Around the Fire New Release Spotlight with Susan Leigh Furlong.

FORGIVEN NEVER FORGOTTEN
BY
SUSAN LEIGH FURLONG
 December 20, 2023
 Scottish Historical Romance 

Rory Campbell, falsely accused of participating in the Clan MacDonald of Glencoe killings, is sentenced to hang as a sacrificial lamb while the real agents of the slaughter escape blame. He risks everything to convince the love of his life, Joneta MacDonald, of the truth. He can never forget how completely she owns his heart.
Joneta MacDonald watches helplessly as her family is murdered by the king’s men, but forgiving Rory for his seeming participation is harder than she imagined. Can she endure the clan’s hatred of him? Can she cling to her love for a traitor despite overwhelming odds.
BUY LINKS:
Books available on my website - Https://SusanLFurlong.com
www.amazon.com/Forgiven-Never-Forgotten-Susan-Furlong/dp/1509252959/
UNIVERSAL LINKS - EBook
Booklinker - https://mybook.to/pCg1  
Books2Read - https://books2read.com/u/mBJOlR
From the author
Heat Level: PG 13 (with brief violence and brief non-explicit love scenes)

The story behind the story.
I enjoy searching through old records for true, but hard-to-believe historical events. One I ran across that inspired Forgiven Never Forgotten was the Glencoe Massacre in 1692. A small clan was slaughtered by the king’s men to persuade other clans to cooperate. Needless to say, it didn’t work, but it left the MacDonald clan grieving a loss of over 100 of its members. This set me to thinking about how someone could survive such a senseless tragedy, which led me to create Rory and Joneta’s story. 
I first explored how my hero and heroine from enemy clans could overcome clan bitterness to find their own love. Then, as a writer who must make things worse, they now had to deal with the greater betrayal, death, and murder of her extended family and his seeming blame for it. 
I also explored how different people deal with grief and loss. The brain tries to rescue the victim by either Freezing (being afraid to move on) or Flight (escaping feelings by shutting them out) or Fight (fighting back). Eventually, a victim may recover and forgive, but they will never forget. 
A quote from Mary Anna Radmacher is “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.” Which, despite events out of their control, is exactly how Rory and Joneta created their own HEA destiny through determination and devotion.​

About the author.
Susan Leigh Furlong knew she had a special connection with words since she was a child. When she was 9 years old, she wrote and directed her first play for the neighborhood children. 
Her love for history fuels her resilience against the sneezes and coughs that old books give her, and are now relieved by Internet research, as she delves into unique historical events to inspire her historical fiction romance novels. Susan captures her readers’ imagination with a highly enthralling style, chronological events, and smoothly flowing narratives that keep one’s eyes glued on her novels from the first page to the last. 
Her first three books center on a family living in the Scottish Highlands in the sixteenth century. A fourth novel takes place during the American Revolution with the same family but across the pond while her fifth book takes the reader back to Scotland. All are published by The Wild Rose Press. She also has two non-fiction books published by Arcadia Press filled with over 200 photographs and tales about her hometown. 
When she is not researching and creating her stories, she writes, directs, and performs with a music and drama group.
She married and moved to her small-town boy’s home. Now, even though she was born a “big city” girl, you couldn’t get her out of here with a crowbar.
https://www.susanlfurlong.com/
twitter.com/FurlongLeigh
​www.facebook.com/SusanLeighFurlong/

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