Blog Tour + #Giveaway: Morning Star by Kris Jayne @kris_jayne @XpressoTours

Morning Star
Kris Jayne
(Lone Star Crossed Saga, #3)
Publication date: June 15th 2023
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

The marriage is fake, but the passion is real.

Famous for his last name, devilish Anthony Star-Hunter is the black sheep of the Star clan. He’s an expert at using his tall, dark, and handsome charm to get women into bed—the last remnant of his declining hard-party escapades.

But the bucks are about to stop here. His grandfather’s will demands he marry to inherit his fortune. Anthony panics. Even with his bad boy allure, how the hell is he going to find a tolerable bride, like, yesterday?

The minute Sarah Pennington spots the tattooed muscles her new stepsister’s ex hides under his Italian suits, she rolls her eyes. Anthony is not for her. And with her father maybe headed to prison for a financial fiasco, she’s had enough bad male behavior. She’s responsible. She’s hard-working. She…can’t stop having naughty dreams about the sexy “celebutant.”

At a beach-side wedding, a drunken mishap throws Sarah into Anthony’s bed, and he’s intrigued. Can he convince her to give fake marriage a chance? Can she convince herself to keep her heart out of the deal?

Their slow-burn, un-love affair isn’t what either expect, but it might be what both of them need forever.

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Interview with Kris Jayne

How many books have you written and which is your favorite?

I’ve written fifteen books. Asking me to name a favorite is like asking a parent to pick their favorite baby, but I have a soft spot for Enchanting You, book five in my previous series. It’s my weird little outlier enemies-to-lovers book with a psychic heroine who is scheming against the hero the entire book but, oops, falls in love. The hero’s father is a ghost and appears to the heroine throughout the book. It’s probably not the most marketable thing to insert a quasi-paranormal book into a regular contemporary series, but I just really wanted to write it. So I did.

My new book, Morning Star, has one of my favorite scenes I’ve ever written. It’s a post-marriage argument between my anxious, responsibility-obsessed heroine, Sarah, and her devil-may-care new husband. Since it’s a marriage of convenience, they haven’t yet admitted their feelings for one another, but it’s a sexy, fun, heartfelt scene that pushes them toward their happy ending.

If you’re planning a sequel, can you share a tiny bit about your plans for it?

Morning Star is the third book in my current series, and I already have book four underway. Originally, Anthony’s story was book four, but after some of the reveals and drama of book two, I had to move his book up in the order.

Book four will be Cross Roads, and it picks up a romance introduced in book two and carried through in book three. Jasmine and Gabe have been flirting and bickering, and now it’s time for them to fall in love. It starts with a camping trip in Big Sur that goes awry, and they’re stuck together with only one tent. It’s another opposites attract story. Jasmine is a doctor, but she’s also into metaphysics and she teaches at a wellness retreat in California. Gabe is a hyper-rational geologist who’s attracted to her as much as he’s annoyed by her woo-woo side.

Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?

My Lone Star Crossed Saga is a soapy, family drama series with an overarching story, but I don’t like romance cliffhangers. Each book tells the complete story of a featured couple as a stand-alone romance.

The series starts with the Texas oil billionaire patriarch, J.P. Star, dying and setting conditions in his will for his heirs. In doing so, he reveals that he had a secret child before he married his wife, and so those grandchildren are thrown into the Star family. The Cross grandchildren are black. The Star grandchildren are white. So the series unravels a multicultural family drama with lots of secrets and scheming.

How did you come up with the title for your book?

Each book has either a Star or Cross in the featured couple and the title. This one features Anthony Star-Hunter. He’s a recovering bad boy with a devilish streak, so I went with Morning Star, aka Lucifer.




How long did it take you to write this book?

About a year. I wrote bits and pieces of it while I was finishing Cross My Heart and Circle the Stars, but I’d guess it was a year of dedicated writing.




What does the title mean?

Morning Star is a reference to Lucifer and the hero’s bad boy past. He’s been tempting the heroine since the first night they met—even though she was determined to be taken in by him. Anthony and Sarah end up bringing light into each other’s lives.




What did you learn when writing the book?

I always fall down research rabbit holes, and I admit some of it barely makes it onto the page. I researched Florence because that’s where the couple honeymoons. I’ve been there, but it’s been about ten years. I researched classic cars because I decided Anthony needed to own one.

But besides those facts, I’m happy with the steamy scenes in this book. Sometimes it’s hard to create new ways for the couples to hook up and make sure that the scenes further character development and story. I feel like I learned even more how to weave heart and humor into the heat for unskippable sexy times.

What surprised you the most?

How much fun it was to write a modern marriage of convenience story. I read a ton of historical romance, and I wanted to mirror the story of a debutante compromised at a garden party in a contemporary romance. It almost makes me want to venture into writing historical romance. Almost. Given how distracted I can be by research, I’d probably never finish it.




Have you ever killed off a character your readers loved?

No. I killed off a couple of villains in my last series, and that was super fun. My books have hard times and angst, but ultimately, I want good people to have happy endings. That’s why I write romance.




What do you do to get inside your character’s heads?

I start with the character’s backstory and motivations. Sometimes I’ll align them with certain archetypes using an archetype oracle deck that I have. Are they a fool or an innocent? Are they a trickster or a martyr? But mostly, I start with some contrasts between the two protagonists, put them in a scene together, and just write. They’ll start to tell me who they are, and I just kind of know. Anthony or Sarah would never do XYZ. It’s a pretty intuitive process for me, and I don’t plot my books in advance. I create an outline of the story and character arcs when I’m about halfway through writing.

Author Bio:

Kris Jayne is a devoted writer, reader, and traveler, crafting addictive contemporary romance novels with heat and heart. She spends her days blissfully sweating out the writing process in the Dallas area with her dogs, Otis the Shih Tzu, Rocco the Terrier, and Red the Foxy Mutt.

Her passion for writing is only matched by her passion for the adventures of travel. In 2008, she let a friend talk her into sleeping outside for the first time in her life when she climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.

P.S. If you’re buying her a gift, she has a penchant for single-malt Scotch and scarves.

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