Delores Fossen's Blog
August 8, 2015
You Might Be...
You Might Be a Romantic Suspense Writer If:
1. You daydream about how to maim your hero in such a way that he can still shoot and still make love to the heroine (hint: no deep thigh injuries )
2. You leave yourself notes like "feed the hostages" or “go ahead and shoot him.”
3. You have grisly research books that you’d never let your kids touch.
4. Your hero and heroine's foreplay is running for their lives.
5. While on vacation, you see a beautiful river with grassy banks dotted with wildflowers, and you think—what an awesome place to dump a body.
You might be a Romantic Suspense Reader If:
1. A former mercenary, gun-toting hero with snug jeans and desperado stubble makes you sigh.
2. You can read a gory scene in a book while having dinner (extra points if that dinner is pasta with red sauce!)
3. You look forward to both the steamy love scenes and the showdowns, and you don’t care if those scenes are just pages apart.
4. You enjoy what the hero and heroine do to the villain when they finally catch him. heehee
5. You don’t mind a little blood with the happily-ever-after ending.
1. You daydream about how to maim your hero in such a way that he can still shoot and still make love to the heroine (hint: no deep thigh injuries )
2. You leave yourself notes like "feed the hostages" or “go ahead and shoot him.”
3. You have grisly research books that you’d never let your kids touch.
4. Your hero and heroine's foreplay is running for their lives.
5. While on vacation, you see a beautiful river with grassy banks dotted with wildflowers, and you think—what an awesome place to dump a body.
You might be a Romantic Suspense Reader If:
1. A former mercenary, gun-toting hero with snug jeans and desperado stubble makes you sigh.
2. You can read a gory scene in a book while having dinner (extra points if that dinner is pasta with red sauce!)
3. You look forward to both the steamy love scenes and the showdowns, and you don’t care if those scenes are just pages apart.
4. You enjoy what the hero and heroine do to the villain when they finally catch him. heehee
5. You don’t mind a little blood with the happily-ever-after ending.
July 17, 2015
Cowboys with Badges
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a Texas Ranger. Actually, I just wanted to wear a shiny badge and ride a horse so I suppose any type of cowboy cop would have suited me. That probably came from watching too many episodes of Bonanza and Gunsmoke. Ah, Little Joe and Matt Dillon. They were my heroes. I was in love with cowboys and cowboy cops before I was old enough to appreciate just how good they looked in their western duds.
While my sister was doing her normal tomboy stuff as a kid, I would investigate things. All right, there really wasn’t much to investigate on our family’s small ranch—though I did find a missing cat a time or two. I remember lifting fingerprints from glasses with Scotch tape. I remember failing at it as well. And I eavesdropped on conversations. (Boring conversation, I might add.) Yeah, I was a spooky kid, lol, but I was a very sad kid the day my mom told me that girls couldn’t be Texas Rangers. At that time, it was very much a big boys’ club, and there’s was no hope of a girl wearing that famous silver peso badge anytime soon. I cried for a week.
Fast forward a couple of decades, and I decided if I couldn’t be a Texas Ranger, then I’d write about them and plenty of other cowboy cops, too. It was a natural fit for me because I love making up those stories of cowboy lawmen, their way of their life, code of conduct and their fights for justice.
There’s also something else at the heart of all my stories—family. I come from a big one, and we’re loud and messy, probably crazy, too, but above all else, we love each other. Well, most of the time. If you have brothers and sisters, you know exactly what I mean. Still, that family bond has stayed with me even when we’re miles apart, and now I have a big family of my own. Four children!
There are plenty of cowboy cops and family in my new series, Sweetwater Ranch, from Harlequin Intrigue. In the first story, MAVERICK SHERIFF, Texas sheriff Cooper McKinnon is faced with saving a toddler who might turn out to be his own missing son. He also has to deal with the child’s adoptive mother, Jessa Wells, who’d anything to protect and keep the little boy, not only from danger but perhaps also from Cooper. Even though both Cooper and Jessa have painful pasts, they have to put that aside and “cowboy up” for the sake of the child they both love.
There are seven more books in the Sweetwater Ranch series, and the last one, A LAWMAN'S JUSTICE, comes out August 1, 2015.A Lawman's Justice
So, do I miss not becoming a Texas Ranger? Not really. Even when I get those pangs of what might have been, I just remember that sometimes life gives you something much better than what you ever expected—I’ve got plenty of that. Love and family. A career I’m blessed to have. And I’ve got a decent shot at that happily ever after part, too, even though I didn’t grow up to be a real Texas Ranger.
While my sister was doing her normal tomboy stuff as a kid, I would investigate things. All right, there really wasn’t much to investigate on our family’s small ranch—though I did find a missing cat a time or two. I remember lifting fingerprints from glasses with Scotch tape. I remember failing at it as well. And I eavesdropped on conversations. (Boring conversation, I might add.) Yeah, I was a spooky kid, lol, but I was a very sad kid the day my mom told me that girls couldn’t be Texas Rangers. At that time, it was very much a big boys’ club, and there’s was no hope of a girl wearing that famous silver peso badge anytime soon. I cried for a week.
Fast forward a couple of decades, and I decided if I couldn’t be a Texas Ranger, then I’d write about them and plenty of other cowboy cops, too. It was a natural fit for me because I love making up those stories of cowboy lawmen, their way of their life, code of conduct and their fights for justice.
There’s also something else at the heart of all my stories—family. I come from a big one, and we’re loud and messy, probably crazy, too, but above all else, we love each other. Well, most of the time. If you have brothers and sisters, you know exactly what I mean. Still, that family bond has stayed with me even when we’re miles apart, and now I have a big family of my own. Four children!
There are plenty of cowboy cops and family in my new series, Sweetwater Ranch, from Harlequin Intrigue. In the first story, MAVERICK SHERIFF, Texas sheriff Cooper McKinnon is faced with saving a toddler who might turn out to be his own missing son. He also has to deal with the child’s adoptive mother, Jessa Wells, who’d anything to protect and keep the little boy, not only from danger but perhaps also from Cooper. Even though both Cooper and Jessa have painful pasts, they have to put that aside and “cowboy up” for the sake of the child they both love.
There are seven more books in the Sweetwater Ranch series, and the last one, A LAWMAN'S JUSTICE, comes out August 1, 2015.A Lawman's Justice
So, do I miss not becoming a Texas Ranger? Not really. Even when I get those pangs of what might have been, I just remember that sometimes life gives you something much better than what you ever expected—I’ve got plenty of that. Love and family. A career I’m blessed to have. And I’ve got a decent shot at that happily ever after part, too, even though I didn’t grow up to be a real Texas Ranger.
