Sherry Ewing's Blog, page 58

Medieval Monday with Lane McFarland & a Giveaway!

Welcome to another Medieval Monday hop and a chance to win our First Encounter theme eBooks just by following our blogs and commenting! This weeks guest is Lane McFarland and her snippet from Elsbeth. Happy reading and enjoy.

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Excerpt:

The sister’s violet eyes captured Brandon McLeod’s attention. A white coif surrounded her flawless skin, and he held back a staggering desire to touch her cheek. Would it feel as soft as it looked?

She leaned to the left and wind caught her habit, wildly whipping the black fabric behind her. Stinging sleet peppered his face, and he mentally shook himself. The cold had obviously addled him. The woman was a nun.

BLURB:

Elsbeth MacDougall recoils at the violent Scottish rebellion and the bleak plight of orphans. Vowing to protect the homeless, she embarks on a journey to Scone and sets her course to become a nun, sheltering children from the cruelties of war. But when Brandon McLeod arrives at the Abby, he shakes her convictions and stirs provoking emotions she buried long ago.

After English soldiers murder his family, Brandon McLeod determines a course of revenge and leads numerous clans in Scotland’s fight for freedom. Bent on the annihilation of English oppression, he is resolved to a life of solitude, vowing never to marry and chance the pain of losing loved ones again. However, that was before he met the enchanting Elsbeth.

 BUY LINK: Amazon

Join Lane next week to find out what happens at Elizabeth Hobbes’s blog here!

You can find my 5th week excerpt of For All of Ever on Lane’s blog here, too.

Thanks to everyone who leaves a comment and good luck. Remember… the more you comment and follow us, the bigger your chances to win!

Filed under: Medieval Monday Tagged: #MedievalHop, Be My Guest, Historical Romance, Medieval Monday, Medieval Romance

Cover Reveal for Caroline Warfield

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Cover Reveal!

This beautiful cover for Caroline Warfield’s 2017 Christmas Novella comes with the announcement that the book is available for pre-order from various retailers.

Love is the best medicine and the sweetest things in life are worth the wait, especially at Christmastime in Venice for a stranded English Lady and a dedicated doctor.

About the Book

Lady Charlotte Tyree clings to one dream—to see the splendor of Rome before settling for life as the spinster sister of an earl. But now her feckless brother forces her to wait again, stranded in Venice when he falls ill, halfway to the place of her dreams. She finds the city damp, moldy, and riddled with disease.

As a physician, Salvatore Caresini well knows the danger of putrid fever. He lost his young wife to it, leaving him alone to care for their rambunctious children. He isn’t about to let the lovely English lady risk her life nursing her brother.

But Christmas is coming, that season of miracles, and with it, perhaps, lessons for two lonely people: that love heals the deepest wounds and sometimes the deepest dreams aren’t what we expect.

Pre-order links:

Amazon  |  Smashwords

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About the Author

 Traveler, poet, librarian, technology manager—award winning and Amazon best-selling author Caroline Warfield has been many things (even a nun), but above all she is a romantic. Having retired to the urban wilds of eastern Pennsylvania, she reckons she is on at least her third act, happily working in an office surrounded by windows where she lets her characters lead her to adventures while she nudges them to explore the riskiest territory of all, the human heart. She is enamored of history, owls, and gardens (but not the actual act of gardening). She is also a regular contributor to History Imagined, a blog at the intersection of history and fiction, and (on a much lighter note) The Teatime Tattler, a blog in the shape of a fictional nineteenth century gossip rag.

Her current series, Children of Empire, set in the late Georgian/early Victorian period, focuses on three cousins, driven apart by lies and deceit, who must find their way back from the distant reaches of the empire.

Click here to find out more here.

Filed under: 2017, New Releases Tagged: #Amwriting, #BellesInBlue, Caroline Warfield, New Release

First Kiss Friday with Lane McFarland & a Giveaway!

Today on First Kiss Friday I’d like to welcome Lane McFarland as my guest who will be sharing a first kiss scene from her novel Cameron. Lane is also offering a giveaway of any of her eBooks to one random comment so get busy leaving her a message here on my blog. Happy reading and good luck!

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Excerpt:

“I believe ye owe me yer thanks, Mistress Cameron.”

At his mention of her name, she searched his face. “How do ye know me?”

He chuckled, his deep voice rumbling throughout his thick chest. “I make it my business to know all the bonnie lasses in the area.”

The men behind him laughed.

Her stomach tightened. She was no beauty. He obviously mocked her—in front of his men. Prickly heat tingled across her cheeks.

“I’ll catch up to ye,” Robert called over his shoulder.

“Oh, aye. Once ye’ve taken care of business,” one man asserted.

“Important business to be sure,” the other bantered.

The men chuckled as they nudged their mounts, then trotted down the path and out of sight.

Robert’s gaze lingered on her mouth before he raised it to her eyes. “I believe it’s customary to thank someone when they’ve helped ye.”

Cameron cleared her throat. “Aye, I do thank ye.”

He studied her lips again. “I had something more in mind. Ye know ye’d still be stuck in that tree if I hadn’t come along, so ye owe me.”

His warm breath caressed her face. He bent and placed his mouth on hers. His arms pulled her close, his muscular frame molding her body against his. Stubble scratched her skin, and she inhaled his male scent of leather, and aye, of horse.

She should be horrified at his advances. What was she thinking, allowing a Graham to kiss her so…so wickedly and deliciously? She should push him away and demand he step back, but somehow, she loathed the idea. Indeed, she reveled in the feel of his hard body pressed against hers.

Robert broke the kiss, and she tried to compose herself. He placed his hand on the side of her face and paused, gazing into her eyes. “I just returned from visiting yer da.”

Cameron straightened. “Ye talked to Da?”

Robert searched her eyes, his thumb caressing her cheek. “We have sealed a truce.”

Her eyes widened. “A truce?”

“Aye.” He lifted her hand to his mouth. “And I look forward to getting to know my neighbors much better.”

He kissed her palm, and his whiskers scraped her skin. Tingles shot through her belly, and her breath caught at his dark mesmerizing eyes. They stared at each other through stilted silence. Finally, he stepped back and bowed. “Good day, m’lady.”

He leapt onto his horse. The large black animal pawed at the ground while Robert continued to stare at her. The appearance of his dimples and the sparkle in his eyes caused her stomach to flutter. He turned his horse in the direction of Graham Castle and galloped through the woods.

Her hands trembled. She pressed her fingers to her lips and stepped away from the tree, searching the path he took, but no one was in sight.

 

Blurb:

The Daughters of Alastair MacDougall

Set in late thirteenth century Scotland, this series tells the stories of Laird Alastair MacDougall’s four independent and oftentimes, headstrong daughters coming of age in a country fraught with war and feuds amongst rival clans. Follow his daughters as their lives become intertwined with four fierce, rebel highland warriors bent on eradicating the English soldiers from their homeland.

Cameron

Determined to band Scots together against English tyranny, Laird Robert Graham seals a truce with his feuding neighbor, the MacDougalls. But after his brother is nearly killed in a treacherous attack, Graham kidnaps the laird’s daughter in an act of revenge.

Cameron MacDougall has devoted her life to the healing arts. She’s long rebelled against her father’s feuding ways, but when Robert Graham abducts her, she’s finds herself at the center of the dispute between their families. She expects the anger she feels, not the simmering attraction to the powerful warrior, or the love she develops for his clan.

Can she stop further violence between the clans with her escape? Or will she find her surrender leads to a lasting peace and her own heart’s desire?

Buy Link: Amazon

Bio:

Starting out as an accountant in line with the rest of the corporate echelons struggling up the proverbial ladder, Lane soon realized the long nights and numerous weekends of closing books and reporting financial results no longer appealed. So, she decided to hit the road selling financial software. Jumping from one high-pressured frying pan into the other, the stress of the road-warrior life, and constant deadlines took its toll. She needed a release and found that with her face buried in historical romance books, she could escape to worlds of intrigue with timeless love and happily-ever-after endings. Today, she is fortunate to have found her true passion in writing of spirited heroines and to-die-for-heroes and the romantic love stories between them.

Lane is a southern girl living on top of a mountain in North Georgia and is most happy when surrounded by family and friends. When she’s not writing, you can find her hiking with her husband, or fiddling around in her flower and vegetable gardens, feeding the birds and watching black bears and deer. Lane is blessed to have a wonderful son—her pride and joy, her buddy who, along with her husband, has made her life complete.

Social Media Links:

I love to hear from readers! Here is my email address: mcfarland.lane@gmail.com

Website:  http://lanemcfarland.com

FaceBook:  https://www.facebook.com/LaneMcFarlandAuthor

Twitter:  @LaneMcFarland

Where can readers find your books? Here is my author page. You’ll find all my books listed here. Amazon Author Page

Filed under: First Kiss Friday Tagged: #Amwriting, Be My Guest, Historical Romance, Lane McFarland

Medieval Monday with Bambi Lynn and a Giveaway!

It’s the fourth week in our Medieval Monday First Encounter snippets and giveaway. Please welcome my guest, Bambi Lynn, and her snippet from her novel The Viking ~ Bron. Don’t forget to leave a comment for Ruth to be in the running for our giveaway. Winner’s will be announced after the conclusion of week 14. Happy reading and enjoy!

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Snippet:

Dark hair framed a face that was swollen and tear-streaked. Even in the gloaming, he could see the redness of her cheeks. She was a pretty little thing. Skin as smooth as the waters of a still pond, lips full and lush, a mouth made for kissing and—other things. Her eyes widened when she caught sight of him, and she sucked in a gasp. Her bottom lip trembled.

Her reaction did not surprise him. Women had reacted similarly his whole life.

Blurb

After escaping the brutal tyrant who holds her under his boot, Leda’s newfound hope is shattered to discover her safe-haven to be nothing more than a den of brutal Norsemen, intent on conquering all of Francia and claiming its riches for their own. When she is offered as a bed slave to the fiercest Viking of them all, she despairs to realize freedom comes at a price.

Brondulf Adilson has struck terror into his enemies for as long as he can remember, to include the women who share his bed. Shunned for his frightful appearance, he doesn’t expect compliance from his new thrall and is resigned to forcing her to his will.

But the beauty he finds himself saddle with turns out to be anything but meek and compliant.

Buy Link        Amazon  

Follow along next week at Elisabeth Hobbes’s blog. Be sure to comment for a chance to win an e-copy of Bron.

You can find my snippet on For All of Ever: The Knights of Berwyck, A Quest Through Time Novel (Book One) for this week on Bambi’s blog here.

Filed under: Medieval Monday Tagged: #Amwriting, #MedievalHop, Be My Guest, Blog, Historical Romance, Medieval Monday, Medieval Romance, Writing

First Kiss Friday with guest Nhys Glover

I always love a good time travel novel. On today’s First Kiss Friday, I’d like to introduce you to Nhys Glover and an excerpt from The Titan Drowns. Happy reading and enjoy!

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Excerpt:

Pia didn’t see any crew as she made her way out the companionway onto the Well Deck and then took the short flight of steps to the Poop Deck. It was cold up there at this hour. She shivered, tightened her scarf around her head and neck, scurried into the shelter Marco had told her about, and crouched down to keep hidden.

What would happen to her if she was found on deck after curfew? She didn’t know. But she didn’t want to find out.

After what felt like hours, she heard footsteps approaching. She held her breath and hoped it was not a crew member discovering her hiding place. Luckily, when she looked up she saw it was Marco, his white grin lighting up the night. He dropped down to her side and sandwiched in beside her so that if anyone passed it would look as if he was there alone. He wrapped the blanket he was carrying around their shoulders and snuggled in.

It felt so different to be close to a warm, hard-bodied man. Except for the children, she couldn’t remember a time in the hundreds of years of her life since the LGP that she’d been this close to another human being. She could smell his male scent, subtle but intoxicating. She had to fight the urge to sniff deeper and draw his scent into her lungs.

‘I did not think you would come,’ he said softly. ‘I am late. The last patron left right on eleven and we had to clear the table.’

‘I did not know what the time was. I have no watch.’

‘Why did you come?’ His voice seemed tentative. All his usual charm and confidence were missing.

‘You asked me to. And you helped us. We are grateful.’

‘You did not need to come out of gratitude. I said I would understand.’

‘I… wanted to come.’ She suddenly knew the truth of her words as she said them. She did want to come and spend time with him, even though they had no future, even though he was too handsome by far to be interested in someone like her. He’d asked her to come and she’d wanted to come…

‘Tell me the happiest memory you have,’ Marco said into the silence that had fallen between them.

‘Rolling down a grassy hillside with my brother on a hot summer’s day,’ she answered immediately. ‘It was so hot we had gone swimming in the river, and it was icy because it carried the thaw from the Fiordlands. I think we fell and rolled at first by accident. Then we enjoyed it so much we kept going up to the top of the hill and rolling down it again. I was black and blue afterwards and my mother was furious with us. But it was such fun. If you try to say something when you are rolling like that it comes out all wobbly like this.’ She made her voice vibrate and wobble until Marco laughed.

‘I remember riding on my papa’s shoulders through a marketplace feeling like the king of the world,’ Marco said, after he stopped laughing. ‘My papa was a big man, tall like me, and so he was head and shoulders higher than most people. With me on his shoulders, I could almost touch the sky.’

For a moment, they sat enjoying their memories. ‘I remember the first child I helped. She was lost in the forest and my partner and I were looking for her. We thought we would reach her before she got too deeply into the forest but we were delayed. When we found her, she was so happy she threw herself into my arms and I swung her around and around until we were both dizzy. Then we brought her to… safety. Now she is much loved and very happy.’

‘Your partner?’

‘We work in teams, for safety. Not usually the same person every time. That time it was my first rescue and I was with Ca… Hilda. You know Hilda. She is the pretty blonde with the very tall husband.’

‘Ah yes, as distinct from the very pretty red head with the English husband.’

‘Right. That’s Jane.’

‘You say that like Hilda and Jane are a different species from you. Or they belong to a club that excludes you.’

‘They are very pretty; beautiful, in fact. It is an exclusive club.’

‘You are pretty, too, my sweet mouse. Do not discount yourself so readily.’

‘I am pretty enough, but nothing special. Not very pretty like Jane or Hilda or even Eil… Mary.’

Marco shifted around to the side so he could look her in the eye. His gentle fingers lifted her chin so she could do nothing but meet his incisive gaze. ‘What you look like makes no difference. I should know that better than most. Your beauty shines out through your eyes and it makes you lovelier to me than either Hilda or Jane. ‘

‘I’m nothing special,’ she said softly.

‘You are to me. I can have almost any woman I want. But I want you, sweet mouse. Does that not make you special?’

‘You have tickets on yourself, as Jane would say, Mr Cat,’ she said indignantly, trying to pull away.

‘That saying means I am arrogant? Maybe, but I just speak the truth. It is not a sign of specialness that I can have any woman. I did nothing to get this face or body. I inherited… that is the word, is it not, inherited? I did not earn them. It is nothing to be good looking. It is more important to be sweet and kind and genuine.’

‘Nice,’ she said with a shudder.

‘Sí, nice. There is nothing wrong with nice. I am not nice and I wish I were.’

‘I think you are nice,’ she offered shyly.

‘With you, maybe I am. With you, I want to be nice. Can I kiss you, sweet Petra? Would that make me not nice?’

She drew back a little at the shock of the request. She wasn’t sure if this was part of the game he was playing or something else. But in this moment she didn’t care. More than anything she wanted to be kissed by this handsome Italian.

Something in her face must have given him the answer he was looking for because he moved slowly toward her, lifting her chin up just a little more so he could align his mouth with hers. Then he was kissing her deeply, and the thrill of it thrummed through her system like the vibration of a guitar-string being plucked. Her whole body vibrated and sang out its joy.

She pulled away with a start, terrified by what she was feeling. Terrified by what this man was starting to mean to her.

‘Too much?’ he asked shakily. She was pleased to note that he too was moved by what had happened between them.

‘Yes. Too much, too soon. I can’t… not with you… you cannot know… I… I am sorry; I have to go.’

She tried to climb to her feet, but his hand tightened on her arm and held her in place. ‘I am sorry; I will not do it again. Please stay. Do not leave me yet.’ His voice pleaded with her as her heart pleaded with her. And uneasily she gave in and relaxed back into her place. But now she kept as much space between them as she could.

‘Was that so bad?’ he asked, his obvious concern in every word.

‘Not bad. But I cannot.’

‘Do you belong to another?’

‘No, no of course not. It is not that. You… you and I will go our separate ways in a few days. We will never see each other again. I cannot start something now… when it will end so soon.’

‘But it does not have to end. I will stay in New York. I will court you formally. Then we will marry and I will take you to see the Wild West.’

Her shock was extreme. It tore all thoughts from her mind. All that remained were his intentions. He wanted to court her. He wanted to marry her. How cruel was such an idea when she knew his fate?

‘I cannot! Do not think such things. This is madness; I must go.’ This time he didn’t try to stop her when she climbed to her feet.

Then she was running across the cold deck, away from the first man she had ever wanted, away from the intensity of feeling she had lost the ability to withstand.

  BLURB:

Shy and insecure Pia Rogaland wants nothing more than to save the children. For feisty Elish Cork, it’s the promise of adventure that drives her to commit. And Karl Ontario? He’s a lab geek who never dreamed of stepping outside his medical facility, until the mission to save doomed children on the ill-fated Titanic is proposed and Fate compels him to step up.

While each joins the team for a different reason, they all face the same challenges: How do they identify suitable targets for retrieval to their endangered Utopian world? Once identified, how do they avoid being labelled insane when they attempt to convince those targets that the “unsinkable” Titanic is about to sink and their only hope of survival is to time travel to the future? And if that isn’t enough, how do they each then deal with finding and possibly losing the love of a lifetime in a few, fateful days? For sweet Pia, who falls in love with a man she’s not allowed to save, this last challenge might prove her undoing.

As the clock ticks down to disaster, will any of the ill-fated victims of the Ship of Dreams live long enough to be part of the salvation of the human race, or will more lives be forfeited trying to carry out this audacious mission?

[image error]  AUTHOR BIO:

After a lifetime of teaching others to appreciate the written word, Aussie author Nhys Glover finally decided to make the most of the Indie Book Revolution to get her own written word out to the world. Now, as an Amazon Best Selling Historical Romance author with over 100,000 of her ebooks downloaded internationally, and as a winner of the 2013 SFR Galaxy Award for ‘The Titan Drowns’, Nhys finds her words, too, are being appreciated. These days she makes her home in beautiful Durham County, England, where she “lives the dream” by spending most of her waking hours (and some of her sleeping one, too) writing the kind of novels she loves to read. The ones that are a little bit steamy, a little bit different, and wholly romantic.

LINKS:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0097C40NA

https://www.facebook.com/nhysgloverauthor

https://www.nhysglover.com

 

Filed under: First Kiss Friday Tagged: #Amwriting, Be My Guest, Blog, Time Travel