If you’ve read the first three tales in the Faery Folk series, you know each one focus on the life and love of an Irish fey creature who falls in love with a mortal. The latest, The Bean Sídhe’s Change of Heart, written under one of my pen names, Liathán O’Murchadha.
It will release on June 28 from Evernight Publishing but it’s available to pre-order now at Smashwords.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1406730
If patience is a virtue you have to perfect (like me) you can also download a FREE copy now in exchange for an honest review from Booksprout.
https://booksprout.co/reviewer/review-copy/view/121385/the-bean-sidhes-change-of-heart
If you’re still not sure, here’s a tasty sample from the upcoming work! Meet Róisín (pronounced Row-sheen) and Joe.
Here’s the blurb, then the sample:
Beautiful and mysterious, dressed all in black, Róisín Ó Duibh is an ancient creature—a banshee who comes to warn and weep before a death. More than a thousand years ago, she was human and she secretly dreams of being mortal again. That desire increases when she meets handsome Irish accountant Joe O'Neill. He suspects she's a banshee from the first moment but she denies it. Their immediate attraction leads to sweet, wild sex but it's more than that—the banshee's fallen in love with the human. After dodging his questions, she promises to tell him the truth and when she does, she learns he loves her too. It seems hopeless, but a rash gamble will either unite them forever or end in their deaths.
Chapter One
Róisín
Rain lashed down with fury across the open hills and the edge of the sea, but Róisín Ó Duibh moved through the winter night, intent on her task. Despite the weather, she wore a long, stark black gown with sleeves that came almost to her ankles. It had no adornment but fit snug to her shape. Although her long, wild hair, dark as a moonless midnight, fell free past her waist, Róisín also wore a black lace mantilla that covered her head and wrapped about her like a shawl. Despite the heeled boots she wore, she moved with sure-footed grace. If anyone had been watching her, they would have sworn she all but floated with amazing speed.
Her destination, the Creggan Road in Derry, was not far from the banks of the River Foyle. Once Róisín—who sometimes went by Rosaleen—arrived at the end terrace house, an older stone structure. Since the hour was late, the streets were empty so she took up a position there on the corner. She parted her lips and began to keen, an eerie, high-pitched sound that dated back centuries. It echoed off the old houses and through the area. As she keened, Róisín walked back and forth before the house, then around the corner, then back again. After a few minutes, she switched to sean-nós singing. The words were ancient and the language Irish. Her voice rose and fell in waves, beautiful and mystical.
Inside the snug house with its small rooms, two up and two down, a woman of more than 100 years lay in bed. Her time drew near and her family, a son and a daughter, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, waited with her. If they heard, they gave no indication. No one so much as peeked through a curtain in the one room where a lamp still burned but she liked to think they heard her keen.
She hoped that the woman—Sorcha O’Connor, ó Conchobhair in the old tongue—could hear. Róisín, as a Bean sídhe, sang not for evil but to grieve for a life lost. She wailed to mourn and although some fools thought a Bean Sídhe brought death, she did not. Her role was to warn the family and to honor the soon-to-be-deceased. It was a gift from the fae world to the most ancient, revered families. Róisín was not the only Bean Sídhe, what some called banshee. She had keened her way through the decades over hundreds of years.
Once, every funeral throughout most of Ireland had a keener, not a faery such as herself, but human women who mourned the dead. Over time, the custom got lost for most. Some said it was because the Catholic Church outlawed it which was not so. Others said the Victorians had their own trappings for a death and still more people claimed it was due to the modern age. Science, they said, had no room for such make-believe creatures. Banshees had become a subject for horror films and stories, depicted as old hags with gray hair and haggard faces. That offended Róisín but she couldn’t exactly go on the telly to complain or write a letter to the editor.
Truth was that Róisín had wearied of being a Bean Sídhe and there were times, such as this wet night, that she longed for the cozy comfort of such a house and the love of a family. She yearned for a man, one who would love her, body, soul, and spirit. Róisín craved someone who would hold her close in the long nights, kiss away her tears, to cherish her and to laugh together. Though centuries ago, she’d been a young human girl, Róisín remembered little. And, she’d never had any of that love, no more than fleeting relationships with one and then another, sometimes fae, often human. Róisín had known many but now she craved a single human man to keep. There were times she longed to be human again.
She ached to rub a man’s back when he came home tired from work, to cook his favorite dishes, and to tempt him with sexual pleasures. Róisín wanted those things and more. She believed that human men made far better lovers than faery ones, that they were more skilled with both hands and cock. Desire tickled down her spine and distracted her from the night’s task so she pushed all sexual thoughts away for now.
After a good hour lamenting and wailing, Róisín decided she’d done her duty. She could walk away now, none the wiser and go home. She kept a tiny cottage on the edge of a loch in Donegal, not so far distant. If it had been far, it didn’t matter for she could travel at near the speed of sound, lightning quick and without attracting notice. As she stepped off the curb to cross the street, Róisín heard the front door of the small home open. She prepared to travel but hesitated a moment too long.
“Here, now, woman?” a man’s voice, gruff and rough, called out. “Was it ye, singin’ the laments and carryin’ on like a banshee?”
Her first instinct was to bolt but he made her mad and so she whirled to face him, hot words boiling in her mouth. He was handsome, with hair the burnished shade of chestnuts, eyes of a bluish green that suggested the sea, fine features and a heart-shaped face that ended in a point. His nose was slender with a noble look. A light stubble covered the lower portion of his face, which she found sexy. “And if ‘twas? What would ye do about it?”
He shrugged and muscles rippled in his arms, then down his back. “Naught but ask if it’s my gran ye’ve come for?”
It was, certainly, but she stared back at him. “I’ve no notion what ye’re talking about, man.”
Framed in the doorway, she guessed he must stand better than six feet tall, a well-made man, lean yet muscular. When he stepped forward, a dim lamp burning in the room beyond backlit him and Róisín sighed with appreciation. Attractive did not begin to describe him. He appealed on a pure sexual level and she wanted him. Róisín should go, slip away in the night, but desire held her in one spot.
“Do ye think me mad?” he asked. There was more humor than vinegar in his voice. “At this hour, who but a banshee would be walking the Creggan Road or darting away up Helen Street in a tight black dress and lace over her long black hair? I heard ye, woman, and knew what it was. I don’t need to be fey to know my old gran has but a short time left. She’s lived to be a hundred plus three, more than most.”
“Sorcha O’Connor.”
“Aye, that’s her name and ye know it because you’ve come to fetch her.” His tone rang with triumph and he grinned. His smile smote Róisín hard. Her pussy melted and craved him even more. Deeper still, it touched some emotional chord within.
She pranced two steps back toward him. “I have not. ‘Tis not how it all works.”
“So ye are a banshee, then.”
“Did I say so? Everyone knows the old legends and stories. It’s not what a Bean Sídhe does. They come to warn a death and to pay honor to the one who’s time is nigh. And they grieve with the keening and the laments.”
