I can’t help myself.  I fall in love with all of my heroes.  Each one is custom made and though never perfect, they are always special to me.

When I was writing HAUNTING WARRIOR, the second book in my HAUNTING series, I didn’t just fall in love with Rory MacGrath—I plunged head first.  And I hit hard.  I mean, seriously, look at the man on the cover?  How could I not fall in love with him.

But beyond the heart-throb good looks, what makes Rory so special is the fact that he begins so completely broken.  He’s disconnected from his past, his family and even his heritage.  He’s convinced himself that he doesn’t mind being alone and that he doesn’t long to be loved.  Of course I knew better.  I felt his pain. I could see into his heart. 

Rory has been punishing himself for crimes he thinks he committed, for circumstances he had no control over, and for a loss that was punishing enough.  Tough on the outside, lost on the inside, Rory needed a woman who would help him see his own strengths—a woman who would challenge him to rise above the past that has crippled him emotionally and step back into the circle of the living.  She couldn’t be just any woman and she certainly wasn’t easy to find.  In fact, Rory had to travel through time to reach her.

Thrust back in time to ancient Ireland, Rory opens his eyes in the body of another man who is about to marry the very woman Rory has been dreaming about for weeks.  Suddenly, Rory is fighting for his life—and the life of his new bride.  Their enemies are everywhere and the odds of surviving dwindle with each passing moment.  But now that Rory has met the woman of his dreams, now that he has touched, tasted, and made love to that woman, he realizes that he doesn’t want to be alone anymore.  He will fight to protect her.  He will fight to free them both from the fate the future feels determined to deliver.  He will be the warrior she needs him to be and he will win for love . . . or he will die trying.

So yeah, I fell in love with Rory MacGrath.  I hope you will too.  Tell me what really turns you on about the heroes you love and one lucky commenter will win reader’s choice of an autographed copy of ECHOES or WHISPERS (by me, writing as Erin Grady). 

Erin Quinn

Excerpt from one of my favorite scenes when Rory’s new bride, Saraid, begins to realize the man she married is not who she thought he was . . . .

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.

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 . . .