Medieval Monday with Cathy MacRae - Excerpt 8

 

Welcome back to Medieval Monday! This is week eight of the new round of authors, snippets, and fun. Our spring theme is the first kiss. Today I am hosting Cathy MacRae and her great story, The Highlander’s Pirate Bride.

(For easy access to authors taking part in this round of Medieval Monday tales, visit the Medieval Romance Lovers Facebook page. Authors will post their blog links there.  You can also find us on Twitter at #MedMonSpring21.)

Let me catch you up. Rona be a fearsome pirate, but intimacies with near strangers even one she is agreeing to wed is a different kind of fight. So… how will he woo her?

Excerpt 8

An exhilaration not unlike facing a storm at the bow of a ship rushed over her. She swallowed, throat suddenly dry. “This isnae going to be a peck on the cheek, then?”

His grin was pure seduction. “Nae, lass. I dinnae have pecks in mind.” He reached a hand toward her. “The first step is yers.”

“Och, thank God. For I dinnae know what the second step is.”

The Highlander’s Pirate Bride
By Cathy & DD MacRae

Will the theft of the wrong ship land her in a hangman’s noose? Or a Highlander’s arms?

As the pirate The Black MacNeill, Rona MacNeill has stolen more than one English ship to keep her clan from starving. With Yule only days away, will the theft of the wrong ship land her in a hangman’s noose? Or the arms of a Highlander?

Rona MacNeill has done everything she can to help her small, impoverished clan—except marry for money. Her luck seems to lie in stealing ships, not attracting suitors. Only days before Yule, she seeks one last ship with stores to keep her people fed over the long, harsh winter. Too bad her luck has run out.

Pedr MacLean is happy to be the younger (by three minutes) son of Baron MacLean. His days are filled with running the family’s shipping business and sailing the world. His heart belongs to the sea—or so he thinks, until one of his ships is stolen, and the woman responsible turns his world upside down.

Drawn to Rona’s strength and love of the sea, Pedr will agree to her father’s demand—information on the whereabouts of his ship in exchange for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Will Rona find herself caught between a marriage of convenience and a hangman’s noose? Or will she discover something far more compelling?

The Highlander’s Pirate Bride is the swash-buckling seventh addition to the Hardy Heroines series. If you like pirates, rags-to-riches, and swoon-worthy Highlanders, you’ll love Cathy & DD MacRae’s newest high-seas romance.

Buy link:  https://www.amzn.com/dp/B08WFJFT8D

 

You can find Cathy here: https://www.cathymacraeauthor.com

 

Medieval Monday with Cathy MacRae

The Prince’s Highland Bride

Free of court intrigue, Phillipe seeks a new start in life. Falling in love was not in his plans. Until he met Maggie MacLaren.

Nature can provide beauty and inspiration. It can also bring danger. Maggie’s island is a place of solace and great beauty, but it is also completely without defenses, something Phillipe must correct before he completes his task of protecting the woman he has come to love—and says good-bye to her forever.

Maggie is faced with the realization that some men will do anything to destroy her even thought she is no longer a threat. She has choices to make, but before she does that she must come to gripes with her protector.

Back Cover Copy:

Phillipe de Poitiers, a prince of Antioch, finds himself a breath away from wrongful execution. Risking everything, he leaves behind his crown, his family, his country—and a body sworn to be his by the Bishop, himself.

Free of court intrigue and drawn to Scotland by memories of a woman who once possessed his heart, Phillipe sells his sword to pay for his travels and accepts the task of guarding the daughter of Laird MacLaren.

When Maggie MacLaren’s abusive marriage fails, she wants nothing more than to retire to her childhood home on the banks of Loch Lomond. Trouble follows her, putting her clan in danger, and she travels to the Isle of Hola, placing her safety in the hands of a mysterious mercenary with a haunted smile and a kind heart.

As Maggie and Phillipe struggle with their pasts, love blooms. But when a pirate’s treasure offers a seductive lure, will it free them—or prove the downfall of all they hold dear?

Buy links:

Amazon: https://www.amzn.com/dp/B086Z153VH

Nature can provide beauty and inspiration. It can also bring danger. Maggie’s island is a place of solace and great beauty, but it is also completely without defenses, something Phillipe must correct before he completes his task of protecting the woman he has come to love—and says good-bye to her forever.

Maggie is faced with the realization that some men will do anything to destroy her even thought she is no longer a threat. She has choices to make, but before she does that she must come to gripes with her protector.

Excerpt 5:

His choice of words startled her almost as much as his certainty her presence would bring dissolute men to Hola.

He thought her beautiful?

What would the presence of such men do to her isle?

Panic swept over her. “I could rebuild the monastery. Create a nunnery. I would be safe there.”

Something—sorrow?—crossed his face. “Ye have no wish to remarry? A man with a powerful name could protect ye.”

Scorn swept away her fears. “I had a powerful name. I had a husband. Neither protected me.”

Join me next week on Judith Sterling’s blog: https://judithmarshallauthor.com/blog/