Guest Blogger: Kendra Leigh Castle

Hey everyone! Today I am happy to turn my blog over to author Kendra Leigh Castle! I read her "Wild Highland Magic" book as an ARC a few months ago and loved it! My review for it is coming up in May.



I'll shut up now and let Kendra share her thoughts on werewolves!

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~Kendra Leigh Castle...



It’s All About the Werewolves

I guess I’ll just get this out of the way up front: I was totally Team Jacob.

Now, if you know what I’m talking about (and put down those rotten vegetables, Team Edward!), you’ve been through the saga of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. Edward, as I think everyone on Earth now knows, is a hottie vampire madly in love with an unusual human teenage girl. And Jacob…well, he’s her werewolf best friend who kind of fruitlessly pines for her. We won’t talk about what ultimately happens with him. It’s weird. Not bad, just weird. But that doesn’t matter. In fact, the only reason I bring it up is because Jacob, wild and loving, protective and larger than life, is illustrative of why I write what I do.

Yeah. I love me some werewolves.

The third book in my paranormal romance trilogy about a pack of Highland Scottish werewolves, Wild Highland Magic, is about to come out, and I’ve had a great time writing about what I think is the less-appreciated of the two major creatures of the night. I’ll grant you, I love a good vampire story as much as anyone. I mean, what’s not to like?
They’re pale, beautiful, incredibly strong specters who ooze dark romance and sex appeal. But something about werewolves, the rough and earthy shapeshifters as much animal as man, drew me to choose them as my heroes (and now, heroine).

My first two heroes, Gideon and Gabriel MacInnes, are big, dark-haired Scotsmen with golden eyes and killer smiles. They have a strong sense of family/pack loyalty, and are sometimes more comfortable in their furrier skins than their human ones. They embrace what they are, and that ease with themselves is, to me, very sexy. Also, they’re not afraid to let their wilder side take over when the situation meritsJ This time around, though, I had a heroine who wasn’t as comfortable with her animal nature.

Catriona MacInnes has always felt like a freak of nature. With a mother who’s a witch and a father who’s a werewolf, she would have felt odd enough, but her father has always insisted that he was orphaned and knows nothing of his family, which only adds to her sense of otherness. However, when her father takes ill and starts acting strangely, he finally reveals the truth: he’s the brother of the leader of a large pack of Highland werewolves. And for whatever reason, he’s decided that it’s finally time to return to his home, and to take his girls with him to experience the annual pack gathering. It’s an eye-opening experience for Cat, not having anyone bat an eye at her in whichever form she chooses, and openly enjoying being werewolves. She’s untrained, but strong, and when Cat meets a mysterious stranger staying on the grounds, all of the heightened senses she’s spent her life trying to suppress kick in. Werewolves know what they want when they want it, and it was great fun bringing Cat into the MacInnes pack with a bang. She has a lot more in common with her cousins than she at first realizes (an enormous stubborn streak, among other things), and Cat’s earthy, sensual nature comes out in full force whenever she’s around Bastian an Morgaine, an otherworld sorcerer with some major problems of his own. Otherworld, you ask? Yes, my werewolves are also the guardians of the Stone of Destiny, a relic that acts as a door to the realm of Coracin, where their people originally came from. That place is full of blood-drinking demigoddesses, shapeshifting dragons, monstrous daemon, and lots of other interesting creatures…as well as dark magic that can haunt a man until his death, if he doesn’t learn how to defeat it.

I’ll always have a place in my heart for the vampires…in fact, Bastian has to drink blood to maintain his power, though he’s not technically a vampire…but I’ve really enjoyed playing with the big, powerful, sexy, and yes, sometimes furry MacInneses these last couple of years. Putting a feminine spin on my take on the werewolf legend this time around was a great way to cap off the trilogy.

Thanks so much for having me here today! Hope you’ll check out Wild Highland Magic, as well as the other books in the MacInnes Werewolves trilogy (Call of the Highland Moon and Dark Highland Fire). I’ll be around to chat all day, so please pop in and say hi! I’ll also be giving away a copy of Wild Highland Magic to one lucky commenter chosen at random, and will announce the winner in the comments section tomorrow morning. So tell me, what’s your preference? Weres or vamps?

-Kendra

Kendra Leigh Castle is the author of the MacInnes Werewolves trilogy, as well as the upcoming series The Fallen, coming from Harlequin Nocturne. She lives in Maryland with her husband, three kids, and menagerie of pets, and loves to be visited online at http://www.kendraleighcastle.com/.
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