A dance with her wouldn’t exactly kill him. #Scottish Brides and murder

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.

https://amzn.to/2rNOMTE

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Location in writing. Four places in #Glencoe

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.

https://amzn.to/2PSe9SR

 

Just when you thought it was safe….Halloween in Scotland.

Tags

Ghost stories, Halloween, Halloween in Scotland, His Judas Bride, recipes, Romance, Shehanne Moore, treacle scones

 

 

 

The Black Wolf : Rough and violent. We carve up things to make lanterns.

The Black Wolf : In the old days it was turnips, or neeps, now it’s pumpkins. They’re so much easier to chop…..

Kara : Callm, they seem so scared of us. Do you think someone has said something about us to them? 

The Black Wolf : I can’t think what. I mean, I’ve killed everyone who might say something. From the 16th century in Ireland and Scotland, the festival included folks going about dressed up, reciting  verses, or singing a song. Nowadays it’s called trick or treating, or guising. We also have parties.

Kara ; Oh aye. We’re not savages you know. We  are very sociable. Fallon, Callm’s wee daughter plays knife throwing. She can hit a hamster at 20 paces. That was a joke by the way. Although she can. She takes after her father that way. No we play ducking or dooking for hamsters, I mean apples in a basin of water, and then there’s  the treacle game.  That’s where we hang a treacle covered hamster, sorry, scone,  on a string from the ceiling and you have to eat it with your hands tied behind your back as it swings back and forward.

 

The Black Wolf : Princess, did I ever tell you how scary you are?

Kara : When I went to the bother of getting the little sods a recipe?

 The Black Wolf :  You’re not exactly a cook. Anyway, they’d probably sooner spread treacle on your shoes and eat them.

Kara : Just the same. Here it is.

Treacle scones.

Ingredients:
8 oz self-raising flour (all-purpose flour with baking powder in USA)
2 oz butter
1 oz caster sugar (fine granulated sugar)
Half a teaspoon of cinnamon
2 tablespoons black treacle (molasses) or golden syrup (light corn syrup)
Pinch of salt
Approximately quarter pint of milk

Method:
Sift the flour and salt into a bowl and rub in the butter. Mix in the sugar, cinnamon, treacle or syrup and enough milk to make a soft dough. Knead this on a floured surface until it is both moist and elastic. Cut into rounds. For hanging, the rounds, need to be large and flat. Hamster Dickens sitting  on them as opposed to eating them would give the idea shape.

Grease a baking sheet (cookie sheet) and place the rounds on this. Brush with a little milk and bake for 10/15 minutes in an oven, pre-heated to 425F/220C/Gas Mark 7 until golden brown. Allow to cool on a wire rack and hang. covered in treacle,  voila —to quote by late father’s (courtesy of yourself Callm), French friend–  from the ceiling.

 

The Black Wolf. Better hamsters than you have asked me that. But gather round,

let me finish this with a Scottish ghost story about a man who did.

Several versions exist, but they all involve the Earl Beardie, thought to be the 4^th Earl of Crawford playing cards at Glamis  Castle. One of Scotland’s most haunted castles.

The clock struck 12. Midnight. It was now the Sabbath so no-one would play on.

The earl was angry. He said he would play with the very devil himself.

The door flew open. A tall man dressed in black walked into the room.

The stranger was, of course, the Devil, who won the nobleman’s most precious possession – his immortal soul. After his death, Earl Beardie was condemned to gamble with the Devil for all eternity. Often, at night, the sound of raucous play emanated from the fateful chamber.

Eventually, the occupants of the castle had it sealed up.

Have yourself a Merry Highland Christmas…

Tags

Christmas, Cranberry Fudge, His Judas Bride, Scotland, Scottiish Christmas traditions, Scottish Highlands

 

Rule 3: Thou shalt learn to bring Shehanne her slippers without her even asking; fill her wine glass before it’s empty; and help her in her new garden. Reason is, a happy Shey makes for a happy day.

 

 

 

All right, can we shut it up now?

And please welcome Lady Kara, heroine of my book, His Judas Bride, or face getting 1 out of 10?

 

 

 

Dudes, I’m sure if you let Lady Kara get a word in she’d tell you that Scotland is not the moon and while in Scotland we have VERY short days at the end of December. It is dark until around 8.30 am and again about 3.30pm in the afternoon, we celebrate Christmas the same as many other places. Christmas dinner etc etc etc. Of course there’s the pressies and the stockings AND the lumps of coal for those who didn’t behave.

MUCH.

After Kara brought you this lovely Christmas card too.

Well, we’ll be spending it at the castle in my glen–unfortunately because Lochalpin is Callm’s home. But,still we will start with  a nice walk in the snow in the morning, after the children have opened their presents. Of course we will be having a venison dinner later with our guests.

 

Fallon will be getting a new set of knives and Arland, some body armour.

We hope they all will. They are certainly all asked with their families. It makes for quite a party and we all play pin the tail on the hamster. That’s usually after Dug has bitten it off.

The hall is beautifully decorated with pine branches and the fire is blazing. Ideal for roasting all sorts.

Then, when everyone has gone to their beds, we go to ours. More I cannot say, except mulled wine by the fire and the Wolf are a nice combination.  The name Yuletide comes from the Scandinavians, for whom ‘Yultid’ was the festival celebrated at the twelfth month, being the twelfth name of Odin, who was supposed to come to earth in December, disguised in a hooded cloak. He would sit awhile at the firesides listening to the people, and where there was want he left a gift of bread or coins. I’m sure if you’re good little hamsters and start getting ten out of ten,   that’s what you’ll find in your stockings on Christmas morning.

Oh and please…do make my fudge. It’s deliciously decadent served with mulled wine and a roaring log fire and the partner of your choice……….

 

The Dead Don’t Walk…

Tags

Etopia Press, Gathering Leaves, Halloween, His Judas Bride, Loving Lady Lazuli, Millais, The Unraveling of Lady Fury

 

 

I chose this painting by Millais

I chose this painting by Millais because

 

Dudes…can we lay off please, or you so know what is going to happen to that Hamstah Week? And that will sorely disappoint your fans.

Now then, I chose that painting…well..all right, I never chose it as such 

 

 

 

No, I sort of wasn’t actually. What I was going to say was

Yeah. Look at that pink pig there with flying wings. Isn’t it pretty?

Now, what was I saying? Oh yes, the painting and how it inspired me to

 

 

What I was trying to say, maybe not very well, is that I have two heroines in two books left with a disposal problem. 

SO the painting by Millais, It’s Halloween,

I do like to play up horror in the ordinary in my books. It adds a little suspense… although obviously my characters who tangle with death in some way, aren’t bad people.

I just find my inspiration in the ordinary, as you can see……

And that painting did inspire this scene in Loving Lady Lazuli, which is as much as I am going to share with you today.

“I’m tellin’ yer, soddin’ ‘ell, I’m tellin’ yer, yer can’t. Yer…”

“Just take his feet. Do it will you?”

His feet? Devorlane clicked his tongue in the hope of nudging Mephisto closer. The beast was finicky and he didn’t particularly want to be caught where Lord Koorecroft had told him not to be. Although, when he considered it, Lord Koorecroft’s specifics had been shrubberies. Shrubbery? He wasn’t even on her damned property, was he?

Whose feet and why, was what he had the burning urge to discover.

Of course, he could be mistaken about that. Maybe it wasn’t feet at all? Maybe it wasn’t anything?

“Pearl. The spade…”

The instruction was faint but, no, he did not mistake it. A spade. A spade and feet. A spade and feet meant one thing. He’d seen enough death to know.

He dismounted and crept  one or two steps down the incline through the faint mist coiling around his boots. The dew soaked them with each mushy step. If this baggage  was down there with a spade, he must be careful.

For that matter it might be his feet she was instructing Pearl and Ruby to get. Look at the things she’d managed to turn around on him so far. From sticking the Wentworth emeralds in the pocket of his best breeches, to bleating to Lord Koorecroft about the big bad Chessington wolf being in her shrubbery.

He turned and clapped Mephisto’s neck. It was better if he sent the animal back to Chessington.

Keeping low, Devorlane tiptoed  to the tree at the foot of the incline. The vantage point was not so good from there, but he thanked Christ for at least being able to bring the throb in his thigh under control.

“Oh!” that other serving girl, Pearl, wailed. “What’s that noise? What’s that noise, Rube? Listen. Do you hear it?”

He froze to the tree bark. The possibility existed they could just be gardening. It was the time of year for that, wasn’t it? Hell on earth, he’d been so long away from a garden of any sort he couldn’t remember.

“Only sound I don’t ‘ear is the soddin’ sound of yer bleedin’ diggin’. Put yer back inter it, yer lazy trout. Bleedin’ ‘ole won’t dig itself.”

A hole? There was only one kind he could think of. He’d thought of it when he’d edged down the hill. But now he’d done so his mouth dried. Shock, that he knew he must squash if he was still to have the element of surprise and turn this to his advantage, clutched his gut. Not who. Why? That was the thing he needed the answer to. Then he could go to Lord Koorecroft. It would be the end of her. There would be no passing off a corpse in her garden as a servant of the realm.

“But, Rube, I only got a trowel.”

“I don’t care if you’ve only got a spoon. Do what Ruby says.”

Her voice. He’d wondered, hadn’t he, that night, about what particular level of gutter-snipe she was. What hole she’d crawled from, for all the brilliant mantle of her entirely faked refinement never slipped for a second. Those words, that husky, slightly rough undertone , said maybe not a center of the earth one, but certainly one deeper than that grave they were obviously digging.

“But, Cass. Cass, listen. I swear I’m not imagining it. I can hear it. What if it’s—”

“Are you stupid? Devorlane Hawley’s nowhere about. He can’t be. I assured it.”

“I wasn’t thinking Lord Hawley. What if it’s Gil?”

“Oh, ‘ow the bleedin’ ‘ell can it be Gil? Jeesus-sake. Ain’t that Gil. Ain’t that only Gil there? Dead as the soddin’ dodo.”

“Ruby’s right, the dead don’t walk.”

Devorlane crept forward. Oh, didn’t they? He did not believe this, these words he had just heard, but now was the time to get through the border of bramble and bracken, to sidle  with the broken wall beneath his fingertips, and to peer, with a clawed breath, at the coronet of women, laboring in the cold of the early winter sunlight, digging, with a kind of desperation. At least she was.

A kind of something else too. His eyes unfortunately roamed the nicely rounded curve of her buttocks clearly outlined by the clinging gown. Soft. Velvet. The exact color of her eyes too.

When the throbbing ache in his thigh was under control for the first time today, why give himself another? Especially when her husband’s days of peace and tranquility had ended sooner than any of them anticipated by the looks of this. What seeped through the barrier of the sheet? Had she perchance assisted with his demise?

The thought determined him. Here was his chance. He was soldier enough to know there was dissent in the ranks. And man enough not to fear three women.

After all, what could they do to him, he thought, as he now stepped forward.

 Copywrite Etopia Press.

 

 

It’s so NOT hamstah week…

Tags

Etopia Press, His Judas Bride, It's so not hamstah week., Loving Lady Lazuli, Shehanne Moore, The Unraveling of Lady Fury, writing, Writing stakes

 

Hey, hey, hey, who said anything about that?

I don’t care what it is, this is not on…..

Do I really need to answer that? Sorry fellahs, but would she really do everything she does….to safeguard one of you?

Well, you like to think so. But just step back and ask yourself? Do you think that Sapphire would come back to Berkshire and stick it out against the one man in England who can identify her to prove you are her hamster? I don’t think Lord Hawley would appreciate a hamstah in his trouser pocket. I’m not even going there. And Kara would hardly try taking down a clan to get her hamstah back before you even go there.

Okay, well guys, you are making two points here.

One, The fact is I did use animals in His Judas Bride, largely to show that the hero was not quite as ruthless as all that. He has a dog, a sort of half wolf, half savage, half legged thing that is HIS dog and it’s one of the things Kara notices about him. He may curse at it and tell it to shut up but he is unfailingly kind to it. SO animals do have their uses.

 

Oh, for heaven’s sake,  just look at  all the books that have been written about animals…

 

and let’s not forget ones like

and even

 

And do I make a song and dance re the lack of humans?

The fact is someone who does not realize animals all belong with us on the planet is a sad person.

That’s point one. SECOND POINT– sorry, your story stakes have to be high as Everest, they have to be do or die stakes when it comes down to writing about why people do the things they do, why they will go to the wire, why they will go over that edge if need be. A reader must not only identify with the stakes, they must identify with the character that way. So ask yourself about these stakes at the start. it is not enough to have a plot.  A plot is just a plot. You need to flesh out the stakes and the conflicts.

And really, really, REALLY   sorry fellahs, but I don’t know you cut it with your er…. pitch….which isn’t to say you don’t have your  uses. Goodness did I say two points. No that’s a third.

Just not enough to cut it for a week……

 

 

Gonnae no do that…Common misrepresentations of Scotland.

Tags

His Judas Bride, Kara McGurkie, Scotland, The Black Wolf of Lochalpin

Interesting huh–courtesy of the lovely CeeLee? William Wallace is a Highlander. Well, he’s Scots isn’t he?  SO obviously he is a Highlander. Kilt wearing clans even live in the Borders.

 

 

So…you wanna write a book set in Scotland? I think being a native, I’m allowed to round off my It’s Scottish week, by giving yah my pet peeves.

Sorry…I just felt like showing a kilt. Obvi Gerard is NOT a pet peeve. Certainly not with a leg like that.

Donny is an Osmond. I’ve read Scottish books where I don’t recognize the lingo and I live here. If you’re meaning don’t…the word is dinnae. 

Well, I showed Gerard once, I might as well do it again….I did once consider him as a muse for the Black Wolf after all, even if he never made the final cut. Hey Gerard….nice boots.

Highland clans did not live in the Borders. I know that’s really hard to believe when there are umpteen books that say they did. Highland Clans lived in the Highlands and were mainly regarded as savages by their Lowland Scottish neighbours on account of their pillaging, cattle-reiving  activities. —Sorry Callm but they were– .  Then along came the Irish from the famine and they were thought to be worse.

SO if your book is set in the Borders, or north England,  pulease stop dragging in the Highlanders and planking  them there for the Sassenach lassie to marry, unless they were marching with Bonnie Prince Charlie.

 

Not only did vicars and parsons not exist in 13th Century Scotland, they don’t exist in Scotland. Period.  They’re English terms for English churchmen. Until the Reformation Scotland had priests, afterwards it was priests and ministers etc etc, etc, etc… eight. (Echt– that is Scots for eight which brings me to…)

 

which is half of eght. Gaelic was not spoken in the borders. Scots was spoken there. So can we also stop these English Regency dudes with Scottish estates barking out their commands in Gaelic the second they cross the border in their fancy carriages, or on horseback….thank you. Do you really want the locals scratching their heids and asking WTF is thon poncy Sassenach joker on aboot?

Oh…okay… I get the biz of the half dressed guy sells books but does he have to go through the book with no shirt in our shit stinking weather?  Sorry? His name is Gerard Butler so the answer is yes?

Well I did my best.

That’s it for Scottish week and Kara, the Wolf and His Judas Bride.

 

But I will be back…lucky you…. with Pirates.

As  for who Turdygub was…well, it goes like this…..from His Judas Bride

Against the wishes of the Black Wolf of Lochalpin, Archibald Kelty, the late Lord Mhor McDunnagh’s most trusted bodyguard and friend, cordially invites you to the wedding…..

between Lady Kara McGurkie oldest daughter of the tinker chief, the Black Wolf’s sworn enemy

 

and Lord Ewen McDunnagh…chief of clan McDunnagh, the Black Wolf’s ‘Turdypused’ younger brother.

 

“Daddy’s got to go, sweetheart. Take the pretty lady to see Uncle…” He hesitated over the word Turdygub. That would be to bring further complaint from Meg down on his head in an already difficult situation. A situation where he was now going to have to take the chit to Turdygub. “…Ewen up at the castle. You be good. No more swearing. You promise me? Hmm?”

Fallon wrapped her arms around his neck. “Yes, Daddy.”

“Because, sweetheart, if you’re not—”

He ruffled her hair before setting her down. His boots seemed to echo for an eternity across the flagstones, past the stag heads watching dully from their mounts on the draped walls, the pewter shining on the dresser. The thing was, despite all he’d said he hadn’t expected her to march in here and call him out in front of his men. So now he had no choice but to saddle Satan, didn’t he? So then, tonight, if not before, she and Ewen… Turdypus, not gub…

Christ, what the hell was wrong with him?

 

To love, honor, and betray…

To get back her son, she will stop at nothing…

For five years Kara McGurkie has preferred to forget she’s a woman. So it’s no problem for her to swear to love and honor, to help destroy a clan, when it means getting back the son she lost. 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…

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.

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We Interrupt Scottish week to bring you… more kilts

Tags

Aubrey Wynne, Gerard Butler, His Judas Bride, men in kilts, Scotland, Shehanne Moore, writing

A Scots author complained about the “dignity, morals and respect” of women on twitter – after she put up a post about kilts, featuring Gerard Butler.

‘I love his muscular calves,’ said Aubrey Wynne. “Gimme more.”

‘Why do we love them? that question is rhetorical, right??” asked Kishan Paul.

 

“I’ve never seen this kind of thing before,” the Scot’s author said from her desk in Scotland. “I’ve been on twitter goodness knows how many times, this blog too and I’ve never known behaviour like it. Maybe from now on I should stop all this blogging shit and show men in kilts. Gerard Butler in particular? After all, forget whisky, where the ladies are concerned he is one of Scotland’s finest exports.”

So there we have it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SO there we have it. Tomorrow Scottish week will ‘daringly’ conclude with common Scottish misrepresentations.

Aubrey’s happy as you can see…. And she hasn’t even seen this blog yet!

fangedfantasy @ShehanneMoore @kishan_paul @kishan @MichaelaMiles Mooaaahaahhaaa. My plan worked. More kilts from Shey and the hamstahs.

SO I leave you with two things. My poll….

Men in kilts why do we love them? I guess we just do.

, if only Callm McDunmagh, the Black Wolf, the hero of His Judas Bride hadn’t insisted on wearing these leather breeches under his plaid……It would have made my heroine, Kara’s task so much easier……

 

 

 

To love, honor, and betray…

To get back her son, she will stop at nothing…

For five years Kara McGurkie has preferred to forget she’s a woman. So it’s no problem for her to swear to love and honor, to help destroy a clan, when it means getting back the son she lost. 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…

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.

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Men in Kilts. Why do we love them?

Tags

Culloden, His Judas Bride, kilts, Lochalpin, Scotland, tartan, The Black Wolf of Lochalpin

A Scots visitor complained about the “dignity, morals and respect” of women in Stalybridge – after her husband was repeatedly groped because he was wearing a kilt.

 

“I’ve never seen this kind of thing before,” she said from their home in Scotland. “I’ve been to goodness knows how many functions where men have been wearing kilts and I’ve never known behaviour like it.”

 Men in kilts. Why do we love them?

Even when they wear pink shirts?

 

Men in kilts are deemed sexy. Yes, just go ask Sharon Struth, author of The Hourglass and the soon to be released, Share The Moon. The woman can’t contain herself.  Of course she knows that here in Scotland men don’t go around dressed like this…

In our weather? They’d get pneumonia for a start.  I just don’t know how to break it to her it would be…. in your dreams, doll.

 

Settle. We all know you’re secretly planning to bite my throat or something. Where were we? Oh  yes. Kilts. Well, here’s the thing,growing up in Scotland men in kilts were kind of infra dig. Sexy? Excuse me. Now just go put sexy kilts into Google and see what comes up.

Also  google kilts… I did and found this.

“Thomas Rawlinson was an 18th-century English industrialist who is widely reputed, though not without controversy, to have been the inventor of the modern kilt.“

Which doesn’t make a lot of sense when Wikipedia also says,

‘The kilt is a knee-length garment with pleats at the rear, originating in the traditional dress of men and boys in the Scottish Highlands of the 16th century.’

I’m kind of thinking that there’s been a mix up with plaids and kilts. Plaids being what the Highland clans wore, the colours and patterns.  associated with the local weavers. In the aftermath of Culloden…

the Dress Act of 1746 attempted to bring the warrior clans under government control by banning the tartan and other aspects of Gaelic culture.

While I never said exactly when His Judas Bride was set, I always saw it before then when the clans were very much laws unto themselves and thought nothing of knocking one another’s socks off. Their kilts too. It’s what the battle for Lochalpin is about really….

Anyway, enough of this history stuff. Kilts?  I did a little asking around about why we find men in kilts sexy.  A woeful 80 percent thought it was because of what was underneath. Yes. Shocking, eh? 4 percent liked the ‘wiggle waggle’ whatever that is…   7 percent liked the whole Scottish business: Tartan. Castles, Nessie. The lot. 9 percent liked the bare knees.

Of course that was in my survey. You might have a different answer but there is no denying that men in kilts have taken off. Do you find them sexy and if so…why?

So what does Callm, the hero of his Judas Bride wear or not…

 

Seriously..oh come …don’t you want the big reveal?

Or would that be what’s under it?

Oh toughen up and get with the kilt…

 

I leave you with an extract from His Judas Bride…a heading towards a hot bit extract….

 

Reaching out her hand she grasped the neck of the whiskey bottle. He stood on her path to heaven. What other choice did she have but to remove him?

She wiped her mouth. Then she cleared her throat. “Sir.” It was the most ludicrous formality, given what she planned, but she needed to start somewhere. Now he’d sat down on the edge of the bed, the opportunity was perfect, especially as he unfastened his tunic ties. “About… About…”

“What?”

Every single drop of moisture evaporated from Kara’s mouth. How awful was this, to be so little skilled in the art of seduction when he was the Black Wolf of Lochalpin and this was her last card?

She ran her tongue over her lips to moisten them. “Why I ran away.” Touch him? She was going to have to. At least put one hand on his shoulder, so she could wriggle closer. “About…about there being someone else.”

Having her hand in a honey pot in a cave full of starving bears would be easier, considering the freezing glare he shot at her. Of course, he was cold. They both were.

“What about it?”

Must he be so difficult? So obtuse? When it was perfectly obvious?

“What do you think?”

Grasping her skirts she wriggled deliberately onto his lap. Not as gracefully as she’d have liked. Her teeth were chattering too badly for that and she’d done something to her ankle. She clutched another shallow breath, not just at her daring. Sweeping the damp hair back from the sides of his face, she pressed her mouth to his.

 

To love, honor, and betray…

To get back her son, she will stop at nothing…

For five years Kara McGurkie has preferred to forget she’s a woman. So it’s no problem for her to swear to love and honor, to help destroy a clan, when it means getting back the son she lost. 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…

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.

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
All Romance Ebooks

 

 

 

Sometimes the devil’s agents are flesh and blood

Tags

Highlands, His Judas Bride, Kara McGurkie, Macbeth, Scotland, Superstition, The Black Wolf of Lochalpin, The Brotherhood of Wolves

 

 

 

 

Okay, okay, little hamstahs, before you say hoots man, I am sure you do. The devil’s instruments not exact quote–being very careful here–  is by Scottish literary giant, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

 

The blood will have blood one…well that’s Macbeth the famous ‘Scottish play.’

A third His Judas Bride out take could be the original ending of chapter one.

 

as opposed to the final cut one.

 

My editor–who I adore– didn’t want two books out back to back with a heroine masquerading as someone else, the joke on me being being I wrote this His Judas Bride first. So there you go.  A sort of quick rewrite and the annihilating of a highland clan.  Ah the joys of cobbled sentences….

So?  Scotland’s rich folk history and devils being flesh and blood? Well in His Judas Bride the Black Wolf and Kara take one look at each other and their story goals which they’re mired in hell and blood about, sort of …er….get obscured.  Lust is an awful thing.

I mean both separately vowed  that blood will have blood, which brings us to superstition. I mean…let’s be clear, trees don’t move and stones don’t talk ..do they? Hamstahs might, but come on. Kara and Callm are Scots, just how supernatural do you think they are in a land of witches,  warlocks, sea beasties and Loch Ness monsters?

Personally, I think the power of suggestion is a wonderful thing. Callm’s wife is murdered and, tired of raids on Lochalpin, he sets up the Brotherhood of Wolves… motto live together die as one.

And when it came to working out how a small group of men could defend a clan from more brutal forces, I decided the trees would be doing a lot of moving in the land of kilts and haggis. .

Think Robin Hood Prince of Thieves—I did a lot after seeing the Russell Crow version–that scene where good old Kevin winds up in Sherwood Forest…   Spooky, haunted Sherwood Forest.

The outlaws know they can’t fight the Sheriff, so what do they do? They hang up a few wind chimes and put it about that the place is haunted. That way anyone going in is doing it at their peril.

And that is what the Wolves do….really…sort of.

Today’s bit of fun?

Which Wolf from His Judas Bride are you? (There’s more than in the above picture.)

Take the quiz and find out.

1 There’s a stranger trying to get into Lochalpin Glen which you have sworn to defend with your life, do you

a Cut their throat and ask questions later

b Cut their throat and ask questions later

c  Cut their throat and ask questions later

d Cut their throat and ask questions later

e Cut their throat and ask questions later

f Bite their throat and bark later.

e Cut their throat and ask questions later

 

2 A beautiful woman has just tried to get into your bed. Do you

a Warn her off big time about the kind of man you really are

b Go wooh wooh, this is good.

C  Say, this is not my fault

D Cut her throat and ask questions afterwards

E Ask what is the right thing to do here

f You’re only interested in dogs.

g Ask if this is your mother

3 Now this beautiful woman has cleared right  off.  Do you

a Go on a mini rampage  and take down the man she’s with

b Get someone else

c  Say I told myself so. I told everyone so.

d Cut her throat.

e Agree it wasn’t  for the best.

f Look for a canine pal.

g You never knew your mother so it’s ok

4  You’ve just seen this lovely deer and you’re damn nearly dying of starvation. So now it’s a dead deer. Do you

A Wager for it

B Wager for it

C Wager for it

D Wager for it

E Wager for it

f  Eat it.

g Think that’s a bambi

5 You’ve been asked to give up everything you know and go live in a cave do you think

a It’s simple. If you have nothing you have nothing to lose

b so long as there is woopo woooo

c I’m only thirteen but yes

d. Why not?

e So long as I can have my say

f Fine if I can be with my master

g But I’m only a baby, come on.

 

Mostly

A’s The Black Wolf

B’s  SHug

C’s Snosh.

D’s Big Murdie

E’s Wee Murdie

F’s Dug

g’s Fallon

But if you guess the Conan Doyle book the quote is from, add 5 points. I leave you with another extract fromHe wanted no reminders of how he’d had to face his men with the shameful knowledge burning in his breast that he’d bedded a damned traitor for the best part of four days. They’d not laughed. They were his men after all. But their pity… Never in his life had he wanted anyone to feel sorry for him.

“Callm, I’m just saying—”

“Well, don’t say. Let’s just get out of here. This ground’s not exactly going to cover itself.”

“Could I have a mouthful is what I was saying.”

Callm handed him the flask. He hitched himself up into the saddle. They were all of them, man, woman, and child, lucky to be alive. So would she be, when he found her.

“Have ye not considered the possibility that just maybe she might not have survived out here in the open? I mean, how likely is it? And if she froze or fell into a gully, it would explain the lack of—” Wee Murdie’s confidence wilted. He averted his gaze from Callm’s freezing stare.

“Do you think I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours straight turning this place upside down in the hope of finding a corpse? The time before that either?”

“Some of the men do. They think we’re wasting our time.”

While he felt like it, he refused to fist the reins. “That’s their prerogative. But it’s not mine. The damned bitch has questions to answer. So she better not be dead. She can save that for when we’ve done.”