Scent
of the Soul
Julie
Doherty
Genre:
Historical Romance
Publisher: Soul
Mate Publishing
Date of
Publication: February 11, 2015
Number of pages:
288
Word Count: 91,000
Cover Artist:
Leah Suttle
Book Description:
In twelfth
century Scotland, it took a half-Gael with a Viking name to restore the clans
to their rightful lands. Once an exile, Somerled the Mighty now dominates the
west. He’s making alliances, expanding his territory, and proposing marriage to
the Manx princess.
It’s a bad time
to fall for Breagha, a torc-wearing slave with a supernatural sense of smell.
Somerled resists
the intense attraction to a woman who offers no political gain, and he won’t
have a mistress making demands on him while he’s negotiating a marriage his
people need. Besides, Breagha belongs to a rival king, one whose fresh alliance
Somerled can’t afford to lose.
It’s when
Breagha vanishes that Somerled realizes just how much he needs her. He abandons
his marriage plans to search for her, unprepared for the evil lurking in the
shadowy recesses of Ireland—a lustful demon who will stop at nothing to keep
Breagha for himself.
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Excerpt
As
Godred’s oarsmen shoved off from the jetty, Somerled wondered if there was any
man less suitable to deliver a marriage proposal. Godred of Dublin was coarse,
marginally Christian—indeed, marginally sane—and easily riled. Nevertheless,
King Olaf liked him, and for that reason alone, Somerled had selected him as
his envoy.
“No
side trips,” Somerled shouted before Godred was too far away to hear. “Ye have
three places to go and that’s it: the Isle of Man, your clan, and back here.”
Godred was prone to unscheduled detours.
Unless
bad weather or the scent of easy plunder pulled Godred and his thirty oarsmen
off course, Somerled would have Olaf’s answer in a few days. If Olaf agreed to
the marriage, Somerled would add a wife to the items decorating his new castle
at Finlaggan and eventually, the Isle of Man to his expanding area of
influence.
The
nobles would respect him then. Half-breed or not.
Behind
him, a door squealed on one of the two guardhouses standing sentinel over the
Sound of Islay. The small building spat out Hakon, his chief guard, another man
of Dublin birth and temperament. Hakon strode the length of the jetty to join
him. “I have every confidence the Norns will weave Godred a successful journey,
my lord king,” he said, his words puffing white clouds above his tawny
sheepskin cape.
“If
your goddesses have woven anything, it’s an unfortunate headwind,” Somerled
said. “Godred is forced to tack.” He closed his cloak and secured it at his
throat with a brooch he once plucked from a Viking who no longer needed it.
“The wind promises hail. My proposal will be delayed.”
“Aye,
likely,” Hakon said, his hair and beard whipping into copper clouds, “but it
will hasten Olaf’s reply. Do not despair, my lord. Ragnhilde will marry ye soon
enough.”
Despair?
Somerled stifled a laugh. Did Hakon think he had feelings for a lassie he had
never met? He was about to tease his guard about being a romantic when Hakon
stiffened.
“Another
ship,” Hakon said, looking past Somerled’s shoulder.
Somerled
spun around to inspect the northwestern waters of the channel separating Jura
and Islay—the jewel of the Hebrides and the island that served as the seat of
his burgeoning kingdom. “Where?” he asked, squinting.
Hakon
thrust a finger toward the fog bank blanketing the horizon. “There, at the
promontory, in that pale blue strip of water. See it?”
At
first, Somerled saw nothing but swooping terns and ranks of swells. Then, an
unadorned sail appeared. It crested on a wave, dipped low, and vanished.
“Should
I sound the horn?” Hakon asked.
Somerled
raked his fingers through the coarse, wheaten mess slapping at his eyes and
held it at his nape while he considered his response. Behind them, the signal
tower on Ben Vicar was smoke-free. Across the sound, the towers on the frosty
Paps of Jura were likewise unlit, although clouds partially obscured their
peaks. The Paps had a commanding view. If a signal fire blazed anywhere, the
men stationed there would have seen it and lit their own.
“My
lord king, should I sound the horn?” Hakon impatiently palmed the battle horn
dangling at his broad chest.
Men
began to gather on the jetty.
“Let
us wait. It is only one ship, and it looks to be a trader. The signal fires
would blaze by now if it were someone worthy of our concern.” Somerled glanced
back at the mud and thatch cottages shouldering against one another. At their
doors, the bows of half his impressive fleet rested on the shoreline, a sandy
slip extending well into the distance. The rest of his ships sheltered at the
far side of Islay, in Loch Indaal. A signal fire would deploy them quickly and,
perhaps, needlessly.
“Alert
the village. Have Cormac ready Dragon’s Claw,” he said, “but send only the
nyvaigs for now.” The nyvaigs were smaller, but no less deadly. They would be
out and back quickly.
Hakon
sprinted through the gathering crowd and past the guardhouses. He leapt over a
pile of rocks with surprising agility for a man of his years and size. In no
time, specialized warriors and oarsmen were boarding the boats. A pony
thundered inland, its rider instructed to warn, not panic, the people of
Finlaggan.
Though
Somerled carried his mighty sword, he had dressed for warmth, not battle. His
mail shirt, aketon, and helmet hung in his bedchamber, two miles away in
Finlaggan. He singled out a boy in the crowd. “Lad, find me a helmet and a
shield, and be quick about it.”
The
boy shot like an arrow toward the cottages.
Somerled
held his breath as he watched the nyvaigs head out. At the first flash of
steel, he would blow the battle horn. His men would light the towers and he
would board Dragon’s Claw. The foreigner would be sorry he entered the Sound of
Islay.
The
ship’s features were barely discernible, but he could see that its high prow
lacked a figurehead. He was trying to identify the banner fluttering on its
masthead when the ship’s sail dropped and scattered gulls like chaff in the
wind. His heart hammered against his chest as he waited for the foreign vessel
to sprout oars; it didn’t. It stalled—a sign its crew had dropped anchor.
Dragon’s
Claw bobbed next to him at the jetty, her top rail lined with colorful shields
and her benches holding sixty-four of his savage warriors. Cormac gripped the
tiller, but he would move aside when Somerled barked the order to do so. He
would serve as his own shipmaster in the face of an enemy.
Low
and curvy with a dragon’s head exhaling oaken flames from her prow, Dragon’s
Claw was his favorite vessel, not because she was new or particularly
seaworthy, but because he had wrenched her from the last Viking to leave his
father’s lands.
The
memory of that battle warmed him and occupied his thoughts while the nyvaigs
swarmed around the foreigner. Then, they swung about, furled their sails, and
rowed for home like many-legged insects skittering on the water’s surface.
When
the boats reached the beach, Hakon jumped from his nyvaig and jogged through
ankle-deep water, apparently too impatient to wait for his men to haul the
vessel’s keel onto the sand. “Well, my lord king,” he said, “it seems to be the
day for marriage proposals. It is an envoy from Moray, who comes at the behest
of Malcolm. He asks to speak with ye regarding Bethoc.”
“Malcolm
MacHeth . . . the Malcolm MacHeth . . . wants my sister?”
He
had met Malcolm MacHeth only once, at King David’s court, on a night spoiled by
ill-bred lassies who had mocked his foreign garb and speech. Malcolm, a bastard
nephew of the Scots king, had observed his humiliation and pretended not to
notice.
Yet
here was Malcolm of Moray, a claimant to the Scottish throne and a known rebel,
seeking Bethoc’s hand in marriage. Tainted bloodline or not, Somerled was
apparently worthy of notice now.
Something magical happened in the musty basement of Julie Doherty’s local courthouse. She went there intending to research her ancestry, not lose herself in a wealth of stories, but the ghosts of yesteryear drew her into the past and would not let her go. The trail left by her ancestors in those yellowing documents led her from rural Pennsylvania to the Celtic countries, where her love of all things Irish/Scottish blossomed into outright passion.
She became
particularly interested in Somerled, self-styled "King of Argyll" and
progenitor of the Lords of the Isles. In 1164, he led a fleet of 164 galleys up
the River Clyde in an all-or-nothing attempt to overthrow the Scottish crown.
What would lead a man of his advanced years to do such a thing?
Of course,
history records he did so because the king demanded forfeiture of his lands.
But the writer in Julie wondered ...what if he did it for the love of a woman?
Those early
ponderings led to SCENT OF THE SOUL, Julie’s first novel, coming soon from Soul
Mate Publishing.
Readers will
notice a common theme throughout Julie’s books: star-crossed lovers. This is
something she knows a bit about, since during one of her trips to Ireland, she
fell in love with an Irishman. The ensuing immigration battle took four long
years to win. With only fleeting visits, Skype chats, and emails to sustain her
love, Julie poured her heartache into her writing, where it nourished the
emotional depth of her characters.
Julie is a
member of Pennwriters, Romance Writers of America, Central PA Romance Writers,
The Longship Company, Perry County Council of the Arts, and Clan Donald USA.
When not writing, she enjoys antiquing, shooting longbow, traveling, and
cooking over an open fire at her cabin. She lives in Pennsylvania with her
husband, who sounds a lot like her characters.
Author Links:
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