Friday Favoruites with Talia Hibbert

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I'm excited to have my guest today the lovely Talia Hibbert, author of contemporary interracial romances. She just released her latest one, The Princess Trap, and look at the cover! and the blurb! Who could resist it! 
Read on for a fun interview with Talia and make sure to scroll to the end of the post for an exclusive excerpt from The Princess Trap!


Meet Talia

1. Favourite place
My favourite place in the whole world is actually very boring. I love my bedroom. My bed lies under a large window, and through that window I can see the sunset, and it paints wonderful colours across the sky. At night, I can see all of the stars, because in front of my house there’s only fields for miles. No light pollution. Sometimes I open the windows and lie on my bed and watch the sky until I get cold.

2. Favourite food and drink
My favourite food is sweet potato; specifically baked sweet potato with lots of salt and chilli. I love the fact that it’s orange inside. It makes me happy. My favourite drink is water, because it feels like drinking life, or cleanliness or something. I probably sound really healthy now, but I’m not. I have a sugar addiction. It’s quite bad. 

3. Favourite music/genre/artist/song
I absolutely adore music in general, so this is hard. My favourite artist is, of course, Beyoncé. One time I touched her and we made eye contact and she smiled at me. That was four years ago and I have been blessed ever since. My favourite genre would have to be RnB; it’s a gift. Indie rock comes a close second. My favourite song changes every few years, but right now it’s Bad to the Bone by Little Sims, because every time I hear it I feel it in my chest.

4. Favourite movie/TV series
Again, this is hard! All I do is stay in my room and read/watch/listen to cool stuff, so you’re killing me with these questions. I’m gonna choose a TV series and say... My Wife and Kids. The nostalgia factor is real, and Michael reminds me of my dad. Take from that what you will.

5. Favourite hobby besides writing, if you consider writing a hobby
Makeup! I love doing my makeup. I don’t often wear it outside the house; I just like playing with my face.

6. Favourite books
Oh, God. This is extra hard because once I read a book, I tend to forget all about it. Even if it was the best book in the world and it broke my heart or whatever. I’ve been trying to do better and keep track via Goodreads, but I’m struggling. So, please enjoy this disorganised and incomplete list, which comes to you in no particular order: 

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms x N.K. Jemisin

A Promise of Fire x Amanda Bouchet 

Down by Contact x Santino Hassell

Hold Me x Courtney Milan

Signal Boost x Alyssa Cole

Glutton for Pleasure x Alisha Rai

Tamed x Rebekah Weatherspoon

Romancing the Inventor x Gail Carriger

7. Please introduce your latest release.

My latest release juuust came out, on the 8th of February. It’s called The Princess Trap and it’s a royal romance featuring a fake engagement, which is something I’ve never written about before. 

I’ve always loved princess stories, but black princesses are severely underrepresented. (Side note: shoutout to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella for keeping my tiny dreams alive.) A certain royal engagement reminded me that monarchy is a real thing that actually exists (wild, I know), so I decided to take advantage of that and write something about it. Something with lots of kissing and black girl magic, of course. 

Here is a list of things you can expect from The Princess Trap: 

- a Scandinavian prince 

- a fake relationship

- a globetrotting cat

- frequent lipstick applications 

- secrets whispered in the dark 

- adorable families 

- plus one not-so-adorable family 

- fairy cakes 

It’s gonna be a wild ride. 

Title: The Princess Trap
Author: Talia Hibbert
Genre/Themes: Contemporary, Interracial romance, Royals

Add to Goodreads
Purchase links: Amazon US / Amazon UK 

Blurb

He’s reckless, dominant, and deliciously dirty. This prince is no fairytale. 

Prince Ruben of Helgmøre knows exactly what he wants—and his current obsession is Cherry Neita. Everything from her rollercoaster curves to her fearsome attitude commands his attention. 

And best of all? She has no idea who Ruben is.

Until the paparazzi catch them in a dark alley, her scarlet lipstick smudged, and his hands somewhere naughty…

All Cherry wanted was a night or two with the hottest man she’d ever seen. Turns out, that man is actually a prince, and now he needs her to play princess. 

Well, princess-to-be. One year as his fake fiancée, and he’ll make all her problems disappear. Easy. Right? 

Wrong. 

The closer Cherry gets to Ruben, the brighter their passion burns. But the royal family hides dark secrets, and their palace is a diamond-studded trap.

Can true love bloom from false beginnings? Or will this fairytale end in a happy-never-after?


Author Bio and Links

Talia Hibbert is a writer and educator from England, U.K., by way of both the West Indies and West Africa. She writes contemporary, interracial romance novels featuring steamy love scenes and bad jokes. In her free time, she eats lots of ice cream despite being lactose intolerant. 


Excerpt

The room was veiled with inky darkness. As he shut the door behind him, his vision blanked out completely. But he waited, knowing his eyes would find the faintest scrap of light somewhere, if he gave them a chance. He’d spent a lot of time locked in dark rooms as a kid. 

Sure enough, the outlines of furniture came into view, so faint and shadowed he wasn’t sure if he really saw them, or somehow sensed them. But those were the kinds of fanciful thoughts he’d taken comfort in as a child—maybe I’m special, maybe I have powers, and one day I’ll use them to make everyone pay. 

Now he was an adult, and he knew that his supposed night vision was thanks to cracks in the curtains and underneath the doors, and pupils wide enough to drink in those drops of light and put them to use. 

He moved gingerly through the room, still managing to catch a side table with his hip, but not falling over anything or otherwise disgracing himself. When he reached the foot of Cherry’s bed, he felt a little presumptuous sitting down—but the darkness was too disorientating for him to stand on ceremony.

“Oh, by all means,” she said acidly as he sank onto the mattress. “Make yourself at home.”

“There’s at least four feet of space between us, so don’t have a fit.”

“Why the hell did I tell you to come in?”

Ruben sighed. “I don’t know. I’m insufferable. I apologise.”

He received nothing but silence in reply. He couldn’t quite grasp the quality of that silence. Was she agreeing, or simply surprised by his words, or too tired to bother with conversation? He supposed it didn’t matter. 

“Believe it or not,” he said, “I didn’t come here to irritate you.” The words reminded him of conversations with his siblings. He was beginning to think he had issues. He felt the sting of rejection too keenly, and yet, he chased it down.

“So why did you come?” She demanded. Even though she’d been lying in the dark, she didn’t sound tired. But then, as far as he could tell, she spent all day in the library reading books and playing with her cat.

So he just said, “Our meetings aren’t going well.”

“Meetings,’ she murmured. “Is that what we’re calling them?”

“I don’t see what else we could call them,” he said reasonably. “Preparation for the Grand Deception?”

She snorted. Which was close to a laugh, right? He’d made her laugh once. Before she’d learned to be wary of him. 

Spurred on by that snort—edged in derision though it was—he tried again. “Improving Cherry’s Ruben-Threshold?”

“Something like that,” she admitted. She shifted slightly on the bed, and he felt the motion through the mattress as if they were lying side by side. He’d said there was distance between them, but he had the oddest feeling that if he reached out, his hand would find her ankle, or her calf. He laced his fingers together and put them firmly in his lap.

“I know this is hard,” he said. “And I know you don’t like me, and you don’t trust me. But this will go easier on both of us if we know something about each other once we leave this place. And fuck, I wish we didn’t have to, but we do. I do.”

“And I do too,” she murmured. “I decided to do this. I agreed to it. And I suppose I have been… shirking my obligations. Which isn’t the way I usually behave.”

He chose his words carefully. “I think you could be forgiven for feeling unlike yourself, at the moment.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” she said dryly. “But the world keeps turning, and all that. I think I’ve wallowed long enough. It doesn’t really suit me.”

“If you’ve been wallowing, it was the most graceful and glamorous wallowing I’ve ever seen.”

She did laugh at that; an adorable little giggle that bubbled out like water from a fountain. She tried to hide it; he could tell. He couldn’t see her, but he’d bet money on the fact that she’d put a hand over her mouth. Didn’t matter. In the quiet of the night, and with the way she captured his attention so very thoroughly, he couldn’t miss it. And the sound made him bold.

“I want to know you,” he said, honestly enough. But he clambered up the bed as he said it, finding the headboard with outstretched hands before settling down beside her.

She tutted. “You think you’re so smooth.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She tugged at the covers. “You’re hogging the blankets.”

“I’m not even under the blankets.”

“I should bloody well hope not. But you’re lying on them and it’s pulling them off me.” He felt her foot knock into his calf through the covers, a glancing blow. He wasn’t sure if she’d kicked him on purpose or if she’d come across him by accident and snatched herself away in the next breath. He wanted her to do it again. 

But that wasn’t why he’d come, he reminded himself sternly.

“I think we should play twenty questions,” he said.

Her reply was doused in sarcasm. “Oh, really? Are you going to ask me if I’ve ever kissed a boy?”

“No. I save that sort of thing for truth or dare.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I certainly am. Shall I go first?”


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