29 Monday Apr 2019
Plenty slainte in Glencoe last few days.
Games of pool played- 4
Games of pool won – 4
Miles walked—- Many
Amount of walks – 4 …
Drink consumed–no telling
Weather– pretty Baltic
Amount of laughs–tons
Bands listened to -1
20 Thursday Dec 2018
Tags
Black Wolf Books, His Judas Bride, Historical Scottish Brides, Lucia de Lammermoor, Shehanne Moore, The Bride of Baldoon, Walter Scott
Today…
Today His Judas Bride is out in paperback. FOR THE FIRST TIME.
So I thought, why not just get the dudes to help me blog this lovely blog I wrote way back about brides. Scottish brides in particular. There is surely nothing like rooting a piece of fiction in reality. Of course I was going to get Bobby Bub to tell us all about his lovely bride Olga.
But there, as you can see he has forgotten.
I don’t think so. It might bore you so you fall asleep at your present making.
Okay so…where were we…? Yes. Rooting fiction in reality. And why, having chosen Glencoe as a setting, I then thought, well what kind of book would I want to write.
Scotland has a proud reputation for brides. Yes.
Lucia de Lammermoor. Okay. Italian yeah I get it. An opera from the book, The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott no less. Aka the Bride of Baldoon. No matter the version you accept of the story, the facts leading to the wedding day and its aftermath are always the same. She was a nobleman’s daughter in love with someone else, after the wedding feast Mr was found with a dagger in his heart.
You know I think it just was.
Then…Then there was the Cumming bride, whose lovely father agreed to her marrying into the Mackintoshes so his clan could enjoy a little banquet carve up over the hors d’oevres. When it came to exchanging rings this was somewhat difficult, since the bride’s hands had been hacked off as she clung to the castle battlements. The hand-fasting ribbons would have made wonderful bandages as you can see… had she not fallen to her death. 
Or even…dare I mention it… ribbons for decorating Christmas pressies? Moving swiftly on as she did, how about the bride story that rocked Cromarty concerning a woman who appeared from nowhere, married the laird and disappeared…well she didn’t just quite disappear, she went off with a man in black.
Man as in the devil after he turned up at the feast looking for her. Neither he nor she were ever seen again and it was very clear she did not want to go with him either. What with all that inspiration, how could I not write a story about a bride?
As for the plum cake Ulla had probably labored all day to make, or maybe it was Ewen McDunnagh, it was in as many pieces as the plate it had sat on.
Talking was not a wise decision.
“Do you know I used to go about this glen, with a black wolf pelt on my shoulder?”
She didn’t. Firstly, the vision was surreal. But she didn’t want to say so, when this had gone so badly wrong and he was standing in the center of the carnage with his back to her so she couldn’t see his face.
“I got it from the devil.”
She edged a breath. Most people with any desire to go about Lochalpin dressed like that, would just have killed a wolf, maybe waited till they found a dead one to get the pelt. Him now?
“The self same day Morven died. It let me take care of quite a bit of business when I wore it.”
No wonder. If he was telling her all this, maybe she should say something? But when the things he’d said about protecting her were too unnerving, how could she? Unless they were part of the game? Bringing her here, when he was knew fine why she’d come. Part of it anyway. The other bit? All of it? She swallowed.
“Well anyway.” He straightened, strode to the door. A few muttered words were exchanged with Wee Murdie.
Kara moistened her lower lip. Had the time been spent where she should have said something?
He turned to her. “Maybe if I’d kept that pelt I’d have taken care of this business a little sooner and a bit better but I didn’t. And you’re really leaving me no choice.”
————————————————–
If he knew how to stop this he would
Desiring her could be murder.
To love, honor, and betray…
To get back her son, she will stop at nothing…
Dire circumstances have forced Kara McGurkie to forget she’s a woman. Dire circumstances force her to swear to love and honor, to help destroy a clan, when it means getting back her son. But when dire circumstances force her to seduce her fiancé’s brother on the eve of the wedding, will the dark secrets she holds and her greatest desire be enough to save her from his powerful allure?
To save his people, neither will he…
Since his wife’s murder, Callm McDunnagh, the Black Wolf of Lochalpin, ruthlessly guards heart and glen from dangerous intruders. But from the moment he first sees Kara he knows he must possess her, even though surrendering to his passion may prove the most dangerous risk of all.
She has nothing left to fear except love itself…
Now only Kara can decide what passion can save or destroy, and who will finally learn the truth of the words… Till death do us part.
03 Monday Dec 2018
Posted in Author Interviews, blogging, book tour, Glencoe, heroes, heroines, highlanders, Romance, Scottish, writing
Tags
Glencoe, Highland Romance, highlanders, His Judas Bride, Location, Location in writing, Scottish, The Deivl's Staircase, The Hidden Valley Glencoe, The Lochan Glencoe
Shey – Yup. Indeed I’ve been meaning to blog it and show off a few pics of that weekend….ages ago now.
Shey….including the moveable summit there above. I say that cos mountains in Glencoe are a bit like writing books that way. You think you’re there when you’re not. Indeed you could say that about this whole biz.
But location? Yep. Kate Furnivall said something last post about it being another character in a book and for me that says it all. It may not have goal, motivation or conflict BUT you ignore it at your peril if you want to bring your book to life. So I always look to choose a location, or invest a place, a house for example, with characteristics that will hopefully do that.
Glencoe has been a special place for me, for many years. And when it came to thinking of what I could
blog about this book, well, it’s a place of savage grandeur , I thought given I’ve a lot of different readers now, so why not the places that found their way into the book?
Besides I got Christmas baking to do and get in the freezer.
In writing His Judas Bride, I wanted to write about the Highlands as I know them. And the clans as history tells us. That’s with a lot of bloodshed and savagery, oh and double crossing.
So…. Location one that found its way into the book–
One -The Devil’s Staircase.
The most obvious way to stop her from leaving Lochalpin—and it was written in his blood, he damn well would—was to station men at the top of the pass. He’d done that. Hell. Four days now. He’d done everything.
Seen above there in the snow….. which used to cut the Highlands off in the winter months often as not. So yeah, there’s a ton of snow in this story. There’s also the Staircase.
In 1692, the path was the approach route for the (apparently delayed) troops coming from Kinlochleven to provide reinforcements for the Massacre of Glencoe in which 38 people died at the hands of billeted soldiers, who had come as ‘guests’ – the only Trojan hamster…oops… horse way in to the glen at that time. I may have renamed Glencoe, Lochalpin, but the Trojan horse principle is the core of the book.
Famously? In personal terms? Well the scene of a turn back off the range behind it in June, covered in ice, in Arctic conditions.
TWO – The Hidden Valley
Not once in the last hour, as she’d edged along that treacherous gully, expecting to pepper the rocks hundreds of feet below, with her bones at any moment, had she any idea anyone was following
Famously, the scene of one incident where our party handed out hotel towels– be prepared is my mountain motto, specially with things taken from everyone else, sure the hotel was delighted NOT–and formed a chain across a raging burn to rescue a stranded party, as you do in Glencoe….
‘And the Macdonalds hid their stolen cows here?’ I asked the first time I was ever here. I mean the coos must have had quite a climb, how they got along the rake with their big cloppers, never mind the one slip and that’s it bit, I couldn’t tell you. But ideal for giving Kara second thoughts about getting out the place again once things start to fall apart. Oh, and maybe taking you dudes to, next time I visit……
Location three
The Lochan –
Knew it, didn’t he—what a stunning specimen he was. More stunning in fact than the plate-glass loch, the iced mountains that rose like sentinels around it.
All right…man made under the most romantic circumstances by Lord Strathcona, https://shehannemoore.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/she-had-seduced-him/ so here doubling as the lovely loch of Lochalpin. Naturally in the story it has a castle out on the loch, and the Black Wolf and his bunch of bandits live in underground caves on the shore…so let’s not hang about here either…..
Famously- okay, ‘fessing up here.. our party once got rid a large half tree trunk here that had been cluttering our boot.
And lastly
Four – Eilean Munde…….
‘“Has no one told you about the Isle of the Saints, then?”
“The w-what?” But perhaps that was because she’d always been more acquainted with the Isle of the Sinners.
No not a person. A place. The burial island once used by the Stewarts of Ballachulish, the MacDonalds of Glencoe and the Camerons of Callart. The clans shared the island and the maintenance of the graves, even when they were responsible for putting one another in them. Also the site of a chapel built by St. Fintan Mundus…naturally chapel and island doubles for the Island of the Saints, a place Kara rather unwillingly becomes acquainted with. Famously in my own book of life, near the spot where we wrecked the local cafe’s grass when our car sunk into it…..
That’s good dudes, cos see that island. Next time that’s where you’re going. And since you can’t swim it’s where you’ll be staying too. Now I am gonna to open the voddie and do the cossack dance…….
To love, honor, and betray…
To get back her son, she will stop at nothing…
Dire circumstances have forced Kara McGurkie to forget she’s a woman. Dire circumstances force her to swear to love and honor, to help destroy a clan, when it means getting back her son. But when dire circumstances force her to seduce her fiancé’s brother on the eve of the wedding, will the dark secrets she holds and her greatest desire be enough to save her from his powerful allure?
To save his people, neither will he…
Since his wife’s murder, Callm McDunnagh, the Black Wolf of Lochalpin, ruthlessly guards heart and glen from dangerous intruders. But from the moment he first sees Kara he knows he must possess her, even though surrendering to his passion may prove the most dangerous risk of all.
She has nothing left to fear except love itself…
Now only Kara can decide what passion can save or destroy, and who will finally learn the truth of the words… Till death do us part.
24 Saturday Nov 2018
CHAPTER ONE
Scotland, long ago and far away
Never look at the moon as you reach for the stars…
Displaying herself half naked had never been part of the plan. Especially not in a see-through scarlet dress, in the middle of a raging snowstorm. But Lord Ewen McDunnagh was handsome so a plan could change.
It was unfortunate it should change so soon when he was also a drunk with a reputation for hiking the skirts of all women between the ages of fifteen and fifty and she’d still to gain entry to Lochalpin, but then again a knife jabbed her throat–his. So why not?
Show herself fully naked either? Well? Wasn’t she meant to be alluring, despite the fact it killed her to the fossilized back ends of her chattering teeth?
“Lady McGurkie.”
Behind her, Kendrick—who else?—sounded as if he was hunched in abject despair over his palfrey.
When it later came to him describing her behavior, slut and she has learned nothing weren’t words her bastarding, old father would exactly want to hear. But the stars could only be reached in Lochalpin. That place no stranger had set foot in in five years. Alive anyway. Here she was on the doorstep.
So the first thing wasn’t to ignore the way the snowflakes glistening in Lord Ewen’s umber colored hair, had just caused her jaw to drop when he first rode through the curtain of snow, the fact he was hard strength in worn leather and his voice when he’d told her to stop in his name, was richer than winter blackberries, too. The first thing was to get over it at all costs. The doorstep that was. That she’d been told to expect a troll and this wasn’t a troll wasn’t even secondary.
What exactly was Lord Ewen going to do if she didn’t shut her cloak which, actually, it had killed her to open? Send her back down the pass with her father’s men? Hardly. If it was his brother, the terror of her glen, perhaps. But it had been agreed he wouldn’t be here today.
Fisting the reins to control her nickering mount, she raised her chin.
“Thank you, Kendrick but I do think I’m capable of handling this. Lord Ewen, sir. I’m your bride, here at last after an arduous journey through the storm. So … so if you would just be so kind, so good …” Good was not something he looked like he was much accustomed to being. Except perhaps in bed? So maybe being good was something she should skip over, “as to remove … “
“My bride?”
“Yes. To be, that is, sir. Because of course, we are not wed … yet.”
“Hmm …”
His sea-green glare said yet would be a long time coming–if at all–that he found her left nostril more appealing. Thankfully him wanting her was optional. In fact, if five years in her father’s dungeon had destroyed her allegedly famous allure, think of the hassle it saved her if he didn’t when she’d been expecting a troll and this wasn’t a troll.
There were shores she’d once danced on. This wasn’t one.
“Lady Kara—” Kendrick muttered again.
“Yes. Lady Kara McGurkie, my lord. Will you please stop interrupting me Kendrick, thank you? Chief … Chief Ian Dhub’s oldest daughter, in case you’ve somehow forgotten.”
Lord Ewen lowered his gaze, edged his lip with his tongue. The faintly rueful smile was the first, tiniest crack in his veneer.
Good. It would be a disaster if every piece of tittle-tattle ever to slip past his brother, Callm the Black Wolf, was just that and he’d changed his mind about this wedding.
Or he thought there was something untoward about her, sitting here dressed like this. But she could relax. Finally the glen beckoned.
“The tinker chief bastard’s daughter, my bride?” He thrust the dagger back in his belt, displaying an inch of hardened stomach muscle. “Don’t you just love learning something new in life every day, Princess?”
Yes, she did. Particularly that she was not going to have to fight him off until that ring sat on her finger. Obviously his brother wasn’t the only one who didn’t like strangers in his precious glen. It made her even more generously disposed towards him.
“Already my lord likes his little joke, I see.”
“Damn right I do.”
“Then I shall be sure to see—“
He leaned closer. It was only the brush of breath against her cheek. Yet the shock of the contact travelled the length of her body, the one she’d been dead inside of for five years. “Because where you’re concerned, you can count on it splitting my sides.” Before she could open her mouth he turned to the mob surrounding him, on foot and horseback. “Well, can’t she, lads?”
Lads? Do pardon her for thinking she’d seen better-looking corpses. But to a man they whistled, catcalled and stuck out their tongues, so obviously they were as alive as her, for the time being anyway.
This wasn’t going quite as well as she’d like and if Kendrick complained again it might go even less. What exactly was Lord Ewen going to do if she didn’t shut her cloak? Send her back—remember? At least she hoped she did. Because that would not be a good choice for her.
“Oh, I think you’ll find when we’re wed, sir, I shall count on anything.”
“My lips are wet already.” He curved them in a deep grin. “With what you’re showing me here.”
“Good.”
Because frankly—damn him–the time had come to stop sitting here showing him it in the perishing cold, the snow piling up in her hood and do what she’d come to do. She removed her gloved hand from the reins. “Because you agreed to put an end to the war between our clans by wedding Chief Ian Dhub’s daughter, Lady Kara McGurkie, did you not? And I am Lady Kara McGurkie. Yes. My credentials are right here should you wish to see them.”
An armory clinked. Claymores, dirks, and axes. All glinting in the snow-lit dusk. All leveled at her. His men were good all right. Far better than her father’s stretched on horseback along the narrow pass behind her. Imagine the wedding night if they did that around the bed.
“Jesus.” The sloping, three-legged, shaggy beast at his side—what it was she’d no idea, except that it had fangs and it yowled, as his boot hit its backside. “Hell, Dug. Shut up, will you?”
Dug? She swallowed. He called the dog, Dug? How basic. What would he call his children when he had them? Child? Bairn? You? Son …
Her ribs tightened.
God, her mind whispered, don’t waylay me on the road to perdition. You can’t win. But there it was in that same moment. A vision, a boy, sitting right there on Lord Ewen’s shoulder, pale as the snowflakes dusting it, ethereal as the roiling mist. The eyes blue as the sky on a sunny day. The same soft hair. Her boy, her son, Arland.
Children’s names?
Wedding nights?
Was she completely, ragingly insane?
There weren’t going to be any children. And there wasn’t going to be any wedding night.
Because, after the wedding feast, there wasn’t going to be any groom.
Desiring her could be murder.
To love, honor, and betray…
To get back her son, she will stop at nothing…
Dire circumstances have forced Kara McGurkie to forget she’s a woman. Dire circumstances force her to swear to love and honor, to help destroy a clan, in order to get back her son. But when dire circumstances force her to seduce her fiancé’s brother on the eve of the wedding, will the dark secrets she holds and her greatest desire be enough to save her from his powerful allure?
To save his people, neither will he…
Since his wife’s murder, Callm McDunnagh, the Black Wolf of Lochalpin, ruthlessly guards heart and glen from dangerous intruders. But from the moment he first sees Kara he knows he must possess her, even though surrendering to his passion may prove the most dangerous risk of all.
She has nothing left to fear except love itself…
Now only Kara can decide what passion can save or destroy, and who will finally learn the truth of the words… Till death do us part.Releasing December 7th. Now available on pre-order for (99 p?!1.29 cents..limited time, pre-order only. Also coming on print. Just need to sort that with the er.. dudes….
09 Monday Apr 2018
16 Wednesday Aug 2017
Destiny fought the images of barrels that bobbed into her head, not to finger the back of her neck either. Why did Lyon want to put her on the spot as if he knew damn fine who put these barrels there and that person was not Divers O’Roarke? She had thought there would be nothing to this. She had thought wrongly. But if she swept out of here now, what if Lyon swept after her in order to sweep her to jail? She must be patient. Rome was not built in a day. By God it would have been had she been a builder. She sat forward.
“Well, if you’re not going to listen, I should at least like it noted that I came here in good faith, to save my skin should you discover that at the end of the day Divers—”
“I would need proof, Miss Rhodes.”
“Proof?” At least she hoped she was being patient. “Isn’t the fact these barrels were found in my summerhouse proof enough that you can hang him at the Penvellyn crossroads, a warning to any who cross the law here?”
“And let the crows peck his bones eh?” Lyon chuckled. Despite the fact the sound was not unlike these same rattling bones, she nodded.
“Yes. Why not if he broke the law and put these barrels there?”
“Oh, I’d like to hang the perpetrator, believe me.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“Well here’s the thing, Miss Rhodes. He said it was you.”
11 Tuesday Apr 2017
Tags
Contemporary Romance, regency Romance, Shehaanne Moore, The Hell Fire Club, The Writer and the Rake, TIme Mutants, Time travel books, time travellers
Mitchell Killgower. Vie? I’m sorry? Oh right. I have no idea. But if I was to hazard a guess, it’s probably because Brittany, my worst half, has told all kinds of lies about me.
Mitchell. Indeed I could. But as I said to Brittany, when she asked me if the tedious old bastard who runs it, beguiled women, ‘No, he beguiles something far worse. Ideas.’ I don’t know if Shey would be too pleased if you got any.
Mitchell. I know. But as you’ve so often said yourselves, it’s not raining either.
Mitchell. The one who kept Shey’s latest heroine offering in about. Next?
Mitchell. I wouldn’t know. You’d have to ask her but she’s dead. Unless you’re planning on joining her? Whatever way I seem to have with women does not extend to wives, or pretend ones. But she squirmed whenever I went near her. So I didn’t because I’m not all bad.
Mitchell. A friend.
Mitchell. Frankly? If you gentlemen helped me secure my inheritance, you could stay where you damn well wanted. In fact, if I’d known you gentlemen and ladies were so helpful I’d have paid you, not Brittany, to sort out my ex sister-in-law, Christian and her husband, (who is also my uncle) Clarence, and ruin my son, Fleming. How does that sound?
Mitchell. The question is, does she want to marry you?
Mitchell. I think you’ll find the word is ‘thought ‘and I also thought, I’d be –
making the mistake of his life to let her back in.
Mitchell. So please don’t label me a romantic. I’m not.
Mitchell. Fine. Have it your own way. Anyway, dudes it has been nice meeting you all.
Mitchell. Not what Brittany found out. Well… not as you seem to think.
Mitchell. In fact I’m very open and honest.
03 Monday Apr 2017
Posted in Author Interviews, blogging, book tour, Glencoe, heroines, Romance, time travel
Brittany : Darlings, I don’t steal. It’s called re-appropriation. And I am very generous towards myself that way.
Brittany. Mitchell is fanciful. It’s a family trait. You don’t want to believe a word he says.
Brittany. Me? Three slices of pork? What do you think I am? Desperate? As for anyone helping themselves to anything, I hope you are going to ask him about my six packets of fags. All right it was three.
Brittany. A recipe? Are we kidding here? What do you think I am Mrs Beeton’s cookbook? As I said to Mitchell, ‘I think we’ve all got it that I’m not a Georgian housewife,’ all right?’
Brittany. I thought I had. I mean this speaks for itself doesn’t it?
Brittany. Well darlings, where else would you be kept? I mean let’s face it, you have everything there, lovely little beds of straw, nice corners where you can play with your balls all day. What’s the problem? If Sebastian hadn’t done that I would have run a mile I tell you. But maybe he’d have liked that. 
Brittany, Oh now then dudes, there really is no need to get your little hamster knickers in a twist assuming you wear them. Why do people always want to throw things at me? Oh very well. So long as you don’t eat my fags or drink my voddie we’re good, little dudes and I swear to uphold the rights of little hamster dudes to fight for world domination. Do we have a deal here?
Brittany. All right darlings, it’s been lovely meeting you too. Now I really must go, you know pop off down to supper, even though it’s unlikely there will be anything to eat there… Unless…
Brittany. What’s that? Some sort of exotic cocktail? You know I thought you lot welcomed writers here?
Brittany Well darling here’s what I think.
Brittany- and that goes for hamster dudes too. Unless you’re going to you know– open the vodka and do the Cossack dance for me like you do for everyone else? Hmm?? I don’t know about you but I am gasping. A shot of that Uzi would be nice…
27 Monday Mar 2017
Tags
Ba Cottage, Catherine Cavendish, Dundee, Glencoe, Hard to Protect, Ian Fleming, Incy Black, James Bond, James Bond and Dundee, Newport-on-Tay, Peter Fleming, Robert Fleming, Shehanne Moore, The wrath of the ancients, The Writer and the Rake
AH and aw in equal measures. Firstly AH because this the long awaited third book in the Hard To series featuring Incy Black’s own special Black ops. Aw, because she says trilogy although I hope that the exciting Freya Dervish will feature somewhere along the line in another book. No pressure there now Incy, just saying. Although I’ve read the other two books in the series, in many ways this book is a standalone.
In true spy honey trap tradition, Will Berwick, secret agent hot and complicated, is asked to seduce the secret of her brother’s whereabouts, from Dr Treherne, ice angel extraordinary. Not the best thing to ask him to do when she’s been evaluating him for months re his suitability to return to service. Trust me when I say that you just know that in the not too distant future Angel will be evaluating other aspects of his suitability because it’s plain they are under one another’s skins. However, Incy Black’s skill lies in keeping them at one another’s throats. This couple don’t give an inch for very personal reasons and it makes for great chemistry. You want to know they will heal one another’s pain. A pain they don’t admit to. Add this to a plot full of twists and turns, Incy Black’s own unique voice, and the result is explosive.
20 Thursday Oct 2016
Dreams. Goals. Plans. Travel. Life.
The Life, Thoughts and Reflections of a Vampire Hunter
The music and the diamonds
Da forma mais espontânea possível quero passar para você a maneira como enxergo a vida, sobretudo as dificuldades e interpretações ao lidar com os muitos aspectos dela e espero que assim eu possa te acolher, através de um remédio que considero muito eficaz – as palavras, levando a mensagem de que você não está sozinho(a) ao atravessar os desafios da vida. Todos nós já passamos por algo que alguém já passou!
Welcome my blog.All thinks related post published here(ALL WORLD ALL THINKS).Ex- Magazine, Book,News,Fun,Pome,Song, etc.Thanks for visite.God Bless you.😍
Almost Everything Every Niche
Bible Verses, Life's Reflections &Travel
Your name , O transcendent lord , is ambrosial nector , whoever meditates on it , lives.
Inform, Interest, Inspire
Membuka Cakrawala Menuju Bijaksana
कविता/काव्य
Living moments through words.
IT'S TO CAUSE AWARENESS ABOUT PEOPLE LIVING WITH EPILEPSY
sandra wood post
Deserving has a attitude & non deserving has an ego
For yourself
