Please help us offer a warm welcome to Sloan McBride this week. Sloan is here to share her Time Travel Scottish Historical Romance, Highland Stone. Welcome, Sloan! We are all excited to hear more about Highland Stone.
Hi, All, Sloan McBride here. If you haven’t heard of me it’s okay. Due to my day job, I’ve been out of the reader’s eye for a few years. Don’t get me wrong I stayed in touch with other authors, critique partners, and was the Treasurer for the Hearts Through History Chapter of Romance Writers of America for two years. I write Paranormal Romance and Romantic Suspense.
I’m excited to focus on writing again. Telling a story is in my blood. I love when the characters yammer in my head wanting their turn. In September I re-released my book “Highland Stone” with a new cover and additional content. It is Book 1 in The Talisman Trilogy. This is the story of Kara Malone, a volcanologist mourning the death of her grandmother. One night she finds a handcrafted box containing a journal and a beautiful stone.
Highland Stone is a time travel romance. It has a plane, a horse, and a sexy Highlander. 😊 What do all these things have in common? Kara Malone!
I am currently working on Book 2, Highland Soul. It is scheduled to come out in February.
I’ve always been a romantic. Writing romance made sense. I grew up with Sci-Fi, Action/Adventure, and fairytales. Not surprising that paranormal and suspense worked their way into the stories. I sit in my bedroom where I have a small corner desk by the window, and collages and pictures all over the walls. It is conducive to writing when it’s quiet. I look forward to getting another room one day to make my writing room, but until then this works for me.
I like to do my own book trailers. I love deciding on the music and pictures to make my book come alive. I have the book trailers on my website under Extras. Unfortunately, I didn’t start making the book trailers until my third book so there isn’t one for Highland Stone. I am, however, going to create one for Highland Soul.
Happy Reading!!!!!!
About Highland Stone:
A mysterious inheritance and magical forces thrust Kara Malone through the ages to the Scottish Highlands of old. There she encounters Alaxandar McLeod, the dark stranger who inhabits her dreams.
Alaxandar leads the charge to learn the truth about the violent raids against his clan. When his horse almost tramples a beautiful stranger, he is beguiled but skeptical. Is she a spy, or worse, a witch come to lure him with her body and distract him from his quest?
With his clan ever leery of Kara’s presence, and the raids intensifying, Alaxandar must decide what is right for his family and his heart. Will Kara choose to stay with the stranger from her dreams made flesh, or the mission she vowed to complete?
Series: The Talisman Trilogy (Book 1)
Highland Stone Buy Links:
Excerpt from Highland Stone:
Kara blinked trying to focus. Cold, stiff muscles spasmed in her back. How long had she’d been asleep? She stretched her arms overhead when realization hit. She was no longer in the confines of an airplane.
“What the hell?”
A light mist coiled around slopes of purple heather. In the distance lay a still body of water, a lake perhaps, sheltered by cliffs, creating a breathtaking backdrop. Fading twilight streaked through passing clouds and she sat on a gravel road with a severe wedgie and something sharp jabbing her butt.
“Holy hell.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes, and counted to ten. When she opened her eyes, nothing had changed. The strange weather caused the plane to crash and I’m dead. But if the plane crashed, wouldn’t I be injured, and wouldn’t there be burning debris from the fuselage littering the ground? A vicious headache pounded at her temples. Shifting to her hands and knees, Kara braced herself before rising. She stood and took inventory. Aches and pains wrestled through her body from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, each vying for a place to settle, but all her parts were intact. At her feet lay the stone she’d found with her grandmother’s journal. She picked it up and put it in her pocket.
Strangely dressed people gawked at her as she strolled toward the throng. Some kids chasing a small dog ran past her so closely that she staggered to keep her balance. They giggled but kept on their hunt. The sweet smell of fresh elderberries tickled her nose, as did a strong lavender scent from nearby bushes. She could hear murmured voices, a startled laugh, and a hawker announced some type of fair. More children raced around stands filled with woolen fabrics, apples, and what looked like raspberries.
She could see, hear, smell, and feel pain—this couldn’t be a dream. But it couldn’t be real either. She massaged her temples and closed her eyes again.
“This isn’t happening.”
She bit back a bout of hysterical laughter.
The voices and laughter quieted as more people began to take notice of her arrival. Several crossed themselves as if they were seeing some kind of apparition or demon. In her current attire, she struck out like a red rose in a bouquet of white carnations. Chills raced across her skin. The Boston Celtics t-shirt she wore offered little warmth.
Grand buckets of wood were ablaze. If only she could get closer to one of those, the fire would warm her. But, she dared not approach with so many gaping on-lookers which set her already shattered nerves on edge. Furiously rubbing her hands up and down her arms to generate friction and warmth, she scanned her surroundings for a hiding place. There was none save the woods. At dusk, who knew what kind of creatures would be in there: snakes, spiders, bats—not the most pleasant thought. Skulking away, she drifted up the road, and ducked into a thicket of trees. Large pines towered above her and the smell reminded her of Christmas.
She slid down the trunk of one to the cold, hard ground. “Scotland,” she murmured. “How in God’s name did I get to Scotland?” Think Kara, you’re a scientist.
Her brain had always been her best weapon against adversity. Okay, so her right hook had gotten her out of a few jams, but she’d been working on temper control. The trauma of her grandmother’s death, fond memories, and the story she fell asleep reading could explain her location. The why of it anyway. Or it could be psychosis. Because that’s the only plausible thing she could come up with, she’d gone over the edge—nuts. She had no fever, no illness, and no alcohol, so the how was going to be a little harder to explain. She studied rocks, volcanoes, gems, not physics. Time travel, space warps, magic, those weren’t her specialties. Where there are people, there are answers.
Staying concealed, she peered through the foliage at the gathering of people. The murmurs were more frantic now and she heard words like witch, banshee, and faery.
One withered man with a hunched back and heavy accent argued the price of some kind of tool. An elderly woman wrapped in large squared tartan of blue, red and yellow strolled over to a wooden two-wheeled wagon covered in baskets, examining each with a critical eye. Others milled about the stands, all adorned in plaids. One stocky fellow wore his as a kilt, a woman had hers wrapped about her shoulders.
Kara’s grandfather used to wear his tartan on special occasions. He often spoke of the festivals in the old country and how much fun he’d had there.
The setting sun meant a rapid change in the air and the cool mist which earlier had been mysterious, now stuck to her exposed skin. She crept back toward the small field of merchant booths where villagers sold their wares. If she didn’t find a way to warm up soon, she worried about hypothermia setting in.
Kara searched for a familiar landmark in the landscape. Nothing. Her stomach grumbled as she happened upon one family packing up their vegetables. She’d give up chocolate for a month if even one piece rolled off their stand unnoticed. Miraculously, an apple came to rest up against her shoe having done exactly that. As casually as possible, Kara picked up the apple and quickly sauntered away from the cart before kicking up speed to a jog. A thundering sound of horses careened toward her. She stumbled and fell.
A horse whinnied.
She threw her arms over her face and screamed before the rider reined the animal in. The horse reared, its massive hooves kicking out at the air above her head. Its active forelegs landed a foot away and a figure jumped off the stallion and roared down on her.
“Bloody hell, woman, be ye mad, jumping out in front o’ me horse like that? Ye could’ve been killed.”
Kara lowered her arm. I’m not trampled. Words caught in her dry throat, and her stomach flip-flopped as she gaped at the mountain of a man towering over her. His dark hair whipped around broad shoulders and his blue eyes burned with anger.
It was him, the dark giant who came to life in her dreams.
About the Author:
“Life is a book waiting to happen.” Sloan McBride
Sloan McBride is a multi-published author whose books have been reviewed, and featured in RT Book Reviews. She is a romance author who leans toward the paranormal, adding suspense, and mixing in mythology with her Time Walker Series. She dances through the Highlands, making merry with the clans in The Talisman Trilogy, and turns up the heat in the crazy world of smokejumpers in the Men of Fire Trilogy.
Sloan lives in Illinois with her husband of 39 years and two children who have grown into adulthood. By day she is executive assistant to the majority owner of a dynamic law firm. By night, she puts on her writing persona and creates kick-ass heroines and the tortured men who love them.
If you’d like more information about Sloan, please visit her website at www.sloanmcbride.com where you can sign up for her newsletter to receive notice of new books, giveaways, and more.
Thanks for having me, Maddy.