Before I started writing about fairies in my Guardian of the Isles series, I hadn’t really given fairies much thought, though I have always believed them to be real. And yet, upon reflection I realized fairies have always been an integral part of my life, and perhaps yours as well.
When I was little, my mom told me that if I left a tooth beneath my pillow, the Tooth Fairy would come during the night and exchange it for a few coins. The first time that happened, I was utterly amazed! Of course, I passed the tradition onto my own children, leaving them not coins, but a crisp new dollar bill and sometimes a note from the Tooth Fairy when they started to have questions.
Then there was Cinderella, which has always been one of my favorite fairy tales. I always wanted to have a Fairy Godmother who could transform my fate, as she did Cinderella’s, from drudgery to enchantment. It’s no surprise that the word “fairy” derives from the Latin fata meaning “fate” and Old French “faerie,” meaning “enchantment.”
Other influences that fostered my belief were works of literature from James M. Barrie’s Peter Pan to J. R. R. Tolkien’s Elves of Middle Earth, and Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. So, when I came across a snippet of an article while researching the Isle of Skye that talked about the Clan MacLeod and their precious artifact, The Fairy Flag, I had to know more. Thus began the Guardian of the Isle series which focuses on the MacLeods of Dunvegan Castle and the real-life Fairy Flag which still resides within the castle, hanging in the drawing room for visitors to see and admire.
While all the books in the series have dustings of fairy magic within their pages, A Little Highland Magic, book five in the series, is where readers get to know Aria MacLeod more fully, and where she faces her toughest challenge yet—to bring a MacLeod babe stolen by the fairies back home to his family.
Join Aria as she returns to Fairyland with the Fairy Flag to barter for Keiran’s release along with Graeme Duff, the man whose duty it is to protect The Fairy Flag above all else. Aria and Graeme’s fantastical journey will hopefully have you believing in fairies, fairy magic, and all sorts of other enchanted beings.
I am the owner of four black cats. Or do they own me? I’m never quite sure. Pictured here are Indy and Tye, two brothers we adopted three years ago. In A Temptress In Tartan, a black cat is mistaken as a witch’s familiar. In the sixteenth century, it was largely believed that black cats were affiliated with evil because they are nocturnal and roam at night. They were thought to be supernatural servants of witches, or even witches themselves.