I’m excited to have Erin Quinn visiting here at the blog today.  Not only is she a wonderful storyteller, she has some of the yummiest heroes ever.  Look below, and you’ll see what I mean. 

Erin, welcome and thanks for dropping in.  Take it away!

Barbara, thank you so much for having me on your blog today!  You have the nicest readers and it’s always such a pleasure to be a guest here.  I really appreciate the chance to talk about Haunting Warrior, Book Two in my Mists of Ireland Series.  (Re-released on Mar 6 in mass market paperback, available now wherever books are sold)

Haunting Warrior 

It started the night Rory MacGrath’s father vanished from the cavern beneath the castle ruins—sucked into another world, taking Rory along with him.  Somehow Rory’s sister managed to pull him back, but from that moment on Rory has never felt whole.  In fact, he feels like a part of himself was left behind.  And deep down, Rory fears it’s the most important part . . . the good part.

It was the moment Rory confessed this fear to me that I fell head over heels in love with him.  Disconnected from his past, his family, and even his heritage, Rory might have convinced himself that he doesn’t mind being alone and that he doesn’t long to be loved, but he couldn’t fool me.  I felt his pain. I knew his heart.

Tough on the outside and lost on the inside, I knew that all Rory needed was a woman who could help him see his own strengths—a woman who would challenge him to rise above the past that has crippled him emotionally and force him to step back into the circle of the living. She couldn’t be just any woman and she certainly wasn’t easy to find. In fact, Rory had to travel through time to reach her.

Thrust back in time to ancient Ireland, Rory opens his eyes to find himself in the body of another man—a man who is about to marry the very woman Rory has been dreaming about. Suddenly, Rory is fighting for his life—and the life of his new bride. Their enemies are everywhere and the odds of surviving dwindle with each passing moment. But now that Rory has met the woman of his dreams, now that he has touched, tasted, and made love to that woman, he realizes that he doesn’t want to be alone anymore. He will fight to protect her. He will fight to free them both from a fate the future feels determined to deliver.

He will be the warrior she needs him to be and he will fight for love . . . or he will die trying.

Here’s a brief excerpt of one of my favorite scenes.  Saraid’s people have been hunted down and all but annihilated.  In desperation, her brother has arranged for her to marry the enemy and make him their ally.  Terrified, but determined to meet her fate with dignity, Saraid agrees to become the wife of Ruairi the Bloodletter, named for his cruelty and violent nature.  But on her wedding day she discovers her new husband is not the Bloodletter at all, but someone who wears the same face and looks at her with a stranger’s eyes. 

Below is the scene when she first realizes there is more to her new husband than the cruel warrior she sees.  Her perceptions are filled with contradictions and I loved writing the complex emotions she experiences.

There were too many to fit into the tiny church, so they gathered on the pathway before it. For a moment, no one moved or spoke. Then Cathán pulled a blue ribbon from his tunic and stepped forward, giv­ing Saraid and the Bloodletter the signal to face one another. On wobbly legs, Saraid turned to the man she would wed. The monk in his long coarse robes emerged from the small gathering and stood patiently waiting for Saraid to put her right hand in the Bloodletter’s left. Her left in his right, wrists crossed. With a satisfied grunt, Cathán began to twine the ribbon around their hands, over and under until the knot of eter­nity was complete. She was numb through the monk’s speaking of the vows. If she did not know better, she would say the Bloodletter was feeling the same. There was a gleam of something that might have been panic in those blue, blue eyes. Did he dread this as much as she? But that would mean Ruairi the Bloodletter had feelings, and that could not be true.

She took a deep breath when he lowered his head to kiss her, feel­ing dizzy and sickened and something else she could not define. As if sensing the turmoil inside her, he caught her gaze and held it for a moment, his searching, probing. She felt as if he were trying to say something with those enigmatic eyes, and for a flashing instant she felt again that sense of another lurking behind the sky blue of them. What a frightening mystery this man was.

And then his mouth settled over hers and thought fled. His kiss was warm and soft when she’d expected cold and hard. The touch of his lips gentle and coaxing when she’d prepared for rough and inva­sive. The kiss was brief, and yet it felt that time stopped for the length of it, giving her the chance to feel every nuance, every unexpected instant. It seemed he tried to pull back and then hesitated, allowing just another moment of the contact that shocked her like a hot ember popping from a blazing fire to burn her. With their hands bound and trapped between their bodies, Saraid could do little more than allow it. She’d be allowing so much more later, when they were alone.

He pulled away, just enough so that he could look into her eyes again, and she saw something there that she did not understand. Con­fusion that matched her own. A need—but not the kind she’d ex­pected. Not lust, but longing.

Then he was stepping back and a mask came over his features once more. His father stared at him for a moment, the look hard and warn­ing, the message unmistakable. It was only then that it occurred to her that the Bloodletter might be as much a pawn as she.

Haunting Warrior is available now at all bookstores and online booksellers in mass market paperback and electronic formats.  Amazon      Barnes & Noble      Books-a-Million      Indie Bound

 

Also new this month, look for Irish Mist, a e-novella quick-read for 99 cents. 

Amazon     

Barnes & Noble     

All Romance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Erin Quinn

is an award winning author who writes romance for the thinking reader.  Her books have been called “riveting,” “brilliantly plotted” and “beautifully written” and have won, placed or showed in the Booksellers Best, WILLA Award for Historical fiction, the Orange Rose, Readers Crown, Golden Quill, Best Books, and Award of Excellence. 

Go to www.erinquinnbooks.com for more information or follow Erin on FB http://www.facebook.com/ErinQuinnAuthor or twitter @ErinQuinnAuthor. 

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Erin says:

Today I’m giving away an eBook copy of Echoes or Whispers (reader’s choice).   Tell me, what makes a hero sigh-worthy for you?

Barbara adds:

Erin, thanks so much for the wonderful introduction and excerpt!

Readers, didn’t I tell you to be on the lookout for yummy? 

Don’t forget to leave a response to Erin’s question for a chance to win your choice of one of her giveaway books.  The drawing will close Friday, March 16th.  Check back here on Sunday, March 18th, to see if your name was drawn.

Thanks for visiting the blog today!

Best,

Barbara