Jean Grant's Scottish Holiday, the Setting for A HUNDRED LIES

Jean M. Grant's post about visiting Scotland reminds me of my long ago trip there. We spent most of our time in Edinburgh since our friends were living there at the time. And since we had a five month old baby with us, and I came down with a case of strep throat, we didn't get to see as many things as we would have liked. We always wanted to go back to Scotland but so far that hasn't happened. I guess I'll have to travel vicariously through Jean! Welcome Jean, and congratulations on the upcoming release of the third book in your series, A HUNDRED LIES! 

Top 10 Things to See in Scotland

What to see if you visit Scotland? Here is my list of must-sees, which might be biased because of my love for nature and history. I visited most of these places while on a trip to Scotland in a rainy September…

10. The abbeys
9. The isles
8. Lochs
7. Crags and Glens
6. Standing Stones
5. Scottish Folk & Pubs
4. The Lowlands
3. The Highlands
2. Highland Games
1. Castles

Some castles Jean visited on her trip

Jean's trip to Scotland - a figure 8 in 8 days

Now some details…

Abbeys are poetic, serene. We walked among ancient gray and rose ruins at Dryburgh and Melrose. It’s hard to not visit an isle while in Scotland. There are many: Lewis and Harris, Shetlands, or my beloved Uist. We visited Isle of Sky on a dreary day and could not even see the Black Cuillin in the torrential rain. Like isles, lochs, many glacial, are a must-see and hard to miss whether it is the deep blue Loch Ness, expansive Loch Lomond, or the inspiring Loch Awe. High and low crags abound…the Trossachs, Cairngorms, or the five sisters of Kintail are impressive mountains. With crags, come glens (valleys). Glencoe is not one to skip.

Standing stones are one of the few places we couldn’t visit on our trip as most are on the isles. Note to self for next time! Scots are pleasant people and we had a great time chatting with the locals. And yup, there are plenty of the other kind of locals: sheep! The lowlands often get overlooked, but they are green and lush with undulating hills. The Highlands are rich in clan history and natural beauty and oh so many hikes. Up for putting the stone, caber tossing, tug-o-war, music, and dancing…oh yes, and lots of kilts? Get thee to a Highland Game. We visited one in Pitlochry. Castles, last but not least! I visited over a dozen on my trip. My favorites: Eilean Donan (seat to Clan MacCoinneach in my books), Kilchurn (we kayaked to it), Threave (we took a rowboat across a river to it), and Borthwick (we stayed overnight in this 14th century tower house that is haunted). Scotland—be prepared for rain, be prepared for beauty of nature and people.

BLURB:

1322, Scotland

Rosalie Threston's fortune-telling lies have caught up with her. Uprooted yet again, she's on the run from a ruthless English noblewoman. She flees to Scotland and seeks refuge in the arms of a laird's son who happens to be a real Seer.

A bloody past and inevitable future plague Domhnall Montgomerie. He avoids physical contact with others to ease the painful visions. When an accidental touch reveals only delight, he wonders if Rose is the key to silencing the Sight.

Mystical awakening unravels with each kiss. But can Domhnall embrace his gift in time to save her life, even it means exposing her lies?

EXCERPT:

She drew his hand into her palm. Her pulse drummed in her ears. Breathe, Rose. Breathe. His fingers trembled in her hand but neither of them released the look. She tried to convey trust and understanding with her own gentle smile. When he seemed settled, she turned her gaze to his hand. After a pause, she said, “It is as I said. Air is your element.”

“What else do you see?” He leaned in, closer. Sweat, sage, hmmm…male? Was male a scent?

Feeling his eyes upon hers, she continued to scrutinize, drawing light touches over the mounds.

“You’re somewhat content, though you spend hours alone to get away?”

He held a straight face. “Easy enough facts to guess. I’m a watchman. Fortune-tellers are good in their ploy.” She refrained from arguing. He was on the defense. Understandable. Most people were. He was correct after all. She stroked his fingers. Pretended to examine. His hands were ice-cold.

All right, memory. Time to shine. The marketplace fire, something from his youth. Domhnall liked animals. Seemed to not like fire or touch. She chanced the next statement. “Something in your past upsets you.” Again, stone-faced. At least his hand had stopped trembling.

She would throw out statements until one stuck. Had she been incorrect in her eavesdropping? Surely the servants had been gossiping about Domhnall.

He chewed his lip. Held her gaze.

She paused and pushed the candle closer. “To see better.”

He flinched.

Yes. Fire. It bothered him.

PRE-ORDER Book Links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08B7QW5F7

B and N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-hundred-lies-jean-m-grant/1137186123?ean=2940162636021

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/a-hundred-lies-by-jean-m-grant

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54125380-a-hundred-lies

Author Bio:

Jean kayaking to Kilchurn Castle on Loch Awe 

Jean’s background is in science and she draws from her interests in history, nature, and her family for inspiration. She writes historical and contemporary romances and women's fiction. She also writes articles for family-oriented travel magazines. When she's not writing or chasing after children, she enjoys tending to her flower gardens, hiking, and doing just about anything in the outdoors.

Social media info:

Website   https://www.jeanmgrant.com/
Twitter   https://twitter.com/JeanGrant05
Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/jeanmgrantauthor/
Goodreads  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16582543.Jean_M_Grant
Bookbub  https://www.bookbub.com/authors/jean-m-grant
Amazon Author Page  https://www.amazon.com/Jean-M.-Grant/e/B0728KFXP9/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jeanmgrant/

I'm on Vacation!

The view from my front window in January.

So here I am on vacation in beautiful Maui. Yay! I’m enjoying seeing the sights and soaking up the sun. It’s been a long, cold winter with plenty of challenges and I’m just glad to be here.

Unfortunately, getting here wasn’t so easy. I should have realized the day would not go well when first thing at the Winnipeg airport, the self-serve kiosk wouldn’t print our boarding passes and luggage tags. Instead it said we had to see a ticket agent. Imagine my surprise when she told us the reason we couldn’t check ourselves in was because my name, or a name similar to mine, is on a no-fly list! What? Thankfully, the ticket agent made a phone call and was able to straighten things out. We were on our way. Whew!

The flight to Maui was never going to be a direct one. We were scheduled to go to Calgary, change planes, fly to Vancouver, change planes, and then fly to Maui. The plane was about to land in Calgary (the pilot had even announced he was beginning his descent) when I noticed that instead of going down, the plane was beginning to gain altitude. After a long delay, the pilot came on the intercom again to tell us that a snowstorm in Calgary, coupled with a power outage at the Calgary airport, prevented us from landing there. We were being diverted to Edmonton.

Bird of Paradise flower

So we landed in Edmonton, and waited on the tarmac. The crew was really great and came around with drinks and snacks, and told us everything they knew, which wasn’t much. We just had to wait until the power was back on in Calgary. It wasn’t safe to land in a snowstorm without help from air traffic control. We waited about an hour there, until finally the pilot said we were being refueled and de-iced and would soon be on our way. And eventually we were.

 

The biggest concern for my husband and me was making our connection to Vancouver and finally to Maui. But since none of the flights had been able to leave Calgary, our flight was waiting for us when we got there. We hustled to our gate and got onboard. Unfortunately, the backlog meant we had to wait a long time till it was our turn to take off. As I watched the snow fall, I worried that they would suddenly cancel our flight, deciding it was too stormy. I breathed a sigh of relief when our plane finally lifted into the sky.

 

We safely got to Vancouver and it looked like our flight would leave on time at 6:15 pm. At least it looked that way until there was a sudden message on the board saying it wouldn’t leave until 7:15 pm. This whole day had been about hurry up and wait. I decided there wasn’t anything I could do about it so I might as well chill. I reached into my bag for my ereader and – nothing. It wasn’t there! I panicked. I’d been reading on the previous flight, and when we were told we had to power down all electronics, I guess I stuck it into the pocket on the back of the seat and forgot it.

I was devastated, thinking it was lost forever. Fortunately, my husband isn’t the panicky type. He talked to the guy at our gate, who contacted his people, who found the ereader. That was the good news. The bad news was that it was on the other side of customs, and we had to go back and retrieve it ourselves, rather than have someone from the airlines bring it over. My husband told me to wait with our stuff and he’d run back for it. I was worried that our flight would be called before he got back, but I needn’t have worried. He was back with my ereader in plenty of time. There were still more delays. We didn’t leave Vancouver until 8 pm.

The flight into Maui from Vancouver took six hours. I’ve never been able to sleep on a plane and this time wasn’t any different. So I was beyond tired when we landed. Because we were so late, we were concerned that the car rental place would be closed, but for the first time this day, something went right. The car rental place was open. But first we had to get our luggage. One of our suitcases dropped from the baggage carousel, and then the thing abruptly stopped. Staff at the airport tried to fix it, but apparently it was well and truly dead, because after another long delay, they finally diverted the rest of the luggage from our flight to another baggage carousel. Eventually, we found our stuff and dragged ourselves to the car rental place.

We managed to get our car without too much difficulty, but we were still presented with the problem of having to drive to our resort, a place we’d never been before, in complete darkness. The Ford Explorer we rented has GPS, but as of this writing, we still haven’t figured out how to use the stupid thing. We got some basic directions from the guy at the rental place and we took off, hoping we were going in the right direction. We drove for nearly an hour and were starting to get a little nervous. Had we taken a wrong turn somewhere? When we finally saw the sign pointing to the resort, we were giddy with relief. We felt even better when the lady at the resort called one of the security guys to take us to our condo, because it was 3 in the morning, and finding anything was beyond us at this point. With the time differences, we’d been awake for 24 hours. After a quick perusal of our one bedroom condo, we fell into bed, exhausted.

The next morning when we woke and looked outside in the daylight, we were stunned to see the gorgeous view. When I read ‘partial ocean view’ in the online description, I assumed it meant that if I squinted just so, I might be able to see a tiny sliver of ocean from our condo. Instead we have a glorious view. It made the whole hellish trip worthwhile!

 Do you have a flight from Hell story? I’d love to commiserate with you!