Spotlight & Giveaway: The Highlander’s Unexpected Proposal 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, The Highlander’s Unexpected Proposal!

 
Hi and happy autumn! Thank you for having me on Harlequin Junkie!
 

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

Adam Macquarie needs a bride to re-establish his dying clan, & Lark Montgomerie needs an escape from her horrible life, but they are both hiding secrets that could ruin everything.
#Highlanders
#Historical Romance
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

1 May 1548
Glencoe North of Loch Lomand, Scotland

Adam Macquarie walked around the edge of the contest field to see if he could spot anyone that might cause trouble at the Beltane Festival he had chosen for his mission. Several men stood watching the caber toss. The large thrower grunted under the weight of the one-hundred-fifty-pound log as he lifted it toward the sky, flipping it to land close to the true-north position. Adam dodged tents, laughing children, and several young lads who pointed to his sheathed sword, whispering guesses about how many men it had slain.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

1. The Highlander’s Unexpected Proposal is the first book of a five-book series about brothers trying to re-build their clan on their ancestral isle. To do so, they need wives. I originally came up with this idea based on the old musical, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
2. If I were to cast the hero of my book for a movie, I would choose Hugh Jackman to play Adam Macquarie, my brawny, broody Highland chief with a golden heart.
3. My heroine’s name is Lark. I first heard this name at a Maine ice cream shop that we frequented every summer. The girl working there was named Lark, and she had beautiful red hair. I’ve modeled my heroine after her.
4. This new series takes place in the same world as my Highland Isles series, except twenty years later. So readers of the Highland Isles series will be happy to see how their favorite characters are doing.
5. Ulva Isle, a real island off the west coast of Scotland, was named by the ancient Norsemen who originally inhabited it. Ulva means Wolf in Old Norse. There are no wolves on Ulva now, but perhaps there were hundreds of years ago.

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Adam finds Lark hiding in a tree. He sees her small toes clutching a limb, but it is her beautiful eyes that he is drawn to when she stares down at him through the leaves. He also likes how she churns butter ; )

When the large Highlander saves her as she falls out of a tree, she slides down his hard, huge body. But it is the fact that he doesn’t take any liberties but let’s her go when she insists, that makes her gaze follow him as he walks away. Lark is being forced to choose a husband to marry at the Beltane Festival. When she sees Adam at the ceremony, she chooses him.
 

Using just 5 words, how would you describe Hero and Heroine’s love affair?

Unexpected, authentic, wild, honorable, disputed.
 

The First Kiss…

She took a full breath and startled as his hand touched her back. Lord, her heart felt like it might burst from her chest, and she pressed a hand against it. Wouldn’t that make the Beltane Festival even more memorable. Beltane bride’s heart flies from her chest to fall on the ground before her as she dies in her groom’s brawny arms. Bards would sing about it for generations.
Adam’s large hand rose, and Lark made herself remain still as it came closer to her face. Even her breath stilled. The back of Adam’s finger slid across her cheek to brush a strand of her hair, tucking it behind her ear. The touch was soft despite the roughness of his skin, his gentleness capturing her shallow breath. He leaned forward, and his hand moved behind her head, keeping it there as his lips pressed against hers. The kiss was warm and soft, completely opposite of the man himself. Her eyes closed as the kiss deepened. Heat and sensation washed through Lark, keeping her heart racing. Without an anchor, the world tilted, and she clung to him so she wouldn’t fall.

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

“I would speak to Lark alone,” Adam said, his warm hand wrapping around her clutched fist. It was solid but not rough.
“Ye are not taking her anywhere,” Fergus MacLeod said, pulling his sword.
Adam’s brother and an older man appeared, their swords drawn and their faces just as lethal as the glinting blades. Adam looked to Roylin. “Unless ye wish for your Beltane festival and all these other weddings to be tainted with the spilling of human blood, I suggest ye let me talk to Lark alone.”
Her father waved his hand at Adam. “Take her. Giles and Fergus, stand back.”
Lark walked off with him, the two of them tethered with his grasp. He stopped near three saddled horses and dropped her hand to turn to her. “Lass,” he said, searching her face, “I am a stranger to ye.”
“You said you need a wife. Well, your brother did.” She stared up into his darkly handsome face. His closed expression told her nothing of his thoughts. She inhaled. “And I am in need of an escape, one that is legal and binding.”
Adam grasped the back of his neck like he might have a pain there. “Ye need to know where I live was ill-used and needs hard work to make it fresh and thriving again.”
“I was raised on hard work.” Lord knows she was a servant more than a daughter all these years, even with her mother’s protection.
“The isle has few people on it,” he said, glancing past her.
She looked over her shoulder where Adam’s brother was having some heated words with Giles and Cameron. Time was moving quickly, and those two idiots might decide they would rather start a war than give up their prize.
“Privacy would be a pleasure,” she said, looking back to him.
“And I have brothers who—”
“I am used to large families.” She took a step closer, desperation making her bold. Her hands curled into his tunic as she looked up at him. She watched the lines of his face, and the tilt of his lips. “Will you beat me?” she asked.
He blinked, frowning deeper. “Never.”
“Do you get drunk most nights?”
“Nay.”
She paused, searching his face for hesitation or lies, but she saw none. “Are you an honorable man?”
“I try to be.”
He didn’t sound like a liar, someone who would boast about their integrity.
“And you need a wife?”
He paused, watching her closely, and then glanced over toward his brother. “Aye.”
Lark yanked on his tunic, making him look back at her. “Then marry me, Adam Macquarie, and get me the hell out of here.”

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

She hurried past Adam, and all three of them watched her go. Rabbie flapped his hand to bring Adam over to him as he hobbled quickly to Beck.
Beck looked up from the stump. “Ye did not tell her what the isle was like? Or Gylin Castle?”
“There was not enough time.”
“Ye could tell her now,” Beck said.
“Bloody hell no,” Rabbie said, his eyes wide enough to make them look like they could fall out of his weathered face. “She does not need to know where we live until we get her on the isle.”
“She is not a prisoner,” Beck said. “She is a wife.”
“Same difference if she is not happy about it. Her oath is the lock.” Rabbie made a twisting motion with his hand. “Ye should make that marriage complete before we get there and she demands an annulment.” He nodded quickly. “Beck and I will give ye all the privacy ye need.”
Beck’s mouth dropped open.
Adam frowned. “I am not going to tup my bride in the dirt.”
“There is a lot ye can do standing up,” Rabbie said. “Make it a game of All Hid and find her. Some lasses like the sport of being chased. Catch her and consummate the union.”
“What kind of women are ye tupping?” Beck asked Rabbie, his grin returning. “The widow Gunn does not seem like the type of woman who would let ye run her down in the woods.”
“A wonderful idea,” Lark said, making all three men pivot toward her. She walked into the clearing, a bunch of plants caught in her hand.
Beck stood. “What is a wonderful idea?” he asked, his voice a bit choked, and he looked at Adam.
She paused, eyeing them. “If the sorrel wilts on the journey,” she said, slowly, “I will make it into a tincture. It is full of health.”
They stared at her for a long minute while the knot in Adam’s stomach tightened.
“For the people in town,” she said, her brows lowering in question.
The lass thought she was going to a busy town, a place where the two of them would live alone until they started having their own children. All common, logical ideas considering the little information she’d been given.
All very opposite of his reality.

Readers should read this book …

to go on an epic Scottish adventure while living in the rugged world of the 16th century and to fall in love with these two complex characters.

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

I am currently writing the second book in the Brothers of Wolf Isle series, which follows Adam’s brother, Beck Macquarie. He rescues a woman from a deserted Scottish isle only to have her steal his ship.
I also have the second book in the Sons of Sinclair series coming out in April 2021, HIGHLAND WARRIOR, about the second Sinclair brother who was raised to believe he is the apocalyptic Horseman of War.

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A Highlander gift box including a signed copy of The Beast of Aros Castle (US only) or a digital copy for international.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Have you ever visited Scotland? Where have you gone, or if you haven’t, where would you like to go?

 
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Excerpt from The Highlander’s Unexpected Proposal:

“I am not… I do not woo lasses like Beck. My whole focus has been on starting our clan over, building it up, so I never learned to be clever while talking to lasses.”

“You do not need to be clever,” she said, her mouth softening as she turned toward him. “Just say what you are thinking.”

The shadows and shards of firelight played over her high cheekbones and lovely chin. Lord, how he wanted to run his finger over that soft skin. Say what he was thinking? Can I throw up your skirts right here and kiss every inch of your lush body? Then carry you into that castle and make you scream my name as you burst with pleasure?
He opened his mouth and paused. “Uh… Are ye hungry?” Bloody hell.

“No,” she said with a shake of her head.

“Do ye need to use the privy?”

She shook her head again, her lips turning up slightly.

They stared at each other for another breath, and he curled his hand around her small one. It felt fragile in his large palm and yet he knew how strong Lark was. “Can I kiss ye?”

The world around him vanished into darkness as he waited for her answer. She gave a small nod, and he inhaled. Stepping into her, his lips bent toward her, and he waited to see if she would pull away. Lark kept her head tipped up to him, her eyes open, and he pressed a gentle kiss on her soft mouth.

The heat of her body soaked into him. He wasn’t sure if he’d pulled her into him or she’d melted forward, but his arms were around her so that he could feel the softness of her curves pressed into him. Softness to mold against his hardness.

The feel of her, the delicious smell of her, mixed with the detailed memories of his dreams, erupted a firestorm within him. He stroked down her back. She trembled slightly, and Adam caught her face with one hand, guiding her against him to deepen the kiss. She was letting him touch her! Slow. Keep it slow. Do not ruck up her skirts and rut with her against the chapel wall.

His rational thoughts faded quickly to fragmented whispers. He’d been so close to her, yet she’d been untouchable, for days and uncomfortable nights. But now… now he would touch her. “Lark,” he managed to say against her lips as she spread a trail of fire with her fingers down his chest to the hardness beneath his kilt. Through the wool wrapping, she stroked over him. He inhaled swiftly, her touch robbing him of his mind.

Pent up raw want funneled through Adam as he held her to him. She fit him perfectly, and the fact that she hadn’t pulled away at the feel of him released his worry over bedding a virgin. Lark was brave and soft with a good dose of wild.

Excerpts. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

A lass begging to marry him might top the list of “oddest things to happen,” but Chief Adam Macquarie is desperate. And no matter how much he hates to do it, he’s not above lying to get what he wants. Starting with the fact that he just omitted the truth about the situation back at his home—where there are no women and only a handful of other people. Because he has a secret need for a wife himself, one she won’t be too happy about when she finds out.

Lark Montgomerie is thrilled the brawny chief agrees to save her from her drunken father’s machinations of wedding her off to the first fool that agrees. He’s easy on the eyes and no one can be worse than her current options. Now a new life awaits her, on an exciting Scottish isle no less, and nothing will dampen her spirits. That is, until she arrives in her new homeland and realizes more than a few things are amiss…
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Meet the Author:

Heather McCollum is an award-winning, historical romance writer. With over twenty books published, she is an Amazon Best Seller and a Readers’ Choice winner.
The rugged beauty and rich history of Great Britain captivates Ms. McCollum each time she visits. The country’s history and landscape have been a backdrop for her stories since her very first book.
When she is not creating vivid characters and settings, she spends her time educating women on the symptoms of Ovarian Cancer. She is a survivor and resides with her very own Highland hero and three spirited children in the wilds of suburbia on the mid-Atlantic coast.
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