Good Choice Reading: Excerpt: FIANNA'S AWAKENING (Warriors of Myth and Legend, #1) by Ron C. Nieto + Giveaway!

Welcome to our stop on the FIANNA'S AWAKENING blog tour!

About the Book:

Title: FIANNA'S AWAKENING (Warriors of Myth and Legend, #1)

Author: Ron C. Nieto

Pub. Date: November 13, 2018

Publisher: Ron C. Nieto

Formats: Paperback eBook

Pages: 96

Find it: Goodreads

Outcast. Betrayer. Chosen.

After five years being a Fianna, Aisling O’Malley still has to prove herself every day. The sins of the father weigh heavily on her shoulders, and no matter what she does, her fellow warriors regard her as the undeserving one. It doesn’t help that one of the four mythical treasures of Ireland has turned up under her nose, leaving her none the wiser. If by any chance the touted Spear of Lugh up for auction is indeed the legendary Spear of Victory, she needs to get her hands on it before anyone else does—and be spectacular enough about it to make the rest of the Fianna forget she almost missed the artifact in the first place.

Exile. Betrayer. Forgotten.

After spending twice as long undercover as he ever lived at home, Ronan no longer knows where he belongs to or where he’s actually exiled from. He can’t return to his people, not unless he collects the four artifacts of power the Tuatha Dé lost when they were forced to leave Ireland, and three millennia after the fact, he’s pretty sure they’re going to remain lost. Except one of those ancient treasures has landed in his lap—or could land in his lap, if he brings himself to work with the spunky young woman who wants to hire him to consult on the Spear’s authenticity.

Can two broken people learn to trust one another? And even if they can, will it be too late to save Ireland… or themselves?

“If you’re hoping I’ll tell you whether you’re about to bid for a magical spear or not, I should warn you this is a loss of time.”

Aisling waved a hand. “Magical. Legendary. Same thing.”

Ronan shook his head, staring at her profile. “You aren’t very interested in what happens tonight, are you?”

He saw her jaw tighten for a moment. A nerve touched. Before he had time to figure out which one, she grinned.

“If that was an offer, I promise I’m very much interested in what might happen tonight.”

The flirting threw him for a loop. When they had met, he’d accepted it, followed along. But it had all ended when she’d learned he was in fact the professor she was looking to hire and when he’d learned why she wanted to hire him.

Hadn’t it?

“The spear,” he blurted. “The auction, I mean. How do you plan to bid for it?”

“It’s not hard, I’m told. You raise your hand and offer to throw money at whoever is running the show until he gives you what you want.”

“That’s not…” quite what I meant, and that smirk you can barely contain tells me you know it. “There will be many interested bidders, willing to throw a lot of money for the spear, even if it’s a fake.”

“If it’s a fake, we let them. If it isn’t, we outbid them.”

Ronan stared at her again. Off-the-rack suit, beaten car, attitude in spades, and not a lot of class and glam to sugarcoat the package.

“Do you even understand the kind of money we’re talking about?”

Again, that tensing of her jaw. The almost-there smirk wavering. She drove a few moments longer in silence, until Ronan thought she wasn’t planning on answering at all.

“I do,” she confirmed at last.

Then she found a parking spot and killed the engine, conversation over.

It wasn’t the parking lot of Pebbleton’s. It wasn’t the parking lot of anywhere. Just a street, gloomy and not very reputable-looking.

“Where are we?”

“Pebbleton’s is that way.” She pointed. “Two streets over. I don’t want to park on the doorstep.”

Ronan didn’t ask why, although the question burned on his lips. He stepped out of the car and followed her, across a wider street, then around a corner toward an unassuming squat building finished in naked concrete with a gaudy wooden door that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an Edwardian English manor. When they approached the door, a figure peeled from a pool of shadows and cut them off. The man was about as tall as Ronan himself, but twice as burly. He was wearing a tailored suit cut to accommodate his thick arms, and Ronan would bet good money on it being designed to hide a sidearm as well. He greeted them with a quiet grunt, playing every bit the part of intimidating thug.

Aisling reached for the inner pocket of her jacket, the movement putting a tense frown on the guard’s brow, but rather than producing a weapon, she flourished a thick black card embossed in glittering gold.

A pretentious eyesore, and their ticket in.

With a nod, the guard stepped back into the darkness. Aisling resumed her walk, no words exchanged, and Ronan followed close by her side. When they arrived at the monstrosity of a door, it swung open on silent hinges of its own accord.

“Fancy,” Aisling commented as the well-lit foyer came into view. Hardwood floor, crystal chandelier hanging from a ceiling not high enough to support it, a marble statue of a satyr captured mid-prance tucked against the curve of a stairwell. “But kind of…” she trailed off, searching for the right word.

She sounded amused. Ronan was horrified.

“Tacky?” he supplied. “Chintzy? Bawdy? Dowdy?”

“I was going for pretentious,” she said, laughter in her tone. “But I suppose those will do.”

About Ron:

Ron C. Nieto is a fantasy and romance author who has been writing in her secluded fortress for the longest time. Recently, she had a talk with her cat and decided that she should share her creations, because it was selfish to hoard them all for herself.

If you would like to know more about her, please visit her website.