Author Spotlight: E. Elizabeth Watson Heats Up Summer with a Highland Rogue

We have a winner! Congratulations, BN100! You are Elizabeth’s winner of a kindle e-copy of A Highland Rogue to Ruin. Elizabeth will be in touch. Thanks to you and everyone for stopping by the blog! We sure appreciate your support.

I’m very excited to welcome fellow Tule author and brand-new friend, E. Elizabeth Watson to the Author Spotlight today. We met in person at the July Tule Author Retreat, and we even did a morning of sprinting together while we were there. She is funny and warm and I treasure having a new friend. She’s here with her newest release and a fun giveaway!

Elizabeth is an Amazon Top 100 and #1 Barnes and Noble e-book bestselling author. She is convinced life is better with good coffee, chocolate, and a pair of hiking boots. Ever since her elementary school librarian “published” her epic childhood tales–complete with laminated handmade covers–she’s enjoyed exploring the world through literature.

While studying prehistoric Britain at Newcastle University, Elizabeth found story inspiration in the tumultuous history of the British Isles and the folklore of Scotland. As an undergrad at the University of Texas at Austin, her rock art research drew her to the harsh Texas desert where she imagined charismatic cowboys and the stubborn women who tame them.

A recovering archaeologist and biomed research coordinator, Elizabeth spends her days penning heroes ranging from Scottish and Medieval warriors to Texas cowboys crowned with Stetsons. Whether in kilts or pearl-snaps, her heroes wear plaid! She currently lives on a mountainside in West Virginia with her husband, sons, and various pets. Always honored to hear from readers, make sure to follow her on social media.

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What in the world is Lughnasadh?

Hi everyone! E. Elizabeth Watson here. Thanks so much, Nan, for hosting me on your author spotlight! I write both contemporary cowboys (The Dixons of Legacy Ranch trilogy for Tule), but I also write historicals, specifically, Scottish romances! I love the holidays and traditions surrounding them. My Amazon bestseller, Twelfth Knight’s Bride, was set during Yule, during which each day’s Christmas festivities brought my enemies-to-lovers Lady Aileana Grant and Laird James MacDonald together to find mutual understanding, overcome their clans’ tumultuous pasts, and slowly fall in love. I loved the idea of using holidays and their rich traditions to create a backdrop for a romance so much that I made it a series theme. My upcoming release and sequel, A Highland Rogue to Ruin, is also set during a holiday. Specifically, the summer harvest festival. And historically, this season was called Lughnasadh.

But what is Lughnasadh? The seasons of sowing and harvesting crops have for centuries, and in fact, millennia, been important markers on the calendar for agricultural societies, who developed farming and rearing of livestock to provide a steadier source of the most basic and important need: food. It’s no surprise traditions sprung up around the world to commemorate the importance of harvesting robust crops to feed people through the winter. Imagine, by mid-summer, all of last year’s harvest is pretty much depleted. It has to be refilled. Lughnasadh is recognized on August 1^,, partway between the summer solstice and fall equinox. It is officially an Irish holiday, but in the past, it was also celebrated in Scotland. With first crops ripening in summer, pre-Christian populations celebrated Lughnasadh, which is named after the Pagan god, Lugh.

And this is where A Highland Rogue to Ruin comes in! Lughnasadh traditions included horseracing, harvesting, and bonfires. Games and physical competitions abounded, offerings to the gods, or tithes, were given, to ensure good harvests and to keep floods that could ruin crops and destroy livelihoods at bay. Trades were brokered. Handfasts were made, grievances could be heard between opposing parties, and truces struck. What a backdrop for another enemies-to-lovers romance! In my book, it is a joyous occasion, but also one that brings my characters, Lady Brighde MacDonald and Laird Tormund MacLeod, Demon of the Seas, together. Through games and bonfire dances, horseraces and corn cutting competitions, my sunshine heroine and her brooding enemy hero fall madly in love, but importantly, bring their people together who have been divided by lies and retaliations for too long—truces and peace.

Brighde and Tormund have such an adventurous and secret tryst, that gives her the freedom she craves from her overprotective brother, and him the peace and comfort his tumultuous life desperately needs. I hope you love A Highland Rogue to Ruin, and further, enjoy my celebratory twists on Lughnasadh!

Giveaway! Elizabeth is giving away a Kindle US e-copy of A Highland Rogue to Ruin to on release day, August 21, 2023. Just comment below and tell us whether you are a sunshine person or a bit more moody. We’ll draw a winner on Saturday morning.

A Highland Rogue to Ruin

“For fans of Diana Gabaldon and Scarlett Scott comes a story of warring clans, illicit longing…and the brutish Highlander who risks it all.”

Known as the “Demon of the Seas,” Tormund MacLeod only wants vengeance for his brother’s murder. At this year’s Lughnasadh festival, the vicious and unyielding Laird of the powerful MacDonald clan will know the bite of his sword. But the festival offers many distractions—including a fair and bonny masked vixen whose touch disarms Tormund, body and soul. And och, like the cursed MacLeod he is, he wants what he shouldn’t have…

Lady Brighde MacDonald might understand her brother’s overprotectiveness—but she doesn’t have to like it. What she needs is the reckless freedom in the arms of an imposing, rough, and sweet-talking Highlander. Only too late, they both recognize that they’re enemies. She’s the sister of the man Tormund wants dead. And he is the brutish blackguard of the clans…

Now their tryst could mean war. Brighde would see a truce, but it means she must convince her brother and the man she loves to lay down their swords. But Tormund hides a long-buried secret that could destroy both clans.”

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