So I looked at my calendar yesterday and realized Reading Between The Lines is coming out in print at the end of this month! **CORRECTION – apparently I’ve been wrong for most of the last year and the book will be out in print AUGUST 26 and not this month, just FYI!**

For those who haven’t read it, RBTL is set partially in Ireland, partially in San Francisco and partially in a faery sithein (a fairy mound). It features a woman who’s grown up knowing she posessed something extra but was discouraged from delving into it by her parents. She’s in Ireland working for an international foundation as a linguistic and cultural expert when she’s asked to translate some Ogham scrolls.

Anyway, so that’s how it opens and how Haley comes to set Conall free from a spell he’d been under for generations. The struggle in this story is not internal. That is to say this couple is together early on and the threat is to their lives, not their relationship. Haley finds out what her gifts are and why her parents kept them from her and she ends up discovering a whole new part of herself.

There’s magic, hot sexin, action, battles, celtic mythos, etc. I hope you all enjoy it because I loved writing it.

Here’s an excerpt – meet Conall:

READING BETWEEN THE LINES BY LAUREN DANE
Copyright 2007, Lauren Dane
All Rights Reserved, Samhain Publishing
Releasing in trade paper July 29!

Conall looked out the windows of his study, past the wall of his books. His muscles trembled, still twitching as he stared out over the wildflower-covered slope leading to the glistening lake below.

Nearly a thousand years without emotion had caught up to him and he’d only barely put Haley’s sleeping body down in his—their—bed before he’d begun to drown.

Setting a ward to alert him if she stirred or called out, he’d headed down to his study, a place where he’d always felt comforted and safe in the past. His knees buckled and he’d begun to weep in deep, gut wrenching sobs.

So much had been stolen from him. His family had moved forward. He had four siblings. The sister just younger than he was had mated and married and had children. They lived in another sithein and he’d need to take Haley to meet them sometime soon.

The sister just younger than her, Brenna, had married and had children as well. The baby of the family, Aideen hadn’t yet taken a husband but lived in the brugh. Lastly, Conall’s older brother Riordan had spent generations learning how to be a warrior and teaching it to the Fae here within the brugh. Conall was disappointed to hear his brother was off on a top secret mission of some sort and wouldn’t be back for another few weeks.

Overall, not a whole lot had changed about how the brugh looked, with the exception of another pub. His world had continued on without him as he’d lived, wrapped in the cotton of his emotionless state, lifetime after lifetime.

After the tears, the rage had come. He’d broken a few things, pulled books from the shelves on the far side of the room, overturned furniture as he’d fumed. That bitch had stolen his life! She’d scared his family and made them think him dead or lost to them.

And now, hours later, he’d reached an equilibrium of sorts as it all eased and he felt love. Love for his family, his tribe and the woman in their bed. Without the curse, he’d never have met Haley and for that reason, he could actually thank Ninane for her treachery. After he killed her perhaps.