Spotlight & Giveaway: Hajar's Hidden Legacy by Maisey Yates

I'm absolutely thrilled to have Harlequin Presents and USA today best selling author Maisey Yates here today to share with us her inspiration behind the book 'Hajar's Hidden Legacy'

Maisey Yates Welcome to HarlequinJunkie!

Over to Maisey....

What happens when you combine my love of tortured heroes, strong heroines and Disney movies? Hajar's Hidden Legacy is what happens.

Beauty and the Beast has been my favorite cartoon ever since my dad took me to see it when I was six. What's not to love? A strong woman who loves books sacrifices for her father, teaches the beast to love and ultimately breaks the spell!

I knew I wanted to write my own version.

The Beauty is Princess Katharine Rauch, princess of Austrich. She was promised to the future ruler of Hajar five years earlier. Until, a tragic accident took the lives of the royal family. The only remaining survivor was the second son. And he is...

The Beast. Sheikh Zahir S'ad al din is known as the Beast of Hajar. After losing his family in an attack on his country, the reclusive ruler has concealed himself in his palace, only making appearances when they can't possible be avoided.

 He's horribly scarred, both inside and out, and the last thing he wants is a wife.

But Katharine needs a husband to protect her country, and Zahir's honor won't allow him to go back on the bargain drawn up between their families years earlier.

I so enjoyed writing this intensely scarred man. Physically, he's damaged past the point of being called handsome. He's limited now, with a mostly blind eye and a badly wounded leg. But it's his internal scars, flashbacks of the attack that take over even while he's awake, that truly cripple him.

Zahir and Katharine have a lot to overcome. Katharine is living for honor, while Zahir is just living each day as a matter of survival.

I loved bringing this strong woman into Zahir's life to push him our of his cave, to help him overcome the issues in his life to become the best ruler, and the best man that he can be. And not only does Zahir find healing, he finds love.

And even though there's no transforming his outside, those scars will remain, he gets his healing inside. And that's what counts!

I have an excerpt I'd like to share with you. 
And one commenter will win a copy of Hajar's Hidden Legacy! (this is an international contest! Open to all!)

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Excerpt
They called him the Beast of Hajar for a reason. Katharine could see that now. Zahir S’ad al Din was every bit as frightening as they said. He was an entirely different man from the one she’d met so many years ago. Cold, completely forbidding.
But Katharine didn’t have the luxury of being frightened by him. Anyway, she was used to cold, forbidding men.
“Sheikh Zahir,” she began, taking a step toward his expansive desk. He wasn’t looking at her, his dark head inclined, his focus on a paper in front of him. “I have been waiting for you to contact me. You haven’t.”
“No, I have not. Which makes me wonder why you are here.”
Katharine swallowed. “To marry you.”
“Is that right, Princess Katharine? I had heard a rumor about that, but I didn’t believe it.” He lifted his head and for the first time, Katharine saw his face.
Yes, he was every bit as frightening as they said. The skin on the left side of his face ravaged, his eye not as focused or sharp on that side. Yet she still felt like he was seeing all the way into her, as if the accident that had served to cloud his physical vision had made him able to see more than a mere mortal man.
That he was a ghost, or a god of some kind was part of his legend, and looking at him now, she understood why.
“I did call.” She hadn’t exactly talked to Zahir, but she’d talked to his advisor. And she hadn’t really been invited, either.
“I didn’t think you would travel all the way from the comfort of your palace to have your marriage proposal turned down, as I was certain I had relayed my thoughts on the matter.”
She straightened her shoulders. “I thought you owed me a conversation. A personal one, not your relayed response. And I didn’t come to be turned down. I came to make sure the contract was honored. The deal was struck six years ago…”
“For you to marry Malik. Not me.”
Thinking of Malik always made her feel sad. But her sadness was for a young life cut short, nothing deeper. He had been her destiny, her duty, for all of her adult life, and while she had liked him, cared for him in some ways, she had not loved him.
At first it seemed like losing him had changed everything, that her horizons had opened, that she might have a different future before her. It was clear now that nothing had changed.
Instead of Malik, it would be Zahir. But she was still destined to be sold into marriage for the sake of her country. She’d accepted it. Ultimately she hadn’t felt that the change in groom had mattered all that much.
Although, looking at him now it became a whole different matter than it had been in theory. He was…he was something much more than she’d counted on.
This was never about you. Never about your feelings. You have to be prepared to see this through.
“That’s what I thought. But when I examined the documents a little bit closer…” Her father had handled most of the legal portion of the marriage agreement that had been drawn up between her and Malik.
It hadn’t really been of personal interest to her. Her relationship with him had been nothing more than political maneuvering by their parents. She’d only met him on a few occasions. She’d simply accepted that it was what she could do for her country, that the marriage was what she could contribute. She had never personally studied the agreement. Until recently.
“Well, yes. But really, if you look at the wording, I am promised to Malik. Unless he is not able to assume the throne of Hajar. In that case, it is his successor that I’m meant to marry. That’s…