Coming soon from me!

 

A short time ago, I could list one release thus far in 2024 – the first book of my Laredo series which debuted with The Legacy of Boone Wilson on March 11. 

 

Now, in order at this moment in time, I am happy to announce there are five for 2024!

 

 The Endurance of Moses Wilson (book two in the same series) will release on July 29. Check out the blurb:

 

Moses Wilson left Kentucky with a mission to save his brother, Boone, from the hangman’s noose and succeeded just before all hope was lost.  Almost five years later, he’s made his home in Texas, working on the ranch where Boone is top hand. When he meets ranch owner Liam Rafferty’s sister-in-law, he’s smitten with her blonde beauty and sassy manner. Ranch life in the 1870’s isn’t easy, though. After enduring mishaps that include a fall from a horse and a sprained ankle, nearly freezing to death, and a near fatal bout of pneumonia, he also has problems courting Mattie. Although she’s willing, her prosperous German family isn’t and their efforts to force her into marriage with a wealthy banker cause trouble. Moses must endure much to have the life he wants on the ranch and marry the woman of his dreams.

 

 

The eBook is currently up for pre-order – on release day, the novel will also be available in paperback, hardback, and audio.

 

The Tell Me Lies anthology from Evernight Publishing will release on August 9. My story is titled The Ice Man’s Melt and here’s the blurb for the story:

 

Army veteran sniper Javier Morales is now a hit man, using his skill to make a living. He returned from Afghanistan suffering from malaria with no career direction. As he makes a routine hit from a hotel rooftop, there’s a complication. A beautiful woman, Cecily, witnessed the kill, so he takes her with him against her will. He’s not going down because of a silly socialite. At his posh studio apartment, his desire erupts into passion, and they share intense sex often. At first, he’s cold and rude to her. She snipes back with insults and sarcasm, but something real develops between them. Javier leaves the city since the heat is on but on the way elsewhere, malaria strikes. Cecily has changed his outlook and now that he’s dangerously ill, everything is different. With his older brother and the woman he’s come to love at his side, it’s time for a major life change if he survives. Keep in mind – this is a sensual and hot story. Many of my newer works are sweet,  not sexy but this one is. Also coming from Evernight with edits arriving soon will be Venganza. Here’s the blurb: In the wake of his brother’s violent death in Naked City, part of Las Vegas, Alejandro Navarro wants venganza. Although just out of the hospital after suffering serious wounds in the same incident, he’s on the prowl to find the men who killed his brother, members of a cartel dealing in both arms and drugs. The ATF agent was working undercover but now he’s on medical leave. One night, he rescues a tourist, Maude Miller, from the same violent men after she lost her way. To protect her, Alec takes her home and neither can deny the immediate attraction. Things get ugly, however, after a shot shatters the sliding glass door of his apartment. They hit the road to escape death in a journey that takes them from Vegas into Arizona, then finally to a remote farm in Missouri. Other attempts are made on their lives as along the way their lust turns to love. The pair will make their stand on the farm, well aware the stakes are life and death. When the days grow shorter and the nights cooler and autumn colors bring rich glory to these hills, my second Wild Rose Press title, The Cowboy’s Last Chance, will release on October 21. I love this cover!   And here’s the blurb:   When Vivian Blackburn, recently returned to Southwest Missouri sets out to shoot pictures at a rodeo, she's not looking for a cowboy but when she meets bull rider Calhoun Kelly, she's found one. They have an instant attraction and rapport. They're compatible in every way but one – he has a strong Christian faith and she lost hers after her parents died. When Vivian experiences strange dreams that seem to warn Calhoun of upcoming danger, she doesn't know what to think. Calhoun decides to hang up his spurs at the end of the season but before he does, he and Vivian are married. They decide they'll settle at her grandmother's old farmhouse but not until he rides his last rodeo. When he's critically injured, his life hangs in the balance. Will Vivian find her faith and pray? It's a close call but time will tell. Also in the works from The Wild Rose Press, Homeward Bound Hearts is almost to the final galley stage. Once it is, a release date will be available. Here’s the cover and blurb:   Take one saddle bronc ridin’ cowboy, Jeb Hill, the Hillbilly Hotshot, who suffers the worst injury of his career. Send him home to be cared for by a widowed nurse, Shelby Thacker, who struggles to pay her bills and support her two children. Add some friendship, then stir in a little attraction. Complicate things with the return of Jeb’s long absent father and throw in the Christmas season. Jeb wants an old-fashioned, heartwarming Christmas, but Shelby’s poverty destroyed her holiday spirit long ago. Toss in some faith, a country church, and a rodeo rider ready to play Santa Claus. Shelby’s and Jeb’s friendship deepens, but can they fulfill each other’s hopes and dreams? Beyond that, there are more titles on the way – I’m working on one for a new series with TWRP tentatively titled Edge of Threat.  The Cajun Cowboy is already under contract with the same and will appear sometime in 2025.  World Castle Publishing will release the third book in the Laredo series in the future as well as an unrelated work, The Cowboy’s Prayer.                   I’ve submitted titles to Harlequin and Berkley including Uglier Than Homemade Sin and Dead Roses. Works in progress include one I’m calling Lakeside Lady about a family resort near Branson, The Cowboy’s Level Best (gotta finish that one), a very different one about a man whose eternal fate hangs in the balance after a near fatal accident, one about a woman running from the WITSEC program called Lack of Memory, and a few more in infant stages or what I call “story starts”. I have many ideas!   Stay tuned but that’s how the rest of the year falls out now for new releases!

 

Summer is the season for first jobs....

 

             Although the first official day of summer has yet to arrive, the heat is here. My thoughts turn back to the year I gained my first job other than babysitting, a summer now in the distant past.

 

                The bright, red-lettered “HELP WANTED” sign in the window of Jerry’s Café on the Neosho Square caught my eye the summer when I was sixteen.  My search for my first job hadn’t turned up anything yet so I persuaded my mother to let me go inside to apply.  In those days, my parents had a post office box checked daily among the other errands so she pulled into a parking slot.  I summoned up all the bravado I had in my teenage body, tried to stand tall in my discount store tennis shoes, and walked inside the restaurant.

                I asked about the notice and within minutes, without a resume or long interview, I was hired as a bus girl (yes, bus girl back in those less enlightened Seventies) and occasional waitress.  I had time to rush out to share the new with my waiting parent before hurrying back into the kitchen to put my purse on a shelf and tying on an apron.

                Now just a memory, the space once claimed by the café now a parking lot, Jerry’s Café was an old school, traditional restaurant.  I believe it had operated under other names prior to and at least one more after my brief time there.  There was a counter with stools and tables along the wall with a few scattered down the middle.  A small additional room held a few more.

                There was no on-the-job training.  I went to work immediately, clearing dishes from empty tables then washing them down.  I put everything back in order for the next customer, trundled the bulky cart back to the dish room to unload, then began all over again.  During the lunch rush, that’s all I did.  In slacker moments, I also carried the coffee pot around and topped up cups. 

                The menu offered a variety of food, from simple sandwiches and burgers to other home style favorites.  Each day, a lunch special or two was offered and as I remember, once I had a bite to eat at the end of my shift, the food tasted delicious.

                I worked from 11 am until 2pm on weekdays, from 7 am until 2pm on Sundays.  I watched the waitresses as they worked and learned so that in a pinch, I could also wait tables. 

                Those days were a learning experience for me in many ways and I still have a photograph taken on my first payday with the money from my check fanned out with pride.  The job lasted until my dad wanted to take the family on a vacation trip.  He suggested I ask for the week off and I did but my boss, considering how brief I had been employed and how soon school loomed straight ahead, let me go instead.

                Fast forward many summers ahead.  I’m no longer a sixteen-year-old girl heady with the wonder and power of my first job. The one constant is now writing.  I will always write, no matter where I work or whether or not I have a vacation period.  So in between it all, I’ll be writing and hoping for one runaway bestseller that could change my status quo again.

               

A humble beginning

 

                Every story has a beginning. Sometimes it’s humble and often, we may not even realize what we might start. I’m sometimes asked how I became a writer, an author. There were steps to the journey, like any other, and I decided at an early age I wanted to tell stories. Before I could write, I dictated little tales to my mother and illustrated them in crayon. At the age of nine, after meeting a family patriarch at a family reunion, I wrote a poem about pioneers. I had learned that branch of my family arrived in my hometown of St. Joseph, Missouri via wagon train. The plan had been to go westward, all the way to Oregon or California. It might have been the fact my great-great-great grandmother gave birth to my great-grandfather’s father in St. Joseph or maybe she just quietly informed her husband she would go no further. The family stayed in the new, growing city on the banks of the Missouri River and prospered.

                So, I wrote a poem and because the local newspaper featured a page for children to share their talents on Saturday mornings, I mailed it to them. Some of my cousins had been featured with artwork but I never could draw so I wrote. They used my poem, which thrilled me, but after my beloved grandfather, Pop, passed away, a clipping of the poem was laid to rest with him. Even at such a young age, I saw a power in words.

                My fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Berryman, had been a country school teacher early in her career. Although I attended a big, brick elementary school catering from kindergarten through eighth grade, she applied many of the teaching methods she had learned. If a student excelled in a subject, we taught others. I had down time so I began writing a novel in the back of my blue pressed cardboard binder. Pages of it still exist, in my late mother’s desk drawers. For each page of text, I created an illustration.

 

 

                By then, I read many adult books, each approved by my mother. My favorite was Margaret Mitchell’s classic “Gone With The Wind.”  I had worn out her book-of-the-month copy and my dad presented me with my own copy on my birthday. My first effort at a novel was titled “Goodbye Dixie” and was set on a plantation during the Civil War.

                I decided then I wanted to become an author. During my teens I scribbled and managed place in a short story contest at my high school. One of my English teachers and favorite instructors throughout my life, Mr. Gary Sims, encouraged my dreams. He once read an essay to the class I had written and told them it was mine after he read it. I still have the paper with his comments inked in red across the top : “100%. Beautifully written.” His encouragement and the opportunity to attend a young writer’s seminar at Pittsburg State University in nearby Kansas (I have another teacher, Mrs. Mildred Stover to thank for that one) fueled my dreams.

                In college I was on the staff of the campus newspaper and worked my way up to share the editor title with another student. I also was on the staff of the literary magazine and once I transferred to a four-year university, I also won a prize for my fiction. One of my professors asked me during a one-on-one conference what I planned to do after graduation. I laughed and said I’d like to write but I probably lacked the talent. Dr. Ackiss informed me I had the potential but whether or not I would become a writer or author was up to me.

                After receiving my degree, I worked at a local fast-food restaurant, did some substitute teaching, volunteered at the neighborhood elementary school, and wrote. My next break came when my college creative writing teacher, Kay Hively, gave my name to the local radio station on request. They sought an advertising copywriter. Her recommendation netted me an interview and I was asked to write sample ads. I figured the chance would end there but I was hired. During my radio years, as I moved through every facet of the business, writing, interviewing notables including state senators, country music stars, and the US Attorney General. Some ads I wrote for the Missouri Beef Industry council also played on other stations.

     I wrote and managed to sell some of my work. I often sent my stores to my uncle Darrell Neely to read and he, too, encouraged my dreams. My dad had been proud and expected great things from the time I wrote the first novel. Although it wasn’t the best writing, he noted how many fifth graders write a novel in the back of their binder?

                Unfortunately, one summer’s day my job was eliminated and my confidence in writing lagged as I found employment to pay my bills. I still wrote. I eventually ended up at Wal-Mart where I wrote a few pieces for their corporate newsletter, unheard of from a lowly cashier.

                As people often do, I got married. When I informed my husband I dabbled in writing, he encouraged my passion. I wrote and sold some articles. My long-time dream had been to write novels and I realized with two twin toddlers underfoot, if I didn’t get started, I might never do it. So I did. My husband was my cheerleader, coach, and first beta reader. I bounced ideas off of him and after about eighty rejections from publishers and agents, I signed my first contract.

                I worried I might be a one-hit wonder but my uncle by marriage, Wayne Rigdon, assured me that wouldn’t be the case. Today, I have around sixty titles published with several publishing companies including The Wild Rose Press, World Castle Publishing, and Evernight Publishing. I’ve also in the past been a part of Champagne Books, the defunct Rebel Ink Press, and the now closed CleanReads (formerly Astraea Press).

                That’s my beginning and there’s yet to be an end. I hope there never will be.