Erin O’Quinn earned a BA (English) and MA (Comparative Literature) from the University of Southern California. Her life has been a pastiche of fascinating vocations—newspaper marketing manager, university teacher, car salesperson, landscape gardener—until now, in relative retirement, she lives and writes in a small town in central Texas.
Erin has published six M/M novels and three novellas with AmberQuillPress and two independent M/M novels.
Her series titled “The Gaslight Mysteries” includes Heart to Hart, Sparring with Shadows, To the Bone. and Thin as Smoke.
Erin's indie books are NEVADA HIGHLANDER and THE KILT COMPLEX, both very well received.
In addition to these Amber Quill Press and indie books, Erin has thirteen other published novels. Of those, two are M/M historicals published by Siren Bookstrand, set in the Ireland of badass clansmen, cattle drovers, druids, Saxon mercenaries and St. Patrick himself.
Noble, Nevada #1
Summary:
Drifter Rick Hendrickson has a secret, one he’s tried to keep even from himself as he moves along the spine of California’s great midsection, working as a migrant field hand. Unconsciously running from memories of an abusive father, Rick leaves California for Nevada, where he thinks he’ll find work.
Tony Grazzo has just graduated from Nevada U with a Poli Sci degree. A would-be law student, he suddenly finds himself back in his hometown of Noble, Nevada to attend his mom’s funeral and to look after his grief-filled father. He has gladly left behind a smothering girlfriend who has become dependent on him, all the while shutting out every friend he has tried to keep.
Then one night in a seedy bar, Rick and Tony meet.
Tony sees Rick as an immensely attractive man, a cowboy-hatted stud who no doubt dangles a string of beautiful women. And from the moment Rick lays eyes on the handsome Tony, he wants him. Not for just a night, but maybe forever.
But as luck would have it, their pasts return to shatter their dreams. Can these two men find happiness together, even while steel bars and the prison of anguished memories separate them?
The Chase #2
Summary:
Brew Lloyd, openly gay, returns to his hometown of Noble, Nevada, to live in his parents’ home while they travel to see his dying uncle. Brew’s been gone since graduation, avoiding his gay-hating father, yet all the while taking the money offered to him almost as a bribe from his father for not accepting him or his sexual orientation. Upon his return, his lawyer-father maneuvers him into securing a summer job at a ranch called The Chase. There, Brew finds himself face-to-face with an old fantasy—the rancher’s son Chase, former football hero at the local high school, a soft-spoken and dynamite-looking young man.
Chase has struggled with his sexuality for years, and has shunned dating in favor of staying on the ranch. Unable to come to terms with his frequent fantasies of a young man he’d secretly admired in high school, Chase pours his emotions into hidden erotic writing. But now, when he sees Brew again after many years, he’s forced to confront his hot desire for the glib guy who’s not shy about his own sexual preference.
As these two men grow closer, two other men stand in their way. The first is a federal agent, who taunts Chase with the news that part of the ranch is being reclaimed by the BLM, the agency that owns most of Nevada’s rangeland and mining concerns. The other man is Brew’s lawyer-father, who’s been helping long-distance in the fight against the BLM, and who cannot guess that his own son Brew is having an affair with a manly ex-football player.
Can two sensuous young men expose the crooked federal agent, cope with a hateful parent’s prejudice, and still find unbridled joy together?
A Hard Place #3
Summary:
Nevada game warden Shawn Murphy is a man of principle, an experienced agent who sets out to do his job in the rugged Paiute Mountain range. Sent to track down a poacher, Shawn eventually discovers the perp—a falconer, illegally shooting wildlife for his bird.
Dylan Morgan—a hippie-looking man with long, lustrous hair—has lost his falcon and is hurt. In helping Dylan overcome his injury, Shawn begins to learn how to see the wildness and hunger in himself and the other man as well.
Soon, in a remote cabin, the two men begin to develop a relationship. The falconer explores Shawn’s strange tattoos—a stag beetle and a howling wildcat—and Shawn tries to understand the nature of falconry, and of the unique man who trains the wild birds.
Can these two men, hungry, yet never satisfied, find closure in each other’s arms, especially when sudden peril in the pitiless desert puts them between a rock and a hard place?
NOTE: This book is also part of the Brand Me series.
Cowboys and Kilts
Summary:
Lanky Hugh MacPherson wears his tattoo and his cowboy boots all the way from Nevada to his ancestral home in Scotland, only to find a clansman named Graeme Guthrie has a subtle way of claiming the boots, the tattoo, and the man who wears them.
On a tour to the sites of Pictish stones, Hugh meets the Laird of the Castle in the oversized, handsome body of Graeme, a man who traces his ancestry back as far as the tattooed Picts who carved those very stones.
What happens when two gorgeous men first lock eyes, then bodies, and at last their very spirits as foretold in the mysterious tattoos they wear?
NOTE: This book is also part of the Brand Me series.
Summary:
Michael McCree is one with a mysterious past, who ends up as a newspaper man, thereby meeting the strikingly handsome Simon Hart, who comes to his shop to turn in an obituary notice.
Simon’s flat-mate and former business partner has been killed, and Simon, a private investigator, needs to track down the murderer. Michael, immediately smitten with the sulky and sexy man, lays a plan to first become his new roomer, then his business partner.
But Simon, stricken by his recent loss, is having none of Michael’s undisguised interest.
Not a man to be deterred easily from a goal, Michael sets about winning Simon’s affection. That particular battle is almost as difficult as tracking down the murderer of his predecessor, a nosy detective who was getting too close to the crimes of an evil person.
Simon spends more time ducking Michael’s advances than actually finding clues and solving the mystery. Inquiring minds want to know—how hard is Simon really trying to avoid Michael? And Michael isn’t hiding his forthright urges, but what secret is he hiding?
Summary:
Simon Hart, private investigator, has always thought of himself as a regular fellow. He’s standoffish and a loner with a sullen attitude—yet surely a normal bloke. And then he meets the randy Michael McCree.
In short order, Michael has become his flat-mate, his business partner, and his wannabe lover. Now Simon must look deeper, into his own hidden desires, if he wants to survive.
There’s something about Michael’s secret vocation that invites trouble. Simon finds himself sparring with shadows: in the hidden bedrooms of a roaring twenties version of a gay bar...as a chained wall decoration in the flat of a thief and sexual deviant...and as the quarry in a deadly confrontation in an exhibitionist’s bed and then in a sewer tunnel beneath the streets of a 1923 city somewhere in Ireland.
Above all, Simon is sparring with the shadow of his own secret urges. Michael will not allow him to turn away from a kind of private investigation of which he has not even dreamed. Until now.
Follow a fastidious, surly investigator and his horny yet secretive partner through the very cracks in a city of gaslights and vintage motorcars, into a hidden homosexual culture, as the men find themselves sparring with shadows...
Summary:
The time is 1923, and the place is a fantasy city in Ireland. Two unlikely men have formed a partnership: good-natured Michael, who keeps a serious secret, and sulky Simon, who has plenty of reasons to be angry at the world. Michael has stalked the standoffish Simon from the beginning, and Simon has consistently rebuffed him...yet not enough for Michael to give up a dedicated pursuit of the handsome investigator.
As private eyes, the men have a case to solve: to find more than a score of stolen paintings, and especially one small valuable work of art worth more than all the others. But the case grows more complex the deeper they look into it. Soon Michael and Simon find themselves searching not just for a thief, but for a city-wide ring of criminals. And the closer they get to the paintings, the closer they find themselves to a killer.
Into this mix steps a man named Moshe—a pesky, secretive, nosy man who is nevertheless a brilliant investigator himself. He gives both the men fits, burrowing like a tick into their very private affairs, so close they have a hard time evading him.
Can the investigators solve a series of crimes, take care of the interfering Moshe, and drive their own intense relationship all the way to the bone?
Summary:
In 1924, the PI team of Michael McCree and Simon Hart are on the trail of missing motors—a mundane case that turns deadly when they discover the link between their case and that of Samuel Dashiell Hammett.
The writer of hard-boiled crime is scratching to earn a living, and his work as an undercover Pinkerton operative lands him on the shore of the Irish Sea, in the city of Dun Linden. In one of a series of coincidences, Hammett finds himself paired with his old friend Michael, a man he knew in the U.S. before he left for the World War.
“Sam,” as he’s known to Michael, unwittingly sets in motion a series of events that separate the two partners and sometime-lovers. Working on his own, Simon finds himself on both ends of a Smith & Wesson revolver. Meanwhile, Sam and Michael discover that the perilous connection between motors and Mafia bootleggers also means a shattering of former alliances...because Michael and his old friend share a secret, one that threatens to end both his career and his complex relationship with Simon.
Burns to Deep #1
Summary:
The story of an Irish detective and a mysterious Scot. Two men meet on a stretch of highway between nowhere and Dundee, Scotland. What secret does each man hold? And what will happen if those truths are ever revealed? Both men have much to lose. And something crucial to gain, if only they can stop running.
Close-mouthed CID Detective Thomas Fitzgerald has just finished a harrowing case. He’s traveling the highway between Arbroath and Dundee, Scotland. Now all he wants to do is go to his flat, strip down and soak before catching a good night’s sleep. But a stranger on the side of the road changes everything.
The quiet man named Burns is a puzzle—a dark-haired, sensuous enigma whose harmless invitation to a drink he decides to accept.
Before the next twelve-hour phase of the moon has come and gone, the lives of both these men will change profoundly.
Can they stop running long enough to find each other?
The Dundee Law #2
Summary:
A solitary Irish detective and a reclusive Scottish academician … hardly a match made in heaven. Blond and dark, yin and yang, perhaps even angel and devil.
In fact, sometimes Thomas Fitzgerald wonders whether the mysterious Burns is not a figment of his lonely nights, a creature evolved from an idealized portrait of the poet Robert Burns.
Real or not, the university teacher-curator teams up with him to solve a murder involving an ancient burial site and a voice from Scotland’s bloody past.
Join two unusual sleuths at the ancient mound called “The Dundee Law” as two men merge their talents, and much more.
Red, Red Rose #3
Summary:
Two men, opposites in every way, have somehow found each other. The attraction between blond detective Thomas Fitzgerald and the sable-haired “Professor Burns” is instant and all-consuming.
Even cops and scholars take a holiday. When they bridge the physical distance between themselves and finally spend time together on Burns’ own turf, Thomas finds that his mysterious “poet” is a shadow behind another shadow.
There’s something about Burns’ past that hangs on him like a shroud. Always a cop, Thomas cannot help looking past his lover’s charms, delving into the heart of him. What he finds is chilling.
A tight-lipped Irish cop and an enigmatic Scot come together in a place of sorrow and hidden passion. Can a “red, red rose” from a poet named Burns solve the unknowable mystery of love itself?
A Kilted Christmas #4
Summary:
For a hard-nosed undercover cop, love is a rare treasure to bring out when he can, to polish off, and to tuck away for a time when he’s not tracking the bad guys. But the enigmatic, sultry Burns is not a man to wait until Thomas has a day off.
This Christmas, it’s all about kilts and commitment for detective sergeant Thomas Fitzgerald and his lover, university professor Burns. Meeting in a place of monster horses, the men track down a lawbreaker while taking their love affair to a new level.
Can these men’s love survive the physical distance … and the more subtle, more challenging differences … between the two of them? It’s a matter of clashes and kilts, as a cop and a scholar collide in a storm of passion.
You may also want to follow the clues to the first three Burns-Fitzgerald romance-mystery novellas: Burns Too Deep … The Dundee Law … Red, Red Rose … all part of the Nevada Highlander universe of stories.
