Finding Inspiration In Texas
First, I wanted to thank Ginger for allowing me to come on this blog and do a guest post. What better place to talk about my latest cowboy
romance, TEXAS WIDE OPEN than at a blog dedicated to cowboys and kisses? Ginger
has been so kind to work around my schedule and all my last minute
postponements. Thank you so much Ginger for working with me. Your patience has
been amazing.
A few years ago, I started thinking about a sweet little
love story that was centered on a headstrong young woman who had fallen for the
cowboy next door. Add my heroine’s absolute passion for horses and a desperate
rancher, and I had myself a story. So naturally when I started writing I had to
place my book in a small town in Texas. Well, the problem was I live in Arizona
and had never been to Texas.
I was grateful to learn that the southern part of Texas has
similar landscaping as Arizona and by interviewing and following around some
local horse ranchers I was able to pull off a realistic Texas feel. But…I still
felt the need to visit Texas and get the feel of the local flavor.
My best friend took pity on me and invited me to stay with
her family who lived in the small town of Whitesboro, Texas.
I learned a
lot. I toured small and large working horse ranches, saw long-horned cattle up
close, found out in Texas that just about everything can be fried…catfish,
hushpuppies, okra, sweet hushpuppies, and that no one I saw wore red cowboy
boots like those on my cover. (What a shame.)
I also found that I wasn’t the first author, by far, to be
inspired by Texas. In the Stockyard Museum in Fort Worth there is a wedding
dress on display called the “Bad Luck Wedding Dress”. Due to technical
difficulties I lost my pictures of the dress, but found a photo and the history
of the gown on Flickr. Click below if you are curious. Though you can’t tell
from this photo, all I have to say is that the women back then must have been
very, very tiny.
Alongside the dress was a romance novel by Geralyn Dawson
who was inspired to write an entire series around the legend of this dress.
Here’s her book cover.
How cool is that to find your book kept in the Stockyard Museum
alongside the actual dress that inspired your book. If only one day I could be
so fortunate.
Well, maybe my book won’t make it into a museum, but I hope
it will make its way into readers’ homes and hearts.
Thank you for letting me share a tiny bit of what inspired
me in Texas. Below is the blurb and teaser of my latest book, TEXAS WIDE OPEN.
I hope you enjoy it. If you do, leave a comment below with your email address
and I will enter you into a drawing for an e-copy of TEXAS WIDE OPEN.
Thanks again and happy reading.
“A tortured hero,
a love that defies distance and time…this is a book you won’t soon forget.”
–Cat Johnson
Katie Harris
loved growing up on a ranch. She had her horse, the beautiful Texas prairie,
and Cole Logan, the cowboy next door. But there are a lot of secrets hidden
under a Texas sky…
Katie always knew she’d marry Cole one
day—until he broke her dreams and her heart. But now that Katie’s father is
sick, she’s back home, older, wiser and nowhere near the love-sick fool she
once was.
Cole knows Katie doesn’t want anything to
do with him. But after so many years, he can’t pretend she’s no more than a
neighbor. Holding his ground was hard enough when she was seventeen. Now that
she’s her own woman, Cole’s heart doesn’t stand a chance…
“Passionate, gritty and fast paced…with
a hot blooded, honorable hero to make every woman's knees go weak.”—Diane
Whiteside
Teaser…
Katie watched as Cole slowly turned, and at the sight of his
bare chest, smooth and ripped with muscle, she locked her knees to keep
upright. Instead of his inviting smile, there was a hardness she rarely saw
that contrasted with the desire in his eyes.
Cole stood and stared. The silence between them crackled as
if a whole conversation could be said without words.
Her breathing quickened as her nipples contracted into small,
tight buds, sensitive to the brush of the cotton across them. She refused to
hide her body’s reaction even as a flush of heat rushed to her cheeks. She’d
been waiting all of her life for this moment. She was tired of hiding. She was ready.
Unashamed, she gazed in his eyes and let the wealth of her feelings pour into
her face.
Cole was no coward—he returned stare for stare—but she could
see his jaw flex and knew he was pissed. She’d pushed him hard, but this was
where the women separated themselves from the girls.
“I’m not a child any longer.” She took a step closer.
“And I told you, if you wear that shirt again, I’ll burn it,”
he growled.
But Cole would have to do more than display a little anger
to scare her. Before she lost courage, Katie crossed her arms and pulled.
She threw her shirt in his face, along with her challenge.
“Go ahead and do it.”
Right now TEXAS WIDE OPEN is on sale for $2.99 at Amazon
and Sony.
KC loves stalking in all forms, but the best way to find her is online either through Facebook, Twitter, or her blog Romance on the Edge.