Behind The Book With Maeve Greyson 

Maeve Greyson is the USA Today Bestselling author of historical romance, historical romance, time travel romance, & paranormal romance/romantasy all ending in Happily Ever After! I did my first Q&A with her back in 2023 which you can read by clicking on this link https://booknotions.com/qa-with-maeve-greyson/ . Maeve is back as we discuss her recent release A Fine Scottish Harmony. 

Q: Welcome back Maeve! I can’t believe it’s been sometime since our last interview! Would you please give a brief description of A Fine Scottish Harmony? 

A: Thank you so much for having me back! I can’t believe it’s been that long either. Time flies especially when you spend most of your days bouncing between centuries and magical realms. 😊

A Fine Scottish Harmony is the fifth book in my Magical Matchmakers of Seven Cairns series, and I think it may be one of the most emotional stories in the series so far.

Lyla Ibrams was once a world-renowned singer, but a botched surgery stole her voice and the life she thought she would have. As if that wasn’t enough, the man she trusted betrayed her as well. She’s trying to figure out who she is when everything that once defined her has been taken away.

Then fate—and my meddlesome magical matchmakers—sends her through the Highland Veil into the Thirteenth Realm.

Waiting there is Chief Magnus MacRaith, a powerful dragon chieftain whose people are dying from a mysterious sickness. An ancient prophecy says a healer whose song can save dragonkind will come to him. Unfortunately, the Divine Weavers have already brought him two women they claimed were the answer, and both times they were wrong. So Magnus is understandably less than thrilled when they arrive with Lyla and announce, essentially, “This time we have it right!”

There’s just one rather large problem.

The woman whose song is supposed to save his people can no longer sing.

At its heart, though, this is a story about two wounded people discovering that sometimes what we think makes us valuable isn’t where our true strength lies at all. And, of course, there are dragons, magic, prophecy, fated mates, danger, and happily ever after. I must have my happily ever after!

Q: A Fine Scottish Harmony is part of The Magical Matchmakers of Seven Cairns series. While I realize A Fine Scottish Harmony is not the first book in the series, can you read each book in a series as a standalone or do you prefer to read in order? 

A: Each book has its own hero and heroine, their own romance, and their own happily ever after, so I work very hard to make sure a reader can pick up any book in the series and enjoy it without feeling completely lost.

That said—and I freely admit my bias here—I think the experience is richer if you read them in order.

There are an overarching world and mythology connecting all the books. Seven Cairns is an enchanted Highland village north of Inverness where the healing waters and ancient magic hide far more than ordinary mortals realize. The Divine Weavers are immortal guardians charged with protecting the Highland Veil separating worlds, times, and realms. Every fated pair they bring together strengthens that, Veil.

Characters also wander in and out of one another’s stories, relationships evolve, and little pieces of the larger puzzle are revealed along the way. Readers who start with A Fine Scottish Time get to watch the world grow with every book.

But if Magnus and his dragons catch your eye first, by all means, start with A Fine Scottish Harmony. I promise the other characters won’t be offended. Well…some of them might be, but they’ll get over it. 😉

Q: Which scenes and characters did you enjoy creating for the novel? It’s hard for me to choose, but I love the characters of Lyla, Magnus, Mairwen & Keeva. I love the magical world of the 13^th realm and the dragons. 

A: Oh, I’m so glad you mentioned Mairwen and Keeva! I love them too. One of my favorite things about writing this series is that the secondary characters have absolutely no intention of staying politely in the background. They tend to march onto the page, announce their opinions, and occasionally hijack the scene.

Magnus was especially satisfying to write because he carries such an enormous burden. He’s an alpha leader, absolutely devoted to his people, but he’s also tired. He’s watched dragonkind suffer while every solution he’s been promised has failed. Twice he allowed himself to hope the prophecy was finally being fulfilled, and twice that hope was crushed. By the time Lyla arrives, he doesn’t want another promise. He wants something he can trust.

And then fate hands him a woman who appears to be the exact opposite of what the prophecy requires.

Lyla captured my heart for an entirely different reason. Losing her singing voice didn’t merely take away her career. It stole a piece of her identity. I loved watching her gradually understand that she is so much more than the gift she lost.

And yes—the dragons! How could I not love writing the dragons and the Thirteenth Realm? Creating a realm where dragons are part of everyday life gave me permission to let my imagination completely off its leash. Those scenes were pure fun.

Some of my favorite moments, though, are the quieter ones between Magnus and Lyla. I love writing that point in a fated-mate’s romance when two people can feel this enormous connection between them, but their hearts and heads haven’t quite caught up with fate yet. That delicious tension of I don’t know what to do with you, but I know I can’t let you go is irresistible to me.

Q: A Fine Scottish Harmony gave Lyla a few roadblocks with her losing her voice and Derrick stealing from her, but through those tragedies opened the door for her destiny and a better future. What messages and emotions do you hope readers take away from A Fine Scottish Harmony?

A: One of the strongest messages in Lyla’s story is that losing the thing you thought defined you doesn’t mean you’ve lost yourself.

Lyla believes her voice was her gift. It was her career, her livelihood, and such an important part of who she believed herself to be. Then it’s gone. Add Derrick’s betrayal to that loss, and she has every reason to wonder what’s left.

But sometimes life’s worst detours take us somewhere we never would have chosen to go—and that place turns out to be exactly where we needed to be.

I also wanted to explore the difference between destiny and surrendering your choices. I write fated mates because I adore the idea that two souls can somehow recognize each other across time and even across worlds. But fate might bring two people together; it shouldn’t do all the work. They still have to choose each other. They have to trust, forgive, risk being hurt, and love.

Magnus has his own lesson to learn about hope. After being disappointed so many times, expecting the worst feels safer than believing again. Lyla has to discover she still has something extraordinary to give, while Magnus has to find the courage to believe that perhaps the prophecy wasn’t wrong, it simply wasn’t meant to unfold the way he expected.

If readers close the book feeling hopeful, believing that a devastating ending can sometimes be the beginning of something we never imagined, then I’ll be very happy.

Q: What can we expect from the future novels of The Magical Matchmakers of Seven Cairns series? 

A: More magic, more Highlanders, more fated mates, and definitely more trouble for my Divine Weavers. 😊

The wonderful—and occasionally dangerous—thing about creating the Highland Veil is that it opened the door to so many possibilities. We aren’t limited to one period of Scottish history or even one version of the world. The Veil connects different times and realms, which means I can keep exploring new places, new forms of magic, and new characters while continuing the larger story surrounding Seven Cairns and its immortal guardians.

There are still stories waiting to be told and mysteries surrounding the Veil that haven’t been fully revealed. And my characters have a terrible habit of whispering in my ear and informing me that what I thought was going to happen is not what they have planned.

I’ve learned not to argue with them.

So, I don’t want to give away too much, but readers can expect the world of Seven Cairns to keep expanding. There are still fated souls who need finding, realms that need protection, and Divine Weavers who have quite a bit of matchmaking left to do.

Q: You must have been to Scotland several times to write your novels! What are your favorite spots in Scotland that you recommend that anyone planning to go to Scotland one day for the first time, should go and see?

A: Scotland is one of those places that gets into your soul. The first time my husband and I visited, I felt this strange sense of recognition—as though I had come home to somewhere I’d never lived. Later, after doing a DNA test and discovering Scotland, England, and Wales in my ancestry, that feeling made a little more sense!

For a first trip, I would absolutely tell someone to spend time in the Highlands rather than seeing Scotland only through its cities. Edinburgh is wonderful and filled with history, but there is something about getting out into the countryside where the mountains, lochs, ruins, and mist take over.

I love the area around Inverness and Loch Ness. Glencoe is another place that stays with you. The scenery is spectacular, but when you know the history associated with it, there’s a haunting quality to the landscape that’s difficult to describe.

I also love castles and ruins, not just the grand restored ones, but the crumbling places where you can stand quietly and imagine the people who once walked there. That is irresistible to a writer. Give me an ancient stone wall, some Highland mist, and a good legend, and I’ve probably invented a hero before we make it back to the car.

My best advice is not to rush Scotland. Wander. Take the smaller roads when you can. Stop when something catches your eye. Talk to people. Stand beside a loch and listen to the silence.

And never assume that what looks like a perfectly reasonable distance on a Scottish map will take a perfectly reasonable amount of time to drive. There may be sheep involved. 😉

Q: Would you please provide your social media links so that the readers of the blog and I may follow you and your work?

A: Absolutely! I love hearing from readers. Here are the easiest places to find everything—my books, latest news, newsletter, and links to where I’m hanging out online.

Website: https://maevegreyson.com/

Newsletter: https://maevegreyson.com/mailing-list

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorMaeveGreyson

Facebook Group – Maeve’s Corner: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MaevesCorner 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maevegreysonwrites/

Amazon Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Maeve-Greyson/author/B004PE9T9U

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/maeve-greyson

Thank you so much for inviting me back. It has been wonderful chatting with you again and thank you to everyone who has read A Fine Scottish Harmony and visited with Magnus and Lyla. I hope you enjoy their journey as much as I enjoyed writing it.