by Levine, Nina
Heat flared in her eyes again. “Wait, you’re worried about breaking my stuff?”
“Yeah. Why do you fucking think I want that shit packed up?”
A smile spread out across her face and her body softened against mine. “Well why didn’t you say that?”
I’d never fucking understand women.
Fucking never.
“Fuck, Red, get your ass back in that office. No fucking way can I wait until tonight to have you.”
She continued smiling. “Sometimes you say the exact right thing, tiger.” And with that, she finally did what I wanted her to do.
17
Wilder Excerpt
Wilder is my most recent release in my Storm MC series and one of my absolute favourite books I’ve written! Here’s a taste of Scarlett & Wilder.
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“What’s going on?” he asks, looking up from his computer and narrowing his eyes on me like he’s trying to figure me out.
What’s going on?
Is he for real?
Surely men can’t be this dumb.
My arm flings out, gesturing wildly in the direction of the kitchen. “You just came at me all frustrated when I did nothing to cause that and demanded I hurry the fuck up and finish the stocktake. That’s what’s going on.”
“My frustration had nothing to do with you. I never said it did.”
“You snapped at me asking if I was finished while paintballing that frustration all over me.”
“I didn’t snap at you.”
“You did!”
“Fuck,” he mutters, jamming his fingers through his hair. “Have we got a problem?”
“Yes! I don’t like being spoken to that way.”
He stands and walks around the desk, bringing all those muscles of his that side-tracked me last week but that I’m all the way done with now. “This is about Friday night, isn’t it?”
My chest is a clusterfuck of churning energy, making it hard for me to breathe and to figure out what I’m thinking. “No, this is about how you’ve been treating me today.”
He stumbles over that, his forehead bunching into lines. “How have I been treating you today?”
“A little despotic to be honest.”
His eyebrows climb a short distance while his lips twinge with that amusement I hate. “I haven’t been despotic.”
“You fucking have.”
“I fuckin’ haven’t. I’ve been trying to get shit done, but I haven’t been dictatorial about it.”
“You must not know what dictatorial means then, because that’s exactly what you’ve been.”
“I think you’re backpedalling on Friday and picking a fight with me for no other reason than that.”
That energy in my chest swirls wildly. “There’s nothing to backpedal from.”
As the words leave my mouth, that damn energy takes over.
Kicking into high gear.
Messing with my thoughts.
Flustering my heart.
Wilder’s eyes dedicate time to mine.
In silence.
Flustering my heart even more.
“Bullshit,” he eventually says.
“It’s not bullshit. We danced. We kissed. It was nice. End of story.”
“It was nice?”
“Are you looking for better adjectives here? More complimentary words? I can look some up if you want, but it’ll cut into my time taking care of all those jobs you’ve slapped on my plate.”
“That kiss was more than fuckin’ nice, Scarlett, and you fuckin’ know it.”
He’s right, and I don’t know why I’m not agreeing with him.
Except I do know.
It’s that damn sensation in my chest.
It’s the brightest of bright red flags.
A red flag I know to run the hell in the other direction from.
“All I know is that we shouldn’t have gone there. We have to work together, and it’s hard enough with you being all tyrannical and shit. Adding sex into the mix is a bad idea.”
“Tyrannical?”
“Yes.”
A determined look steals across his face like none I’ve ever seen from him.
He takes the two steps that separate us, and faster than I see coming, he hooks his arm around my waist and yanks my body hard against his. “Let’s try this again so I can remind you how fuckin’ far from nice my lips are. And if you wanna call this dictatorial, go right fuckin’ ahead.”
Wilder is out now! Here’s the blurb:
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A sexy slow burn, opposites attract MC romance with an alpha who is bossy in all the right ways, a heroine you’ll wish you had as a friend, and banter that will have you swooning all over the place.
* * *
Justin ‘Wilder’ Miller is a country boy biker with a smile and charm no woman can resist.
His word is his bond.
He steps up for those he loves and has the patience of a saint.
However, he could throttle Scarlett whenever she argues with him, which is all. the. time.
* * *
Scarlett McKenzie is wild and untameable.
Her walls are high, her appreciation for people is low.
She says it like it is and has zero patience for drama.
She wants to stab Wilder every. day. of. the. week.
* * *
Wilder and Scarlett are meant to be together.
Everyone knows that.
Everyone except them.
* * *
Wilder is written as a standalone. You don't have to read the other books in this series to enjoy this one.
DOWNLOAD WILDER
Nina Chats With The Prisoners of Print
A few years ago I did an interview with the Prisoners of Print blog. I published it in one of my original Escape With An Alpha books that I used to share exclusively with my newsletter readers. Here it is for everyone to read.
1. We’re big fans of biker book boyfriends which is how we discovered your novels. What drew you to writing MC romance?
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I was writing Madison's story and she was the daughter of the MC president and J was just supposed to be a biker friend, but the minute he showed up on the page, the chemistry between them took over and I realised I had to write a story about them. Turned out, I loved writing bikers because they were completely alpha, dirty, bossy and could pretty much say and do anything that was over the top. I also loved being able to explore the darker side of life. And Sons of Anarchy was one of my favourite TV shows, so I had awesome inspiration!
2. You’ve written a lot of fierce, sexy, and unforgettable couples. If you had to choose, which couple is your favorite and why?
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This question is so hard to answer!! I have a few favourites, but if I had to choose one couple, it would be Nitro & Tatum. I loved that they were both so hardened by life and didn't open up easily. They both had to work to get the other to allow them in, and they both had to come to terms with themselves and make some big changes to grow. I know all my couples do this, but it felt like Nitro & Tatum fought this the most. And that's what I love about writing - watching that struggle to grow and make changes. It's life, and we're all flawed and make mistakes and either learn from them or stay stuck. I love exploring that, and I'm finding that my writing is evolving more and more into digging deeper into human flaws and creating imperfect characters who sometimes are a struggle to like.
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2021 Update: I wrote King after this and he and Lily are definitely one of my fave couples now. As are Winter & Birdie (I adore these two and their emotional journey!) and I also adore Scarlett & Wilder. These four couples are probably my favourites, but I can’t choose just one!
3. Your Storm MC and Sydney Storm MC series are thrilling, hot, and full of surprises and yet each novel also stands apart in its own way. Which book was the easiest to write? Which was the hardest?
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Havoc was the easiest to write. He a
nd Carla just fell onto the page. I know this may be hard to believe ;) but up until I wrote the first half of Havoc (which was just after I wrote Revive), I'd kind of censored my bikers. When they said or did something that I thought may have stretched the dirtiness a little too far, I pulled them back. I deleted a lot of dirty stuff and toned it down. But with Havoc, I just let him and Carla be as dirty as they wanted. And that was fun! Carla was especially fun to write because of the fact I didn't censor her. My hardest book to write has hands down been King's book (and it's still not finished because of this!). It's no secret that I've struggled with my writing since my mother passed away, but I'm doing much better with that now. However, I'm still finding King's Wrath hard to write because of all the intricate plots I've got going on. Weaving in his life story plus all the club issues that have been going on for the entire series has been much harder than I ever anticipated. I thought I may struggle with King himself (getting him exactly right) but that hasn't been a problem at all. He's been in my head since 2014 and he is the character of mine who I know the best. I pretty much know him inside out and I don't ever struggle with knowing how he would react to a certain situation, so he just falls onto the page. It's just everything else going on that is making this a difficult book to write. I've also had to write his woman a few times now to get her right. I played with writing the book entirely in his POV also, but decided for the story to work best I wanted her POV in there too. So yeah, this book has been a journey! I'm aiming to finish writing his first book soon! And fingers crossed his second book flows much easier.
4. You seem to enjoy writing complicated, brooding alphas with filthy minds and even filthier mouths. Were you always comfortable getting down and dirty with your book boyfriends or was it something you had to grow into?
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LOL at the filthy. Yes, I love writing that! I remember writing the first sex scene between J & Madison and blushing while I wrote it. Afterwards, I was like "huh, that was actually fun!". By the time Nash's book came, I was completely good with writing the filthy side of my men.
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5. When you first hit publish on Storm, did you ever imagine you’d have two series worth of deliciously dirty bikers out in the world? What did you originally have in mind with J, Madison, and the rest of the Storm MC crew?
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I had no idea that this is where I would be now! I didn't plan that first series in the beginning. I simply wrote Storm and put it out there and went with the flow. That book did extremely well and readers were excited for a second book, so I wrote Scott's book. I wasn't sure what possessed me to say I'd write his next because in Storm he was a complete ass lol! I didn't even really like him in that first book. But I ended up loving writing his story and fell in love with his character. However, the night before I was to publish his book, my friend called me up and told me that she hated him. She'd read his book and told me he was a complete dick and the kind of guy that never grows up. I appreciated her honest feedback but was then completely confused about how to proceed. I mean, it was too late then to change him when I had to publish the book the next day. And besides that, I actually personally loved his character. So I went with my gut and I hit publish the next day. I felt so sick over the whole thing and hadn't heard back from any of the bloggers reading the book, so I closed my computer and took my daughter out for dinner and told her that my publishing career was most likely over. LOL! So it turned out I was right to trust myself on that one because that book hit the USA Today Bestseller list and Scott Cole is one of the series favourites.
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After the success of Fierce, I decided I should get serious about planning out the rest of the series. Back then, I used to fly by the seat of my pants. These days, I'm much more organised with plans for series and mapping them out in advance.
6. Who was your favorite character to write and what was it like being inside their head? Did they make you laugh out loud? Blush profusely? Curse the day they popped into your head?
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I have two favourites - King from the Storm MC series and Charlize from Risk. I love being inside King's head because he's so different to me in pretty much every way. He's decisive, confident in his decisions, gives no fucks what anyone thinks, and he doesn't get bogged down in details. He's a make-it-happen man. And I have to be honest, I love writing his violent side. Not sure what that says about me?! Writing him in King's Wrath, though, has shown me his vulnerable side and honestly, I swoon over that side of him. Being in his head for this book has made so many of his actions in past books so much more understandable. I am fascinated by my writing process and how I can have no understanding of why a character says or does something until much later in the book or even in the series. And then it's like an aha moment where it all becomes clear. A lot of that has happened while writing King! And Charlize - she was so much fun to write because of her hilarious inner thoughts and funny moments. That story was roughly planned, but I had no idea of how the characters would show up on the page because I didn't do any planning for their personality types or anything like that. I simply sat down and decided I needed to think of a funny and mortifying situation a woman could find herself in and then write that to open the book. And Charlize just took off from there. I love her because I feel like she has so many traits that most women can relate to.
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2021 Update: if you’re new to me since 2018, you won’t know who Charlize is. I wrote half her story for an anthology and am still to finish it (gah!). If you loved Scarlett and laughed at her inner thoughts, you’ll love Charlize when I finish her book and publish it!
7. In addition to your MC series, you’ve written a rocker and friends to lovers romance. What other tropes do you hope to tackle in your writing career?
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I have plans for so many! There will be the accidental pregnancy book featuring Avery and Tyler from Steal My Breath. I've got the billionaire trope with Ashton Scott and the office romance/billionaire trope with Risk (I've still got the second book in this duet to write and am really looking forward to that!). I have a book I started writing way before Storm that I want to finish - it features a married couple on the rocks. It was inspired by Pink's album The Truth About Love. I've got the opposites attract novella I wrote about a laid back tattoo artist who falls for an uptight career girl, titled Her Kind of Crazy. I'll be expanding that book and releasing it this year. Other than those, I'd love to write a 'woke up married in Vegas' book, a secret baby book, maybe a jilted bride book, and a marriage of convenience book. I'd also really love to write a small town romance series, and it would definitely need to have a story about a woman who returns to the small town she grew up in and finds love with her first love again *sigh*. Oh, and I'd love to dedicate a whole series of standalones to a second chance romance series. I adore second chance romance!
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2021 Update: So, yeah, I still haven’t finished Risk and I still haven’t expanded Her Kind of Crazy and published that. I seriously have three half finished books so close to ready for publishing, but trying to find the time to get that done is hard. I need way more hours in every day!
8. How do you shape your characters? Are they reflections of the people you have encountered or do you write them the way they speak to you?
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I wouldn't say they are planned as reflections of the people I encounter, but sometimes I find myself writing a character who I later realise was probably influenced by someone I've met. Having said that, there are a few characters I've written who have gone through similar experiences as mine, so they've been partly shaped by some of the people I've known. Generally when I'm planning out a novel and the main characters, I start with their wound and go from there. Everything else about them has to fit into character with that.
9. What do you do to help writer’s block should you encounter it?
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Oh man, I've definitely suffered over the last year with this. I had to ackno
wledge that my self care was lacking and that I had worked myself into burnout. Grief on top of that only made it worse, and then physical injury forced me to take time off and figure it all out. I had to go back to basics with my self care and improve my sleep, eating and movement. Regular massages and physiotherapy helped too. And then just getting out and living life rather than working all the time was also key for me. Girls weekends away are one of my favourite things to do. Taking time away from social media is another key thing, although I do struggle with this when a lot of my work is on social media. And trying to set aside time first thing in the morning for writing is beneficial for me because I tend to write much better then. And lastly, when the words aren't coming on the main book I'm writing, I've found that working on side projects really helps my creativity flow. So I've been slowly working away on some fun side projects the last couple of months and am excited for where they will lead!