Guest Author: Erin Quinn

WINNER: Thanks for all the great comments everyone. I've just run the random numbers and the winner of Erin's giveaway is Cait045. Congratulations!!

I'm delighted to welcome Erin Quinn back to the blog today! I was lucky enough to read Haunting Warrior a little while ago, and thought it was a wonderful book - full of passion and magic. It just swept me away to another time and place.

If you'd like to read an excerpt, you can find one on Erin's website. However, I'd suggest reading Haunting Beauty first, as I think the books build beautifully on each other.

Please welcome Erin on the blog everyone! (And don't forget to enter her giveaway.)

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Erin Quinn

Nalini, thank you so much for having me here at your blog. I’m a big fan and frequent visitor so it’s an honor to be a guest as well. You made my whole month when you contacted me to say you thought HAUNTING WARRIOR was awesome and you couldn’t put it down. I was at a writers conference and happy dancing all over the place. My roommate thought I was nuts . . . but then, she usually does think I’m nuts.

People have asked me what I loved about writing HAUNTING WARRIOR and my answer is simple. Rory. Rory is the amazing hunkus maximus you see on the cover and in my head when I was writing him—he was just as gorgeous. I fell in love with Rory almost from the first word. Readers met Rory when he was just a little boy in HAUNTING BEAUTY, but now he’s all grown up and he’s coping with a whole lot of trouble. He’s just traveled through time, following a woman he’s been dreaming of for weeks. Now he finds himself trapped in the body of another man—a man who could be his twin and who is about to marry Rory’s dream woman.

Saraid has agreed to marry a man she despises and fears because she is honor bound and prays the match will end the war on her people.

Here’s an excerpt from one of my favorite scenes when she first begins to realize that the man she’s wed is not who she thinks he is.

Saraid took a deep breath when he lowered his head to kiss her, feeling dizzy and sickened and something else she could not define. As if sensing the turmoil inside her, he caught her gaze and held it for a moment, his searching, probing. She felt as if he were trying to say something with those enigmatic eyes, and for a flashing instant she felt again that sense of another lurking behind the sky blue of them. What a frightening mystery this man was, she thought.

And then his mouth settled over hers and thought fled. His kiss was warm and soft when she’d expected cold and hard. The touch of his lips gentle and coaxing when she’d prepared for rough and invasive. The kiss was brief, and yet it felt that time stopped for the length of it, giving her the chance to feel every nuance, every unexpected instant. It seemed he tried to pull back and then hesitated, allowing just another moment of the contact that shocked her like a hot ember popping from a blazing fire to burn her. With their hands bound and trapped between their bodies, Saraid could do little more than allow it. She’d be allowing so much more later, when they were alone.

He pulled away, just enough so that he could look into her eyes again, and she saw something there that she did not understand. Confusion that matched her own. A need—but not the kind she’d expected. Not lust, but longing.

Thanks again for having me, Nalini! I’d love to give away an autographed copy of either ECHOES or WHISPERS (books by me, writing as Erin Grady) to someone who leaves a comment! Tell me, what do you love best about the heroes you read? (Contest now closed).

Erin's Website