A COWBOY TO KEEP

This month, I'd like to share the pre-order and June 1st release of an anthology I'm privileged to be in. This group of novellas, by seven USA Today and Award Winning authors, is called, A COWBOY TO KEEP, a Contemporary Western Romance Collection. I'm in love with this cover, the great stories, and wonderful group of authors!

Read about the exciting stories that tell of romance, Cowboys, suspense, men in uniform, new adult, and second chance romance:

Catch a cowboy … Keep a cowboy …

 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?

I hope you'll pick up this great collection of stories and give us a try.  They are on Amazon for the great price of 99 cents and also in Kindle Unlimited.

A COWBOY TO KEEP, A Contemporary Western Romance Collection

Carra Copelin

 Amazon Author Page 

YOU NEVER KNOW....

I don’t think I’ve ever written about the publication of my first book, THE LOVE OF A COWOY.

In 2001, I had been writing for quite a few years and had been knocking on doors of New York agents and publishers for several years. I had numerous rejections from both. I was toying with the idea of giving up. At the same time, I had been entering contests and placing or winning a few.

One of the contests I entered was the Southwest Writers’ Annual contest, a huge contest conducted by a large organization. At the time, I was too naïve to realize the odds against winning or placing in such a contest.

In July of 2001, after I had just returned from a trip to the grocery store, I received a call from an editor with New American Library, making an offer to buy THE LOVE OF A COWBOY plus two more books yet to be written. 

I was totally surprised. I had no agent, no advisor of any kind. I was ignorant of the nuts and bolts of the publishing business, but having been self-employed for most of my adult life, I wasn’t ignorant about contracts. The offer seemed reasonable to me, so I accepted it.

In the same conversation, the editor asked me if I planned to be at the Southwest Writers’ annual conference starting September 20, in Albuquerque. I had not planned such a trip, but she said she would be there and she had hoped to meet me there. Need I say that the minute I hung up the phone, I called and booked a flight to Albuquerque and made plans for my trip.

On Sunday, September 9^th, my husband and I were discussing my upcoming trip. That night, when we went to bed, I said to him, “I’ve been trying to sell that book for so long. I wonder what can happen to screw this up.”

We all know what happened on the following Tuesday.

Like everyone else in the country, I was horrified and distraught. 

I also had a pending contract with a major publisher and a ticket to fly to Albuquerque to meet a New York editor. I had no idea if she  would show up or if she was even alive.  Planes were grounded. People weren’t flying though the President was encouraging people to do so. I stewed for a week and finally called her at her office number, not knowing if their phones even worked.

She answered and we had the following conversation:

ME:  “I know this is in really poor taste at this moment, but I’m just wondering if you’re still planning to make the trip to the Southwest Writers’ Conference in Albuquerque.”

SHE:  “Oh, yes. I’m planning to be there. I’ve never been a fearful flyer. ”

I'll never forget those six words. She had more guts than I did. I sacrificed the plane ticket I had bought and drove to Albuquerque, about a 600-mile drive for me. The conference probably had the worst attendance in its history; nevertheless, plenty of aspiring authors, agents and editors were there.

When I met my editor, I was so shocked. She was small and fragile-looking and I doubt if she was 25 years old. (Since then, I’ve learned that many of the New York editors are very young.)

Of course we discussed the World Trade Center horror and she told me she was the only passenger on her flight from New York. That alone would have been enough to make me get off the plane. She also told me she had slept in her office 2 nights because she couldn’t get to her home. NAL’s offices are located not far from the World Trade Center.

The original book I wrote was a 650-page family saga. When the editor and I went to dinner together, she told me NAL didn’t want the whole book. They only wanted the romance between Luke and Dahlia. She wanted me to cut 65,000 words from the manuscript, which was nearly half the book.

I was terrified. I didn't know how to do that and said so. She said, “I’m going to help you.”

I was in such a state of other-worldness, I didn’t know THE LOVE OF A COWBOY had won the Romance category in the contest until the night of the awards banquet. I also didn't know the New York editor had been one of the judges.

At the end of the conference, she bravely flew back to New York and  sent me a 16-page editorial letter outlining the changes she wanted me to make.

I swallowed a big gulp, did make the changes and THE LOVE OF A COWBOY went to print. It was followed by THE LOVE OF A STRANGER and THE LOVE OF A LAWMAN.

So I have more than something horrible  by which to remember September of 2001.

That particular editor soon left NAL and I was assigned a different editor. I will always wonder how much more successful my writing career might have been if I had been able to retain the editor who originally bought my book. She was a fan of my writing. If you're an aspiring writer trying to sell a book to a traditional publisher, believe me when I tell you it helps your career if your editor is a fan of your work.

Every September since then, because I felt a kinship with her that went beyond book editor/author, I’ve wondered where she was and what she might be doing. 

This year, with the Internet having become what it has, I searched for her and found her. She has gotten a PhD and is a professor of medieval literature at a well-known university in California. From meeting her, I would have never guessed that’s where her interest lay. Her bio is impressive and mentions her stint as a book editor in New York publishing only in passing.

Hope my story hasn’t bored you. It does have a point. The point is, when you go to the grocery store, you never know what you're going to come home to or when you go to bed at night, you just never know what you're going to wake up to.

Landmarks to Celebrate...Or Not.....

By Anna Jeffrey

As this year winds down, I can't help but reflect that this year is a landmark for me. 20 years has come and almost gone since I sat down and decided to write a novel. I'm now working on my 19th and 20th books. I hope to finish at least one of them before the year's end. When I think about other authors I know who have written 50 or 60 books, 20 doesn't seem like  much production for a 20-year investment of time and energy.

I have gone through 6 or 7 computers, several printers and various other equipment. I have spent a ton of money on trying various things to benefit my writing habit, including working at an outside job most of the time and working on writing in the wee hours. 

When I first set out to write fiction, I intended to write mainstream books based on stories right off the front pages of the newspapers. Think Jodi Piccoult. At the same time, I joined a couple of writing groups, one of which was huge. Someone in that group suggested that I would find it easier to get published if I wrote in the romance genre. 

At that point, I had read very few romance novels that I knew to be such, but since my goal was to get published, I decided to give it a try. I spent the next year reading romance novels. I don't know how many I read, but there were a lot. Some I found memorable. Others I barely plowed through.

The first book I wrote from beginning to end was "The Love of a Stranger," which was rejected by many agents and publishers alike. One day, I attended a RWA chapter meeting where Harlequin author Judy Christenberry was the guest speaker. By then, 6 years had come and gone and I had 27  rejections under my belt and I was close to throwing in the towel. Judy talked about themes and characters Harlequin liked to publish. Among them were cowboys, secret babies, lost love regained. So, driving home from the meeting, I thought, "I can do that." 

I sat down at my computer and wrote a story about all of that in one book. "The Love of a Cowboy," a family saga that was over 150,000 words and 650 manuscript pages long and it wasn't necessarily a romance. However, it won some contests and got the attention of a New York editor. We agreed to meet in Albuquerque at the Southwest Writers' Conference in which my saga had won first place. 

Then 9/11 happened and all of the horrors that followed. Not knowing even if the phones in New York were working, I finally found the nerve to call that editor and ask her if she still planned to attend the conference in Albuquerque. Her reply was, "Oh, yes. I've never been a fearful flyer." 

She was braver than I was. I drove to Albuquerque to a conference that would normally have been huge and well-attended. Only a handful of attendees were present. When I met my hero, I was surprised to see that she was a tiny spit of a girl, even in high heels. When I asked her about her flight, she told me she was the only passenger on the plane. It was such a powerful moment. Even through the pall and gloom and anxiety that hung over every person, thought and word, I had the feeling that somehow, destiny was at work for me.

She and I went to dinner and she told me her company would like to buy my cowboy book because she liked my voice and my writing, but they only wanted the romance between Luke and Dahlia, not the rest of the story. She wanted me to cut 65,000 words.

I was flattered by her compliments, but horrified at the same time. I had no idea how to cut 65,000 words out of a story and still have the story. She told me that when she returned she would write me an editorial letter and work with me on the cut. And she did. Her letter was 20 pages long, but we got through it. She was what I call a true editor and I will never forget her. She walked me through those revisions and the result was the book that to this day, is my best-selling book. 

That was another landmark year for me. I still remember all of it vividly and will until the day I die. 

"The Love of a Stranger" hadn't even gone to print before she quit the publishing company and moved away from New York. Another landmark event for my writing future. I will always feel that losing her affected my career in a negative way from which it never recovered. I still believe that I'm as good an author as Jodi Piccoult--if I don't believe in me, who will?--and I still have a yen to write mainstream fiction. I have always had a hard time believing that I'm truly a romance author.

So, for what they're worth, there are a few of the landmarks in my writing career. Hopefully, there will be more. After spending so much on this, I can't give up.

Changes in Reading and Writing

I don’t know about everyone else, but self-publishing and self-published authors promoting their books have drastically changed reading for me.

It used to be that I had a set of authors whose writing I consistently enjoyed, thus I always bought or borrowed their books and was perfectly happy reading in my comfort zone.

Now, every time I turn around, some author is touting a *free* book. And because many of my faves write only one book per year and because I’m cheap, like every other human on the planet, I download a lot of those free books onto my Kindle. So now I have such a mish-mash, I can’t decide what to try to read next. I’ve never had so many books I've started, but will never finish.

This experience has been a journey of discovery for me.….. Of the plethora of books I’ve downloaded, I’ve discovered a couple of authors whose free book I enjoyed, so I bought the second in a series or another book by the same author. Nine times out of ten, that has been a mistake because a lot of the time, the story falls apart in Book #2 and I'm disappointed.

I can see that it's a challenge to carry on an interesting story involving only two 2 characters (hero & heroine) throughout a three or even five-book series. I’m in the process of writing a trilogy myself and I am glad I didn’t choose to make it only about 2 characters. I’m glad I have a story arc that begins in Book #1 and ends in Book #3 because I don’t think I could pull it off if I just had the hero and heroine to work with.

Another vehicle I’ve discovered self-pubs using is to publish books that amount to short stories and end them with cliff hangers so that I’ll have to go on and buy the next book if I want to read the whole story. All I can say is that makes me feel cheated. And after disrespecting my intelligence as a reader in that way, an author would have to be telling a heck of story to make me buy Book #2.

And speaking of shorts, I’m close to finishing up a novella. But I’m clearly labeling it as a "novella" so that nobody will be expecting a 100,000-word book if they buy it. In the beginning, it was going to be an erotic novella, but after reading at least two, maybe three dozen erotic books, I’m not sure it’s erotic. It’s hot, with explicit steamy sex, but it’s not kinky. So I’m still undecided if I’m going to try to market it as “erotica.” 

Let me know what you think of the cover:

It does have a cliff-hanger ending, but it’s also a stand-alone story. A reader shouldn’t be disappointed if he or she doesn't read the next book. ….. Oh, and I might change the title. ..... Can anyone say “make up your mind?”

Cowboy in the Making by Paty Jager

Austin on Jammer

My grandson Austin(a cowboy name isn't it) is eight. He has a ready smile, big blue eyes, and a loving attitude. Until you rile him. Then he can get spittin' mad.

He wanted to go horse back riding. He picked out the tallest, longest-legged mare we have. She's always proved a gentle soul and the two of them bonded. He can't reach all the way up on her back to give her a good brushing but he can sure croon to her. "That's my baby." "You're a good girl."

Most kids are scared to sit way up in the air on Jammer's back. Not Austin. With some help he climbed up on Jammer and was grinning like he'd been handed a bouquet of lollipops.

I taught him how to stop her, turn her, and all around make her mind. Of the three grandchildren riding that day, Austin was the only one who wasn't intimidated by the horse. He pulled her around and made her mind without a squeal or a complaint. Being a long-legged Tennessee Walker Jammer and Austin were always way ahead of the rest of us I'd holler, "Turn her in a circle," and they make two or three wide circles until we caught up.

After the ride, Austin insisted on unsaddling and taking her hackamore off. He managed to unfasten the cinch but I had to pull the saddle down, but he took it from me and waddled to the tack room with it. Just like any good cowboy he took care of his horse and again crooned what a good baby she was.

As we walked back from the pasture after letting the horses loose, he said, "Jammer and me get along good. She's my baby and I love her."  Then he grinned, whooped, and headed for the bike.

I couldn't be prouder of the way he treated the horse, enjoyed the ride, and took pride in the job he did. He has all the qualities I like to put into a cowboy/hero in my books.

www.patyjager.net
Writing into the Sunset
 

A Case for Audio Books.....

I love audio books. I listen to them while I’m driving. In fact, if I’m really interested in a story, I sometimes hate to stop driving.

I also listen to them if I’m waiting and waiting and waiting in a doctor or dentist’s office. Much more interesting than reading one of the table magazines that’s full of nothing and covered with germs. I used to take my Kindle to medical appointments, but now I take my MP3 player.

I listen anywhere I am where I’m going to be sitting and waiting.

These days, you can buy an MP3 player as cheap as $15 and a pair of headphones for under $10. That makes it easy and affordable to listen. (I remember when my sister bought a used MP3 player on eBay for more than $100.)

Or if you have a newer model car, it might have a place to plug in a listening device and you can listen through the radio.

Or I could listen on my smartphone if I wanted to. I have the audible.com app that I downloaded from Google Play and all I have to do is download a book through it. If you have an iPhone, you can go through the iTunes store.

These days, I don’t have much time for reading. The only time I’m able to do it is at night before I go to sleep, but unfortunately, I’m often too tired to stay awake very long. So listening to audio books enables me to keep “reading”.

Audio books used to be a rarity restricted to only the bestselling or old favorite authors, but thanks to Amazon, they are becoming more readily available from all authors. If an author is lucky enough to get a great narrator who sounds as if she/he understands the story, gets the dialogue right and has a dramatic flair, all the better. It’s sort of like watching a TV show or a movie without the picture.

Currently, I’m listening to a Suzanne Brockman book that has both a male and female narrator. This is interesting. First time I’ve run across one with two narrators.

And that brings me to the fact that I’m in the process of making THE LOVE OF A COWBOY into an audio book. I hope to see it released in July. It will be available on Amazon, iTunes and Audible.com. 

This book won a big contest that enabled me to sell it to a publisher. It was written and originally published some years ago, but it's still one of my best-selling books. If you like alpha heroes and heroines and a dramatic story, you might enjoy listening to it. I was lucky to get a narrator who does an excellent job. So if you like audio books yourself or if you’ve never tried one, give it a shot. Or check to see if your favorite author's books are available in audio.