Spotlight & Giveaway: Highland Surrender by Heather McCollum

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Heather McCollum to HJ!

Hi Heather and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Highland Surrender!

 
Hello Lovers of Love Stories!
 

Please summarize the book a la Twitter style for the readers here:

Erik Halverson, a Norwegian warrior descended from Vikings, is tasked to kidnap the beloved sister of the four mighty Sinclair Horsemen of Scotland. Hannah Sinclair, worried about becoming a virgin spinster, chooses the Norwegian trader to seduce. But when he kidnaps her during her planned seduction, passion turns to fury. Erik soon realizes that the Highland kitten he’s come to steal is, in fact, a Hellcat.
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

His senses alert, Erik Halverson stepped from a mossy hillock to a smooth stone outcropping in the thick forest of Caithness, Scotland. His laced leather boots touched down without a whisper that might alert whoever was up ahead past the bramble covered in white blackberry flowers. The birds were still or had flown off, and he’d spotted a thin rope that would signal an intruder if he’d been foolish enough to brush against it. The only sound was the burble of the narrow river that emptied into the sea bordering Girnigoe Castle. He was alone, having left his horse and three friends back with the Sinclair wives discussing possible trade with Norway.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• HIGHLAND SURRENDER was not originally part of the Sons of Sinclair four-book series. But readers wanted the Sinclair sister to have her own HEA, and my publisher agreed when I asked if I could tell her story.
•  The tale about the wager between the sun and the wind is one I think of a lot. I might have been told it as a child. It reminds me to take a step back and think about how the other person is taking my request to do something (this usually pertains to my kids).
• I made a picture collage of all four brothers, their wives, and their horses so I could properly write the family scenes, which I LOVE in this book.
• The real Sophie of Denmark was very loving toward her children and worried about her daughter, Anne, when she married James of Scotland.
• First I thought I was writing a book about Norway, and then discovered that we were stopping at the Shetland Isles and then going on to Denmark, because the Dowager-Queen Sophie wouldn’t have gone to Norway. I am definitely a “pantser”. I’m never quite sure where the story is taking me, but I’ve learned to trust my characters.

What first attracts your main characters to each other?

Hannah has been cloistered much of her life, and, at 29 years old, she really wants to have a baby. But her four warrior brothers have scared off any suitors. When a brawny Norwegian silver trader comes to Girnigoe Castle, she decides to seduce him.
Erik is on a mission to steal away the beloved sister of the Sinclair Horsemen. Before he realizes that the beauty, standing naked with an arrow trained on him, is Hannah Sinclair, his mind and body are already ensnared by her. When he kidnaps her, she confirms that she is no kitten but a ferocious Hellcat.
 

Using just 5 words, how would you describe your main characters”love affair?

Forbidden, Seductive, Torturous, Sizzling, Inevitable.
 

The First Kiss…

“I was to be rewarded with a kiss from Lady Hannah, and yet I haven’t received it.” His words were a murmur that strummed inside her, making her shift.
She stepped forward. “I…I can remedy that.” She rested her hands on his chest. The muscles were hard there, and she stroked upward over his chiseled form.
Tipping her head back, her breath caught as his mouth touched hers. Unlike the rest of him, so hard and unbending, his lips were soft, capturing her in the kiss. The heat that had started building inside her flared. His hands came around to her back, pulling her body into his without hesitation. She could feel his hard jack press against her, and it didn’t frighten her at all.
As if answering his arousal, her own body responded, the skin under her smock prickling with awareness. She wrapped her hands around his neck, molding herself against his hard frame. The kiss turned wild, and the ache between her legs intensified, making her shift against his hard jack. He must understand by now that she wanted more than a kiss.

Without revealing too much, what is your favorite scene in the book?

There are so many fun scenes in this book. In this one, Hannah has decided that to get out of her predicament and give in to her own desires for the brawny Norwegian warrior, she is going to seduce him. She knows he desires her, but he’s been holding back.

Hannah Sinclair was a siren.
Every time he turned around, there she was, bending over so that an image of him loving her from behind popped into his head. Then she would snap upright, her golden tresses flying about in wild disarray as if she were in the throes of passion.
Several times over the past two days since she’d dropped her bathing sheet before him, she’d spilled water over her front and had to take her bodice off to dry. She’d been left in a damp smock that she covered with a shawl. And then the shawl would slip from her shoulders whenever Erik walked around the corner.
His cod was in constant agony, and his mood was becoming more vicious by the hour. He didn’t even have to close his eyes to see the smooth, pale skin Hannah had shown him. Her peaked breasts and full hips appeared in his dreams every night, too, as if to taunt him further about what he’d given up in the Girnigoe barn the night he’d stolen her away from her home.
They were finishing repairs on the ship and, since killing the worst of Patrick’s men, they would sail the next day for Denmark. The sails had been sewn. The mast had been rubbed smooth and just needed to be fitted against the broken base. Eric had poured his restless energy into repairing the Pedersens’ barn and instructing the two small Sinclair girls on making a flag with a wolf’s head on it. They would hang it from the barn facing outward to let Patrick Stewart’s men know that they’d be back if they continued to harass the homestead.
Erik stretched his back in the doorway of the barn, his gaze going to Hannah standing next to the roundhouse. She wore the blue dress he’d commissioned with Sophie’s money. It was in the Norwegian style instead of the Danish, a small triumph against the dowager-queen’s orders in this mission.
Hannah poured creamy milk into the tall bucket of a butter churn. Eric’s breath swelled in his chest as she gripped the smooth wooden plunger, her long fingers wrapped around it. And she began to stroke the wood. Was she even moving the plunger or merely sliding her hands up and down the length? He didn’t care. His breath came out in a loud rush, and he watched, her arms going up and down, her fingers sliding faster along the wooden cod, for that’s what it looked like. Hannah giving pleasure to an erect cod.
When her lips parted slightly as if to catch more air or moan, Erik heard a strangled noise next to him. Glancing beside him, he saw Nial and Sten standing there, mouths open, eyes wide.
“What is she doing?” Sten whispered.
“Churning butter,” Nial said, but his voice was low, husky.
Sten rubbed a hand down his front. “But her lips—”
“Get back to work,” Erik said, stepping in front of them. He shoved at their shoulders to get them to retreat into the barn.
“I’ve never seen a woman churn butter like that,” Sten said, shaking his head as if to rid himself of the image or break a spell cast upon him. “My mother surely doesn’t.”
Nial groaned. “Ugh, Sten! Now I have a picture in my head of your mother stroking a butter churn.” Sten’s face pinched into a horrified grimace.

If your book was optioned for a movie, what scene would be absolutely crucial to include?

“Hannah…” He gently pulled her hand from him, bringing it up between them. “I cannot take your maidenhood.”
She stiffened. “But you…we…?” she whispered. “Erik Halverson, I want you. Don’t you…want to bed me?”
A deep chuckle rumbled in his chest. “You felt what’s in my breeches, how badly I want you.” His words made her shiver with hunger. “You trust me, and I am honored, but I cannot dishonor you by laying with you.”
“My brothers—”
“And not because of your brothers.” He backed up slightly, and the glow of the lantern cut across his face. A severe frown tightened his lips. “I don’t fear your brothers.”
She shook her head. “Everyone fears my brothers.”
“I don’t.” He stepped farther from her, tying the laces of his breeches. “But I can’t…”
She let her gaze move to the shadows. She wouldn’t tell him how badly she wanted a bairn. That would make her sound like she was using him, even though that’s exactly what she was trying to do.
At the front of the stables, the door creaked. “Erik,” a hushed voice called. It wasn’t Mathias, who would have called her name. It must be one of his men.
Hannah glanced down, relieved her breasts weren’t exposed. She tugged the bodice back into place and ran a hand down her skirt to press against the ache between her legs. Daingead. She would ache all night.
Erik’s eyes closed for a moment before he answered the intruder, and he did so in his Norwegian language. He stepped out into the aisle, and more discussion volleyed back and forth for a full minute, the words growing in speed until his friend ran off.
A prickle of unease crawled up Hannah’s spine. “Is something wrong?” She looked between him and the stall door. God’s teeth. Her plan of seduction had failed.
Erik clasped her hand, and she curled her fingers around his. “The tide is high,” he said, picking up the blankets, shoving them under his arm. He managed to grab the lantern, too, and it swung from his fingers as he led her quickly down the stable hall, yelling something to Sten. The man had entered the barn, holding another lantern high to light the place.
Movement in the corner of an open stall caught Hannah’s eye. She had only a second to see two little girls staring out with wide eyes, silent as the shadows where they hid. Trix and Libby? Hannah’s cheeks flamed. What had they heard? Good Lord! She’d have to tell Cait they may have heard moaning.
Erik hadn’t seen them. He was too busy tugging her along and yelling out more orders that made Frode stride down the stable aisle. The only words Hannah recognized were her own and Loinneil, her horse.
“What’s going on?” Hannah demanded as she hurried to keep up with his strides. The passionate heat that had been all consuming before had begun to cool.
“’Tis time to go.”
“Go? Back to the fire?”
Erik stopped. He set the lantern and blankets down and pulled Hannah’s blue cape from her shoulders and handed it to Sten, who ran off.
“What…?” Hannah’s confusion halted as the lantern light cast a glow over a lump on the ground. “Mathias?” she whispered. He was tied and gagged inside the barn door, his eyes open and narrowed on Erik.
“Bloody foking hell,” Hannah said, using Joshua’s favorite curse. She stared up at Erik, ice replacing the heat within her. “What the bloody foking hell are you doing?”
He let out a huff of restrained anger, his gaze focused slightly over her head while he spoke. “By the orders of Dowager-Queen Sophie of Denmark-Norway, we are taking you to her court.”
“That is ridiculous!” she yelled, anger licking up inside her. Hannah grabbed Erik’s tunic. Her fingers curled into it, and she jerked it around as if trying to shake him. She’d have had better luck shaking a two-foot-thick oak tree. “For what reason could she possibly want me? Me! I am nothing!”
Erik shook his head. “You, Hannah Sinclair, are everything.” He finally looked down to meet her gaze. “And she will use you to control the Four Sinclair Horsemen of Scotia.”

Readers should read this book …

To go on an epic journey with brawny, golden-hearted warriors, and to see the Sinclair family come together (horsemen, wives, children) to save their beloved sister. This book will make you laugh out loud, hold your breath, and fall in love with the Sinclair Clan and their new rivals, the Wolf Warriors of Norway.

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

I have just turned in the first draft of the first book in a brand new 16th century Scottish romance series called The Brotherhood of Solway Moss. Four men from warring clans on the Isle of Skye are imprisoned together in England. They band together to escape, and when they return to Skye, they realize that they trust each other more than their own clans. Each one works to foster peace so they can build a stronger Scotland. But it’s nearly impossible to trust someone when you’ve been abandoned by those you thought were loyal. Love requires trust. Amongst the lies and treachery of warring families, each hero must take a leap of faith if they want to find true strength in the greatest prize of all – love. The first book is scheduled to release in 7/2024.

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: One US winner will receive a signed copy of Highland Conquest: Book #1 of the Sons of Sinclair series. If the winner is international, they will receive a $10 USD gift card.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Have you ever visited Northern Scotland, the Shetland Isles, or Denmark?

 
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Excerpt from Highland Surrender:

In this scene, Hannah’s brother, The Horseman of Death, and her sisters-by-marriage have just found Erik Halverson’s Norse ship in the mist, and they are determined to save Hannah and punish the Wolf Warriors for abducting her.

The rising sun tried to cleave through the fog in shades of orange and red. Layers of wispiness moved with the growing breeze as if the world yawned with its waking. With the increase in wind, they’d make landfall today, and she wouldn’t have another chance to talk with him.

“Erik,” she said, her face turned to the sea so her words couldn’t carry to those behind them. “How will I get word to you once we part? Do you want to know if I’m carrying your child?”

From the fog came a voice. “Child? Carrying a child!”

As if the new day’s light lifted a veil, before them a ship was revealed. The ghost ship of her imagination solidified a mere fifty yards away. This was no legendary vessel that rammed unsuspecting ships, taking the souls of all onboard, but a Sinclair ship.

“I’m going to foking kill ye,” yelled a deep, burbling voice, hacking through the mist standing in its way.

“Bàs?” Hannah yelled back as Erik pulled her away from the rail, shoving her behind him.

“Let her go!” yelled a woman’s voice.

“Ella?” Hannah dodged Erik’s arm, her eyes opening wide at the sight of the hulking figure of a Sinclair ship growing sharper through the clearing air. What had they heard? Staring back across the narrow stretch of sea, Hannah made out Ella and Shana, holding arrows nocked and pointed directly at Erik’s chest while Kára held a cocked sgian dubh.

“No!” Hannah yelled, jumping before Erik. “Don’t shoot!”

Behind them, thumping boots pounded across the deck while Nial called all below to arms. Frode halted beside them at the rail. “The Sinclairs!”

“Don’t shoot,” Hannah called again, but her sisters didn’t lower their weapons. Bàs stared across, and even though he didn’t wear his skull mask, the promise of death sat in the lines of his face. Hannah had to admit that, at the moment, Erik was right in that her brother would never surrender to Denmark or Norway’s Wolf Warriors.

“Ye are going to die, Erik Halverson, after I cut your jack off,” Bàs said. Bloody hell, he sounded like Joshua. That wasn’t good.

“Trix! Libby!” Cait’s frantic voice screeched from higher in the misty air, and Hannah looked up the main mast where the girls’ adopted mother stood, rope in hand.

Trix and Libby ran to the rail, waving. “We’re here!” Libby called.

“We’ve had such an adventure!” Trix’s words tumbled over hers.

Cait balanced on the outside of the topcastle, her legs, in trousers, wrapping easily around the rope. She slid down to the deck. Several men murmured behind Hannah at Cait’s unique skill for climbing ropes and sashes. “I’m coming over,” Cait said.

“Nay,” Bàs said.

“Don’t try to stop me, brother,” Cait retorted, climbing up on the rail with a thick rope that was used to swing across to other ships. “I’m coming, girls!”

Bàs threw his hands up in the air like he was severely annoyed. He looked across to Hannah. “Catch her.” The two ships had drifted closer, but the distance looked great.

“Erik,” Hannah said.

“I’ll catch her.”

Cait leaped out over the water, easily wrapped in the rope while Ella and Kára pushed her three times before she reached across far enough for Erik to catch the knotted end dangling under her. Hannah tried to help Cait off, but Sten grabbed her, setting her down on the deck.

“Girls!” Cait yelled, running toward them to fall on her knees, arms open wide to catch them. “Oh, my heavens.” Cait’s words were filled with a mix of anger, tears, and desperate relief. Her arms squeezed the two girls into her chest. “I thought I’d lost you forever.”

Hannah’s heart clenched for the woman, imagining the searing pain of worry stabbing through after her daughters had disappeared.

“We’re sorry,” Libby said, tears in her own voice.

“We climbed upon the Wolf Warriors’ ship to save Hannah and Loinneil,” Trix said, remorseful at first but then her tone lightened. “And Libby threw up all over Frode. Then a storm blew us to Shetland where we met Eydis and fought Patrick Stewart.”

Libby’s face came up. “I threw rocks at his men from the ship, and now he’s tied up below. Chief Cain should like that.”

“I threw rocks too,” Trix added with a little frown.

“Wolf Warriors?” Bàs asked, all of them silent and desperate for any information.

“Erik Halverson and his men are Wolf Warriors of Norway,” Hannah said. “Elite warriors ordered by the Denmark-Norway government.”

Cait didn’t seem to be listening to Hannah. She stared up at Frode and Sten with brutal fury on her face. “You stole two little girls from their home. They could have died.”

The two Norse warriors crossed their arms. “We stole one big girl from her home,” Frode said.

“Those two followed,” Sten said.

“Hannah, stand aside,” Ella called across, holding the arrow still nocked, the string of her bow pulled back to her ear.

“Not if you’re going to shoot anyone on this deck.” Hannah’s voice carried easily over the water.

“Those bastards stole ye!” Bàs yelled, his usual apathetic voice abandoned for pure rage.

“There are reasons,” Hannah yelled back. She shook her head. “Why are you all here? Where are Cain, Joshua, and Gideon?”

“Right behind us,” Bàs said. “But we”—he glanced at his wife, Shana—“couldn’t wait. A thousand cavalry will be here any day.” It was a boast for certain. Even with the three vessels that they’d used to sail to Orkney, they wouldn’t have room for a thousand men, let alone horses.
Neither Ella nor Shana lowered their arrows, although they trained them away from Hannah and on Frode and Nial. Kára seemed to target Sten. But Cait and the girls were mixed up with them, shielding them whether they knew it or not.

“They abducted you from your home,” Ella said, calmly, her thirst for blood nearly as strong as Bàs’s.

“Cain abducted you,” Hannah said. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t shoot him?”

Ella hesitated and then the pull of her bowstring relaxed as she frowned back at Hannah.

“Ye said ye could be with child, Hannah,” Bàs said. “Explain.”

Heat raced into Hannah’s cheeks. “You were spying on me through the fog? Didn’t announce yourself, just listened?” She glared at her brother.

Bàs threw his arms out, indicating the fog. “We couldn’t be sure who was in this foking mist, and then when I heard your voice…” He trailed off, his hands going to his head. He clawed through his hair as if worry had driven him to the brink of insanity.

“I’m certain Cait would agree that Gideon would judge Erik Halverson to die for rape,” Kára said. Her gaze slid across the men, and her warrior-woman face condemned them all, thinking the worst. “All of you.”

“There’s been no rape here!” Hannah yelled quickly. “Lower your bloody weapons and listen.” Her heart thumped hard, sending an ache to her head. She waved her hands as if washing away anything they might be thinking.

“Did you marry him, Hannah?” Bàs asked. “Marry him and run away to be with him?”

“No, but—”

“Then he dies,” Bàs proclaimed, pulling his sword once again and pointing the tip of it over Hannah’s head where she knew Erik stared back defiantly.

“I will meet you anywhere you wish, Sinclair,” Erik said, the promise of death in his own voice.
This was going nowhere.

Hannah stomped her foot and frowned, her arms outstretched and pushing downward. “Everyone put down your weapons and stop threatening one another. Discussion is what is needed, not violence.”

“But violence will feel so much better,” Kára said, sounding exactly like the man she married.

Shana went to Bàs and slowly uncurled his fingers around the hilt of his sword until it clattered to the deck. She whispered something to him, her hand sliding over her stomach absently.

“Bàs, how could you have brought Shana out here in the ocean when she’s with child?” Hannah asked, wildly flapping her hand at his wife.

Bàs’s fists rose into the air, his lips curled as he spun around, took two big steps, and turned back to stride to the rail. “Like I had any choice!” he yelled, his normally stoic personality gone, replaced by waves of irate emotion and frustration.

Excerpts. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

With his family’s honor on the line, Norse warrior Erik Halverson has no choice but to follow the orders of the royal house of Denmark. Now he must follow his destiny—and royal command—to sail to Scotland, find his enemy’s weakest link, and abduct her. Their mistake, of course, was thinking the Sinclair lass wouldn’t fight back.

From the moment her four brothers took control of their clan, Hannah Sinclair has learned to stand tall and defend herself. So when a big, brawny, and admittedly handsome warrior tries to abduct her, she isn’t about to give in. And the more he tries, the more she’s determined to make it as hard as possible…and enjoy it all the while.

Now Norway’s greatest warrior has a Highland hellcat on his hands, and Odin help him, he can’t resist her. But with the brutal Sinclair brothers coming after them, Erik is out of options. War is inevitable. And when a man is forced to choose between duty and passion, only one will win…
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Meet the Author:

Heather McCollum is a USA Today and Publishers Weekly Bestselling author of over twenty-five historical Scottish romances full of adventure and intrigue, sprinkled with humor, history, and spice.
When she’s not researching Britain’s rich history or writing adventures, she spends her time educating women on the symptoms of Ovarian Cancer. She’s a survivor and resides with her very own Highland hero and three spirited children in the wilds of suburbia on the mid-Atlantic coast of the US.
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