I will tell a little story that serves as the background of my upcoming three book series Brothers in Arms
I’m from a town that shall remain nameless, but it is old. It’s claim to fame (one of the few) is that it is old.
An old town.
So the man who founded the trading post and thus started the settlement, was a scoundeal.
He was married back east, had children, and at some point, he ran off, headed west, abandoned his wife and children to explore the frontier.
It got him as far as my hometown.
Where he married, had children and ran off. No mention of his wife back east.
He went to Colorado and (do we really need a drumroll?) he helped found a town, got married, had children and…his story is lost from then on.
But I’m assuming he ran off and who knows how many families he scattered across the west.
So my series is inspired by the scoundrel but of course I make it much worse when, if you really look at what my town’s founder did, it’s honestly hard to be much worse. Still, my scoundrel managed it.
Three families, each with one son. Each abandoned…except…his last wife was the owner of a large ranch. He first husband died and she inherited his ranch. Her father neighbored with her and after she because a young widow, she moved home to her father and the two of them, with her daughter, ran the ranches as one.
Then along comes the scoundrel. He has to be a charming rogue doesn’t he? To convince these women to marry him?
So then he runs off, but once in a while he wanders through. He has a son now with this third wife who has learned what a useless man she married. Then his third wife dies.
And suddenly, he is the sole owner of a huge ranch. And when he dies (this all happens before the book begins of course) instead of dividing it as his wife had laid out, between her daughter and her son…our scoundrel leaves it in three pieces to his three sons. None of these three men knew about each other.
And here come the heirs. And they all thought Pa was dead, only his final family knew when he really died. Two men who thought their father had been dead for around twenty years, are furious to find out what a horrible man he was. The brother and sister who own the ranch, their grandfather and mother’s ranches, are furious that the will reveals the cheating and lying. And they expect the very worst of the newcomers.
And then someone tries to kill one of them. Then another. Then a third.
They suspect each other. Distrust each other. And have to stick together to survive. It won’t be easy.,
Book one is Braced for Love, releasing March 2, 2021. More details about that next time.
Coming in July book #2 of the Brothers in Arms series is A Man with a Past.
And this year (and next) my publisher Bethany House Publishing is releasing three books from me. The whole series coming out in a single year!!!
Book #3 is Love on the Range. Coming in November.
Come along for a ride rooted in a true story…and then of course, taken into fiction without a qualm.