Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 30

Bride of Second Chances Trivia

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I really want to update all of the book covers in the South Dakota Series, but the right ones haven’t come up yet. A lot of authors have become amazingly professional in the look of their covers, so I need to up my game. This is the series in my past books that need to be dealt with.  I want the covers to be the best they can be, and my homemade attempts fail in comparison with the skill cover artists have.
This book was based off a dream I had. I rarely ever get an idea for a book, but this was one of them. In the dream was a scene where the hero and heroine were in the kitchen, and he kissed her then thought to himself, “Why am I continually burdened with guilt over betraying my first wife? She’s no longer alive. I shouldn’t feel guilty.”
After the dream, I originally wanted to do a romance where the hero initially loved the heroine’s sister in the book, Bound by Honor Bound by Love (the last book in the Native American Romance Series), but that story never went in the direction I wanted. As it turned out Citlali was only going to marry Woape out of duty. It turned out, though, he did love the heroine, Onawa, the entire time. He was just too scared of admitting his feelings to himself and to her until later in the story when he thought he might lose her. Fortunately, Bride of Second Chances came along.
I was uncertain at first about writing an overtly Christian romance when the sexual heat was going to be high. I know Christian romances are traditionally squeaky clean, and I knew I was going to get feedback from people who hated the direction I was going to go. My initial idea was to tone down the Christian content. But after much prayer and debate, I opted to go with the direction the story really wanted to go. I’ve never regretted that decision. This, along with Loving Eliza and Bid for a Bride, are among my personal favorite books of all I’ve written.
The drama in Jane’s family is loosely based off of real life experiences, but to protect the innocent, I won’t go into detail.
The name “Rebecca” came from a book I read in the 8th grade that I love called Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, but in this case, Rebecca was a lovely woman. Like the heroine in Rebecca, Jane struggled with feeling inferior to her husband’s first wife. (For the record, Rebecca isn’t really a romance. It’s more along the lines of gothic fiction.)
This part is directly inspired from my childhood: “He turned to the window and noted the partly-cloudy sky.  Catching a ray of sunlight that filtered through a couple of clouds, he recalled how, as a child, he imagined God taking someone to Heaven whenever there was a break in the clouds like the one he was now looking at.” When I was a kid, every time I saw sunlight making that break through the clouds, I used to think someone was going to Heaven.
Years ago, I think someone asked me if Brian got jealous of Jeremy because Jeremy was the real son while Brian was the adopted son. The answer is no. Brian and John are super tight and close. They have a special bond between them that just developed over time because they both had a secret way of communicating that no one else around them had. Brian loves Eliza, of course, but he is just closer to John. Jeremy, meanwhile, is closer to Eliza, and part of that has to do with being her biological son, but mostly, it’s a personality thing. Brian and John’s personalities mesh well together, and Jeremy and Eliza’s personalities mesh well together. Even with all of this, all members of this family get along very well, and no one feels excluded at any time.  I don’t know how things are in your family, but I have four boys. Two of the boys have personalities that are more compatible with my husband while the other two have personalities that are more compatible with me. We don’t have favorites, but I notice the two kids seem to gravitate more toward their dad and the other two seem to gravitate more toward me. The situation with Brian and Jeremy is similar to that.

The Post Where I Discuss Covid-19

I know this is going around all over the Internet, but it is impacting my normal writing routine. All of my kids are home, and I have to make sure they are submitting their online assignments to their teachers every day. I haven’t written anything since mid-January when I finished The Duke’s Secluded Bride and The Rancher’s Bride. My goal was to start writing new books this week.

Then, when I went to the grocery store last Thursday morning and saw that people were starting to panic-buy and my kids told me the teachers were telling them schools might close, I turned my attention to researching Covid-19. I’d been keeping up with it in the Current Events class with my homeschooled kid. He loves Current Events. I had seen what happened in China and what was happening in Italy. I did prepare because one guy on You Tube mentioned that it’s good to have an emergency stash for things like earthquakes and hurricanes, and I figured that the best case scenario would be that I had extra food on hand and wouldn’t need to grocery shop for a while. But I wasn’t in a panic over it. I just grabbed one more thing of whatever I was picking up each week.

And after this experience, I think having a three-month supply of food/water/other necessities is as important as paying off debt and having an emergency fund. I go by “three months” because I read that the CDC was telling their workers to plan that far ahead. I figured if the CDC was saying it, it was a good rule of thumb to go by. I did have to dip into my small emergency fund to be able to get the supplies, but you can’t eat money that is sitting in a bank. I don’t think people need to go out and buy three months of supplies all at once. It sounds like we’ll still have trucks delivering food and everything to our stores.

Just slowly build things up. Pick up double of what you usually do each time you go out. That will help to not overwhelm the system so others will have something as well. After this experience, I’m not ever going to let anything go low again. I was doing that all through last year as I was paying off debt. I would only allow us to get enough food to last one week. This has taught me that is not a good strategy because for one week, everything could be fine in your town, and when the next week comes, you don’t know if you’ll have what you’re looking for. It’s crazy.

Over the past week, I’ve gotten very little sleep because I’ve been doing a deeper study of Covid-19 and everything that is going on in the country and around the world. There are so many conflicting messages going on. I honestly don’t know if this is serious or if it’s being hyped up for some reason. I have heard quite a few theories, and it seems like no one is sure what will happen.

But I have come to a couple of conclusions. One, I do think it’s best to stay away from large crowds during this time so the medical system doesn’t get overwhelmed. I am concerned about the doctors and nurses. I am concerned there won’t be enough beds for the people who need them. That seems to be what is causing Italy so much grief right now. I don’t want to see the same thing happen in the United States where I live. My plan isn’t to be a complete hermit, but I am limiting my trips out so that we only go out to get things we need. My hope is that we’ll use this time to get more beds in the hospitals around the country and give the doctors and nurses what they need so that if something like this happens in the future, we won’t have to shut a lot of things down around the country.

My husband is still working at the moment, but I won’t be surprised if that stops for a while. He’s a car detailer, so he can’t work from home. He’s also “non-essential”. I’m not sure what this will mean for his job going forward. Will he still have a job waiting for him when this is over? I guess we’ll find out. So my heart does go out to those who can’t work at home. I also feel bad for the small business owners who are operating their businesses in a place that can’t be done from home, either. I’m lucky. Writing is online. Even if I’m not making what I once did, I’m able to keep things going around this house for the time being.

Thankfully, we got out of debt when we did. I know it seems like I keep saying this, but having no debt is probably the smartest move anyone can make. If we had debt, we’d be in a real panic right now. And while I’m on the topic of money, there are some “financial experts” out there who tell people to get a 30-year mortgage and never pay it off sooner so that you can invest the money instead. While I do expect the stock market to come back up, I’m glad I put my money into paying off my house instead of putting it in the stock market. I know banks are holding off on mortgage payments right now, but I like knowing I don’t have to worry about one when this is all over. So I heartily disagree with those financial experts. When everything is going fine, that method is okay, but what if you just lost all of your money in the stock market over this past month and still had that mortgage hanging over your head? I’m not opposed to investing money into the market, but I do think the priority should be the roof over your head.

Okay. I’m off that soapbox.

Now, I’m going to switch to a more religious tone, so if that’s not your thing, you should stop reading here.

I’m currently studying the Book of James in the Bible, and I like to listen to Thru the Bible Radio. I will read a book in the Bible first and then go back to listen to the Thru the Bible radio podcast on You Tube for the commentary on it. Over the past week, while all of this other stuff was going on (and it is scary stuff), it has been helpful to listen to J. Vernon McGee talk about trusting God and that He’ll get us through things. I don’t think the timing of this is a coincidence. I’ve been steadily going through the Epistles in the New Testament since the fall of last year. Then on the radio while I was in the car, the sermon was on what to do when you’re scared. The preacher mentioned that even in the Psalms, those men were scared. I remember passages where they mentioned crying and being afraid of what the day was going to bring. There was something along the lines of, “When it’s morning, I wish it was night. When it’s night, I wish it was morning. My bed is drenched in my tears.” I think being scared if a natural human emotion. It’s what we do with that fear that is important. Do we take that fear and tell God about it? Or do we take that fear, say, “God must not care,” and harden our hearts against him? The same is true with any emotion.

Emotions, in and of themselves, are okay. It’s what you do with those emotions that matter. You can use any emotion and chose to either let it draw you closer to God or let it separate yourself from Him. We have freewill. I believe He is always there, ready and willing to pull us up into His arms, but it’s up to us to take that offer. It doesn’t mean your fear will go away. I’ve found it makes the fear more bearable, and after time, things do “feel” better. There’s a certain peace that begins to take hold, but it is not immediate. It’s a process. I think the closer we get to God, the more that peace settles in. In our instant gratification world, we’re used to having everything right away. This isn’t like that. This takes time. I think this is what patience is about, and it is what ultimately builds character in our lives. The best to do this, in my opinion, is to make Bible study a habit in our lives. The Bible is the main go-to book, especially at times like this. If it weren’t for God, I wouldn’t know what I’d do. He is my anchor in the storm.

I’m not sure if anyone else needed to hear that, but I know I did. I feel much better already.

Bid for a Bride Trivia

Sorry it took so long to get to this post. I was busy editing The Duke’s Secluded Bride and making some boxed sets for the series I’ve done in the past. I’ll go more into those in a future blog post. Today, I want to get to Bid for a Bride.

Writing for Passion Ebook is Now Available!

The cover is temporary.  My cover artist and friend, Stephannie Beman, is super busy with other projects, so I came up with a quick cover that I could use for the short term. I didn’t want this book to be hanging over my head. Once I finish with a book, I like to get it uploaded. This way I can focus on my romances. I have a terrible time focusing on writing new books when a finished one is sitting on my computer.

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Temporary Cover

It’s currently on Smashwords (but I did set it to distribute to other retailers. Amazon has it at $0.99 so don’t get it there until it price matches to free.)

I made it available in mobi, epub, and pdf on Smashwords. Here’s the link.

This book is specifically for writers who write for passion. The author community is surrounded by people who keep shouting about “writing to market” and making a “six-figure income”. I’m sick of it. I have looked for a book that promoted the writing for passion side, and while a couple of them exist, none go into depth on “WHY” passion is so important. None delve into “WHY” writing to market can be harmful.

I wrote this book because it was the book I needed to read to reinforce the importance of passion in writing. I’m making it free because my goal is to help other authors who might be struggling with the issues I went through. The book’s aim is to give hope, support, and encouragement. I hope it will uplift those of us who want to embrace passion as our primary motive for writing. I don’t care  how much money an author makes. Money can’t replace the joy and satisfaction that writing for passion can bring to the table. Writing for passion sustains an author. Writing to market can lead to burn out. The two are so different, and after going through both perspectives over the past decade, I have come to the conclusion that writing for passion is the better option. This book pretty much lays out how I came to that conclusion while offering additional lessons I’ve learned since I published my first book on Amazon and Smashwords back in 2009.

Breaking the Rules is Now Available!

The main characters in Breaking the Rules are Miss Lilly Lowell and Mr. Roger Morris. I introduced both of them in The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife, which I published way back in 2012. Over the years, I’ve had a couple of requests to write their story. I didn’t have the right plot to put them in until recently, so that’s why it took me so long to get to it.

You may want to read The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife first.

If you haven’t read The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife, it’s free at all retailers so you can pick it up and read it first. (Links to the book are on this page.) The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife is Book 1 in the Marriage by Scandal Series.

I did recently change the cover. In case you don’t recognize the new cover, I thought I should post the old one. If you only found me after I changed covers, I’ll post the new one, too.

The old cover looked like this:

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The new cover looks like this:

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Is it necessary to read The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife? No. But if you want the backstory that goes with Lilly and Roger, you’ll want to. I don’t go heavily into their backstory in Breaking the Rules.

Another note I want to make about Breaking the Rules is that this book takes place BEFORE A Most Unsuitable Earl. That means that Ethan (Lord Edon) and Christopher (Mr. Robinson) are still SINGLE at the time of this book. This is very important to remember when reading Breaking the Rules. If I explain why, it’ll spoil some of the book.

With all that aside, I’ll finally get to the information about Breaking the Rules.

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Here’s the description:

They say a proper lady follows the rules. She lets the gentleman take the lead. She obeys her chaperone. She is soft spoken and careful in everything she says and does. She doesn’t intrude into a gentleman’s business. And she most certainly doesn’t become the object of scandal.

Miss Lilly Lowell has been careful to follow the rules all of her life. But the rules aren’t helping her now when she needs it most. She made the terrible mistake of spurning Mr. Morris’ attention, and now he’s looking for someone else to marry. Determined to get him back, she hatches a plan to make him fall in love with her again. And doing so will require her to start breaking some rules.

Hurt by Miss Lowell’s rejection, Mr. Roger Morris is seeking out another lady to court. But after endless social engagements, it starts to become clear to him that no one can take her place. Whether he likes it or not, he is doomed to love her. She is the perfect lady for him. But the last thing he wants to do is give in, especially when she creates a scandal that forces him to marry her.

This might just be a match made in hell. Or maybe, quite possibly, heaven…as long as Lilly can figure out a way to make things right.

Here is where you can find it:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple

Google Play

Smashwords

Payhip

I did upload it to Google Play, but at this time, it’s not live in the store.

To Those Who Read The Stagecoach Bride

To the below, I sent out The Outlaw Bride to you on January 24. I got an email from two of you now who are claiming you never received this. I tried sending these files out again this morning, and they all ended up in a “donotreply” sender. I don’t know what is going on with the email program, but I’m unable to send the file. In the future, I’ll use my other email address.

I am so frustrated right now. Words just can’t even begin to explain. I also have kiddos buzzing around me because we’re supposed to go out to the store to pick up groceries. After that, the whole day is going to be hectic around here. I don’t have time to try to dig through all the emails and manually put everything in.

Okay, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to make The Outlaw’s Bride book free on Smashwords. It might take a day or two, but it’ll be free on B&N, Kobo, and Apple as well because Smashwords will update the price for me. I’ll set the book to $0.99 on Amazon. Amazon takes about a week or two to price match free. (Amazon won’t let me manually make the book free, but they will price match.)

I’m really sorry. I did send these files out on January 24, but apparently, no one got them, and I don’t know whether to cry or throw something, so I’m just going to make this blog post and give the link to the book page in this post so you can you can find the links to your retailer. Like I said, give it a while to go free on Amazon. But Smashwords will be right away. Apple should update within a few hours. I’m not sure how long B&N or Kobo will take, but I assume a day or two. I also set it free on Google Play. That should be going through any time now.

Here’s the page to The Outlaw’s Bride: https://ruthannnordinauthorblog.com/chronological-order-of-my-books/my-historical-westerns/wyoming-series/the-outlaws-bride-wyoming-series-book-1/

Again, I’m sorry. I thought those emails got sent out.

 

Loving Eliza Trivia

Thanks to those who mentioned an interest in learning more about Loving Eliza! I have down other books I’ll do trivia on in the future. Here’s the order: Bid for a Bride, Bride of Second Chances, A Bride for Tom, The Accidental Mail Order Bride, The Earl’s Wallflower Bride, The Marriage Contract, and Boaz’s Wager. I’ll work on more after those are done.

For now, let’s get to Loving Eliza!

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This is the book I wrote that launched my very first spin-off series from the Nebraska Series. Eliza was introduced in His Redeeming Bride as the prostitute Neil Craftsman often went to in the past. In the scene at the bar when she told Neil she only played along with the other men in tricking him because she had a son and that she didn’t want him to find out about her, I became interested in her character and wanted to learn more about her and her past. To do that, I had to give her a better future. That was how Loving Eliza was born.
I didn’t originally plan to make Loving Eliza the first book in a new series. It was supposed to be a standalone romance. One of my beta readers at the time, however, mentioned wanting to see Eliza have a child. I didn’t want to give John and Eliza a biological child because I personally knew a couple of people who weren’t able to have children, and I wanted to show that not every couple is able to have them. So what I opted to do was give John and Eliza a child to adopt. That was how Loving Eliza became the first book in the South Dakota Series.
I named the hero after my deaf son, John. I wanted to give the hero a disability, but I didn’t want to make him deaf like my son. I opted to make him mute. That way he could hear what Eliza, who was a chatterbox, was saying while also giving him trouble communicating so that people assumed he was mentally handicapped. The reason the people thought John was mentally handicapped was because a lot of people I came in contact with thought that about my son (including one of his teachers). This was a source of frustration for me at the time. Now I just tell people right away my son is deaf. It’s amazing how many people jump to conclusions about someone who can’t hear. (I’m sure parents of children with other disabilities get frustrated by the reactions of others, too.)
Another reason I made John mute was so that I could put myself into the shoes of a character who wanted to communicate with the world but had difficulty doing so. This was my attempt to gain better insight into what my son went through on a daily basis. The strategy worked. After that, the communication he and I shared improved significantly. While a writer might not know exactly what it’s like to be someone who is different from them, writing in that character’s point of view goes a long way to understanding that person a lot better. This is why I’m in full support of writers going outside their comfort zones and writing a character who is different from them. It opens the door of compassion when you put yourself into someone else’s position and imagine how the world is from their perspective.
Eliza, by far, was the easiest character I ever wrote. Every scene pretty much wrote itself. I got an appreciation for going deeply into a character’s point of view from this book, and ever since then, I have embraced this technique in all of my work.
Piggybacking off of the last point… When I write in a character’s point of view, I go through everything they do. It doesn’t matter what the scene is about or what the character is going through. So when Eliza was hungry, I was also hungry. Those scenes where she was struggling with hunger pangs were equally uncomfortable for me. I got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore and ate a full course meal before writing any more scenes where she was hungry, but while writing them, I would feel hungry anyway. I knew I wasn’t hungry, but my stomach would growl and pester me to eat. So when I finished the scenes, I would grab something to eat, and my stomach was finally satisfied. It’s amazing how the human brain can influence our body. Needless to say, Eliza and I were both relieved when she was no longer facing each scene hungry.

Asking for Topics for the Writing for Passion Book

I’ve been working on and off on a book that is motivational for authors who want to write for passion. Since some authors who love writing for passion check out this blog from time to time, I thought I’d ask for any topics you’d be interested in me discussing in this book. I’m going to make this book free, so there’s no sense in holding back on a topic that interests you. It’s also going to be a quick read. I’m looking at anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 words.

The goal of the book is to embrace a positive mindset about writing for passion. It’s not a “How To” book. It’s a motivational book.

I’ve just got through a couple of chapters. Here are the topics I’ve already covered:

A brief history of indie (aka Self) publishing over the past decade. (Basically, how writers went from a passion mindset to a “I need to make money” mindset. In other words, how did we get to the place where the focus went to money rather than the simple enjoyment of telling a story.)
Why chasing money won’t make you happy
Why looking to outside sources (awards, bestselling lists, and others’ opinions) don’t lead to happiness
Guarding your writing heart from the critic
Putting yourself in the best financial position you can to be less dependent on sales
Thinking like a writer instead of a publisher

Anyone see anything on the list they would like to see me discuss?

Ruined by the Earl Trivia

I had a request to do trivia on this book. Thanks to the person who requested it! It helps me to know what book to do trivia on if people let me know which book they’d like to see in one of these posts.

The Outlaw’s Bride is Now Available!

Before I forget, I will be doing trivia on Ruined by the Earl and the books in the South Dakota Series in the next couple of weeks.

With that aside, here’s the information for The Outlaw’s Bride.

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This is Book 1 in the Wyoming Series.

The background to this series is that Charles Gray and his men have stolen Wade Gray’s ranch, killed Wade’s wife, and kidnapped Wade’s son. He also arranged it so that Wade and Mic are outlaws. Charles left Abby alone since she’s a woman, so he doesn’t see her as a threat. Charles, Wade, Mic, and Abby all have the same father, but Charles has a different mother. So they’re all related, and Charles, being the oldest, felt he had the rights to the family ranch. But their father left the ranch to Wade. Wade, Mic, and Abby vow that they will rescue Wade’s child and then they’ll get the ranch back for Wade.

This plot series will be resolved during the course of the series, but it will take three books to complete. I just finished the second book (The Rancher’s Bride) and will start the third book (The Fugitive’s Bride) in the first week of February.

This is where The Outlaw’s Bride comes in:

The Outlaw’s Bride starts a year after the night Charles and his men took over the ranch. Abby gets word in town that Charles is expecting a mail-order bride by the name Lillian Christian, and she hurries to tell Mic and Wade since she doesn’t want to see an innocent woman ending up with him. Mic, who’s been isolated in his hideout, longs for companionship, so he decides he’ll marry her so she has a place to stay. The three, along with Jeremiah (their friend), intercepts the stagecoach before Lillian gets to town.  They are also determined to rescue Wade’s son in the upcoming weeks.

This is pretty much where the book starts, so I won’t go into it any more than that because then we’ll get into spoilers, and there are some people who never read the original version (The Stagecoach Bride). I don’t want to ruin anything for them.

This book is a historical western that shows the gritty side of the wild west, though the books following are more gritty than this one. I haven’t done Book 3 yet, but I expect that to be gritty as well. It does have romance, but it’s also more “western-ish” than what I usually do. I don’t know how to better explain it than that.

If this sounds like your cup of tea, here’s where you can find it:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple

Google Play

Smashwords

Payhip (use coupon WMW69B5NB6 to get 75% off the $2.99 price) – offer good until January 31st