Colin & Gillian 

I’m so excited to tell you about my latest in the Children of the Mist series, CONQUERED BY A HIGHLANDER. I loved introducing you to Colin MacGregor in RAVISHED BY A HIGHLANDER and then meeting up with him again in TAMED BY A HIGHLANDER, but finally the youngest, battle-hungry MacGregor gets his own story. And let me tell you all, I enjoyed every page, every word. 
Colin wasn’t a difficult hero to write. There were no mysteries complicating his character, no ghosts or regrets haunting him from his past. He was born with a passion to fight and to conquer. Nothing more. Nothing less. 
He was easy to write. He was a badass in RAVISHED and he’s a hard-ass now. My dilemma was what kind of woman would it take to win him? The painted birds fluttering about the many courts he’s visited barely held his attention. A warrior wouldn’t suit him any better than a wallflower would. I knew early on that the Lady who tried to take hold of this soldier’s heart had to possess the innate strength to face her fiercest foe…and the tenderness to recognize something more than a warrior in Colin’s confident gaze. 
I found Gillian Dearly hidden away in the turrets of a castle overlooking the sea, her fingers busy strumming melodies on her beloved lute while her thoughts carried her to places far beyond her prison walls. She wasn’t waiting for a hero, deciding years ago that she would rescue herself. She was perfect for Colin. She also possessed one other thing, a weapon so powerful, even Colin found himself at the mercy of it.
A three year old little boy named Edmund. 
Like Colin, I didn’t intend for Edmund Dearly or his mother to change the path of my story, but they brought out something in the warrior—who I thought I knew so well—something warm and wonderful and infinitely sexier than any swagger. They brought out the man.
For me, nothing I’ve written before this book exemplifies the essence of a true hero more than watching Colin fall in love with Gillian and with her child. Not many things are more valiant than a battle-hardened warrior who puts down his practice sword so he can take a kid fishing or save him from bedtime monsters…except maybe a mother who defiantly goes into battle each day in order to give her child a better life. Gillian Dearly was Edmund’s hero and she quickly became mine. How could a man like Colin not fall in love with her?
Having to end the Children of the Mist series was bittersweet, but I’m thrilled to say there will be more MacGregors of Skye visiting the pages of future books. Camlochlin will live on for another generation at least. And not just in words, but in art. Master painter James Lyman has immortalized the home of our beloved MacGregors in beautiful color and with innate understanding of how the fortress should be represented. Visit PaulaQuinn.com to order a print of your own, signed and numbered by the artist.
Until we meet again, to you mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, and friends, who put yourselves aside for someone you love, I shout huzzah! Camlochlin was built for people like you