Sorcha O’Hallorhan just wanted to warn Ruairí of his fate until she saw him and fell in love. How could she leave him to be ritually murdered and cast in a bog to cure for two thousand years?
Though he’s lost and grieving the loss of his lover, when Estrada realizes his friend Sorcha is trapped in Iron Age Ireland, he demands that Cernunnos take him and Dylan back through time to rescue her. The Horned God states the rules: you cannot change history or develop bonds with anyone. How can Sorcha, the spirited archaeologist, survive this prehistoric warrior culture? Assuming she’s fey, Ruairí’s unscrupulous rival wants her power; but worse still, Ruairí’s lover, the wicked Crow Queen, wants her dead.
Can Estrada use his Wiccan powers and skills to defeat Iron Age Druids and bring his friends home?
A romantic, time-traveling, prehistoric thriller that will take you somewhere you’ve never been before.
“Sorcha’s fingers flew to the fey butterfly tattooed on the back of her neck. Sometimes the butterfly brought her joy; other times inspiration, but always a sense of hope. And she needed all three in this moment for her heart was breaking to see her man so broken.”
RESEARCH & INSPIRATION
Every story comes from a seed. This one began when I was leafing through a National Geographic one night in bed and came across one of those famous photographs of Old Croghan Man’s curled manicured fingers. As morbid as it sounds, that mummified fist spoke and I had to tell his story. I wondered why he was still wearing an armband, how and why he’d been so brutally murdered, where the rest of him might be, and if he truly was a deposed king sacrificed to the goddess. The fact that he was 6’6” tall and only in his early twenties made him all the more intriguing. What was his name? What did he look like? Who did he love? Above all, I wanted to give his life and death meaning.
I did the main research for this book in 2017, before and during my third trip to Ireland. I sat with the body of Old Croghan Man in the National Museum, Kingship & Sacrifice Exhibit for several days asking for his name and story. The name Ruairí came on my last visit as a kind of burble of sound. Much of my Dublin time was spent at a library near Trinity College where I was staying and exploring research materials on Iron Age Ireland. Many thanks to Dr. Eamonn Kelly, researcher, archaeologist, and curator of the Kingship & Sacrifice Exhibit at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. His theories on the ritual killing of deposed kings form the basis of this story. For Kelly, the Croghan torso and other Irish finds are proof of the existence of a form of sacred kingship in which rulers entered into ritual marriages with the Earth Goddess in order to guarantee future supplies of milk and cereal (which is why he ate them for his ritual meal). These kings were killed if they failed to protect their people.
Most everything Sorcha says she did in the story, I did in Ireland that summer, including tying a clootie on a prayer tree at the Hill of Tara when I was alone and desperate for healing, and climbing Croghan Hill to the place of Ruairí’s inauguration and ritual sacrifice.
You can read my Irish adventures on my blog.
I’m working on a Pinterest page for this book so you can see where some of my visual ideas come from.
LATEST REVIEWS
“The setting is phenomenal. The author brings Iron Age Ireland to life with all its vulnerabilities and barbarism. There is an efficient use of locales and landscapes to heighten the tone and atmosphere of scenes. The landscape comes to life with rutted roads, muddy ponds, incessant rain and giant lake trout. The use of the five senses is effective throughout. The taste of ale and the smell of the bog are palpable.” Whistler Independent Book Awards/Canadian Authors
“Hawkin delivers the magic in this book with complex characters and high action that will keep readers turning pages.” Eileen Cook, Author, Build Better Characters
“A vivid time-travel thriller with romance and gorgeous descriptions of ancient Ireland. The characters are complex and fun, the drama gripping, and the descriptions so vivid I felt like I was there—more so than with any other time-travel book I’ve read. It’s full of Irish lore and magic—even a handsome god.” —Sionnach Wintergreen, Know Thy Demons
A magical, mystical, murderous read. Dare I say marvellous, too? As always, my favourite characters are Estrada and Sorcha, a tortured soul and a vixen. Ancient Ireland. Love stories and suspense. You’ll want to be in this place yourself! J. Murdock
EXCERPT: FROM KISS TO KISS
Ruairí rode beside Ana in her chariot, tall and solemn, their arms touching, as regal as any pair could be. They were both dressed in their finery. She was wrapped in an indigo robe that shone as brightly as her raven hair, and he, in a cloak that riffled like the waves of the Eastern Sea.
The craftswoman who’d made it for him was an artist from a land southeast of Gaul. Dark-skinned and foreign, she’d arrived aboard a trade ship as a girl, brought along her own woad seeds and planted them near her hut. When she married a leather-crafter from their tuath, she taught others her art and the two created incredible garments together. For Ruairí’s cloak, she’d extracted the blue woad from her young plants and mixed it with the yellow flowers that grew in the pasture to produce this intense shade of blue. She called it turquoise. It was, she said, the color of the sea she’d left behind.
The cloak streamed out behind Ruairí as he drove Ana’s chariot and set him apart from the others as in the red of the setting sun it drew out the golden streaks in his spiky copper hair.
He knew that Ana could have chosen any of the druids to drive her today. But she chose him. That alone, made him puff out his chest like a bull as he drove the chariot. Bres clung to Ana like a second skin. Fearghas was her protector. Ailill, her gossip. Ruairí hadn’t been close to her the last four years—not since she’d chosen to become second wife to the new king when she was just seventeen. She was a woman who craved power and he wondered what he suddenly had to offer. He wasn’t naive enough to think she was interested in anything else.
In the chariot that preceded them, King Adamair’s body, now stiff and glittering in gold, stood tall between Bres and Fearghas, who clutched his arms and propped him upright. He’d been dressed in his full regalia. A thick gold torque gleamed around his neck. His dagger hung from a leather scabbard draped across his right shoulder. But his sword was held aloft in a stiff, cold hand held tightly by Bres.
Many of the old kings and queens of story were buried standing upright, ready for battle, their eyes seeking the sun. A king was the manifestation of the sun for without it the people could not exist. This tuath now cremated their kings, allowing their spirits to surge to the Underworld in a blaze of glory. For fire too was an element of the sun. Only after his purification would the king’s remains be collected and entombed in the cave beneath the hill with those of the ancestors.
As they approached the small rise where the people gathered around the funeral pyre, Ana touched Ruairí’s hand, signaling him to halt the horses. Her five crows circled around their heads cawing and flashing sharp quick shadows on the ground. Ruairí hated them. He’d seen what they’d done to men who defied the queen. Fearghas wore their scars on his face.
Ana’s hand remained on his as she turned to face him. “How did Adamair die?” she asked, and her dark eyes blazed.
Ruairí knew he couldn’t lie and heaved a sigh. This was not the time for such talk. Eyes were on them, people waiting. But that was Ana. Queen of Arrogance. One of the crows flew behind his head, so closely its wingtip razed the flesh of his neck. “The-the white bull,” he stammered. “Adamair saw it alone in an enclosure and wanted it.”
“Go on.”
“Ana, the people are waiting.” She knew of Adamair’s lust for power. Why must he explain now? Their red bull was potent and strong, but the king would add to his wealth and legend with the theft of the white bull. He should have known better. They’d all grown up with the story of Queen Maeve of Connachta, whose desire for the brown bull of Ulster had resulted in tragedy.
“I’m waiting for your answer, Ruairí.”
He sighed, caught between Ana and propriety. “I don’t know what happened. I found him in the bull pen. He’d been gored but also struck by iron as you saw. We couldn’t stop the rush of blood. We fought the men who guarded the white bull and Bres took one man’s head.”
Ana would have seen it. Bres had tied it to the mane of his horse and ridden home with the man’s blood drizzling down its shoulder. One man’s head for a king. It was not enough. In the next raid, they would take more.
Ana’s lips narrowed. “The gods give us fitting ends. Adamair was a bad king and a worse husband.”
Not knowing what to say, Ruairí stared at the beautiful queen and waited, his heart pounding. Ana had been his first lover and taught him many secrets only women knew. He knew every inch of her body and wanted her. When he was a boy, he’d hoped they’d wed. Once, long after they’d begun meeting in the woods, her belly had swollen, but no child came. He asked her what had happened but she wouldn’t speak of it and, after that, she didn’t call on him again.
Then Adamair had come from the north with his wife and child, bringing much wealth—a herd of cattle and a horde of new treasure they’d never seen fashioned before. Riches from the Continent. He was a hero, who’d fought in the wars at Emain Macha. And when the old king died in battle, Criofan dreamed of Adamair at Tarbfeis and chose him as the new king. To show his allegiance, he’d married Ana and made her Goddess of Sovereignty.
But Adamair was an ambitious, reckless adventurer, who spent months away from the tuath. Ana had not conceived by him or any of the other men she bedded in his absence—men who, like Ruairí, feared her as much as they desired her.
When Adamair’s wife and child died agonizing deaths within days of their arrival, the people feared her more. It was said to be some form of plague they’d brought with them but the sickness didn’t spread among the others and there were whispers. Ana had been seen meeting a woman in the forest. If it were true and could be proven, Ana would be banished. Women and children were priceless and their lives could not be bartered in cows.
Ruairí didn’t want to believe that Ana could do such a heartless thing to gain power. But the part of him that feared her knew it was possible and that made her all the more tantalizing. He hated himself for wanting her so much but how did a man turn off a desire that burned so deep? Ana was the woman he dreamed of most in the dark. His heart ached but more than that, he missed the sex. Ana was wild and he’d found no one to match her. Leaning forward, he breathed in the perfume of her skin, then caught himself and fell back. “We must go. They wait for us.”
Raising a finger, she touched his cheek. “You could have stolen the white bull and lived, Ruairí Mac Nia. You are a hero—a hero and a prophet.”
Ruairí’s skin tingled and words caught in his throat. It was true he was a dreamer. The night before the cattle raid, he’d seen Adamair lying dead in a pool of blood and warned him not to go—not on the raid or after the white bull. But Adamair refused to listen. “I’ve crossed the great sea through storms and killed countless men in battle. A cattle raid is nothing to me. I am the Sun King,” he’d said, dismissively. Adamair’s arrogance had cost him his life.
“Come to me tonight,” Ana said, drawing Ruairí back. “I will wash this bad king from my bed with your sweat.”
Ruairí’s eyes widened as a stream of lust surged up his inner thighs. She scraped the back of her fingernails boldly across the ridge in his cloak and he spurred on the horses. As the chariot lurched forward, she was forced to grasp the front railing and cast him a menacing look. But he knew that dash of danger would only fire her blood all the more. Ana wanted him and, after many long years of wanting her, he could hardly wait to have her.
As King Adamair’s funeral pyre raged against the darkling sky, Ruairí stood with the other druids in a ring of nine around the fire. He stole a glance at Ana, who looked on solemnly from her chariot. She didn’t love her husband. Not when she married him and certainly not now. But did she love anyone? Was she even capable of love? Ruairí glanced around the circle of druids who stood with arms raised as Adamair’s spirit flew in smoke and ashes to join his ancestors in the Underworld.
Bres watched Ana and Fearghas watched Bres.
I, too, must watch Bres, Ruairí thought. They all knew Ana slept with Bres when Adamair traveled. So why had she not chosen him today? Bres was obviously insulted and jealous and that made him more dangerous.
Ruairí shrugged. Bres need not worry. This thing with Ana wouldn’t last. When the druids met for Tarbfeis, Criofan would eat of the white bull. It had already been slain and was roasting in the pit. After Criofan had eaten his fill, he would sleep and dream of the new king. Criofan was uncle to Bres and would, no doubt, dream of the sister’s son he fostered. Then Bres would marry Ana and produce an heir. That was the way of it.
Ruairí would make the most of tonight and then court Sorcha. She was even more beautiful than Ana and he thought she must be fey. A woman who’d arrived alone from the ethers with nothing but the clothes on her back in the midst of a cattle raid? A woman who knew no one in the tuath? Who couldn’t ride a horse?
She even wore the mark of the sidhe on the back of her neck—a dazzling fey butterfly that exuded freedom and power. He’d seen it beneath her fiery red hair; its wing tips hiding beneath her gown and teasing him. He wanted to see more. He wanted to touch it.
Sorcha was haughty and powerful and a seductress. If she’d traveled from the western isles, it was by magic. Sorcha O’Hallorhan was sidhe. Of the Tuatha de Danann. Of that he had no doubt. And that made her all the more alluring.
