Interview and #Giveaway with Ruth Logan Herne

We are so happy at the CCC Blog to feature Gilead Publishing's, Ruth Logan Herne today!! Just in time for the holidays, a wonderful Christmas read giveaway with cowboys! Who wouldn't want that??________________________
Ladies!!! I’m so excited to be over here, I’m happy dancing in upstate NY but that might be partially due to the S-N-O-W in our forecast this weekend. But I digress!
Cowboy Christmas Homecoming is a delightful collection of historical Western romances and I’m over the moon in love with my contribution “A Cowboy for Christmas”. I was able to tuck the story into the beautiful, lush Kittitas Valley of Central Washington and it was a delight to roll back the clock about 120 years… and a Christmas romance, besides! Booyah! J

Of all your characters in this story, which one did you enjoy writing the most and why?
June Harper, absolutely… June is a woman who has worked to better herself. She lost her husband first to laziness, then to illness… And then her home and her job to the great 1889 Independence Day fire in Ellensburgh Washington. Homeless, with two little girls, June gathered other women to offer each other support, help and safety. When an opportunity to gather potatoes came via a successful rancher, June and the other women applied for work… and her willingness to do whatever proved necessary to get by brought her to a new opportunity: the chance to fall in love with Hugh Stackman, a successful rancher/farmer with a clenched heart and lost faith. Talk about a match made in heaven!
June isn’t afraid to stand up for herself… her daughters… her friends… and to encourage women’s rights. She was an absolutely wonderful character to write… With the grit and courage needed to build a country, starting in her own back yard.

Can you tell us about a scene that you wrote and eventually deleted? It’s always fun to know of the little details that didn’t make the cut J
Gosh, there weren’t many because it’s a novella. When I’m writing a novella, I’m careful to stick to the main protagonists and the romance… but there was a wonderful KISSING scene…. Sigh…… that didn’t make the final cut…. And it was a Really Good Kiss, I’m Not Even Kidding! J

How did you decide on the setting/location for this novel?
This one’s easy-peasy! I wanted to set it where my Waterbrook novels are set (Back in the Saddle, Home on the Range and Peace in the Valley) in Central Washington and the timing was perfect. Ellensburg(h) had suffered from a massive fire that roared through much of the town in 1889 and that left me wide open for June’s trauma and conflict… and then I was able to couple that with a “Man From Snowy River” type idea, to have Hugh and his brother drive a stand of cattle north. Their intent was to sell the beef and have a stake in a mine, but they changed their minds when they arrived in the Kittitas Valley. They saw opportunity stretching far and wide before them, and it was so much fun to bring it to life for the readers!
What made you pick these specific names of your main two characters?
My godfather’s name was Hugh and it’s such a strong, old-fashioned name… and June’s name came to me because of the old-fashioned sweetness of it.

Moving on from your story, tell us a little about yourself. We’ll help! What’s your least favorite household chore and why?
Cleaning the refrigerator. I hate it. Why? I HAVE NO IDEA. Possibly I suffered some long-forgotten childhood trauma that involved a washcloth and messy shelves…. I always put it off, and then I regret it when someone sees it. What is wrong with me, my friends????
What are your hobbies outside of writing?
Well, I love writing, so I’ve limited a lot of things but I’d say creating gardens and water features in gardens (little ponds, waterfalls, etc.) is a favorite thing. I fashioned two walkways in a fairy garden type setting this year, and landscaped the area because I love to get dirty!
Fall is upon us, and full of events. What is a special holiday tradition you celebrate with your family?
We’ve developed a new tradition called “Bake/Make a Memory Day”. All the local grandkids (10 of them!!!!) come to my house and we spend the day making ornaments for their parents and baking. We make cookies and candies and we rotate stations so all the kids get to bake and make…. And we drink eggnog, vanilla nog (a new fave with the younger peeps!) and eat cookies and chicken nuggets. Truly a kid-friendly experience including GLITTER and SPRINKLES!!! And Grammies never yell about using too many of either, so it’s a total bonus!

We talk a lot about faith and how it weaves throughout our fiction, here at the blog. How has your faith affected/or not affected your writing?
My faith is a lovely backbone for my stories. It means so much to me to be able to incorporate the beauty of a faith-filled life to help characters deal with life’s turns and twists. We know that life is a winding road, so it’s marvelous to have that faith thread running through stories to help bind people to God’s love, self-forgiveness or forgiveness of others and the simple joy we’d all love to embrace!

Tell us a little about a day in the life of you? Wake up time? Lounging in your jammies all day, drinking coffee, living the luxurious life of a writer ;)
Laughing! I’m not a lounger, I never do jammie-days but that’s just part of my endearing “Take No Prisoners, Look Professional And Get The Job Done” easy-going personality. JI get up between 3:30 and 4:00 AM and I work until 6:15 or so…. And I’m still working part time, so I have before and after school kids here, and then I get back to writing around 9:00 or so…. And then I have to do something physical or kill someone, because too much sitting makes me antsy! I’m such a YANKEE!!!!!

We have a bit of a war going on here at the CCC blog. Anne and Jaime LOVE coffee and Erica and Gabriella enjoy a joyful cup of tea. What is your preference? Help us break this tie…
Directing your attention to the question above: Yankee… New Yorker…. Coffee. That’s not even a question, ladies!!!! Bring on the Colombian brew!
And a few fun and quirky questions always reveal of lot from our authors who visit. So, first, if you were to take a boat down the Amazon river, what would you be most interested in seeing?
A keyboard….. ;)
If you had a choice of living in any era other than the present, what would you choose and why?
19th Century America, either in the east and follow the technological/industrial revolution or in the west, taming my own 160 acres of land. I love that era!!!

We’d love you have you share a snippet from your novel to entice us and hook us! J Please share something below:
“Hugh. Please. Just Hugh.” He felt tired saying it, as if asking her to treat him normally expended too much effort, or maybe it was because she made him think of things he’d cast aside long ago.She worried her lower lip with her top teeth, just a little, just enough to make him wonder what it would be like to worry that pretty mouth on his own time, and wasn’t that an interesting turn of events? Here she was, concerned about people’s safety and ulterior motives, and he was contemplating a delightful ulterior motive all the while she convinced herself there was none.“Hugh.”She said it softly, and he melted inside.He’d never sought love the past ten years. He’d kept himself too busy building this, acquiring that, and taking responsibility for Jacob and Lily, but now, gazing into sapphire-blue eyes and hearing his name from the prettiest lips he ever did see, a longing swept over him.He smiled. Just that. He smiled at her and let his gaze linger for long, slow beats. “So, June.”“Yes?” She held his gaze, too, a two-sided affair if ever there was one.“I think this will do to keep folks sheltered and warm for a few months. Don’t you?” Did he lean closer?Or did she?He wasn’t sure, but the urge to put his lips on hers swept over him as strong as anything he’d ever desired in over thirty years of living.Thanks so much for having me here! I love chatting with folks on facebook and I love hearing from readers through my website ruthloganherne.com ( http://ruthloganherne.com ) or e-mail me at loganherne@gmail.com
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