Hello again and thanks for having me back for another visit! Seems like it wasn’t too long ago and I moseyed in for a chat – come to think of it, it was January and I chatted about my book One Dance With The Cowboy and the rescue ranch that my hero, Drew Laramie, set up.

Drew’s got a brother, you know. If you got a chance to read Drew’s story, you probably remember Noah getting a bit of a mention. Like Drew, Noah’s been away from home for many years. Drew never went too far from his ranching roots – he chose veterinary medicine for a career and coming back to Larch Valley and revitalizing the family ranch wasn’t a big leap. But Noah…well, Noah’s different.

Noah’s been a soldier for years. And Noah doesn’t choose to come either. He has to because he’s been wounded. Really wounded. Like losing the better part of his arm wounded. That’s really not something you can stitch up, take a couple of Tylenol and get right back out there in the field, you know? This is starting to sound like a soldier story, isn’t it. And you’d think so. I mean Noah’s unit has been his family. The military life is all he’s known, and missing that, getting back to that, is a good part of his conflict. His identity is wrapped up in being Captain Laramie, and now all of that is up in the air as he returns to Larch Valley to recover.

But before he was a soldier, Noah was brought up at Lazy L, and going back there is maybe a little easier than he expected. You see, one of the themes that seem to leak into all my books is the connection between character and place. I happen to believe really deeply in place connections so Noah coming home definitely is going to bring back memories and more importantly, feelings.

Maybe some of those feelings are nostalgic – in one scene he recalls working alongside his father and Drew and how he’s missed it. In another he looks out over the waving hay fields and feels more at home than he expected in the open space and farm land. The problem, of course, is facing all those things knowing that the time in between cannot be changed.

And then there’s Lily. Practical, beautiful, compassionate Lily.

So who is Noah? A soldier? A cowboy? A bit of both? I’ll admit that I really didn’t know which way he was going to choose until the book was well underway. What I do know is that Noah is a cowboy in the truest sense – hard work ethic, loyalty, dedication….

And he sure knows how to dance.

Happy reading!  I’ll be giving away a copy of Her Lone Cowboy to one name drawn from today’s commenters!

Authors wage a constant battle—besides the one going on with the characters living in their minds: the battle of balance. Keeping life in balance while making a living and getting those pages written.

This struggle isn’t exclusive to writers. We all fight the same thing: the family needs more time today, but your schedule is already full; or the baby is sick and the only time the doctor can work you in is 3:05pm, but you have a critical meeting at 3pm; or you haven’t written a word for two weeks, you’ve taken a day off to write, and your boss needs you to cover an out of town presentation. You get the idea.

Writing fiction is my job and I love it. I get to make things up for a living – how great is that?! But my neighbors still have a hard time understanding that I can’t take a two-hour drive just to try a new place for lunch. I really am working up here.

I just returned from a weekend trip that combined a writing conference with visiting friends. While I had a lot of fun, and made some great contacts and new friends, I lost four writing days. And I can’t just turn off the world for the next couple of weeks to get caught up. So I end up spinning my creative wheels and beating myself about the head and shoulders for not getting more done, which doesn’t help my productivity OR make me feel any better. lol

The toughest challenge for me, as a fulltime, self-employed writer, is keeping my priorities in what I consider proper order – family, then self, then work. (That second one is always the toughest one!)

There are days when the order of priority changes. Sometimes work has to take the lead, and putting myself first on occasion saves my sanity. But for the most part, I try to remember what’s really important.

I’m learning to set my daily goals and expectations so I can keep things in perspective. And I try to remember that it’s okay to be selfish sometimes – it helps keep me ‘on the level.’

How about you? Are you successful in keeping a balance between work, play and family? What do you do to take care of yourself?

The pub date for my next Love Inspired Historical, Kansas Courtship,  is Tuesday, March 16th. That’s just around the corner.  This is a milestone book for me.  When I sold to Harlequin in February 2002, I never dreamed I’d someday have 10 books to my name.  Well, Kansas Courtship is No. 10! It’s also the book I most enjoyed writing.

Here’s why . . .

Kansas Courtship is book No. 3 in a three-book continuity series called “After the Storm: The Founding Years.”  That means I received the characters and  basic plot from the editors at Steeple Hill.  Two other LIH authors, Valerie Hansen and Renee Ryan, wrote the first two books, High Plains Bride and Heartland Wedding. (You’ve  met Renee here at Wildflower Junction.)  All three books are set in 1860 in a Kansas town that’s been devastated by a tornado.  As authors, we had to coordinate certain elements, which meant being in constant contact via email. 

I can’t say enough about these two women.  I loved working with both of them. Early on, I ran into a plot problem with the timeline for my heroine’s arrival in High Plains. Renee came up with the perfect solution. Not only did she solve the problem, she made the whole book more believable. Val had done a continuity before, and she knew how to keep us all on track.  I loved checking email and finding notes from these two wonderful writers.

The other thing I loved about doing this book was the research. My hero, Zeb Garrison, is one of the town founders and he owns a mill.  I knew zilch about mills when I started this story, buy my husband came to my rescue.  We were living in northern Virginia when I wrote this story, and he knew about Colvin Mill.  Colvin Mill is a fully restored 19th century mill that turned out to be a 30 minute drive from our house.  We had a great day watching the mill in full operation.

So far I’ve gotten several comments on the realism of the mill scenes.  I owe that accuracy to my husband and the docents at Colvin Mill.  We were there for a good two hours, watching and especially listening.  You can look at pictures online and in books, but you can’t usually hear what something sounds like.  I’ll never forget the music of the mill, and I used it in the book.  

Readers also seem  to be noticing the medical research.  My heroine, Dr. Nora Mitchell, is one of the first female physicians in America.  I wrote about a lady doctor for Harlequin Historicals, but that book was set in 1899, not 1860. Fashion changed in those 40 years, and so did medicine. I had to start from square one when it came to Dr. Nora’s training. 

I also had to educate myself on a particular kind of injury.  I was fortunate to be working for a modern day lady doctor at the time, and she set me straight on a few things. No spoilers (though I’m itching to say what happens!) but she saved from embarrassing inaccuracies. It’s not smart to kill off a main character by accident!  

Since I’m celebrating, I want to give away three more copies of Kansas Courtship.  We’ll do it like we did it last month.  Anyone who comments will be eligible for the drawing.  Good luck!

To order now or right after the drawing, here’s the link to Amazon:  Kansas Courtship.

As you know, I go along, researching for my books and sometimes I’ll read something and right away, our beloved readers on Petticoats and Pistols come to  mind. And then, me being me, I look at what I’ve found and become inexplicably sarcastic.

I’m not sure why I do this. Personally, I blame my father. The man just had something funny to say about everything. I believe I got in the habit of trying to top him. So, in summation, it’s NOT MY FAULT. (I blame THAT reaction on my little brother).

So I found these rock paintings and/or petroglyphs. At first you see them and there is a reverence. They are very ancient, like messages passed down in stone from a people who didn’t write words, but could still tell their stories.

Others lower their voices, speak in hushed, respectful tones. I think, “Wow, graffiti is nuthin’ new. You darned kids, get offa my lawn. Put down that can of spray paint! I’m calling your mother!”

What do you suppose prompted ancient people to carve in stone seemingly useless things? I mean if you’re going to the trouble of getting  your chisel out, you’d think you’d use your time wisely. (Aside: Did ancient people have chisels?) Of course that one … thing … looks kind of like a man (left), with horns and a tail. Okay I can only think of one guy like that and it is a very…shall we say…fire and brimstone connection.

So yeah, if they see him, sure I get that they might need a painting. But why carve a herd of goats when one runs by the cave entrance every fifteen minutes? It’ll take hours, just wait at the door and point.

Did they worship the goat? Could the goat defeat He-Who-Has-Horns-And-A-Tail in a battle? Were they marking the cave as their territory during a war? Was it a symbol of relationship? “Marry me darling and as God as my witness, you’ll never be hungry again. I could go shoot a goat to prove it but let me carve one in stone instead.”

These are all questions asked by scientists, better known as He-Who-Has-Too-Much-Spare-Time. They spend decades trying to decipher the painting of the goat.

This one on the left is found in the Grand Canyon. The most confusing part of this is…that looks a lot like an alligator to me. An alligator and carrots?? Carrots? Okay, sure they could’ve had carrots. But alligators in the Grand Canyon? Hello? No swamp to be found anywhere. Or no, wait, not an alligator. A man. A man with a tail, dancing. Doing the Hokey Pokey, I’d say. Put your tail in, put your tail out, put your tail in and shake it all about. Wow, it’s a wedding dance.

That’s lovely. But get a load of the swastikas. I’ve always heard that the swastika is a really ancient symbol that was perverted by the Nazis (they did one heck of a good job with that, didn’t they?) What else is interesting is how much the Not-swastika looks like the alligator man.  Really look at it a while. It’s not really a swastika, it’s a double swastika. Two arms, two legs, even a head. I find that fascinating. One arm up, one leg kicking. It’s not a MAN, it’s a cheerleader. This is right before the big game and someone’s written the Paleozoic version of Go Team Go on the wall. (Go Gators Go?) So maybe Swastika’s aren’t even anything important, just team spirit captured for a lifetime.

(seriously people you ought to see what I can do with a Rorschach Inkblog Test, it’s not pretty) 

Which leads me to this one. All I see when I look at this are fingerprints on my wall. I’ve got this image of an ancient mother, chasing after her forty kids with a bottle of pre-historic windex and a sponge.

That’s right, it’s not meaningful and important. It’s untidy, just a MESS. What we now research and revere was probably gossiped about back then.

Over the stone picket fence, two old crones whispering, “Did you SEE Ork’s walls? She’s  a terrible housekeeper. If she can’t keep things neat they shouldn’t have had so many children. Why just the other day, her son knocked over my favorite swastika picture with his tail.”

Here are some quotes I found about petroglyphs and pictographs:

Scientists can tell how old the pictographs are, but not the petroglyphs. Native Americans used rock painting as a way to record their beliefs and observations of the world.  (Mary: Translation…meaningful, reverent, important…no mention of graffiti)

Rock art sites inspire visitors to wonder about the people who made the images and the messages they may have been trying to communicate. (Mary: Or get the windex, whatever)

Painting and Petroglyphs in the Grand Canyon. Seemingly random doodles (Mary: STOP! NO! Resist the urge to further analyze. You’ve got it right!)  These glyphs have played a prominent role in attempts to understand forager religious iconography. (Mary: But no, of course they couldn’t resist)

They were possibly intended to supernaturally increase success in the hunt. The mountain sheep drawings bolstered the “hunting magic” hypothesis. (no one’s talking about the horned dude. Nooooooooo it’s alllllllll about the goats. I find that strange)

You may be surprised to find out I’m NOT invited to be a visiting lecturer at a university near me to talk about my petroglyph research. But I’m sure they’ve just lost my phone number. If I had it to do over again, I’d've carved it on their wall.                 The end.

Mary’s Website

So has anyone ever seen petroglyphs? There’s a much written upon stony wall in a bluff near our home. Most of it is just kids but the rumor is that Louis and Clark wrote on that wall, marking their trail.

Graffiti, for a good cause.

A great big “Howdy!” to everyone at Wildflower Junction. It’s great to be passin’ through again as a guest blogger. Always nice to see all of you readers and authors alike. This is a busy March for me. Not only do I have a March 2nd deadline, but a new book coming out tomorrow, too. It’s a book I’m really excited about.

 HEART OF STONE is the first book of my new Irish Angels Series and its available in two formats depending on where you shop. Not only is there a mass market edition, but it’s also available in trade paperback.

 HEART OF STONE features a hero and heroine who wouldn’t usually move in the same circles, let alone fall in love, but tell that to Laura Foster and Reverend Brand McCormick of Glory, Texas. Many of you have read my two other books set in Glory. I imagine it’s the kind of old western town we’d all like to visit or even live in. The kind of place “where everybody knows your name,” where folks come together as a community to support their own. At least in theory.

But what happens when one of their own, a woman believed to be upstanding and respectable turns out to have a past so dark that it will not only bring her down when revealed, but it will ruin the life of the man who loves her—a widowed preacher and father of two young children? Will anyone stand behind her then?  And it’s not as if her hero doesn’t have some secrets of his own–which only complicates matters.

But I don’t want to give anything more away. I’ll just say I think you’ll love these characters as much as I loved writing about them. At least I hope so.

Since I’m busy wrapping up my latest work in progress and will be looking for a new setting soon, I thought I’d take this opportunity to hear from some of you about what you consider a true “Western” historical romance. Do you prefer them strictly set in the Western United States? Do Westerns have to include heroes who are cowboys with spurs, boots and holsters before a book can be considered a Western? Are horses and stagecoaches and hold ups obligatory? Indians a must?

What about ranchers in the Pacific Northwest? What about Vaqueros in California? How about Pinkerton Detectives? Or miners in the Alaskan Gold Rush? Pioneers like Daniel Boone? I’m sure his wife wore petticoats and ol’ Daniel had a gun, but could you call his story a “western?” And what about riverboat gamblers? Remember Rhett Butler and Scarlet O’Hara? Plenty of petticoats and pistols in that post Civil War classic. Would you leave Gone With the Wind on the shelf because it’s not a “Western?”

By the way, since the early 1800’s we’ve had plenty of cowboys here in Hawaii, only they’re called paniolos. Talk about the far West. We’re as west as you can get—but maybe writing a Hawaiian “western” would be stretching it. Or not?

If you have time, leave a comment and let me know your thoughts about settings for westerns, for historicals in general, and what you gravitate toward when you’re shopping for a good read. I’ll have two autographed copies of HEART OF STONE hot off the press to send to two lucky reader winners.

Until the Fillies let me stop by again, I’ll look forward to hearing from you!

 Aloha, Jill Marie

www.jillmarielandis.com

(To order Jill’s book, click on the cover above)

G’day. Thanks, Sheilas, for having me at your place. (Sheila, by the way, is Aussie for a young, attractive woman. That’s us, isn’t it?)

 I’m Australian and you might be wondering what someone from Down Under is doing here. It’s about as far from Texas as you can get… isn’t it? You’d be surprised… there’s a town called Texas near where I grew up in the Australian bush. Far from making us strangers, in many ways, the places we live make us cousins. Here’s why – its part of The Man From Snowy River, a poem by Australia’s great bush poet Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson.

So Clancy rode to wheel them — he was racing on the wing
Where the best and boldest riders take their place,
And he raced his stock-horse past them, and he made the ranges ring
With the stockwhip, as he met them face to face. Recognise Clancy?

He might be a legendary Australian stockman, but he’d be equally at home riding the range in Texas. Your Texas.

The story of the Australian outback is very similar to that of the American west. It is a vast and rugged land – as dangerous as it is beautiful. The European settlers who came looking for a new life or looking for gold fought their way into the outback with bullock drays. They lived isolated from the world battling droughts and storms, dealing with lethal snakes, shocking heat and freezing cold.

That’s the history we share – and the heroes we share…

Which brings me back to Clancy. He wasn’t always chasing brumbies (the Aussie version of wild mustangs) – he was a drover too, guiding his cattle across the vast plains.

As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover’s life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

I know exactly what he means – that’s me in stockwoman mode in the photograph.

I write contemporary fiction, but time hasn’t changed the outback. Nor the people in it. A car doesn’t really make it easier to fall in love with the boy next door, when properties (we don’t call them ranches) are measured in hundreds of square miles.

In my first novel, The Farmer Needs A wife – I wanted to do a contemporary take on mail order brides. My bride might arrive in the outback in a plane, not a coach, but when that plane leaves, there’s still no going back.

Another possibility for finding true love in the outback is the Bachelor and Spinster Ball. All the singles from hundreds of kilometres around get dressed in their finest clothes and come to the ball hoping to meet prospective husbands and wives. I guess that sounds familiar to you too. The modern B&S Balls often also bring in young folk from the big smoke, who are there for the country music and the partying… but anything can still happen at a black tie ball under the stars.

In both books, I tried to capture the essence of Australia – the remarkable landscape, the strength of the people who live in the outback, and the feeling of community that develops in small towns.

I felt it as I was growing up – and even when I’m on the far side of the planet… I still feel it. I’m never all that far from Clancy.

He sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond’rous glory of the everlasting stars.

I guess you know what I’m talking about too, don’t y’all.

Links:
www.janetgover.com
www.bookdepository.co.uk/  (free shipment to the US if you want to buy one of my books)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo_Paterson  More on Australia’s great bush poet.

Janet will be giving away a copy of The Farmer Needs A Wife and The Bachelor and Spinster Ball – one each to two lucky indiviuals who stop by to leave a comment today.

What I love best about writing historical westerns is that I get to research the world of the west as it existed at the time of my stories. . . and then make up my own reality–using the truth and a bit of fiction.  My Men of Defiance series takes place in a make-believe town somewhere in the Laramie River Valley area of what is now Wyoming.  It’s an imaginary place inspired by my favorite Wyoming things and places–Vedauwoo, Laramie, Centennial, South Pass City, sun, wind and space. 

And now I have a new piece to add to the tapestry of Defiance: Ten Sleep, Wyoming. 

Ten Sleep is a magical place that I had wanted to visit for quite a while.  Last summer, I talked my husband into a road trip.  After five hours of driving north over endlessly rolling, summer-brown prairie, we turned west and drove up (and up and up) into the Big Horn Mountains through beautiful alpine forests that were cool in late August, hinting of the winter to come.  It seemed that we no sooner crested the peak of a mountain than we were thrust down into an enormous canyon with hair-pin turns–such a shock after the hours of unchanging landscape on the highway.

The town was lush and green–a true oasis in the late summer dryness of Wyoming.  It was founded in 1882, but had long been the midpoint point between Indian camps–ten sleeps in either direction.  There’s plenty to see and do in the area–a mammoth dig, petroglyphs, badlands, the Washakie Museum, shops, parks, camping, fishing and golf. 

But what was most interesting to me in Ten Sleep was the history behind the Spring Creek Raid that occurred in the area in 1909–the last major confrontation between cattlemen and sheep ranchers fighting for grazing rights in Wyoming’s open range. 

In that raid, seven masked men–all respected local cattlemen and ranch hands –attacked Joe Allemand’s sheep camp, burning their two sheep wagons, and killing Allemand, his partner, his nephew, hundreds of sheep and a few sheep dogs.   Public outrage at the event caused it to be the beginning of the end of the decades of violence between the two types of ranchers.

The hero of AUDREY AND THE MAVERICK, Julian McCaid, owns a sheep ranch outside of Defiance–smack, dab in the middle of prime cow country.  The tensions between the two types of ranchers is something the sheriff of Defiance uses to stir up trouble for McCaid, hoping the troubles that plague our hero’s ranch will cause him to fold his operation and head back east.  But McCaid has rediscovered Audrey . . . and he’s just not ready to leave yet! 

I hope you’ll like this next installment in my Men of Defiance series.  I had loads of fun writing it.  Sager and Rachel make an appearance, as do the lead characters from my next story, LEAH AND THE AVENGER–Leah and Jace.

I’ll be giving away a copy of AUDREY AND THE MAVERICK to a lucky commenter today.  And please stop by my new website, http://www.romconinc.com/, to learn about the new romance reader convention I’m organizing with the help of my partners, Tiffany James and Michele Chambers.  It’s going to be held in Denver, Colorado, on July 9-11.  I’d love to see you there!

Warmest wishes–

Elaine Levine

http://www.elainelevine.com/

http://www.romconinc.com/

I had great fun plotting and writing my novella for the April Mother’s Day anthology. It’s always tricky coming up with a Mother’s Day idea. Especially for inspirational romance, because these are sweet romances, so secret babies don’t really work. So I toss out ideas about where children come from and how old they are and who they will belong to. Yes, most ideas have been taken–about 50,000 times–so the plan is to do something unique with what may be a tried and true plot idea.

I can get a whole lot of mileage out of an orphan. When I teach my class on emotions next month: http://cheryl-stjohn-workshop.blogspot.com/ I will be sharing emotional triggers with my class. Triggers are tried and true elements that will endear the characters and evoke emotion from the reader. Mothers and children are good at creating emotional moments–so are children without mothers.

I’d had a heroine in my head for a while–a young woman who’d grown up in an orphanage and didn’t know who her parents were, so Olivia Rose was developed. I got her name from one of my beautiful Anne Geddes coffee table books. Olivia Rose was a baby Anne photographed who drowned a few months after her picture was taken. Being the baby lover I am, I was stricken by that story, and the lovely name stuck with me.

Emily is a young girl with a story much like Olivia’s. She was abandoned and doesn’t know her family. When the school closes, no one comes for her, so Olivia makes it her mission to find this little girl a family.

It’s a fairly simple story really, with a small cast of characters and a plain Montana ranch setting, but I’ve been hearing from those who’ve already read the story that people are considering it one of their favorites of my books. When I think I’ve written a book with an uncomplicated plot and no villain, that kind of reception always surprises me . I guess it just goes to show that everyone does love an orphan.

I’m giving away three copies today. I’ll draw names this evening, so leave me a comment to be entered.

Let me know how you like the trailer!

You just never know, when you’re doing research, what little tidbit is going to jump out at you and make you say, “What? Really?”

(a sneaky aside, read the post carefully for a chance to win my newest release, Black Hills Blessing. I just got my authors copies of this 3-in-1 collection of short sweet romances set around a buffalo ranch in South Dakota. It’s western-y, but contemporary. Sweet romantic comedy with a buffalo stampede.)

I read things here on P & P all the time that I’ve never heard of before. Such was my reaction to the fun fact that President John Tyler, who became president after the death of William Henry Harrison, had fifteen children.

Was the White House over crowded or WHAT?

He killed off his first wife having eight kids. (Okay, I admit that’s my spin. . .I’m sure she was thrilled every time she found out she was pregnant. . .I’m sure she’d come to John in her negligee and say, “I want another baby, darling, please.”)

Yeah right.

And she didn’t die having a baby, that’s just me being snippy.

President Tyler lived 72 years, was vice president and president, was the son of the governor of Virginia, served in the military during the War of 1812 (though he saw no action), was elected to the House of Representatives and later the Senate and was the first vice-president to ascend to the presidency through the president’s death, which set a whole lot of precedents we still follow today.

Out of all of that, what interested me was those 15 kids.

How many bedrooms are there in the White House anyway. Yeesh.

They were probably as crowded as I was growing up with seven brothers and sisters in a Nebraska farm house. His first wife—mother of eight—died while he was president.

Here are some quotes about Letitia Tyler:

Letitia was shy, quiet, pious, and by all accounts, utterly selfless and devoted to her family. (Mary here-they just don’t make wives like this anymore.)

She met John Tyler, then a law student, in 1808. Their five-year courtship was so restrained that not until three weeks before the wedding did Tyler kiss her — and even then it was on the hand. (Mary again–the man clearly came uh…uh…let’s call it…un-restrained later…thus the eight children)

The most entirely unselfish person you can imagine…Notwithstanding her very delicate health, mother attends to and regulates all the household affairs and all so quietly that you can’t tell when she does it.” (Mary with more to say–they owned slaves–it’s not like the woman was doing any heavy lifting.)

Their 29-year marriage appears to have been a singularly happy one. (Mary–I’m glad for them–except if the woman was so shy and quiet how SURE are they about her happiness. But fine, whatever, they were ecstatic)

As First Lady, she remained in the upstairs living quarters of the White House; she came down just once, to attend the wedding of her daughter (Elizabeth) in January 1842. (Me again–??? Excuse me? She only came DOWNSTAIRS ONCE????)

Pardon me while I wonder if she was, by chance, hiding from her husband and potential baby #9. Perhaps she was under the floorboards upstairs, waiting quietly, hoping he’d fall asleep for once in his freakin’ life.

After his first wife’s death, Tyler remarried within a year, to Julia Gardiner. You really can’t blame the guy, I mean c’mon, he had eight kids to take care of. These days, that’ll get you your own reality show. Please insert your own Jon & Kate Plus Eight jokes here.

Here are a few words about Julia Tyler. She began seeing Tyler in January 1843, a few months after the death of the First Lady while he was president. (Mary wonders if she’d heard about the eight kids. Such things could be hushed up back then)

One of Tyler’s daughters, Letitia, never made peace with the new Mrs. Tyler. (Gotta go with Letitia here)

She was thirty years Tyler’s junior and it would be simple to make trophy wife and gold digger comments, but honestly, she had seven children with the man. No doubt she was hiding from him after a while, too. Crowded under those floor boards. In fact, that’s probably where the first Mrs. Tyler was.  Alive and well and in hiding.

His second wife was YOUNGER than four of his children.

And I found this particularly fascinating. . .two of Tyler’s grandchildren are STILL ALIVE. Doesn’t that strike you as weird? Tyler lived at the same time as John Quincy Adams. He served in the War of 1812. Think of that! Tyler was the first president born after the constitution was ratified. He goes back almost all the way to the beginning and he’s still got LIVING GRAND CHILDREN!!!????

That makes me feel really strongly connected to the past. It’s still a very young country in some ways.

Tyler also brought Texas into the union, so—as writers and lovers of western romance—we all gotta give him snaps for that.

Here’s your chance to win Black Hills Blessing. Leave a comment telling me how you told your husband you were expecting…or if you haven’t had that particular experience, name the most interesting, intriguing, terrifying, funny ‘there’s a bun in the oven’ story you know.

I wrote a while back about a woman, still alive, who’s husband served in the Civil War. You can read that HERE.

All of this American history seems so distant and yet here we are with people living who’s lives were directly touched by people who go way back to the beginning, or very nearly.

I like that.

Not enough to have 15 children, but I like that.

My blog

My website

While writing my novel, The Jewel of His Heart last year, I was researching for interesting facts to incorporate into my historical. My story takes place in Montana and I had the luxury of visiting there twice. I was able to come away with interesting historical facts to weave into my plot. The story is loosely based on the discovery of the Yogo Sapphires mined only in Montana. The heroine, Juliana Brady, falls for a sheepherder whose eyes come to haunt her from a sketch she sees hanging in a restaurant. In my opening chapter, Josh McBride, the sheepherder, shares a meal with Charlie who passes Josh’s sheep camp on his way home. Charlie is intrigued by the kind Sheepherder and his loyal dog and quickly sketches them. Charlie wasn’t widely famous at the time, but was a cowboy and had a short stint sheepherding before hanging up his spurs to live out his dream of being an artist. He was none other than Charles M. Russell, a St. Louis native who moved to Montana as a teenager.

Charlie won his first blue ribbon for his art work when he was twelve at the St. Louis County fair. His family wanted him to have a good education, and though he’d made up his mind to go west and become a cowboy, they sent him to military school in New Jersey in 1879. His natural instincts did not include book learning, but art and the lure of the West competed for his attention. At the military school he was continually at odds with his instructors and dropped out after one year. At 16, his parents allowed him to visit Montana Territory with a family friend. Charlie immediately fell in love with the beauty of Judith Basin and he knew he would return some day. In fact, he enjoyed being a cowboy, practicing his drawing, sculptures and painting whenever he had a spare moment. Usually he gave away his work to friends and fellow cowboys. He used meticulous detail to depict horses, Indians and cowboys and their struggles in the West to create beautiful paintings. He soon became a popular artist, and was highly regarded by his contemporaries.

Charlie was good natured and well liked by all. He sported a red sash around his neck and usually had a cigarette dangling from his lip. Since he was naturally creative in painting, even his letters to his friends were filled with his unusual wit and humor. He and his mentor, Jake Hoover, also in my story, spent a lot of leisure time hanging out at local saloons in Utica in the 1880’s. He finally fell in love, marrying at the age of thirty-two to eighteen year old Nancy Cooper. They settled down in Great Falls, MT and she is credited with the success of marketing his works and negotiating large prices for his paintings. Russell was an adventurous and a rugged individual, but when he began his paintings depicting wild horses and cowboys, much of the ‘Old West’ was coming to the end of an era. His representation of western history and folklore of the American cowboy and Indians was how he became a legacy.

Russell’s vast array of painting and sculpture now fill many museums and are owned by private art collectors. was fortunate enough to seen some of his most magnificent paintings and bronzes at the Denver Art Museum one year. I have a deep appreciation for all things West and Russell’s accurate portrayal of the American Cowboy and wildlife is exceptional.

When my heroine assists in a fund raiser to raise money to build a school for the miners’ children, she spots the painting of the sheepherder again. I thought it was a fun way to bring a little history into the story centered on a painting of a sheepherder’s eyes that haunt her until they meet again. Though Russell lived in Great Falls, MT during that time and painted many pictures of cowboys and sheepherders, I took the liberty of using him as the artist to work with my story. That part is fictitious, however, he was friends with Jake Hoover who discovered the first Yogo sapphires in Yogo Creek.

My hobby is oil painting and as a self taught artist, I guess that’s where my love of Western art began. It would’ve been a dream come true to be taught under his tutelage. Of course, painting has taken a back seat as I continue my love of writing about the West and the American Cowboy.

Russell died October 24, 1926 of a heart attack and the art world mourned his loss. But he’d made an impact on ranchers, cowboys, writers and historians with his art and they realized they had lost an influential spokesman.

You can visit the Russell’s museum in Great Falls and see through his eyes the true romantic description of the American Cowboy and the West.

Thanks for having me as a guest blogger on your wonderful and informative website. I hope you’ll look for my books in the Heart of the West series. The 3^rd one, A Love of Her Own, will be released in June.  You can visit me anytime at http://southernbellewriter.blogspot.com/

And I’ll be giving away a copy of The Jewel Of Her Heart to one of today’s commenters!

Happy Trails, Maggie