Dark Awakening (41 page)

Have you ever visited one website, seen an interesting link to another website, and clicked it? Probably. But have you ever done that about fifty times and ended up in a place you never intended to? As a writer, I’m already on a “what if” journey inside my own head, so web hopping is just one more flight of fancy that’s
so
easy to get caught up in.

For instance, while researching a scene for BLACK TIES AND LULLABIES that takes place in a childbirth class, I saw a link for “hypnosis during birth.” Of course I had to click that, right? Then I ended up on a site where people post their birth stories. And then…

Don’t ask me how, but a dozen clicks later, my web-hopping adventure led me to a site about celebrities and baby names. And it immediately had me wondering:
What
were these people thinking? Check out the names these famous people have given their children that virtually guarantee they’ll be tormented for the rest of their lives:

No, a trip around the Internet does
not
get my books written, but sometimes it’s worth the laugh. Of course, the hero and heroine of BLACK TIES AND LULLABIES would
never
give their child a name like one of these….

I hope you enjoy BLACK TIES AND LULLABIES. And look for my next book, HEARTSTRINGS AND DIAMOND RINGS, coming October 2011.

Having married my first love, I was excited to write the third installment in my Children of the Mist series, TAMED BY A HIGHLANDER. You see, Mairi MacGregor and Connor Grant were childhood sweethearts. How difficult could it be to relate to a woman who had surrendered her heart at around the same age I did? Of course, my real life hero didn’t pack up his Claymore and plaid and ride off to good old England to save the king. (Although my husband does own a few swords he keeps around in the event that one of our daughters brings home an unfavorable boyfriend.) My hero didn’t break my young heart, or the promises he made me beneath the shadow of a majestic Highland mountain. I don’t hide daggers under my skirts. Heck, I don’t even wear skirts.

But I am willing to fight for what I believe in. So is Mairi, and what she believes in is Scotland. A member of a secret Highland militia, Mairi has traded in her dreams of a husband and children for sweeping Scotland free of men who would seek to change her Highland customs and religion. She knows how to fight, but she isn’t prepared for the battle awaiting her when she sets her feet in England and comes face to face with the man she once loved.

Ah, Connor Grant, captain in the King’s Royal Army and son of the infamous rogue Graham Grant from A
HIGHLANDER NEVER SURRENDERS. He’s nothing like his father. This guy has loved the same lass his whole life, but she’s grown into a woman without him and now, instead of casting him smiles, she’s throwing daggers at him!

Fun! I knew when these two were reunited sparks (and knives) would fly!

But Connor isn’t one to back down from a fight. In fact, he longs to tame his wild Highland mare. But does he need to protect the last Stuart king from her?

Journey back in time where plots and intrigue once ruled the courtly halls of Whitehall Palace, and two souls who were born to love only each other find their way back into each other’s arms.

If Mairi doesn’t kill him first.

(Did I mention, I collect medieval daggers? Just in case…)

It all started with the History Channel.

No, really. One evening last year, while I was watching TV in the basement and hiding from whatever flesh-eating-zombie-filled gore-fest my husband was happily watching upstairs, I ran across a fascinating documentary all about a woman I never knew existed: Arsinöe, Cleopatra’s youngest sister. Being a sucker for a good story, I watched, fascinated, as the tale of Arsinöe’s brief and often unhappy life unfolded. And after it was all over, once her threat to Cleopatra’s power had been taken care of in a very final way by the famous queen herself, I asked myself what any good writer would: what if Arsinöe hadn’t really died, and become a vampire instead?

Okay, so maybe most writers wouldn’t ask themselves that. I write paranormal romance for a reason, after all. But that simple, and rather odd, question was the seed that my book DARK AWAKENING grew from. Now, Arsinöe isn’t the heroine. In fact, she’s more of a threat hanging over the head of my hero, Ty MacGillivray, whose kind has served her dynasty of highblood vampires for centuries, bound in virtual slavery. But her arrival in my imagination sparked an entire world, in which so-called “highblood” vampires, those bearing the tattoo-like mark of bloodlines descended directly from various darker gods and goddesses, form an immortal nobility that take great
pleasure in lording it over the “lowbloods” of more muddied pedigree.

Lowbloods like Ty and his unusual bloodline of cat-shifting vampires, the Cait Sith.

Now, I won’t give out all the details of what happens when Ty is sent by Arsinöe herself to find a human woman with the ability to root out the source of a curse that threatens to take her entire dynasty down. I will say that Lily Quinn is a lot more than Ty bargained for, carrying secrets that have the potential to change the entire world of night. And I’m happy to tell you that it really tugged at my heartstrings to write the story of a man who has been kicked around for so long that he is afraid to want what his heart so desperately needs. But beyond that, all you really need to know is that DARK AWAKENING has all of my favorite ingredients: a tortured bad boy with a heart of gold, a heroine strong enough to take him on, and cats.

What? I like cats. Especially when they turn into gorgeous immortals.

Ty and Lily’s story is the first in my Dark Dynasties series, about the hotbed of intrigue and desire that is the realm of the twenty-first century vampire. If you’re up for a ride into the darkness, not to mention brooding bad boys who aren’t afraid to flash a little fang, then stick with me. I’ve got a silver-eyed hero you might like to meet….