Andrea Downing's Blog, page 3
June 26, 2017
An Interview with Kristy McCaffrey
[image error]I had the pleasure of meeting Kristy McCaffrey when she recently visited New York, and I can tell you there is very little she doesn’t know about publishing, promoting and, most especially, writing a dang good book. Kristy writes historical western romances set in the American southwest. She and her husband dwell in the Arizona desert with two chocolate labs named Ranger and Lily, and whichever of their four children that are in residence. Kristy believes life should be lived with curiosity, compassion, and gratitude, and one should never be far from the enthusiasm of a dog. She also likes sleeping-in, eating Mexican food, and doing yoga at home in her pajamas.
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How did you get started writing? I’ve always written. It’s been a lifelong compulsion for me. But I didn’t get serious until I was a stay-at-home with four young children underfoot.
What genre do you write and why? Until now, I’ve only written historical western romances. I grew up in Arizona, so I suppose the Wild West seeped into my psyche at a young age. Blue Sage is my first contemporary western, and it was a lot of fun to write a more modern-day tale. I’ve also been working on a contemporary adventure romance series that I plan to begin releasing near the end of 2017. These will feature marine biologists, high-altitude mountain climbers, and archaeologists. I love high-adventure and have always wanted to write about people who are driven and passionate about their pursuits, so I’m really excited to launch these books.
What is your favorite part of writing? Definitely when the first deep editing pass has been completed. That’s the point at which I finally have a viable story and I stop feeling so anxious.
What is your least favorite part of writing? The never-ending moments in the first draft when I wonder where the story is going and if I’ll be able to pull the whole thing off.
Do you have any words of inspiration for aspiring authors? Keep going. It sounds cliché, but you truly learn by doing. It doesn’t seem like writing should be that hard, but it takes skill to work with words and imagery. I’m constantly learning new things. I really love it. You’ll know if you’re not meant to be a writer because the tediousness of it will easily drive you away. But if it doesn’t, then you’ve found your passion and your tribe.
In your new release, Blue Sage, what sets your heroine Audrey Driggs apart from all the other women in your hero’s (Braden Delaney) life? Why is she perfect for him? Audrey is a dreamer and Braden needs that in his life. He offers stability and a solid connection to the earth, and she lets him know that whimsy and magic are very real. I think they suit each other well and I really enjoyed writing their story.
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Blue Sage Blurb[image error]
Braden Delaney has taken over the family cattle business after the death of his father, but faced with difficult financial decisions, he contemplates selling a portion of the massive Delaney ranch holdings known as Whisper Rock, a place of unusual occurrences. Archaeologist Audrey Driggs has come to the remote wilderness of Northern Arizona for clues to a life-altering experience from her childhood. Together, they’ll uncover a long-lost secret.
Blue Sage Excerpt
There was no trail. They plodded a haphazard course through pinyon pines, overgrown bushes, and rock-strewn terrain, and several times Audrey turned to look behind them to make certain she recognized the makeshift trail so they could get back to the horses and Stevie. But Braden didn’t seem concerned.
From the distance, a muffled cackling sound echoed back to them. Audrey scanned the sky, expecting to see the ravens that had passed by already, but the birds didn’t reappear. Instead, the honking and bird chatter increased as she and Braden continued forward.
When it had finally become a cacophony of squawking, Braden halted and looked back at her, his face set in a frown. From the deafening volume of the chattering birds, it had to be a huge gathering.
Braden waited until Audrey stopped beside him.
“Do you think something’s dead up ahead?” she asked. It might explain such a large gathering of birds who routinely dined on roadkill.
Braden squinted. “I don’t know why all these birds are here, but I should tell you that this place has always had a strange energy to it.”
I know. “Strange how?”
“You’ll probably think I’m crazy, but it feels tilted here.”
Interesting explanation.
She sensed that Braden was a down-to-the-earth kind of man, a cowboy who lived his life with decency and respect. She doubted he was prone to flights of fancy, and he seemed uncomfortable sharing his thoughts on this place.
“Are we talking woo-woo stuff?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.
He scoffed. “Look, I don’t know about flying saucers and Martians from outer space, but this place is strange, and you’re looking for areas that are off, right? That might harbor artifacts or some clue to other civilizations? I just wanted to warn you. Honestly, this could all be nothing.”
She grinned. “You’ve totally peaked my interest. We have to check it out now.” She started to move toward the bird sounds but then turned back. “And I don’t think you’re crazy, Delaney. In fact, you’re beginning to grow on me.”
Copyright © 2017 K. McCaffrey LLC
You can find more about Kristy at
Website: http://www.kristymccaffrey.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorKristyMcCaffrey
Newsletter: http://www.kristymccaffrey.com/Newsletter.html
[image error]And get your copy of A Cowboy to Keep at https://www.amazon.com/Cowboy-Keep-Co... Don’t miss this great collection from USA Today, Amazon Bestselling, and Award-Winning authors!!
Catch a cowboy … Keep a cowboy …
THE LEGEND OF BAD MOON RISING by Carra Copelin
Dinah Horne left for Dallas, Texas, to make her mark. When her money runs out, she returns to her hometown and the man she can’t forget. Sheriff Ben Hammond is finally over the woman who shattered his heart, and he plans to rebuild his life with the Hard Luck Ranch. Under a rising moon, will Ben and Dinah surrender to the passion still burning hot between them?
CITY BOY, COUNTRY HEART by Andrea Downing
Rodeo star and rancher Chay Ridgway has left Wyoming to follow his girlfriend, K.C. Daniels, to New York. Leaving behind all he knows for a small bite of the Big Apple, Chay discovers the canyons of city streets may be too claustrophobic for this cowboy. As K.C. continues her two years of study for her Master’s degree, can she also keep a rein on Chay’s heart? Will this cowboy become a city boy, or will the wide-open spaces of Wyoming call his country heart home?
BLUE SAGE by Kristy McCaffrey
Braden Delaney has taken over the family cattle business after the death of his father, but faced with difficult financial decisions, he contemplates selling a portion of the massive Delaney ranch holdings known as Whisper Rock, a place of unusual occurrences. Archaeologist Audrey Driggs arrives in the remote wilderness of Northern Arizona searching for clues to a life-altering experience from her childhood. Together, they’ll uncover a long-lost secret.
THE DRIFTER’S KISS by Devon McKay
Addison Reed’s stock is coming up short. Unfortunately, she suspects her foreman and dearest friend may be the person responsible for the missing cattle. For Sawyer Dawson, Hardin, Montana, is nothing more than a pit stop before moving on to bigger and better things. After a surprise kiss leads to helping a damsel in distress, he starts to question his drifter ways.
HER MAN by Hildie McQueen
Deputy Mark Hunter’s past returns full force when the first murder in twenty years happens on his watch in the usually quiet town of Lovely, Montana. This is definitely not the time to fall in love, especially with the beautiful witness Eliza Brock, who may be involved.
BORDER ROMANCE by Hebby Roman
When Leticia Villarreal, a lonely widow, considers adding Quarter horse racing to her ranch, she finds she has a lot to learn. John Clay Laidlaw, a millionaire rancher and old acquaintance, races Quarter horses and offers to help. But he also cares for her and wants a relationship. Remembering his high-handed tactics when they were young, she doesn’t trust him. But when someone tries to harm her horses and John Clay rushes to her rescue, can she open her heart to him?
PHOENIX HEAT by Patti Sherry-Crews
When Harper Donovan loses both her fiancé and business in that order, it’s the end of her dream of making it in New York City. Returning to the bosom of her family in Arizona is not her favorite option, but it’s her only one. When she meets handsome firefighter and cowboy Frank Flynn, she decides it’s time to get into the dating game again. Except Flynn shows no interest and dodges her, but not before claiming they’ve met before. Will his past and their differences extinguish the heat between them?[image error]
June 17, 2017
Devon McKay
[image error]Devon McKay has been an absolute bonus to our group of authors, working extra hard on promotion in addition to having turned out a terrific story. Devon writes contemporary romance with a western flair. If she’s not typing at her keyboard, Devon’s busy with chores on her small ranch, working on a stained glass project, or walking one of her three dogs through the woods. Her greatest joy is putting a smile on a readers face and hearing from fans.
***************************************************************************Cowboys.
Simply saying the word spikes my heart rate and incites an image of a handsome man oozing masculinity and smelling of leather. What is it about a cowboy that is so captivating?
Aside from the physical attributes, a ruggedness often accompanied with striking good looks and a muscular build, there’s also an unspoken confidence. As if the man can take on anything. And usually does. Or perhaps, it’s the cowboy’s lifestyle that adds to his appeal ~ making his own rules without boundaries.
In my story, The Drifter’s Kiss, Sawyer Dawson is the perfect example. He prefers the freedom of life on the range. Sawyer’s not the kind of man to set up roots for too long. In fact, the thought never entered his mind…until he meets Addison Reed, a sporty blonde who changes his life with one unexpected kiss.
The Drifter’s Kiss is one of seven stories in A Cowboy To Keep, which debuted June 1st.
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The Drifter’s Kiss Blurb[image error]
Addison Reed doesn’t want to believe her foreman and family friend is responsible for her missing stock, but the man isn’t making it easy. Hoping to prove he’s innocent, she follows him into a seedy bar and finds herself in a bigger mess…kissing a complete stranger.
Drifter Sawyer Dawson never settled anywhere for long. In fact, landing a job on a ranch as the new foreman just fell into his lap, and he figured Montana was as good a place as any to settle down for a while. Of course, sticking around might have a little something to do with a sexy blonde with an affinity for kissing cowboys.
The Drifter’s Kiss Excerpt
Frustrated, Addison Reed tapped the counter with her fingers and targeted her stare on Jacobs. Not being able to trust the man was killing her. She needed something concrete to prove her neighbor, William Ramsey, was the one responsible for stealing her cattle.
Not her dearest friend.
Suddenly, the older cowboy rose, said something to Ramsey, and brushed past the waitress, heading toward the exit. He was leaving? Her heart seized in her chest, then began an erratic beat, thundering loudly in her ears. Now she faced another problem. She stood between Jacobs and the door. Unless she could get out first, he’d pass right by her. Perhaps he wouldn’t notice? Or maybe she could blend into the crowd?
She wavered between standing her ground and fleeing. Jacobs may be a thief and a liar, but he wasn’t stupid. If she stayed put, and he did see her, then her cover would be blown for sure and she’d never get the proof she needed. He certainly wouldn’t believe she chose the bar, which happened to be an hour’s drive out of her way, simply on a whim.
No. She couldn’t chance it. Wouldn’t chance it.
Addison raced to the door, but as she neared the exit the crowd thickened and slowed her escape. She glanced over her shoulder to see Jacobs closing in. Quickening the pace, the heel of her boot slid across the sawdust covering the floor and she lost her footing.
A firm grip grasped her shoulders stopping her fall.
“You again?” A husky voice rose above the blaring sound of the country fiddle rocking the room.
She raised her head and locked onto a familiar green gaze. Great. Of all the people in this place, she had to run into this handsome man. Twice? Frantic, she spared another glance behind to see Jacobs was almost within reach. Seeking camouflage and not knowing what else to do, she faced the stranger.
“If our first meeting made your night, then you’re going to love this,” she mumbled, then stood on her tip toes and planted a kiss on the cowboy’s lips.
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You can learn more about Devon at
Website: http://AuthorDevonMcKay.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DevonMcKay2014
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/devonmckay
[image error]A Cowboy To Keep Anthology
Featuring stories by Carra Copelin, Andrea Downing, Kristy McCaffrey, Devon McKay, Hildie McQueen, Hebby Roman, and Patti Sherry-Crews
Catch a cowboy … Keep a cowboy …
Don’t miss this great collection from USA Today, Amazon Bestselling, and Award-Winning authors!! Available at https://www.amazon.com/Cowboy-Keep-Contemporary-Western-Collection-ebook/dp/B072869SGV/
THE LEGEND OF BAD MOON RISING by Carra Copelin
Dinah Horne is in danger of losing herself. Leaving her friends and family for Dallas, Texas, she’s determined to make her mark. Unfortunately, the big city has other ideas. When her money runs out, she returns to her hometown and the man she can’t forget.
Ben Hammond is sheriff of the small community of McTiernan, Texas. Once he’s over the woman who stole his heart and shattered it, he decides to buy the Hard Luck Ranch and settle down. Problem is, odd things are happening that may be tied to the previous owners. As he begins his investigation into the past, he is faced with an even bigger problem—the reappearance of Dinah Horne.
CITY BOY, COUNTRY HEART by Andrea Downing
Rodeo star and rancher Chay Ridgway has left Wyoming to follow his girlfriend, K.C. Daniels, to New York. Leaving behind all he knows for a small bite of the Big Apple, Chay discovers the canyons of city streets may be too claustrophobic for this cowboy, especially when the trauma is compounded by the fact K.C.’s parents dislike him, their housemate is a harridan, friends are few, and the only job he can get is rounding up dinner plates.
As K.C. continues her two years of study for her Master’s degree, can she also keep a rein on Chay’s heart? Will this cowboy become a city boy, or will the wide-open spaces of Wyoming call his country heart home?
BLUE SAGE by Kristy McCaffrey
Braden Delaney has taken over the family cattle business after the death of his father, but faced with difficult financial decisions he contemplates selling a portion of the massive Delaney ranch holdings known as Whisper Rock, a place of unusual occurrences. The sudden appearance of a pretty relic-hunter while he’s collecting his livestock, however, is about to change his mind.
Archaeologist Audrey Driggs arrives in the remote wilderness of Northern Arizona searching for clues to a life-altering experience from her childhood. When she rolls off a mountain and lands at the feet of rugged cowboy Braden Delaney, it’s clear she needs his knowledge of the area to complete her quest. But if she tells him the truth, will he think she’s crazy?
Together, they’ll uncover a long-lost secret.
THE DRIFTER’S KISS by Devon McKay
Addison Reed doesn’t want to believe her foreman and family friend is responsible for her missing stock, but the man isn’t making it easy. Hoping to prove he’s innocent, she follows him into a seedy bar and finds herself in a bigger mess…kissing a complete stranger.
Drifter Sawyer Dawson never settled anywhere for long. In fact, landing a job on a ranch as the new foreman fell into his lap, and he figured Montana was as good a place as any to settle down for a while. Of course, sticking around might have something to do with a sexy blonde with an affinity for kissing cowboys.
HER MAN by Hildie McQueen
When someone is murdered, it’s definitely not a normal week in the usually quiet town of Lovely, Montana.
With the sheriff gone, deputy Mark Hunter had planned for another slow week at work, but when the first murder in twenty years happens, his past as a city detective comes to life. It’s no time to fall in love.
The last twenty-four hours have been hell. Between a fight with her ex that left her with a bruised face and now finding a dead man, Eliza Brock can barely keep it together. But despite the mess, she still manages to feel an undeniable attraction to the handsome deputy, and damn if she can’t resist him when he knocks on her door.
BORDER ROMANCE by Hebby Roman
Leticia Villarreal is lonely. Widowed for eight years, she keeps busy with her ranch and charity work, but they don’t fill the empty place in her heart. When she considers establishing a Quarter horse racing stable, her new endeavor reunites her with an old acquaintance and exposes her horses to danger.
John Clay Laidlaw, a handsome, self-assured, millionaire rancher, has been attracted to Leticia since high school. When he was young and first divorced, he tried to get Leticia to date him, but she didn’t like his arrogant and high-handed ways. Separated from his second wife, John Clay offers to help Leticia with her new racing horse. Remembering how he acted when they were young, she doesn’t trust him. But when someone tries to harm her horses and John Clay rushes to her rescue, can she open her heart to him?
PHOENIX HEAT by Patti Sherry-Crews
Harper Donovan thought she had it all when she turned her dream into a reality—opening a restaurant in New York City. But when the venture fails and her fiancé leaves her, Harper has little choice but to return to her family in Arizona.
When she meets handsome firefighter and cowboy Frank Flynn, she decides it’s time to get in the dating game again. Except Flynn shows no interest and dodges her, but not before claiming they’ve met before. Solving the mystery of the complicated Flynn gets under Harper’s skin, making her even more determined to seduce him.
When the two finally come together, the smoldering passion ignites into a heat that rivals the Phoenix desert. Now that Flynn has opened his heart, can Harper handle this wounded cowboy who’s playing for keeps?
June 8, 2017
Hebby Roman
[image error]Hebby Roman took a loose rein in organizing A Cowboy to Keep and I greatly enjoyed working with her. Hebby is a New York traditionally published, small-press published, and Indie published #1 Amazon best-selling author of both historical and contemporary romances. Her first contemporary romance, SUMMER DREAMS, was the launch title for Encanto, a print line featuring Latino romances. And her re-published e-book, SUMMER DREAMS, was #1 in Amazon fiction and romance. Her medieval historical romance, THE PRINCESS AND THE TEMPLAR, was selected for the Amazon Encore program and was #1 in medieval fiction. She was selected for the Romantic Times “Texas Author” award, and she won a national Harlequin contest. Her book, BORDER HEAT, was a Los Angeles Times Book Festival selection. Her contemporary romance, TO DANCE AGAIN, was a 2016 RONE Finalist.
Hebby has very kindly agreed to give away 3 copies of both of the first two books in her “On the Border Series,” BORDER HEAT and BORDER AFFAIR. Just leave a comment to be in the running, winners to be announced on June 16.
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Good Morning, Romance Readers,[image error]
First, I would like to thank Andrea for offering to host our boxed set collection of contemporary western romances, A COWBOY TO KEEP, by spotlighting each of our authors on her awesome blogsite, “Andrea Downing, My Word, My World, My Work.”
Our collection of seven authors’ stories has a little bit of everything for a lover of western romance. We have ranchers and rodeos, mavericks and marshals, mysteries and suspense, feisty cowgirls and handsome cowboys, and one story contains strong paranormal elements. It’s truly a collection of what makes western romance a joy to read.
Today, I’m going to blog about the quintessential question put to authors: “where did the inspiration for your story come from.” My story in this boxed set is entitled: BORDER ROMANCE, and it’s the third book in my “On the Border Series.” How I came to write this particular story was an evolutionary process, carrying me through three books. Finding the nucleus for this particular book is a bit long and convoluted, so if you’ll stay with me, I’ll try to explain.
The beginning of my Border Series stretches back into the 1990’s, and the first book features the Texas-Mexico border as I remember it, growing up there as a girl. Before the alarming state of our southern border, brought about by the ascendancy of the drug cartels, border residents lived an international life. We crossed back and forth freely for work, shopping, leisure, and even doctor and dentist appointments. Today, all of that has changed dramatically, and the border has turned into an international boundary few residents dare to cross.
For my series, the Texas-Mexico border is an integral part of the stories, taking on the aspect of a background character and shaping my books.
The heroine in my first book, Leticia Rodriguez, is, in some ways, unabashedly autobiographical. At a young age, she inherits her family’s furniture store when she loses both of her parents. After a disastrous first marriage, she tries to revive her family’s store and start a charity with international implications. When she meets Eduardo Villarreal, an international lawyer and Mexican politician, her life changes forever.
In the second book of the series, Leticia’s daughter, Camila, is featured and her May-December romance with Leticia’s ranching partner, Rusty. In this book, the changing face of the border is shown when Camila is abducted on a horse buying trip to Mexico.
At the end of the second book, Leticia, now widowed, needs help training her charro horses. Charro horses are specially trained “trick” horses, much like the famous Lippizzaner stallions of Austria. They appear in Mexican rodeos, doing tricks and dancing around the arena on their back legs.
Leticia hires Franco Ramos, a Mexican national, for his superb credentials, particularly with regard to training charro horses. When they meet, he reminds her of her late husband, and she’s attracted to him. And that’s where the second book ends.
As an author who likes to write “seasoned romance,” or romances between couples older than forty, my imagination immediately started churning out the story of Leticia’s second chance at love. Thus, the kernel of the story for BORDER ROMANCE was born. What if, Leticia, lonely and grieving for eight years, falls in love with her new handsome horse trainer?
How will they overcome the sticky situation of Leticia being the employer of a macho Mexican national? And even if Ramos falls for her, is he willing to give up his native country, along with his children who still live there? The built-in conflict seemed perfect for a seasoned romance.
But when I started writing the book, it suddenly veered off, going in a very different direction. Leticia’s foreman purchases a Quarter horse who’s been bred for speed, and she considers starting a Quarter horse racing stable. Her new venture brings her into contact with an old boyfriend. An old boyfriend whose high-handed tactics when they were young and both newly-divorced, helped to drive her into her late husband’s arms.
To show the changing face of the border, Leticia is confronted with someone trying to harm her precious charro horses while balancing the two new men in her life. She’s faced with the daunting challenge of stopping her horses from being hurt while opening her heart to a new love. But who will she choose, her hunky horse trainer or a way-too-handsome millionaire rancher she’s known since high school?
I hope you’ll read our boxed set and my story to find out what happens to Leticia.
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[image error]When Leticia Villarreal, a lonely widow, considers adding Quarter horse racing to her ranch, she finds she has a lot to learn. John Clay Laidlaw, a millionaire rancher and old acquaintance, races Quarter horses and offers to help. But he also cares for her and wants a relationship. Remembering his high-handed tactics when they were young, she doesn’t trust him. But when someone tries to harm her horses and John Clay rushes to her rescue, can she open her heart to him?
EXCERPT:
John Clay swung back into the saddle and said, “You might think that calf is stupid but compared to sheep, she’s a virtual Einstein.”
Leticia threw back her head and laughed.
“But why cattle?” He asked. “I thought your ranch was all about horses?”
“Yes, this is a horse ranch. The cattle are just a sideline. We don’t keep a bull, but for some of the better-bred heifers, we use our neighbor’s Angus bull. Keeps the herd young. We cull the older ones and sell them, of course.”
“I’m surprised you bother.” He inclined his head toward the ranch house. “Must keep you busy, considering you said you’re short-handed.”
“Oh, that, it’s only temporary.” She removed her Stetson and wiped her arm across her brow. The spring day was heating up. “We need the cattle to properly train our horses. Our charro horses are our pride and joy, but we’re just getting back into them. Mostly, we train working Quarter horses, and you can’t train a cutting horse or calf-roping horse without cows.” She pursed her lips.
He slapped the side of his head. “Stupid of me. I wasn’t thinking. I’m all about sheep, except for my racing stable.”
She laughed again. “Hey, don’t get overwrought and knock your hat off.”
“Yeah.” He grinned and shook his head. “Kinda silly.”
And how right she was, he was acting like a goofy middle-schooler, just being around her. “So, your manpower shortage is temporary. Does that mean I won’t usually find you rounding up cattle?”
“No, not usually. I always have plenty of paperwork to keep me from riding out. But today has been a nice break.”
“I like the mare you’re riding; she’s a good-looking horse.”
“Why, thank you, Mr. Laidlaw, how nice of you to say.” She patted her horse’s neck. “Yep, Pearl is a sweetie. Rusty and Camila brought her back from Ponder last year, and she was so good at everything, we couldn’t make up our minds how to train her, cutting horse or calf-roping or…”
She’d moved ahead to a thicket of live oak and ducked her head under a low-lying branch. “My mare, Sally, was getting old, so I decided to keep Pearl for myself.”
He followed her into the thicket, staying behind her horse to navigate the rough, one-horse trail through the trees and undergrowth.
She cleared the thicket and stopped, waiting for him. He could see the ranch house ahead. He drew alongside her. “At least you have the grass for horses and cows. My ranches only support sheep. We keep some milk cows for the ranch hands, but other than that, it’s mostly mesquite and cactus and patchy prairie grass on my spreads.”
She raised up in her stirrups. “Yes, Eduardo chose well. This land is fertile, and we irrigate some, using Las Moras creek to grow our own hay.”
She gathered her reins and smoothed them, half-turning toward him. “But I can’t wait to show you my new charro horse foal. Midnight Princess just threw a beautiful colt a couple of weeks’ ago.”
“I won’t say no to seeing one of your charro horses. I remember how talented Eduardo’s horses were. I was sorry when I heard you’d quit breeding them for a time.”
John Clay gazed at Leticia, and he thought he could see the faintest glimmer of moisture on her eyelashes. It was obvious she was still grieving for Eduardo? Where did that leave him?
She dropped her head and fidgeted with her reins, smoothing the long ends. “Yes, Eduardo was magic with the horses.” She bit her lip.
He wished he was the one biting her lip, her neck, and lower…
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You can find Hebby Roman at the following sites:
And don’t forget to get your copy of A Cowboy to Keep [image error]at https://www.amazon.com/Cowboy-Keep-Co...
Catch a cowboy … Keep a cowboy …
Don’t miss this great collection from USA Today, Amazon Bestselling, and Award-Winning authors!! Available at https://www.amazon.com/Cowboy-Keep-Contemporary-Western-Collection-ebook/dp/B072869SGV/
THE LEGEND OF BAD MOON RISING by Carra Copelin
Sheriff Ben Hammond is finally over the woman who shattered his heart, but when Dinah Horne suddenly returns, can he ignore the passion still burning bright between them?
CITY BOY, COUNTRY HEART by Andrea Downing
Trading horses for subways for two years seemed like a good idea to cowboy Chay Ridgway, but can city girl K.C. Daniels keep a rein on his country heart?
BLUE SAGE by Kristy McCaffrey
Archaeologist Audrey Driggs rolls off a mountain and lands at the feet of rugged cowboy Braden Delaney. Together, they’ll uncover a long-lost secret.
THE DRIFTER’S KISS by Devon McKay
Determined to take back what belongs to her, Addison Reed will do anything. Even trust a complete stranger.
HER MAN by Hildie McQueen
Deputy Mark Hunter falls for Eliza Brock during a murder investigation. Is it fate or bad luck, especially when she may be involved?
BORDER ROMANCE by Hebby Roman
Widow Leticia Villarreal wants to establish a horse-racing stable and old acquaintance John Clay Laidlaw offers to help. But can she trust him with her business and her heart?
PHOENIX HEAT by Patti Sherry-Crews
After losing her fiancé and her New York City business, Harper Donovan returns to Arizona and meets cowboy Frank Flynn. Will his past and their differences extinguish the heat between them?
May 31, 2017
A Cowboy to Keep
[image error]There are numerous reasons why an author might accept an invitation to join an anthology. The ability to interact with other authors is appealing; the thought that new readers might find your work through the audience of the others is an attraction; and, for some, getting a story out that perhaps you already have and sharing the workload of promotion might be the draw. As for myself, having been faced with sixteen months of wedding planning which reduced my writing time, I saw the proposition of joining an anthology as a way to keep writing, keep my name out ‘there,’ and keep my mind off the minutiae of the wedding for a while. But what a bonus I’ve been blessed with!
First of all, I was given the opportunity to continue a story that had left me wondering. At the end of my earlier Bad Boy, Big Heart, my hero and heroine were bound for New York from Jackson Hole for a two year stint while the girl, K.C. Daniels, studied for her Master’s Degree at NYU. My beloved hero, Chay Ridgway, a fourth generation Wyoming rancher and cowboy, is now faced with life in the big city—and not just the big city, but the granddaddy of them all, New York. Anyone who had finished Bad Boy would be wondering how he got on, and anyone just picking up City Boy, Country Heart—which certainly doesn’t need its predecessor to be enjoyed—would also ponder the question. What a gift to be able to continue Chay and K.C.’s story!
But an even better gift was for me to be in this group of very talented ladies who share my love of the West and create very special stories for their readers. In the coming weeks I’ll be introducing them individually and giving you a small taste of what you’ll find in our new anthology, A Cowboy to Keep. A Cowboy to Keep is available at https://www.amazon.com/Cowboy-Keep-Contemporary-Western-Collection-ebook/dp/B072869SGV/
Here’s a peep at the stories in this anthology:
Catch a cowboy … Keep a cowboy …
Don’t miss this great collection from USA Today, Amazon Bestselling, and Award-Winning authors!! Available at https://www.amazon.com/Cowboy-Keep-Contemporary-Western-Collection-ebook/dp/B072869SGV/
THE LEGEND OF BAD MOON RISING by Carra Copelin
Sheriff Ben Hammond is finally over the woman who shattered his heart, but when Dinah Horne suddenly returns, can he ignore the passion still burning bright between them?
CITY BOY, COUNTRY HEART by Andrea Downing
Trading horses for subways for two years seemed like a good idea to cowboy Chay Ridgway, but can city girl K.C. Daniels keep a rein on his country heart?
BLUE SAGE by Kristy McCaffrey
Archaeologist Audrey Driggs rolls off a mountain and lands at the feet of rugged cowboy Braden Delaney. Together, they’ll uncover a long-lost secret.
THE DRIFTER’S KISS by Devon McKay
Determined to take back what belongs to her, Addison Reed will do anything. Even trust a complete stranger.
HER MAN by Hildie McQueen
Deputy Mark Hunter falls for Eliza Brock during a murder investigation. Is it fate or bad luck, especially when she may be involved?
BORDER ROMANCE by Hebby Roman
Widow Leticia Villarreal wants to establish a horse-racing stable and old acquaintance John Clay Laidlaw offers to help. But can she trust him with her business and her heart?
PHOENIX HEAT by Patti Sherry-Crews
After losing her fiancé and her New York City business, Harper Donovan returns to Arizona and meets cowboy Frank Flynn. Will his past and their differences extinguish the heat between them?_______________________________________________________
And here’s a taste of my own story, City Boy, Country Heart:
Rodeo star and rancher Chay Ridgway has left Wyoming to follow his girlfriend, K.C. Daniels, to New York. Leaving behind all he knows for a small bite of the Big Apple, Chay discovers the canyons of city streets may be too claustrophobic for this cowboy, especially when the trauma is compounded by the fact K.C.’s parents dislike him, their housemate is a harridan, friends are few, and the only job he can get is rounding up dinner plates.
As K.C. continues her two years of study for her Master’s degree, can she also continue to keep a rein on Chay’s heart? Will this cowboy become a city boy, or will the wide-open spaces of Wyoming call his country heart home?
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Having pushed their way to the corner, crossed the street and got to the line for the skating rink, K.C. left Chay to hold their place so she could ask what the cost would be. He took in the scene and tried to enjoy it: the skaters below doing their pirouettes or figure-eights; the towering buildings reflecting each other; the children running about with rosy, excited faces; the golden flags waving and planted trees decorated with lights; and above it all, the Christmas tree, a goliath of multi-colored lights topped by a star. It was all too much, too much commotion and hubbub, too much noise.
K.C. came back with a downcast look to a stomping Chay trying to stay warm.
“What? What now?” he asked.
She tutted and sighed. “Thirty-two dollars to get in, twelve dollars to rent skates.”
Chay stared at her in disbelief. “You have got to be kidding. How much money are they making? Maybe I should open a skating rink on my frozen tanks back home. Geesh. I’m not going to—”
“No, no. Let’s go…somewhere we can get a hot chocolate and warm up.”
“Yeah, and I know just the place.” Chay grabbed her hand and pushed back through the crowd.
“Home?”
“Home.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what? It isn’t your fault.”
“I thought…I thought it was going to be such fun, the windows and the skating, and the—”
“Crowds?”
“Well. I didn’t know it was going to be this bad.” She peered over her shoulder at the golden statue that graced Rockefeller Center, and the tree. “Oh, gosh, Chay! You hardly saw the tree!”
“I saw it. Great. Big, and lots of lights and things. Maybe nice at night, though.”
K.C. stopped in her tracks and swiveled to him. “Nice at night? Nice at night? That’s all you have to say about the Rockefeller Center Tree—the most famous Christmas tree, like, in all the world?”
He stared at her and grimaced, shoving his hands in his pockets. “K.C., it was lovely. I see pine trees outside my window all year. I like them in their natural state, like in Wyoming. Up mountains, by lakes, with elk or moose underneath. I never did like the idea of putting silly little baubles on them, trinkets, or angels at the top. What’s the point?”
“What’s the point? Chay, it’s Christmas. It’s a Christmas tradition. Didn’t you ever have a Christmas tree in your home?”
“Yeah, I did. I decorated it with home-made things I could make when I was little. My mother showed me how to make cut-out paper chains, and popcorn garlands and stuff. All that glitz, I think, it’s sort of stupid, isn’t it? Spending money on crap, buying things. Taking something from nature and dressing it up like that?”
“It’s Christmas!”
“Yeah. I got that. It’s Christmas.” Someone pushed him from behind and anger flared across his face like wildfire down a hillside. “I thought we were going home for hot chocolate.”
K.C. stared at him as if she were seeing a different person, a person she didn’t know. “Where’s your Christmas spirit,” she asked in a voice so hurt, he thought she was pleading.
“Christmas spirit is maybe different to different people. I find the crowds—”
“All right, I understand!” She jerked her arm free and walked on at a quicker pace. “Christmas spirit is different to different people.”
Chay stopped for a moment, lost in the crowd, keeping an eye on her retreating back. “Yes,” he said to himself. “Christmas is certainly different to different people. And we were different people in Wyoming.”[image error]
May 2, 2017
Amy Hale Auker
[image error]Fellow member of Women Writing the West, Amy Hale Auker writes and thrives on a ranch in Arizona where she is having a love affair with rock, mountains, piñon and juniper forests, the weather, and her songwriter husband who is also foreman of the ranch. She is the author of Rightful Place, Winter of Beauty, The Story is the Thing, and the forthcoming Ordinary Skin: Essays from Willow Springs.
Amy has very kindly agreed to give away one copy of Ordinary Skin: Essays from Willow Springs to a reader leaving a comment. Recipient will be announced on or about May 24th.
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My first love is the personal narrative essay, the lyric essay. I have cheated on that first love with poetry, fiction, and even a more academic approach to essay writing. I have cheated on my first love with my day job, earning my living horseback on a large commercial cattle operation. But I always return to writing about my observations of the world around me. In the foreword to his collected essays, E. B. White begins, “The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest.” I like to couple that quote with what Mark Twain said, “We read to know that we are not alone.” I believe we write for the same reason. The writer who is constantly observing the world, especially, as in my case, the natural world, and making connections between the inner life and what is growing, living, moving, swaying, flying, swimming, and dying all around, writes these things down to know that she is not alone in this wild wonder of life.
My day job, cowboying on a large forest service grazing allotment in the Santa Maria Mountains of Arizona, feeds my writing in ways that are often inexplicable. Like all writers, I tend to moan about not having enough time to write, and yet, I came to this ranch with an unpublished manuscript going through the peer review process at a university press in 2008. That manuscript of creative non-fiction, Rightful Place, was published in 2011, followed by a novel in 2013 and another in 2014. Now, as Ordinary Skin: Essays from Willow Springs nears its publication date, I wonder how in the world I get any book written.
But the answer is simple. I write in the creases of my days.
I write morning pages every single morning, even if it is by headlamp, squatted beside a wood fire while I wait for the coffee to boil. My full journals often smell of oak and cedar and walnut smoke when I stash them in the trunk, shut the lid, and turn to take the next blank spiral from the shelf. Harvesting from those pages as I sit in the relative quiet and peace and clean of my office is one of my greatest joys.
Today, as I write this, I have on my boots and spurs. We rarely wear them in the house, but I just unsaddled for a temporary break. As soon as the day has cooled a bit, we will take some cows with tiny new babies down the road to a pasture where they will spend the rest of their spring. So, as I often do, I am writing in the crease of the day, the moments I have to sit and tap out a few words. Tomorrow we leave for the low country for the last time before summer and I will tuck my journal in the panniers on the pack horse, tuck my phone in my pocket on “battery saver” and “airplane mode” for it is useless as anything but a camera down there where the rock walls of the canyons keep any significant cell phone signal from interrupting our days and nights. And I will come home rich with ideas and connections and words.
We will sleep at Willow Springs, the cow camp mentioned in the title of the new [image error]book. Ordinary Skin is, in many ways, a follow-up to Rightful Place, 2012 WILLA Award Winner. I wrote Rightful Place from a different state, in a different marriage, in a different season of my life. I was questioning my roles and my place and the boundaries of culture. Ordinary Skin goes further into some of those questions and leaves some of them behind. It explores a new terrain, a fascinating landscape, and my own re-defining of my role as woman. The opening essay, Glow Time, says it best:
I can think of no greater kick than being transplanted in the middle of life, no greater or more welcome challenge than being bent and softened by a steep learning curve in my fifth decade. Others who have made similar shifts have stories to tell, and mine includes a seven-week camping trip in 2006 as a trial separation from my first husband. I’d never been camping or hiking outside of Texas, never explored public lands. During the transition, I also worked for a pack station in the eastern Sierras for two seasons, served cocktails on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and then circled back around to living once more on a commercial cattle operation. The same, and yet, oh, so different. My transplanting, from Texas to California to Arizona, brought me to these mountains at just the right time.
To learn to love the Texas Panhandle, I had to embrace the wind. I had to make myself go outside and crunch the grass beneath my feet. I was desperate enough to seek out even the beauty of the broom weed. Here in the Santa Maria Mountains, all I have to do is lift my eyes to the rocks, especially during the evening glow time—that ten minutes of magic when the granite boulders turn pinkorange. All I have to do is stumble into the damp crease of a canyon, alive with dripping water and covered over with a carpet of moss. All I have to do is think of my encounters with the bat, the fox, and the Gila monster’s half smile. The mariposa lily and the sego lily. The wasp galls on the oak leaves. The bees resting deep inside the cactus blossoms. The mud and the work.
The release date for Ordinary Skin is May 30th. Now in pre-order, you can purchase it at
www.amyhaleauker.com
https://www.amazon.com/Amy-Hale-Auker/e/B004I0MPB0/
http://www.ttupress.org/AdvancedSearch/DefaultWFilter.aspx?SearchTerm=Ordinary+Skin
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ordinary-skin-amy-hale-auker/1125789212?ean=9781682830062
April 1, 2017
Nicodemus–African American Icon of the Old West
Back in 2015, my daughter and I were on a cross-country trip from New York with a turn-around in Wyoming. One of the stops I added to our route was Nicodemus National Historic Site, one of the oldest, and last remaining of the Black towns on the western plains. We arranged to meet with fellow author Eunice Boeve, who took us to lunch with Angela Bates. While initially reluctant to make this stop in Kansas, my daughter later swore it was one of the highlights of the entire road trip due to the informative and enlightening conversations we’d had with Angela.
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Photo of Angela by Kathryn Sommers
Angela O. Bates is the executive director and past president and organizer of the Nicodemus Historical Society (1988). As a Nicodemus descendant and historian, she was responsible for obtaining National Historic Site designation for the town. For nearly 25 years, she has presented educational programs and one woman shows for libraries, schools, colleges, and organizations across Kansas and the nation. After serving on the Kansas Humanities Council in the ‘90s, in 2011 she joined their speaker’s bureau and now travels the state lecturing about a variety of subjects including the history of Nicodemus, Exodusters, and Buffalo Soldiers. She is also the author of a series of children’s books covering various events in the history of Nicodemus. She is currently working on her first western, and revising a full length feature film about Nicodemus.
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September 1877, over three hundred former slaves from central Kentucky arrived by train at Ellis, Kansas. A two day walk lay ahead. Their final destination and new home was an all black town named Nicodemus. When they reached their new home in what was considered the ‘Great American Desert’ on the high plains of Kansas, little did they know there was no timber to build a house. A small hill or a limestone embankment served as the best place to build a home. Dirt was extracted and excavated to create an earth home called a dugout. Sunflowers, weeds, or whatever could be found often served as a roof. A blanket or crude make shift door was added at the entrance. The dirt floors were swept hard and a limestone magnesium wash was used to keep down flees. Falling dirt, rodents, snakes, and other crawling pests were a constant threat to a peaceful interior.
This is how it began with that first generation of freed blacks who arrived at the end of Reconstruction, after the Civil War. Although the landscape was harsh and barren, they used pure tenacity and their strong faith in God to survive. They had endured the hardships and atrocities of slavery, and brought with them a spirit of determination and employed the skill and fortitude needed to experience freedom in a place they could call their own.
Winter was quickly approaching and the priority for the group was to build the
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Nicodemus, 1885, showing first stone church at left rear (public domain)
first dugout for a young and pregnant bride, Emma Williams. Late October she gave birth to the first child born at Nicodemus. When winter finally set in and the landscape was covered with crude dugouts, fear also set in. With Ellis 35 miles away and other smaller towns nearly as far, the new arrivals at Nicodemus were left destitute to secure winter supplies. As they approached a point of critical survival, a small band of Osage Indians arrived on the town site just in time to share their game from a recent hunt. With the sight of the Indians the settlers ran and took shelter on the banks of the Solomon River. It was quickly determined that they were not there to harm, but to share with an apparent starving people. This was nearly a year before the last Indian raids in Kansas, and a time when Indians were still feared and considered hostile on the western frontier.
In early spring, the next group of settlers arrived, but many of them turned around disappointed in what they saw. Some returned to Kentucky, while others settled in eastern Kansas, and a few families remained in the railroad town of Ellis. During the following spring of 1879 the last large group arrived. Nicodemus was beginning to set deep roots in the free soils of Kansas. Its settlers were savvy enough to organize Graham County and its first township, Nicodemus. During the next ten years it grew into a town of nearly 700 and attracted three railroad companies.
Although bond money was raised to attract the railroads, none laid track through Nicodemus. However, the Union Pacific Railroad came the closest, laying track just four miles south. The railroad town of Bogue, four miles west and one mile south was built by the Union Pacific. As Bogue was being established, it attracted and drew many of the businesses from Nicodemus. This left Nicodemus with little hope for economic development. In the dust bowl years and the Great Depression that followed, Nicodemus continued to falter and lose its economic base. The population continued to drop as well, and has continued over the years, until today there are less than 20 residents.
During its first year of settlement, the new arrivals celebrated their first Emancipation Celebration, held August 1, 1878. Every year since, the community has held this annual celebration of freedom. In more recent years it has been referred to as ‘Homecoming’. This annual celebration, along with the interrelated and extended family ties, helped to forge a close-knit community. When families began moving away, their connection to their extended families that stayed, and the little town they called home, prove to be the catalyst that kept the migration of descendants returning.
In 1976, after a formal recommendation by the Afro American Institute for Historic Preservation, lead by brothers Vince and Bob Deforrest, Nicodemus was designated a National Historic Landmark District. Nicodemus became the oldest and only remaining all black town west of the Mississippi River, established at the end of Reconstruction.
In 1996, twenty years later—and seven years after I had been executive director for the Nicodemus Historical Society and worked with the National Park Service along with Senator Dole and Representative Pat Roberts—President Clinton signed into law, designating Nicodemus a unit of the National Park Service. Nicodemus National Historic Site represents the African American experience in the west post Civil War. As African Americans migrated west, they established their own all black towns to experience freedom, uninhibited and autonomously. These towns were established all over the west, with the most established in Oklahoma. Allensworth was California’s established all black town. These towns represent the migration and presence of African Americans in the Trans American West. Nicodemus is the oldest and only remaining west of the Mississippi. It’s an African American icon of the old west. The annual Emancipation Celebration is still being held, the last week end in July.
Visit Nicodemus National Historic Site on the National Park Service web, or the Nicodemus Historical Society’s face book page. https://www.nps.gov/nico/index.htm AND https://www.facebook.com/NicodemusNPS/
March 1, 2017
A Brief History of the Volga Germans
[image error]Back around 2012, when I first joined ‘Women Writing the West’, I somehow managed to start a correspondence with a fellow author in Kansas—Eunice Boeve. One might think that a romance author sitting in NYC and a predominantly YA and western author living out in KS had nothing in common, but Eunice and I have found a lot of common ground and continue our correspondence to this day.
Eunice was born and raised in Northwest Montana and Idaho, the middle child of seven born to a storytelling father and a book loving mother. She writes historical fiction novels for adults and young people, and for the past seven years has written a chapter story for a program called Newspapers in Education, from which her latest book, A Home in America, has evolved. Her books have received a number of awards, including a Kansas Notable book award. She lives in a small Kansas town with her husband and an aging red dachshund.
You can find all her books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and various other locations. Her website is: http://www.euniceboeve.net
Eunice has very kindly agreed to give away two copies of her book, A Home in America, to two people leaving a comment on this blog. Winners will be announced on or about March 22nd.
Thank you, Andrea, for hosting me on your blog this month.
The history of the Volga Germans gives testimony to what the human spirit can endure, for they came to Russia and against incredible odds built a life from
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Volga Germans
literally nothing, but the ground under their feet. In 1763, Germany was in shambles, ravaged by seemingly unending wars and the demands of the ruling class, leaving the common citizen totally destitute. Then Catherine the Great of Russia offered land along the Volga River, free and clear with housing and horses and plows, and with no hope of a better life, they jumped at the Russian ruler’s seemingly spectacular offer.
But, when the first group arrived, there were no houses, no horses, and no plows. There was land, lots of land. But the nomadic tribes who had lived there for centuries considered it theirs. They swooped down on horseback, killing the men and capturing the women and children. With no place to go, no means to return to Germany and nothing there anyway, they stayed, and by sheer force of will, muscle, and faith, carved out a life on the Russian plains. That first winter, they dug caves for shelter with wagon boards for doors. These strong-willed people declined to interact with Russia in any way. They did not claim citizenship nor intermarry, but clung to their German language, customs, and religion as fiercely as they tamed the hostile land.
At first, they were promised freedom from the military, then Russia began to impose mandatory military service on males from sixteen to forty-five. With no feelings of loyalty to Russia, they felt no obligation to fight for the country, and many began to suspect that other demands would follow. With the idea of leaving Russia, they sent scouts to North and South America and these men brought back good reports of both countries, but favoring North America. Those who wished to immigrate and could manage the fares, left all they knew behind, sometimes even family members, and departed for the Americas.
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Volga German Pioneer Memorial, Victoria, KS
Of those who did immigrate to America, many came to Kansas. Others settled in other states, including North Dakota, and Nebraska. For the most part, they kept together creating their own small towns. Those small towns around Hays, Kansas were given the names of the villages they left behind in Russia, like Herzog, Liebenthal. Pfeifer, Schoenchen, and Munjor, and, with the exception of Herzog, are still in existence today. Herzog is now Victoria. Settled by the English when the English left, the two towns became one. The fact that America is made up of a very diverse population, and English is the main language, made it almost impossible to exist in isolation as the entire Volga River Germans did for some one hundred plus years in Russia. So even the Volga German so steadfast in remaining German, began to mix with others, as have many other ethnic groups who came to this land we call America.
A Home in America, Book cover by Julie Peterson-Shea, published by Rowe Publishing and available at http://rowepub.com/a-home-in-america/ and http://www.amazon.com/Home-America-Volga-German-Story/dp/1939054818/
[image error] A Home in America begins in the year of 1892, with Eva and her family living in the Volga River area of Russia settled by their forefathers from Germany in the mid 1760s. They have always considered themselves to be German and have kept their language and traditions, as promised them, along with being exempt from military service, when they settled this part of Russia. But 130 years later, Russia is disregarding those earlier promises and many, including Eva’s family believe they would be better off in America. Going to America, though, means leaving Great Grandmother behind. Great Grandmother, now old and blind, has been the only mother Eva has ever known, her own mother dying the day she was born. Father has remarried, but although she likes her stepmother very much, it is Great Grandmother whom she still considers her mother and she cannot bear even the thought of leaving this woman she has loved like a mother all her life.
This story began as a Newspaper in Education story and was featured in five Kansas newspapers for 8 weeks beginning Jan. 5, 2016, and told of their journey to America. The rest of the story chronicles their next year when they settle on a farm near Herzog (Victoria), Kansas.
Excerpt
“After much thought and prayer,” Father says, “Great-Grandmother, Leah, and myself have decided it would be best for our family to leave Russia.” He pauses, then adds, “So next spring we will leave for America.”
I am so surprised, so shocked I think I could be knocked off this bench with a feather. Beside me, Great Grandmother bends her head in prayer and her fingers begin traveling the beads of her rosary, her lips moving in silent supplication. Fear clutches my heart as I realize how old, how feeble she has become. Will we leave her here, like Mia’s family will leave her grandmother?
I raise my eyes from Great Grandmother’s bent head and the rosary in her hands, to see if Father has noticed my fear and will reassure me with a smile, but he is busy answering Peter and Michael’s excited questions. Then I’m remembering this morning at the cow shed and how Leah had remained silent when I said I was glad we weren’t going to America and with a small jolt of anger, I turn to her.
Her brown eyes meet mine and they seem to ask for forgiveness, but I feel no forgiveness. She could have at least warned me! I close my face into a tight mask and blink back my tears and hold on to my angry thoughts so they do not become words. I know that Great-Grandmother cannot make such a long trip and I also know I cannot leave her. Then Great-Grandmother’s hand finds mine and my anger at Leah dissolves and I realize those words were not hers to tell, but Father’s.
A coldness settles over me as I listen to Father tell of the rumors growing stronger every day; rumors of Russia headed for war with Japan. And if they go to war, men and boys sixteen to forty-five will be called to fight for the Russian army. Peter will turn sixteen next summer, Father, who is forty, will have to go immediately. Michael at thirteen, nearly fourteen, is safe, but for how long? Wars can last for years.
Father says it was those same rumors of war that sent Uncle Johann and his family, to America and that we would have gone with them, but for Great-Grandmother. At his words, my anger, cooled, again rises up in me. Does Father think she can go with us now, even though she is now blind, and five years older?
January 31, 2017
Struggles and Hope During WWII’s Japanese Internment
Convinced everyone deserves a happy ending, this hopeless romantic is out to make it happen, one story at a time. When she isn’t writing or indulging in chocolate (dark and decadent, please), Shanna hangs out with her husband, lovingly known as Captain Cavedweller.
Please connect with Shanna online. She loves to hear from readers.
ShannaHatfield | Facebook | Newsletter | Pinterest
Shanna is happy to offer two chances to win one of her books: one for a digital copy of Garden of Her Heart and the second for an autographed paperback copy of the book. Winners will be announced on or about February 15.
Thank you for welcoming me to your blog, Andrea. Such a pleasure to be your guest today.
Life for all Americans changed when Japan brought death and destruction to Pearl Harbor in 1941. The attack drew the United States into a war the nation had steadfastly tried to avoid.
History of the war years often glosses over the fact that thousands of people were placed in internment camps right here in America.
Thousands of German and Italian residents were detained by the government during the war, many at Ellis Island. However, the Japanese Americans bore the brunt of the fear and unrest that swamped the country following the devastation at Pearl Harbor.
Seventy-five years ago this month, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, on February 19, 1942. The order authorized the evacuation of anyone deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to relocation centers further inland. More than 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese descent were detained in fifteen assembly centers in the spring of 1942.
Many of these people were born in America, some second or third generation Americans, but their place of birth became irrelevant in the coming days. Those living in the evacuation areas were forced to leave behind their homes, sell their possessions for mere pennies on the dollar, and abandon their businesses to report to assembly centers — or become fugitives in the land they called home.
Eventually, the government moved detainees to isolated, fenced, guarded internment camps located across the United States where the majority of the Japanese Americans stayed until the end of the war.
Research for the Hearts of the War series took me to Portland, Oregon, where I learned about the Portland Assembly Center. Originally, it was the Portland Livestock Exposition Pavilion. The government housed more than 3,500 detainees there under one roof during the summer of 1942 before they were sent to internment camps in California, Idaho, and Wyoming.
The stench of the manure trapped beneath the hastily constructed floor and flies buzzing everywhere added to the trying conditions, especially during the long, hot summer months. Meals were served in a mess hall in shifts. Privacy was nonexistent.
The “apartments” had just enough floor space for about five Army cots. Rough
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Photo taken at Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center in Portland, depicting life in the Portland Assembly Center.
eight-foot high plywood walls divided one family from another. With no ceiling, noises from adjoining families echoed day and night. Yet, in spite of the hardships and trials, gardens were planted, a newspaper started, classes taught, and hope sustained.
I tried to envision what it would be like to live there. To live in such difficult, challenging conditions when the only thing they had done “wrong” was to be born to a Japanese heritage.
What would it be like to be a faced with a choice of doing what your country ordered or what you knew in your heart to be right? Would you follow your heart? Would you forsake everything for love? Would you willing become a fugitive in the land of your birth to save a life?
[image error]The moment the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, life shifted for Miko Nishimura. Desperate to reach the Portland Assembly Center for Japanese-Americans, she’s kicked off the bus miles from town. Every tick of the clock pushes her closer to becoming a fugitive in the land of her birth. Exhausted, she stumbles to her grandparents’ abandoned farm only to find a dying soldier sprawled across the step. Unable to leave him, she forsakes all else to keep him alive.
After crashing his plane in the Battle of the Atlantic, the doctors condemn Captain Rock Laroux to die. Determined to meet his maker beneath a blue sky at his family home, he sneaks out of the hospital. Weary and half out of his mind, he makes it as far as a produce stand he remembers from his youth. Rather than surrender to death, Rock fights a battle of the heart as he falls in love with the beautiful Japanese woman who saves his life.
A poignant, sweet romance, Garden of Her Heart proves love can bloom in unlikely places even under the most challenging circumstances.
Available on:
UBL: http://books2read.com/gardenofherheart
Kindle: https://amzn.com/B01LYTC7IG
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1125098241
iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1173687544
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/garden-of-her-heart
Audio: http://www.audible.com/pd/Romance/Garden-of-Her-Heart-Audiobook/B01N9ECC0U/
Paperback: http://a.co/aWqNawz
Large Print: http://a.co/iNmKvIF
Here is an excerpt from the story:
Instead, her father stared at him and asked a single question. “Describe Miko in one word.”
“One word, sir?” Rock asked, confused.
“Yes. If you summed up everything about her in one word, what would it be?” Jack’s face remained impassive as he waited for Rock’s answer.
Taken aback by his request, Rock’s thoughts splintered in a hundred directions. Only a few seconds passed before the word that floated through the maelstrom in his head gained clarity. “Hummingbird.”
Baffled, both Shig and Jack stared in confusion.
“Explain, please,” Jack said.
Rock took a deep breath. “Before I was wounded, I was stationed in Trinidad, off Venezuela’s coast in the southern Caribbean. The area is a big melting pot of combined cultures — Creole, East Indian, Chinese, African. A great diversity of flowers and shrubbery grow there, and it offers more than four hundred different species of birds. But do you know what they call the island?”
At the men’s interested looks, Rock continued. “Land of the Hummingbird. While I was there, I saw many of them. The islanders believe hummingbirds are symbols of all that is good and they carry joy wherever they go. Hummingbirds are fearless, determined, adaptable, and flexible. They possess the courage of a mighty lion and the magic of mythical fairies. Hummingbirds have boundless energy and endurance. Those little birds can make the most difficult journey seem like a simple matter, and they are loyal, devoted to the garden they claim as their own. They are fiercely independent, but those who accept that can long enjoy the beauty and wonder of those amazing little winged fellows.”
Jack’s mouth quirked upward and he bit back a smile. “So you’re saying Miko is like a demented bird who wants only to suck the sweetness out of life?”
January 2, 2017
Following Maria’s Journey by Anne Schroeder
[image error]Fellow member of Women Writing the West and Past-President (2015), Anne Schroeder writes memoir and historical fiction set in the West. She has won awards for her short stories published in print and on-line markets. She and her husband, along with their new Lab puppy, live in Southern Oregon where they explore old ruins and out-of-the-way places. Her new release, Maria Ines, is a novel about an Indian girl who grows up under Padre Junipero’s cross and endures life under the Spanish, Mexican and Yanqui conquest of California. You can learn more about Anne at http://www.anneschroederauthor.com
Anne has very kindly agreed to give away one copy of Maria Inés to one reader who leaves a comment. Winner will be announced on or about Jan. 16th
If you’re like me, reading and writing about the historical West anchors us in a world that feels increasingly adrift. (The past fits neatly with my “earth person” persona, as I embrace home and hearth.) The “everywoman” character leads us into the story and we explore a world that feels familiar. It’s easy to love a character when we identify with her wants, her needs and her pain.
Maria Inés is the protagonist in my historical fiction novel of the same name. She’s on a hero’s journey to find her son who was taken from her as a child, and to find missing parts of herself. She is patient and accepting, and relies on her faith in God. Like all great historical characters, she is a “fly on the wall” for the events and times that follow the Spanish, Mexican and Yanqui conquests of California, an era that is rich in story and color. A Mission Indian, a neophyte, she has been baptized by the padres who travel with Father Junípero Serra. She and her People provide hides, food and gold for the gente de razón literally “people of reason,” the high-borns in California and Spain.
I began writing this novel after I heard someone say that they would never visit a California Mission because the Catholics killed off all the Indians through genocide; that the Missions were an evil place. My research and my college studies showed me that the truth was a lot more complicated. Maria Ines seemed to agree because she led me (and is still leading me) through nuances that include her intense love for the Catholic Church in spite of how it overturned her world. Interestingly, by the time the Yanquis arrived, the gente de razón and the Church were split in their loyalties, some siding with Mexico, others with Spain, and a civil war was in the works.
The Salinans fared well under the Mission system, if one doesn’t consider the downside of cultural eradication. But the quiet world of the Missions ended in 1834, when the Mexican government, who had won its freedom from Spain, instituted a policy of secularization that set the Salinans free—of their occupations, food and religious strictures. With their native plants destroyed by tens of thousands of Mission cattle and horses, and little memory of the old ways, the people were depleted in spirit and health. Thus begins the Time of the Troubles of which I write. By then their numbers had been decimated by white men’s diseases, the big one being syphilis, introduced by the soldiers.
Maria Inés is a composite from stories shared by women of the Salinan tribe in California’s Central Coast. I read their stories, walked their beaches and rivers, camped in their great-grandmothers’ rancherías, visited their mortars and pounded acorns in the same worn stone pockets. I made adobe bricks to repair the walls of Mission San Miguel after the 2002 earthquake. I listened to their traditional music, sifted through chert piles for the bone fragments and broken sea shells they left behind. I stood beneath a huge valley oak and heard Maria Inés calling to me.
These facts and details provided a boundary for my characters to move within. My project began with a timeline drawn on butcher paper, stretched across a wall of my writing room. On this paper I included relevant scraps of info that I found in period biographies and non-fiction books. At present I have about 60 books, but I’m always adding to my collection. Many of the books are about the Plains Indians. It’s harder to find information about the California tribes, I suspect, because male writers and readers are intrigued by the guns and battles between the tribes and the US Army. Not much of that in California. The takeover by America was pretty much an insurgency of 49ers who poured into the state and overran the native Californios. Many of those who prospered married their daughters off to enterprising Yanquis.
Many of the Salinan married Mexican or Spanish soldiers and most of their descendents still live within the original tribal boundaries. The language root of the Salinan is the same as that of the Aztecan, and unique to only these two groups. One theory is that when the huge tribe migrated across the Bering Strait from Asia, the weak and the unwarlike were left behind in California.
I met with several Salinan women elders, heard some of their stories and read the books that were available about their history. Maria Inés’ story continues to guide me. I’m working with one of the Salinan women who is a direct descendant of Tiburcio Vasquez, an infamous bandido and gente de razon who terrorized early Yanqui arrivals. The result will be The Caballero’s Son, a story of Maria Inés’ lost son.
Cholama Moon, (Oak Tree Books) follows Maria Ines’s journey. Five Star Publishing has made Maria Inés available in hardcover for libraries and bookstores, and Kindle. If you feel so inclined, ask your library to order a copy so that readers can discover a strong California Indian woman. Both of these are available on Amazon and Kindle.
[image error]Maria Inés is available at
Five Star: http://goo.gl/thHPoY
AND Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Maria-Inés-Anne-Schroeder-ebook/dp/B01M7O422I/
Here’s an Excerpt:
Alta California
September, 1818
Chapter One
The fury of the storm seemed to be a warning. The few who still called themselves the People of the Oaks whispered that the flooding was the gods’ anger because they had left their villages and their traditional ways to dwell among the padres at Mission San Miguel Arcángel. But others argued not. For them the rain was a blessing from the true God.
“Let the rains come,” a young woman prayed as she lay waiting for her next birthing pain. “Let us be safe this night.” She was a neophyte, a baptized Indian with a name given to her by the padres and she felt afraid in this new place. But no travelers would arrive seeking hospitality in this weather. Tonight El Camino Real was flooded, the thin wagon track that followed the rivers and valleys from the border of New Spain, north to the Missions of Alta California. “Let the rains come,” she repeated. “Let our fields and our hearts be renewed.”
Her heart was one with the forces raging outside her walls, ancient winds whipping through the olive grove, ripping off branches and pitching them into the north wall of the dormitory. The sound of singers and cantors in the nearby church were muted as whorls of rain lashed the clay-tiled roofs, windows, and rough-hewn doors.
Alfonsa lay inside the adobe room assigned to her husband, Domingo. Restlessly, she stirred in her birthing bed, feeling its sturdy willow frame flex beneath her. A fragrant layer of pine needles sent out a sweet fragrance, sap freed by a layer of heated rocks in the trench beneath her. She breathed deeply and her mind saw the forest where, a few days earlier, she had walked from sunrise to sunset to gather pine boughs. Domingo had built the bed in the way of her ancestors to please her, a deep rectangular trench dug into in the hard-packed adobe floor holding five rocks still hot from the fire. His mother bound the frame with woven tule grass to protect the skin from the heat. Alfonsa now rested safely above the half-buried stones and waited.
“It is good, ’mingo,” she whispered, and her heart swelled with gratitude. She longed to tell him this, but he was not present. His mother had chased him from the room because the old taboos did not allow him to take part in the birth. The two were both at evening service, along with every other neophyte, and she was alone.
A basket of pine nuts lay nearby, a gift he had brought so she would have strength for her ordeal. She glanced at the basket, but her body was filled with anticipation, not hunger—a thing her husband would not understand because his belly was never full, even after he had taken his meal. Alone but unafraid, she bit down on an olive twig to blunt her moan from the world outside. “The rain is God’s gift,” she whispered through cracked lips. “Our prayers are heard.”
Another pain engulfed her. She shut her eyes, bit into the twig, and tried to hold onto yesterday’s memory when Padre Juan Martin had stood in the courtyard, his hands raised to the sky as a warm breeze wafted his robe like the wings of a dove. Strong and fervent, his voice swelled to the cloudless sky as he led his people in prayer for rain. Rain so that there would be more wheat in the fields and vegetables in the gardens. Food for the escolte, the Spanish soldiers protecting the Mission. Food for the padres and their guests. Grain to trade to the other Missions and to send to the governor for taxes. And if there was any left, food for the neophytes, for her and her baby soon to be born.
The summer heat had been intense, the rain sparse, but the Spanish Governor de Solá had levied extra taxes in the form of wine and cattle hides. Many workers died in the latest round of hunger and typhoid, leaving fewer to gather the crops. She did not complain like some of the others who groused under their breath about the six hours of labor required of them—even though the padres worked as hard as any of them—but drought made things harder. Her belly, big with baby, made drawing water difficult; carrying the burden basket pulled down her shoulders and strained her back with the pressure of the strap. This is why she knew God had sent the rain for her, and just in time.
November 30, 2016
A CHRISTMAS REUNION
December, as my readers will know, I always like to have as guests some fellow authors to share their thoughts on the holiday season. This year I had the pleasure of working with some of the best authors in western romance on Come Love a Cowboy, and the experience was so enjoyable that I asked them back for a Christmas reunion. Just to remind you, Come Love a Cowboy contains eight stand-alone contemporary western romance novellas from bestselling and award-winning authors–stories about bronco busters, wealthy ranchers, bad boys and 
firefighters. And it’s still only 99 cents at myBook.to/Come-Love-A-Cowboy
Of course, as it’s the season of gift-giving and presents, the authors here have all agreed to give away books to readers who leave comments below. Winners will be announced on or about December 18th.
Before I hand over the reins, let me take this opportunity to wish y’all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year. Blessings of the holiday season to you all.
CAROLINE CLEMMONS:
Thanks to Andi for graciously sharing her blog. To thank you for stopping by I’ll be giving away a copy of my new Christmas book, ANGEL FOR CHRISTMAS, to two people who comment today.
I’m Caroline Clemmons, an award-winning and Amazon bestselling author of contemporary and historical western romances. My Hero and I live in North Central Texas cowboy country with a menagerie of rescued pets.
The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve is my favorite time of year. Filled with anticipation for the big day, I love decorating the house and keeping family traditions. Because of our allergies, we have artificial trees. I hang our lifetime collection of ornaments on our large tree in the living room. By the time all the decorations are added, the tree looks real—what little you can see of it. In the family room, we use only white lights on a tall, slender tree that fits in a corner. This year in the dining room, I’m adding a Thomas Kincade table-top tree with tiny buildings set in the branches. Beneath it, I’ll arrange the tiny village buildings I’ve collected over the years that have turned out to be the same size as those on the tree and a matching wreath.
Our celebration begins with tamales and other TexMex dishes for Christmas Eve supper. Then, after my husband reads the story of the first Christmas from the Bible, we open our gifts. One of my favorite family traditions is one that isn’t very old.
When our youngest daughter learned who filled the Christmas stockings, she was appalled. “That’s not fair,” she said. “You’re never surprised on Christmas morning.” That year, she started wrapping something small and slipping it into my stocking. The idea caught on and my mom started doing the same thing. Although my mom has passed on, each remaining member of our small family sneaks a wrapped present into the others’ stockings. So, even Mrs. Santa has surprises in her stocking on Christmas morning.
This year I’ve written something new for me, my first book with an angel as a hero, ANGEL FOR CHRISTMAS. Here’s the blurb:
When dot com billionaire Jacob crashes his sports car into a tree, he wakes up in heaven facing angels Gabriel and Michael. Jacob’s given a chance to redeem his carefree ways by helping an orphanage avoid foreclosure and regain a sound financial picture by midnight Christmas Eve. To do so, he’s sent back to earth as orphanage janitor, Jacob Porter.
After her father died four months ago, child psychologist Suzi Stephens was shocked to learn Serenity Springs Children’s Home and Elementary School faced foreclosure unless she meets a balloon note due January 1. She can’t understand why her late father broke the trust her grandfather had carefully crafted to protect the private children’s home then used that money to speculate on bad investments. She’s afraid the annual gala won’t raise enough money to pay the note much less the needed year’s operating funds. Trying to do her job plus step into her late father’s shoes has stretched her to her limits.
Suzi’s suspicious of the handsome new janitor, who appears more like he’d be at home in a CEO’s office. Could he be a spy for the developer who covets the children’s home property? Suzi overcomes her distrust enough to allow Jacob’s help raising funds. Working together, their attraction escalates but Jacob has nothing to offer the beautiful redhead. After all, he’s scheduled for earthly removal at midnight on December 24.
Buy link at Amazon: http://amzn.com/B01N58VPPB
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Don’t forget to leave a comment to be entered for a chance at an e-book!
HEBBY ROMAN is a multi-published, award-winning, and Amazon best-selling author of both historical and contemporary romances. She is one of the pioneer authors of multi-cultural romances with an emphasis on the Latino culture. Please visit her website at: http://www.hebbyroman.com
Her latest release is Book 3, “A Mistletoe Christmas,” from her best-selling “West Texas Christmas Trilogy.” You can purchase “A Mistletoe Christmas” at: https://www.amazon.com/Mistletoe-Christmas-West-Texas-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B01M749Z6D/ or read it for free on Kindle Unlimited.
My Favorite Thing for Christmas
My favorite thing to do at Christmas is to decorate our Christmas tree with ornaments I’ve collected all my life. What got me started collecting ornaments was when my best friend made glazed cookie bake ones. They were whimsical and individually hand-made, and it might be hard to believe (that was the late 1970’s), but I still have lots of them left. Before children, I relaxed after work by sewing my own needlepoint ornaments. Unhappily, when I lost my immediate family, I inherited my childhood ornaments, and my most cherished ones were handmade by my favorite aunt in the 1950’s.
With this eclectic start, I embraced diversity and added to my collection every year. Most of my ornaments have some kind of memento value, including a Hallmark dancing moose figurine, picked by my son. When I remarried, my new husband brought quite a few decorations, too. Some were handmade by his mother from lace, and his two sons contributed their favorites, like Snoopy and Garfield. We added my husband’s ornaments to my collection as we melded together to become a new family.
Through the years, I’ve added to my collection at ornament swapping parties, and by purchasing unusual figurines that catch my attention. I also look for ornaments when we go on vacation to commemorate the places we’ve visited. I love the beach, and I have quite a few starfish, various glass fishes, pelicans, sea gulls, and beach house ornaments. And because I live in Texas, I have more than twenty cowboy-themed decorations, including a bow-legged cowboy, spurs, longhorns, boots, Stetsons, six-shooters, and my very favorite ornament, a cowboy on a bucking bull from the Mesquite rodeo.
For me, Christmas tree ornaments constitutes the perfect microcosm of my life. They’re small, easy to store, and each Christmas, when you unwrap them, it’s like greeting an old friend again.
A MISTLETOE CHRISTMAS
Ginny Brown is a poor seamstress’ daughter who worships the ground Chad MacKillian walks on… from afar. For as long as she can remember, she’s been in love with the prominent rancher. Befriended by Chad’s sister, Ginny overcomes her shyness when Chad finally notices her.
Unknown to Ginny or his sister, Chad is already engaged to the neighboring rancher’s daughter, but their engagement is a business arrangement. The more time Chad spends with Ginny, the more he questions his future plans. Torn between honoring his engagement and his growing feelings for Ginny, he avoids making a decision.
When Chad’s fiancée catches him kissing Ginny beneath the mistletoe, she breaks their engagement. Chad is relieved to be free, but Ginny is humiliated and has had enough of his inconstancy. Faced with losing Ginny and fighting off outlaws bent on revenge, Chad begs Ginny to marry him. But can Chad convince Ginny he really loves her and is eager for her to be his wife.
Hebby is giving away any three of her eBooks of winners’ choosing.
JULIE A.D’ARCY hales from Bendigo, Australia. Since 1994, she has written numerous novels and shorter works in the Fantasy and Paranormal romance genre. Julie’s first published novel won the 1999 Dorothy Parker RIO Award for Women’s fiction and she has gone on to be nominated and shortlisted for several other prestigious awards.
Julie:
Christmas has always been a big celebration in our house, as a child, an adult with my children (two girls) and now as a grandmother.
As a mother I would fill a Santa sack with small presents and sweets and sneak them onto my girl’s beds in the night, there was nothing like the sound of small screams of delight issuing from their rooms with the discovery of each present. We would then have a few presents under the tree, have lunch then open the family gifts. Usually family would come over or we would congregate at a relative’s house, taking turns with my Mum or sisters.
With my girls grown now with families of their own, Phil and I share a small personal present in the morning then usually head off to one of my daughter’s places. Most of the time it’s to my eldest daughter Errin. She enjoys putting on Christmas lunch as she is a chef and loves catering.
We usually have around ten people and after lunch we do the Christmas tree, with one person playing Santa with a Santa hat on, passing out the presents which have all been placed under the tree. After a very satisfying day of food and good company Phil and I usually travel onto his daughter’s place where we are joined by his son and girlfriend and we exchange gifts, then have a small but enjoyable dinner. After a day of much fun and good food we journey home and collapse exhausted, but I would not have missed it for the world .
SILVERDAWN
What if sorcerers had been real? What if magick had been a massive cover-up?
A world is ravaged by a war of demons and sorcery that no human can combat. Rastehm is on the verge of destruction.
Silverdawn, daughter of Mikkasah, born to the magick.
Mikkasah is forced to send his daughter into the unknown future of the 20th century.
A dark knight becomes her savior.
Faren Malaan, Knight of Paladia of the Kingdom of Rastehm, is sent forward in time to track and retrieve the Crystal Pyramid. Mikkasah’s Astronomers have learned that the pyramid, which shifts through the portals of time, is cracked. And if not restored Isanti’s demons may soon escape.
Through sheer luck Istani was not imprisoned by the Goddess Deharna. He also travels through time. However, he must body hop, taking over the bodies of innocents and casting them aside when he has done with them. But this time Istani is trapped in the body he inhabits. The sickly, weak body of Peter Waymer. His only escape from the cancer eating away at him is to find the Pyramid, release his demons and have them in turn heal him. With one thought in mind after his release, to wreak destruction upon mankind!
AVAILABLE AT http://www.iheartbookpublishing.com/silverdawn.
Kindle and Print https://www.amazon.com/Silverdawn-Julie-DArcy-ebook/dp/B0162347G6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1478829769&sr=1-1&keywords=Silverdawn
Julie is giving away a .pdf of her book, The Dragon and The Rose
KETA DIABLO lives in the Midwest part of the country and loves to read and garden. She donates her time to the local food shelves and several animal shelters in the area.
Her latest release is Comes An Outlaw, a western romance with a ghost as a secondary character.
You can sign up for Keta’s newsletter to learn more about her books here: http://ketaskeep.blogspot.com/p/linksl.html
Best of the Best Christmas Memories…
Oh…from my childhood, what wonderful Holiday memories I have. Times were simpler then, less chaotic, far less commercial and centered around family gatherings, especially at Christmas. Christmas Eve was reserved for immediate family, Christmas Day for cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.
By the time my children came along, I was quite burned out by the ‘commercial’ aspect of Christmas. The Holiday Season surrounded us everywhere we went and not necessarily in a good way. Vendors and stores hawked their Christmas wares before Thanksgiving and television flooded the channels with ads about the same time.
I wondered what had happened to the ‘true meaning’ of Christmas, whether that included the birth of Christ, the joyous occasion of Hanukkah, cherishing family or taking stock of our personal lives all year long. I wanted my kids to know Christmas wasn’t about counting an overflow of presents under the tree or ‘expecting’ the latest high-tech gadget they’d asked for (and usually received).
With that in mind, I called a local nursing home one year and asked for the first names and ages of three needy residents. I particularly wanted to know if these people had family that visited them on a regular basis. When the nursing assistant provided me with three names, I made an appointment to visit the nursing home with my children the day before Christmas Eve.
You can imagine the grumbling and pushback I received. They weren’t particularly fond of visiting a smelly old nursing home or visiting with people they’d never met. In return, I pushed back with an ultimatum: You can opt out of the nursing home visit but only if you’re willing to forfeit your gifts under the tree. It didn’t take them long to decide to go along with yet another of Mom’s whacky ideas.
My children are adults now and one thing we often talk about at Christmas is the year we visited the nursing home. The say they’ll never forget the look on Donald’s face when he placed his new jump suit into a dresser drawer, the tears in Marguerite’s eyes when she clutched her new slippers to her chest or the look of pure enjoyment on their faces when we joined all the residents for a Christmas Carol sing-a-long.
I cherish that memory above all the others, the year we cut through the glam and glitter of Christmas and realized what really matters in life…giving to others who are needy or lonely.
I’m waiting for the day my children announce they’re taking their children to a homeless shelter, a food kitchen or a nursing home to give back some of the many blessings they have in life.
For me, that would be the most memorable Christmas ever.
COMES AN OUTLAW
When a tragic accident claims her husband’s life, Jesse Santos must find a way to keep the ranch, the only home her 12-year-old son has ever known. The ranch hands have abandoned her, a gang of cutthroat ranchers want her land and an ancient Yaqui Indian insists a spirit has taken up residence in the house.
After a fifteen-year absence, her husband’s brother, Coy, returns to his childhood home. He doesn’t plan on staying, and he certainly doesn’t intend to settle down with a widow and her son…no matter how pretty she is.
He’s an outlaw, after all, and made a decision to put an end to his gun-slinging days long ago. Will his conscience let him walk away from family, or will his heart overrule his head?
Available at https://www.amazon.com/Comes-Outlaw-Western-Romance-Diablo-ebook/dp/B01LXCK5CH/
Keta will be giving away an eBook of one of her novels of the winner’s choice.
PATTI SHERRY-CREWS lives in Evanston, Il. She writes contemporary novels as well as historic western and medieval romances. Her novella, Desert Heat, in Come Love a Cowboy was her first contemporary western. Discover more about Patti at https://www.amazon.com/Patti-Sherry-Crews/e/B01C7L8QUU/
The Truth About Santa
That moment you learn the truth about Santa. Did you feel the magic drain out of your world?
For me, it was finding a can of dog food in the dog’s stocking—the same kind we had in our pantry. I knew then. In retrospect, I wonder why that did it for me. Surely, Santa knew what kind of dog food my dog preferred, so why did that tip me off?
I think there is an unspoken coalition between parents who are tired of playing Santa and kids who are ready to stop believing. Maybe the year my parents decided they weren’t making a special trip to buy toys and treats for the dog was the year I, too, was ready.
I remember the year my daughter discovered the truth, because I had to tell her. I’d been too busy to go shopping for the stocking stuffers that year. I put it off until the last minute: Christmas Eve with the stores closing at 4:00. Unfortunately, I couldn’t shake my daughter. She was on me all day like tinsel on a tree.
I watched the time slipping away with growing anxiety. At last I tried to sneak out of the house, but just before I could drive away, who shows up at the passenger side? My daughter ready to go with me.
As I hurtled down the street leading to the grocery store, I tried to come up with a plan. No, she was too young to ditch. As we pulled into the parking lot, I turned to her and said, “Okay, here’s the deal. I’m Santa and you’re Santa’s little helper.” To my surprise she wasn’t devastated. She was thrilled! And so began a new tradition we’ve kept up to this day. On Christmas Eve my little helper and I go shopping for stocking stuffers—and it’s much more fun that way!
ONE WINTER KNIGHT
Hear ye, hear ye! Looking for medieval romance? Tales of knights and their ladies abound in ONE WINTER KNIGHT, a wonderful collection of medieval holiday novellas for your reading pleasure! You’ll be held spellbound by this boxed set of captivating stories from some of today’s top medieval authors, as well as some rising stars in this up-and-coming genre. Lindsay Townsend, Deborah Macgillivray, Cynthia Breeding, Keena Kincaid, Cheryl Pierson, Beverly Wells, Patti Sherry-Crews, and Linda Carroll-Bradd have woven eight excellent Yuletide tales of love lost and found that are sure to keep you reading far into the night. Laced with holiday traditions and the excitement of a bold, dangerous era, Prairie Rose Publications is proud to offer yet another wonderful boxed set of medieval Christmas tales for your reading pleasure. This collection of novellas makes a wonderful holiday gift for hours of entertaining reading—for others, or for yourself! These stories are certain to keep you enthralled as you read on to find out how these knights and ladies find their very own “happily-ever-after” endings ONE WINTER KNIGHT…
Available at https://www.amazon.com/One-Winter-Knight-Lindsay-Townsend/dp/1539742458/
Patti will be giving away an eBook copy of Margarita and the Hired Gun
BE SURE TO LEAVE A COMMENT TO BE IN THE RUNNING FOR ONE OF OUR PRIZES!!
