Guest Author: Erin Quinn - Haunting Beauty

Today, we've got Erin Quinn on the blog! Haunting Beauty just sounds like such a fascinating book that I asked Erin to tell us a bit more about it.

Please welcome Erin to the blog everyone!

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Nalini, thank you so much for inviting me to post on your blog! I’m a big fan and this is such an honor!

Haunting Beauty is the first in the Haunting Series and just released on August 4th. I’ve been thrilled with the response so far and started getting reader letters almost immediately. Since I love talking to readers, it’s all been very exciting.

Haunting Beauty is a book I simply had to write. I can remember when I started and the vivid image in my mind that later became the first chapter. I could see Sean Ballagh, Haunting Beauty’s hero, standing on the cliffs, looking out over the cold Irish sea and I knew, I knew, I had to tell his story. Even so, I was surprised at where Sean took me. Turns out, he shared my personal fascination with time and the idea that the past is not set in stone. Mistakes can be un-made, heartache can be transformed into triumph . . . but at what cost? If the past is an elaborate puzzle with interchangeable pieces, when one is altered, how do the others still fit? And how could you be sure that what changed didn’t make everything worse?

When Sean is sent by his grandmother to find Danni Smith and bring her home to the family she’s thought lost forever, he begins his search, but it’s not until he meets Danni that he comes to understand why he’s there.

He and Danni have a past and future that has become a tangled knot—a tether that binds them together while keeping them apart. They need one another whether they like it or not and Sean . . . he’s there for Danni, only for Danni.

Life has been hard on Danni, but she’s not the kind of woman who rolls over and takes it. She’s forged ahead and, with her little dog, Bean, has found contentment, if not happiness. She’s resigned herself to never knowing who she is, why she was abandoned as a child, or if she has family out there, somewhere. But when Sean appears at her door offering everything she ever wished for—the answers to the questions of her past and the ticket to find her family—Danni must follow him to Ireland, a land steeped with mystery and lore.

Sean delivers the goods—he reunites her with her people—but how could Danni have guessed that she would be meeting herself as a child? Reliving those fateful hours before her whole world was shattered? Learning the secrets that determined her fate? Who is this Sean Ballagh with his beautiful eyes and heartbreaking smile? And what does he want from Danni? He is more than a messenger, but even Sean doesn’t know the truth about himself.

What I loved about writing this story was the idea that Joe Nobody or Jane Unknown, people that look and act like everyone else, might actually have some hidden ability, some power that makes them extraordinary. I continue with this idea in book two of the Haunting series, Haunting Warrior, which releases in May 2010.

I’d love to know what you think . . . what is your favorite type of paranormal? Do you like reading about ordinary people doing extraordinary things or do you like your paranormal world more alien, filled with creatures or space travelers? What do you hope to find when you open the cover of that book?