generous to a
fault. In fact, she was exactly what he wanted in a woman, plus she had a “girl
next door” quality that made her adorable. His mother had been trying to set
them up for months, reminding him that he should be giving her grandchildren before
she was too old to enjoy them. The problem was, Ben wasn’t attracted to Ellie
at all. He wanted to be, but every time he was around her, there was no
stirring in him, no warm fuzzies like he’d had with other women. Nothing to get
a rise out of him, so to speak, at all. It was almost like he wanted
to continually find himself getting screwed over by crazy women. “Don’t worry
about it, Ellie,” he said, waving a hand in her direction and looking up the
tree. “I’ll just get this guy down and he’ll take off back home.” Ben wasn’t
nearly as confident about his ability to get the cat down as he sounded but
Ellie was sweet. He couldn’t blame her for her cantankerous father.
She cocked her head and gave him a confused look. “Oh.
Um, okay.”
Putting one foot over the other as he climbed the
ladder, trying to ignore the jeers and shouts from below, Ben pulled himself
into a fork in the tree, hanging his legs over the branch as he straddled it.
He could barely see the spotted fluffy coat of the kitten but, from what he
could see, it was definitely young. He’d never understand how a stupid animal
could get itself into a tree but couldn’t get back out. Then again, it wasn’t
like people didn’t get themselves into some pretty precarious positions they
couldn’t figure their way out of.
Tucking his feet under him so he was squatting on the
limb, grateful for the heavy tread of his work boots, Ben reach for a thick
branch to his right, using it to swing him to the V beside where the cat was
hiding. The gasp from the onlookers below nearly made him laugh. Sure, falling
would be painful but the fifteen-foot landing into mulch couldn’t hurt any more
than the second story floor of an old farmhouse collapsing from under him
during a call and dropping him into the concrete basement below. Those two
fractured ribs had hurt like hell.
Straddling the second branch, he watched the kitten for
a moment. The poor animal was scared out of its mind. Its big blue eyes were
round with fear and, from this vantage point, he could see that it was a matted
mess. Tiny claws clung to the rippled bark of the tree and he wondered how he
was possibly going to convince the frightened animal to let go without his very
vulnerable bare arm replacing the tree trunk under its claws.
“Here, kitty,” he called quietly. The cat turned toward
him and he saw the unmistakable black tufts over the kitten’s ears. It turned
away again, edging out onto the branch and he saw the stubby tail.
Holy crap, that is not a cat. It’s a
freakin’ bobcat kitten.
“Shit,” he muttered. “That damn brother of mine owes me
big time.”
T. J.
Kline was
bitten by the horse bug early and began training horses at fourteen—as well as
competing in rodeos and winning several rodeo queen competitions—but has always
known writing was her first love. She also writes under the name Tina
Klinesmith. In her spare time, she can be found spending as many hours as possible
laughing hysterically with her husband, teens, and their menagerie of pets in
Northern California. That is, when she isn't running around the California Gold
Country researching new stories.
Q & A with T.J.
Kline
Q: Can you tell us a little about
your book?
DARING TO
FALL is the second in the Hidden Falls series. It’s a small-town, family saga
following the McQuaid family, all seven siblings. This story centers around Ben
McQuaid, the second oldest, a Hidden Falls firefighter who finds himself torn
between his duty to protecting the town and his desire to protect a woman who
might be threatened by the people of Hidden Falls. Emma Jordan, on the other
hand, is returning to Hidden Falls and her father’s wildlife rescue, after his
sudden death, to find that not everyone is excited about her return, or the
fact that she’s taking over the sanctuary.
Q: How did you come up with the
concept and the characters for the story?
With the
Hidden Falls series, I knew I wanted a family saga but I wanted a diverse
family unit that, at first glance, seemed so complex they couldn’t possibly be
as close as they are. The McQuaids were born. Ben has always been the
“responsible” guy, the Jiminy Cricket to the rest of his brothers, and exactly the
kind of guy who does you expect of a small-town hero. He needed a woman who
would appreciate those aspects of him, even if it meant fighting her attraction
to them.
Emma Jordan
sort of created herself. The same things that draw her to Ben, frighten her
and, oddly enough, are the same things putting her into the predicament she
finds herself in. She’s tenacious, loyal and a hero in her own right.
Determined to save others who can’t save themselves. However, the idea for an
animal sanctuary came because, in spite of all my ambitions to be a writer when
I was young, this was the other job I wanted to have – saving (or training)
wild animals.
Q: What did you enjoy most about
writing this book?
I loved the
research for this book. As a kid, I spent hours reading about a wide variety of
animals, sure that one day that information would serve me. It did, in DARING
TO FALL. I would spend one day researching bobcats and the next figuring out
exactly which type of dart gun and dosage of medication should be used. Not to
mention that I was able to reach out to wildlife rescues, trainers and fireman.
What could be better than that?
Q: What gave you the most trouble
with this story?
Staying
concentrated on the external conflict of their situation. I had a hard time
with these two characters not wanting to keep their hands off one another. They
have a great chemistry – it burns hot but both have reasons to hold back – and
it meshed together well to create a very “real” couple with ups and downs.
Unfortunately, if I’d left them to their own devices, I’m not sure the animals
would have ever gotten fed.
Q: Name one thing you won’t leave
home without.
Easy! My
cell phone. I live on it. I made sure the last time I upgraded that I purchased
one that would serve me, and my writing, on the go. I do everything from it –
reading, emails, texts, appointments, even writing. I can even set my home
alarm from it. I even use it to set up playlists for while I’m driving. I’d be
lost without it (which is why it has frequent backups!)
Q: What do you like best about being
a writer? What is the most challenging part?
The best?
The fact that, most days, I don’t even have to brush my teeth if I don’t want
to. I do, every day, I swear! But I don’t HAVE to. I have the freedom to style
my hair or not, wear PJs all day or dress up. I can set a doctor’s appointment
whenever I want to rather than in limited “free” time. I work around vacations
and trips, around my kids’ schedules and when I want to. Being a writer has given
me more freedom than any job I could ever imagine.
The most
challenging? The freedom. When you don’t HAVE to do anything, you have to be
self-disciplined to still get up every day and do what needs to be done. There
are times, under deadline, when I’ve planned poorly and forgo a trip to the
movies. Or, even more difficult, when I’m not under deadline to actually sit in
the office chair and put words on the page knowing no one is keeping tabs and I
have an entire season of Hart of Dixie waiting for me on my DVR.
Q: What do you do when you are not
writing?
When I’m
not writing, you can either find me hanging out with my husband and kids (two-
and four-legged). If I’m not out working with my horses – is it work if it’s
something you LOVE to do? – the family loves being outdoors. We’ll take off and
go to the beach for the day, hiking in the mountains, or playing in the snow.
Living in California, we can pick from all three, in the same week even, and
I’ll be taking pictures the entire way. If weather doesn’t permit, you can find
us watching movies together with popcorn, pizza, candy and sodas.
Q: Do you have any advice to give to
aspiring writers?
Be prepared
for the “real” life of writing. It’s not all fun and games, pajamas and book
signings. Most days, it’s ugly, hard, gut-wrenching work. You will doubt
yourself, listen to people rip your work apart and feel like you are crazy for
attempting to make this your life. It’s okay…we all live there. It doesn’t
matter whether you’ve written one book or nearly twenty, writing is always hard
work. But, as I said earlier, is it really work if it’s something you love to
do? Never give up on what you love to do, whether it’s writing, painting,
acting, debate, mathematics, history, woodworking…do what you love and it will show
in the results.
