Spotlight & Giveaway: A Laird and a Gentleman by Gerri Russell

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Gerri Russell to HJ!

Hi Gerri and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, A Laird and a Gentleman!

To start off, can you please tell us a little bit about this book?:

A Laird and a Gentleman is a reverse Beauty and the Beast story—where the heroine is the beast…or in this case…a witch. Mariam is frightened of who she is at the beginning of the book, but by the end of the story she not only learns how to stand up for herself, she embraces what it is that makes her different.
 

Please share your favorite lines or quote(s) from this book:

This might not be the most exciting quote in the book, but I truly feel for the time we are living in, this quote is the most profound. The chatelaine at Ravenscraig Castle and Mariam’s friend says, “We must all learn to live with the challenges life gives us.”

The quote is a great reminder that we are not alone in our struggles, and that everyone has them!

What inspired this book?

I have always been fascinated with the “burning times” in Scotland and I wanted to learn more about what started them, who was caught up in them, why there are so few memorials dedicated to the men and women who died, and how witch-fever finally came to an end. I answered all those questions over the course of the five books series. In the pages of A Laird and a Gentleman, I wanted to explore what would happen if one of my heroines was actually a witch…

One thing I found particularly interesting, while writing the All the King’s Men series, there were two substantial academic papers that were published about the victims of this period in Scottish history, and a memorial was erected in Fife dedicated to those who died. I was thrilled to learn that others were as interested in exploring this forgotten moment.

How did you ‘get to know’ your main characters? Did they ever surprise you?

Mariam Swinton is the daughter of the king’s official witch pricker. She spent her entire life hiding who she is from everyone around her. She is damaged and somewhat cruel at the beginning of the book. It was fun watching Mariam grow and change when, for the first time in her life, she is supported and simply loved for who she is by the hero. Mariam’s strength and resilience surprised me. No matter what I threw at her—and I threw a lot at her—she found a way to overcome the obstacles.

Cameron Sinclair is a warrior, a merchant sailor, and just about the nicest man you’ll ever meet. He can be your best friend and your book boyfriend, all wrapped up in tartan cloth.

What was your favorite scene to write?

My favorite scene to write was one of the final scenes where Mariam must use her magic to save everyone and everything she loves. The entire book she fears using her magic because she will either become like her father who is evil or her mother who is good—but in the end she risks it all because her love for the hero is greater than her fear.

Mariam gathered the wind at her feet, swirling, gusting, until she could barely stand. Overhead, lightning slashed the sky in jagged bolts. Thunder rattled, loud and booming, over the howling of the wind. The ground beneath her feet pitched and rolled as she gathered her power from the elements around her. The wind writhed and thrashed.
She locked her gaze on Cameron’s as her soul divided; one half leaning toward the light, the other toward the dark. She might have been torn in the past by her two desires, each as strong as the other, but no longer. There was another force inside her stronger than either of those two things.
Love.
Instead of shielding her emotions from him, Mariam allowed all the love in her heart to show on her face, in her eyes as she reached deep inside, grasping every fragment of power she possessed and sent it outward, blasting both Cameron and her mother away from her.
With her next breath, she raised her arms, gathering the churning sky in her mind—all the ash, all the darkness, and all the sickness before her life came to an end.

What was the most difficult scene to write?

The most difficult scene for me to write was the one where Mariam and Vivian (from Seven Nights With a Scot) come together to heal those who are falling ill to an unknown illness. And as if the illness isn’t bad enough, a volcano erupts and sends volcanic ash across Scotland. This was a difficult scene for me because I live in the Greater Seattle area and when Mount Saint Helens erupted on May 18th, 1980 I witnessed that eruption and the fallout of the ash for weeks afterward. I used my own memories from that time to add realism to the scene.

Mariam sat upright and looked at the sky. The world around them fell silent—devoid of all noise. The clouds overhead shifted from gray to black and the sun disappeared, blotted out by sudden darkness. The wind that had been so sweet moments before was suddenly filled with the smell of sulfur. Dry leaves flew up in a whirlwind of rustling brown and gold, striking Mariam’s body and leaving a sting of pain behind as they moved on.
“Are you causing the wind?” Vivian asked, her features filled with concern as she stood.
“Nay!” Mariam jumped up as a coil of fear knotted her stomach.
“It must be a dust storm.”
Mariam looked up. The darkness edged forward, until it engulfed them entirely. Visibility dropped until Mariam could only see a hand’s length in front of her. The castle she knew was there, but it had vanished into darkness.
The whole world was simply gone.
A chill chased down Mariam’s spine at the recollection of her dream. Black soot floated in the air, like a fine mist, but it didn’t vanish upon hitting the ground. Nay, upon the earth, it swirled like cold snow, accumulating about her booted feet.
“We must return to the castle,” Vivian said.
“Agreed. I fear this is going to get much worse.” Mariam gulped ashy air as she shuffled slowly forward.

Would you say this book showcases your writing style or is it a departure for you?

A Laird and a Gentleman definitely showcases my writing style. I write historical books that are filled with adventure and emotion anchored in real historical events.

What do you want people to take away from reading this book?

Without really knowing what was coming…I wrote about an influenza pandemic which was very true to this historical period. When sailors started exploring new lands, they often brought illness back with them. Without immunizations or antibiotics, and less stringent sanitation, it was easy for things like the plague and influenza to wipe out huge portions of the population.

We are living through our own pandemic, and while we don’t have Mariam’s magic to help save the day, we have the “magic” of knowledge, medical facilities, and the possibility of a vaccine that will eventually help. The pandemics of the past eventually died out, and ours will too. In the meanwhile, we can read lots of interesting stories to help keep us entertained.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have planned?

I just finished the final book in the All the King’s Men series, Much Ado About a Scot. It comes out in October 2020. And I’m starting a new series called The Guardians of the Isles which will feature a little fairy magic!

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: An ebook copy of A Laird and a Gentleman & 3 Tule ebooks of your choice

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Excerpt from A Laird and a Gentleman:

The Old Parish Church, North Berwick, Scotland
August 15th, 1592
The air in the tribunal chamber was heavy with the smell of tallow from the multitude of candles burning in the sconces on the walls. From her position in the crowded room, Mariam Swinton coiled her fingers together, twisting and retwisting them as each witness came forward.
She should be there, in the witness box, telling them what she knew, telling the tribunal panel the truth about the statement she had given supporting Donald Ruthven’s claim that Lachlan had used sorcery while at Ravenscraig Castle.
Her words were lies that had not only caused Lachlan’s arrest, but also his torture. Her lies helped streak his back with bloody wounds. Her lies had allowed her own father to prick Lachlan’s flesh with his torturous needle.
And despite all the agony Lachlan had suffered, he had not confessed to any crimes or revealed the names of other witches. Lachlan could have turned her confession back on her and named her as a witch for being different than everyone else.
He had not.
The man had chosen silence over betrayal.
Mariam clamped her teeth together to keep from crying out as guilt coiled tight in her chest. There was still time to speak the truth. Mariam’s gaze met her father’s. His icy expression warned her that if she belatedly spoke out in Lachlan’s defense, she would regret doing so. She bit down on the inside of her cheeks, fighting the urge to object until she tasted the sharp saltiness of her own blood inside her mouth.
She knew Lachlan was innocent. She knew Donald Ruthven had fabricated all of the charges against him. And no matter how much she wanted to intervene; she was powerless to do so. For if she did, her father would take her betrayal out on her flesh as he had done her whole life.
Mariam reached for the shell necklace her mother had given her before she died. The feel of the smooth shell against her palm calmed her even as Cameron Sinclair looked her way, begging her with an intensity that equaled that of her father’s to speak out, to tell the truth, stop the tribunal and all the suffering.
Why could she not do what was right by defying her father and freeing Lachlan of the charges against him? Was it because after all the years she’d spent alone with her father she was as depraved as he was? For it was said that the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.
Determined to do what was right for the first time in her life, Mariam stepped forward and opened her mouth, ready to speak until her father’s hiss of protest filled the chamber. The others beside her thought the sound was in response to the testimony Elizabeth Ruthven Douglas gave against her husband, but Mariam knew the sound was directed at her. A warning, a command, a promise of what was to come if she intervened.
Mariam snapped her mouth shut. No matter how much she wanted to do what was right, her father would never allow it. Her heart dropped and hope fled. She’d spent her whole life fighting him, trying to grasp hold of the future she wanted. A future he denied her.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Forget the past. Forget your father. At the moment she was safe thanks to King James. Fearing others might hunt her down in order to seek revenge on her father, the king had placed her under the guardianship of Cameron Sinclair. The last year at Ravenscraig Castle had been one of the least fearful of her life.
She opened her eyes only to see Cameron watching her from across the crowded chamber. The look he gave her spoke volumes. It demanded she speak up. It begged her to do something to help. And it promised his own kind of retribution if she did not.
Her fingers trembled as she wrestled with the decision. If she spoke the truth there would be hell to pay from her father. If she did not, and if Lachlan was found guilty, Cameron might never forgive her . . .
The breath she’d been holding whooshed out of her lungs when Lachlan finally stood before the magistrates’ table, waiting for the five men in white wigs and scarlet gowns to either free him of the charges of witchcraft or send him to the hangman’s noose, as if doing so would rid the world of evil.
Lachlan’s accuser, Donald Ruthven, was brought forward to stand before the panel. While she’d been lost in her thoughts something must have happened because a strange device was brought forward and placed between two of the men who were Lachlan’s judges.
“The Greeks used a technique called coscinomancy to determine a guilty party in a criminal offense,” King James announced to the chamber. “And since we cannot decide among ourselves whether Lachlan Douglas is guilty or not, we will let the coscinomancy decide.”
A knot of fear tightened Mariam’s stomach. The sieve with a pair of shears attached was somehow supposed to determine whether Donald Ruthven or Lachlan Douglas was guilty?
She had to do something if it was within her power to do so, no matter the risk to herself. Closing her eyes, she summoned all her will, her strength, her rage. She gathered it up and released it as she snapped her eyes open. To everyone else it felt as though a frenzied wind blew through the chamber. Mariam knew it was something more. It only lasted for a heartbeat, then stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The sieve moved.
Over the collective intake of startled breaths that followed the movement of the sieve in the direction of the guilty man, Mariam forced herself to remain still. She had to appear calm, unaffected by what had just transpired. She had helped in her own way. Letting her gaze rove about the chamber, she startled as Cameron’s gaze connected with her own. A questioning look brought a wrinkle to his brow.
Did he know what she had done?
Nay, there were too many other ways to explain the result, and King James seemed pleased with the verdict. Lachlan was freed of all charges.
As the room erupted in a momentary chaos, Mariam took advantage and slipped out the side door. The best course of action for her would be to return to Ravenscraig Castle with all due haste to wait for her guardian’s return and his decision about her future. For her part in all of this, would Cameron allow her to remain under his protection or would he return her to her father?
The first stirrings of fear caused her steps to falter. Would Cameron force her back to a place she’d hoped never to return? Her heartbeat thudded in her ears at the thought. She couldn’t go back to that man. She would rather die than put herself in such a situation again.
Mariam balled her hands into white-knuckled fists as she watched Cameron and his brothers-in-arms leave the tribunal chamber, heading for carriages that waited out front that would whisk the key players in the trial away to their respective homes. Perhaps if she talked to Cameron now before he had time to sit and think, if she explained herself, he would understand. Or would he assume, like everyone else, that she was not capable of anything except deception and evil?
Merciful heavens. Mariam’s heartbeat hammered at her temples. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized she’d been on trial as well. Ultimately, she had helped Lachlan, but she couldn’t tell anyone what she’d done. If she did, she would end up in the same gaol cell the accused witch had just vacated.
At the realization, Mariam’s composure crumpled, her shoulders trembled and slumped. She had to talk to Cameron immediately, before he sent her away for good.

When the trial had ended, the remaining warriors who comprised King James VI’s Magnificent Seven gathered outside the ruins of the Old Parish Church to give Lachlan and Elizabeth privacy as they let the verdict and the consequences of the trial sink in. Cameron Sinclair, Alexander Ross, Malcolm Hamilton, Rhys Elliot, Quinn Douglas, and Reid Douglas waited beside two carriages: one that would take their brother-in-arms and his wife back home, while the other would see the king safely back to Falkland Palace where he and the queen currently resided.
“Lachlan and Elizabeth have been through the trial of a lifetime in the past few days,” Cameron Sinclair commented as he took the reins of his horse from a waiting stable boy, offering the lad payment for his work tending not only the carriages but also the other six horses while the trial had concluded. “It will be an honor to escort the newlyweds safely home.”
“Their trial is over,” Alexander said, mounting his horse and nudging it toward Cameron’s. “But I fear yours has just begun.”
“What do you mean?” Cameron asked with a frown.
“Your ward.” Rhys’s gaze shifted to something in the distance. “Seems she means to further try your temper this day. She heads for us now.”
Cameron twisted around to see Mariam advancing on them. Her unrestrained red hair was snatched by an errant breeze, making it swirl temptingly about her curvaceous form. When their eyes met, her lips parted. In the span of a single heartbeat, the Mariam he had known for the past year vanished and a madwoman—a witch with red hair—took her place. And as quickly as it had come, the image was gone.
As reason took hold once more, Cameron found himself staring at Mariam as she approached. The two were only six years apart, with her being in her eighteenth year and him in his twenty-fourth. The king had placed her with him when her own father had gone into service as the king’s witch pricker.
In the past few years, John Swinton and his pricker’s needle had exposed nearly five hundred witches in the Scottish Lowlands alone. Tensions were running high between the families of those who were executed and the man responsible for exposing their loved ones as witches.
John Swinton was not only feared, he was hated by most everyone in Scotland. And after there had been an attempt on the life of the man’s daughter by an angry husband whose wife had just been burned at the stake, the king had decided to place Mariam in Cameron’s care. When Cameron had asked the king why he’d been chosen, King James had said it was because Cameron had never lost a battle or any of his own men in any conflict.
Above all others, the king trusted Cameron to keep Mariam safe. But how could he protect her from herself? She seemed determined to act upon her emotions and not with logic. He’d tried to teach her equanimity during the past year, without any success. Lachlan’s trial was evidence of that fact.
She stopped before him. Anguish lingered in her eyes. “Cameron, my lord,” Mariam said breathlessly. “You must understand I had no choice but to remain silent. I could not—”
“It matters not. What’s done is done.” Cameron’s nerves reacted to her nearness, but he held himself in check. He might be her guardian but he was not blind to her beauty. He straightened as he pushed the thought from his mind. Mariam had been on trial here today as well, and she had failed. His ward had taken advantage of his generosity and understanding far too often, and she wouldn’t get away unscathed this time. He’d had his fill. “We’re done talking about this today. I will deal with you when I return to Ravenscraig. Understood?”
Her pulse leapt at her throat and the heat of a blush rose to her cheeks. “I understand your anger—”
“I’m disappointed in you more than I am angry. Go back to Ravenscraig now, this minute. I will deal with you when I return in a week or so.”
“But I—”
Cameron steeled his features. “You had your chance to speak up, and you failed to do so. I have no desire to hear your excuses, however noble you think they might be. Go home.”
Ignoring Mariam, Cameron signaled to the captain of his guard. “Ian will see you safely back to Ravenscraig.”
The distress in her green eyes vanished as anger sparked. “For how long might I remain?”
“I have not yet decided,” Cameron said sharply. “Perhaps time away from you will temper my thoughts to your advantage. Or not. Until my return, behave yourself if you can, or you may yet feel my wrath. Understood?”
Anger and anxiety mixed with frustration in her eyes, until she finally nodded. “I understand.”
“This way, milady,” Ian said, ready to escort her back to the stable where Cameron’s own carriage awaited. He watched until they were out of sight before turning back to his brothers-in-arms.
“A bit of a shrew,” Alexander said as he returned to Cameron’s side.
“You must see it, Cameron,” Reid said with concern. “Mariam is nothing but trouble. If I were you, I would send her back to her father, or marry her off as soon as possible and make her someone else’s problem. None of us needs any kind of distraction at present, not when the Wizard Earl is back in Scotland to stir up trouble for the king.”
Cameron frowned. “Aye, our duty to protect King James from the Earl of Bothwell is more important than all else. And now we are down a man with Lachlan leaving Scotland for a while. But I am certain once Mariam has had time to consider her actions, she will come around. She cannot have had the easiest life with a father like John Swinton. She is misguided, but not a hopeless cause. Besides, I alone cannot marry her off. The king must approve any sort of match.”
“You are making excuses for her behavior,” Alexander said.
“Perhaps it is time to get the king involved in finding her a husband,” Reid said.
Rhys scoffed. “A tyrant bride—who needs one of those?”
“I agree with Cameron.” Malcolm who had remained silent finally spoke. “As someone who has been misunderstood his entire life, I see past her defenses as you may not. There is something dark and dangerous about Mariam, but I also see a goodness in her she doesn’t yet see in herself. If Cameron chooses to foster her growth in a different direction for a while longer, we should all support him.”
“Thank you, Malcolm.” Cameron nodded his agreement. “Mariam has her challenges, as we all do, but you must understand I cannot marry her off just yet, or send her back to King James, and certainly not to her father. Both men will only send her down a darker path.” Cameron paused, then added, “I cannot give up on her just yet.”
Rhys groaned. “Why must you always see the good in everyone?”
“I fear it will be your undoing,” Quinn warned, but with a half smile continued, “But if that is what you wish, I support you.”
“As do we,” the others eventually chimed in chorus.
Quinn’s lightheartedness faded as seriousness returned to his face. “But if you have need of our assistance in this matter, any of us would come to your aid at a moment’s notice.”
“Thank you, brothers.” Cameron brought his fist to his chest and tapped it twice in their usual salute to each other. The others echoed his salute before turning their attention back to the task at hand, returning Lachlan and Elizabeth to their home and the safety it would provide for their future.
As they waited for the couple to appear, Cameron’s thoughts strayed to the young woman who was his ward. He was disappointed with Mariam for not speaking out at the trial as she should have, for he knew her statement had been a lie, but beneath that disappointment also simmered a thrill at the idea of conquering her—not in a physical way, but helping her, as Malcolm phrased it, to find the goodness in herself.
A battle lay before him, and perhaps the greatest challenge of his life.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

At a time when witches are hunted with fanatical zeal, Cameron faces the ultimate test—protect the woman he’s grown to love or risk it all to help her unlock the mystery of her powerful past?

Scottish Laird Cameron Sinclair is one of the king’s elite warriors. Despite his legendary reputation on the battlefield, he’s tasked to protect the daughter of the king’s infamous witch pricker. Cameron does his duty, taking the lass home to his castle and keeping her safe, but he’s not expecting the mysterious beauty to test his every nerve.

Mariam Swinton struggles daily to keep her secrets safe. Her intense attraction to her handsome and astute guardian, who rules the vast Ravenscraig with strength and kindness, scares her almost as much as her growing magical abilities. But danger stalks Mariam. Can she trust Cameron to protect her or must she leave to save herself?

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Meet the Author:

Gerri Russell is the award-winning author of historical and contemporary novels including the Brotherhood of the Scottish Templars series and Flirting with Felicity. A two-time recipient of the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart Award and winner of the American Title II competition sponsored by RT Book Reviews magazine, she is best known for her adventurous and emotionally intense novels set in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Scottish Highlands. Before Gerri followed her passion for writing romance novels, she worked as a broadcast journalist, a newspaper reporter, a magazine columnist, a technical writer and editor, and an instructional designer. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and four mischievous black cats.
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