Haunting Warrior by Erin Quinn

Hi Lee!  Thank you so very much for having me back on your blog!  I had a lot of fun the last time I was here.  I appreciate the opportunity to talk about my latest release and do a giveaway!  You have such an amazing line up of guests, that I feel honored to be on the list.  :)

That said, I want to tell you about Haunting Warrior, which is being re-released in mass market paperback today (and that means the Trade edition price finally comes down, yay!) I also want to tell you a bit about my 99 cent quick read, Irish Mist and THEN I want to do a giveway!  First up, Haunting Warrior.

HAUNTING WARRIOR Summary:

Rory McGrath’s life changed the night he uncovered the secrets of the ancient Book of Fennore. Then the dreams begin of a woman whose touch is more real that any he’s known. Rory is plunged back in time and into the body of another man betrothed to the very woman of Rory’s dreams. Her hold on Rory is inescapable. She is his doom. His salvation. And his destiny.

Scene you like the most and would never cut?

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 then 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.

What you think readers will like best about this book:   Rory and Saraid were made for one another—and it is the dance of two wary individuals who have met their match I loved most about writing this story and I think readers will find most intriguing.  Six-four and ripped from shoulders to abs, Rory is tough on the outside and lost on the inside.  He’s shunned his heritage and the very magic that has shaped his family for centuries, but Rory can’t help what he is…a man with powers he’s yet to tap and with a fierce yearning for the woman who is now his wife.

For Saraid, life has always been hard.  Saraid is visited by the dead, warned of their pending deaths and yet unable to stop the deaths from happening.  She is feared by others and she’s learned not to trust anyone.  But when the blue eyes of the man she’s wed offer her a chance at something she never thought to have, Saraid cannot say no.

What’s next?

The final installment of my Mists of Ireland series released on October 2011 (although I must confess, there are a few characters that just refuse to let me go until I tell their stories…like Eamonn and Liam and maybe Jamie….).  I’ve recently released a few fun novellas that are currently on sale for 99 cents.  The latest is Irish Mist—Can Kasey trust the bond he's formed with the woman who stepped out of his dreams and into his arms, or will he lose everything in a single mistake?  You can find information on all my books and upcoming releases at www.erinquinnbooks.com/books

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. 

I love to hear from readers and want to know how you like your paranormal.  Is it vampires?  Shapeshifters?  Angels, clairvoyance, magic, or….?  2 lucky commenters will win reader’s choice of Erin’s ebooks:  Echoes, Whispers or Web of Smoke.  So talk to me!

***Erin's winners are Tina B and Connie!  Ladies please email me at totebag@authorsoundrelations.com with your mailing details!***