Countdown to Heartbreak and Honor’s Release-Three Weeks!

As always when I have a book about to release, I’m running around like crazy. It’s a good sort of crazy though!

Excerpt Time!

Never had clean clothes and a thorough scrub been more coveted, even one in the icy streams she’d often complained about as a child. Warm bubble-filled baths in a tub of some sort flitted across her mind.

I must have dreamt that.

A child stirred, and Tasara dashed to the bed containing their wee forms. She didn’t want them waking. She sucked in a shuddery breath and drew the ratty blanket higher, covering her slumbering sister’s and brother’s ears.

The thin fabric wouldn’t stifle the battle raging elsewhere in the keep. Nae, the blessed, deep sleep of childhood and an empty stomach protected the children far more than the raggedy length of grimy cloth.

The need to do something, anything, to keep György and Lala safe overcame her. She withdrew the bone-handled dagger sheathed in her boot, and for the hundredth time, searched the room’s shrouded corners for apparitions.

Evil permeated the very stones of Dounnich House.

Beyond the narrow, mullioned windows, the fading light couldn’t disguise the stark chamber’s dinginess.

If she’d been alone, she would’ve attempted to escape from the upper story prison, but with bairns, one four and the other but seven years old, she’d considered the option and tossed it aside as easily as a gnawed chicken bone.

If need be, she would die protecting them.

At least she’d been able to help Isobel Ferguson flee the castle mere hours ago.

Isobel and the man rescuing her vowed to send Tasara help. Perhaps they had, and that’s what caused the ruckus below. A powerful laird in his own right, Ewan McTavish would seek vengeance for his sister’s abduction.

Twilight cloaked the sky in deep violet-gray and darkened the tomblike chamber further. Tasara hadn’t a candle to light or firewood either. She shivered and firmed her lips against her empty stomach’s painful contractions.

No one had ventured to their chamber since a timid maid delivered cold, lumpy porridge and stale dark bread this morning, further testament to the mayhem within the keep.

The Blackhalls were mad, the entire, uncivilized lot.

Should she waken the children and tuck them into a corner in case the renegades sought to use them as hostages or living shields?

She could pull the bed before the door, but given her hairy captors’ size, two or three hefty pushes would send the cumbersome piece of furniture skidding across the floor.

Wiser to let the wee ones sleep, and pray to God no one entered their room until her father or another traveller banged upon the door.

If that’s who fought below. If not . . .

Please God, let it be them.

Lala turned over, flopping one small arm above her head and murmuring something unintelligible in her sleep.

An almost undetectable scritching rasped at the chamber’s entrance.

Heartbreak and Honor’s Christmastide Holiday is December 2, 2015 from 4:00-10:00 PM. Nearly 20 historical authors are coming together for this party.

I’d love for you to join us! Just click HERE!

 By-the-way, I have two giveaways happening right now.  Go to my home page HERE.