Kit Morgan

USA Today bestselling author Kit Morgan is the author of over 180 books of historical and contemporary western romance! Her stories are fun, sweet stories full of love, laughter, and just a little bit of mayhem! Kit creates her stories in her little log cabin in the woods in the Pacific Northwest. An avid reader and knitter, when not writing, she can be found with either a book or a pair of knitting needles in her hands! Oh, and the occasional smidge of chocolate!

Why We Love Cowboys and a Giveaway!

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Ah, the cowboy trope. It’s why we’re all here! We love and write about cowboys in both contemporary times and historical, and you love to read our stories because you love cowboys just as much as we do! And why do we love them so much?

Well, there are a lot of interesting reasons why so many love a cowboy. For one, many of us desire men who are hardworking and rooted in traditional and family values. We love the cowboy’s loyalty and commitment to the land and nature. We love that they love wide open spaces and in many a cowboy romance, the setting can be its own character. For those of us who write a lot of cowboy books, we can sometimes forget that even though we write these fictional heroes, there are quite a few real cowboys out there in the world. I think that’s another part of their allure. They’re real.

 

My sister, a professional horsewoman, has known quite a few in her line of work. Ranchers, cowpunchers, farriers who also own cattle and have small ranches, rodeo people and on it goes. It’s a fascinating world, and we’re in Oregon!

When I went to Wild Deadwood Reads a few years ago, and stayed in the teeny tiny town of Aladdin, Wyoming, (population 15) I was surrounded by cowboys. They were everywhere! Good grief, you couldn’t fall down without landing on one. They were also quick to lend a helping hand.

There was a little cafe next to the air bnb we were staying. On the morning of our departure, there were two men manning the place. One cooked while the other took orders. Our “waiter” looked like your typical cowboy who’d just dismounted a horse. He was bustling around, unsure of what to do, but very gentlemanly about it. Several of us ordered hash browns, and he brought a platter to the table and set it down. “Family style,” he said and hurried off. Everyone just stared after him. 

Then he brought us the coffee pot, set it down, and let us serve ourselves when the cook called him back to the kitchen area. Come to find out, our cook was the owner of the cafe, and our waiter, was a rancher/cowboy friend and neighbor of his he dragged down to the cafe to help him that morning. Both the cook and waitress that were supposed to be working the a.m. shift had both called in sick. I tipped the cook and our waiter each twenty bucks. Our cowboy waiter had never waited tables before, but that didn’t matter. He did it good naturedly and wearing a pleasant smile even if he didn’t know what he was doing. He was our cowboy hero that day! Hey, we were hungry. It had been a long week.

What do you love about cowboys? Their rugged chivalry? Their love of country living? Their loyalty to family? What traits of the cowboy draw you in? I’m giving away one free-ebook of mine of choice to one lucky commenter.

Lady Veterinarians and a Giveaway!

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Hi, Kit Morgan here! In my latest book, Miss Hespa (The Brides of Fiddler’s Gap, Book 5) my heroine wants nothing more than to become a veterinarian. In fact it wasn’t until I was in the middle of the book and had to look a few things up that I discovered there was a woman by the name of Aleen Isabell Cust whose own story was very much like Hespa’s.

For starters, Aleen was born in the grand Cordangan Manor, County Tipperary, Ireland in 1868. She was the fourth child of Sir Leopold and Lady Isabel Cust, and her family was well-connected – her brother even became equerry to King George V. After her father’s death in 1878, the family moved to England where she became a ward of Major Shallcross Fitzherbert Widdrington. Hespa was born into an upper middle class family in Baltimore. So, both were not poor. And, despite her privileged upbringing, Aleen’s true passion, much like Hespa’s, was for veterinary medicine. Both my heroine’s and Aleen’s families disapproved of such a venture. But that didn’t deter either Hespa or Aleen. The latter persisted and used her small private income to attend William Williams’ New Veterinary College in Edinburgh under the alias “Custance” to avoid any scandal. In 1897, she attempted to sit for her first professional examination with the RCVS but was refused by the examination committee. Undeterred, she took legal action against the college but ultimately lost the case.

Despite this setback, Aleen completed the course and received a glowing testimonial from Professor Williams. He also recommended her for a position as assistant to William Byrne MRCVS at his practice in Athleague, Roscommon, Ireland.

Her showing up at Byrne’s practice caused quite a stir among the conservative community, but Aleen quickly earned respect with her competence and professionalism. However, when she was appointed as a part-time official veterinary inspector by Galway County Council, she once again found herself in conflict with the RCVS and had to compromise on being termed an “inspector.”

By this time the college could no longer ignore Aleen’s talents and eventually recognized her as a competent veterinary surgeon – though she still practiced outside of professional law. Known for making a statement, Aleen often rode around on a white Arab stallion while visiting clients or drove one of her horses in a gig. At night, she would dress formally for dinner and be waited on by her servants.

In 1914 she was enlisted in the purchase of remounts for the war effort. In 1915 she left Ireland to go to France (driving her own car) as a volunteer with the YMCA at Abbeville, also the headquarters of the Army Veterinary and Remount Service. The Service was under great pressure with thousands of horses in transit to and from the front: her help would have been welcomed.

In 1917 she was appointed to a position in the veterinary hospital laboratories. While the records of her time there were destroyed in the Second World War, she was in France from 1915 to 1918, being listed as serving with Queen Mary’s Auxiliary Army Corps.

No one could deny that Aleen was a remarkable person. The fact she was also a woman at a time when her sex was prevented, by barriers of prejudice and tradition, from obtaining their full potential, makes her an outstanding individual. My character Hespa is faced with many of the same challenges. Thankfully in a fictional world she can have a better chance than what it was like in real life for Aleen.

It is also clear that she was not only a competent practitioner, in what must have been (for her) a difficult environment, she was also someone of integrity who observed high standards. Above all, the factor in her life that gave her great determination was that she wanted to be a veterinary surgeon.

My character Hespa has the same determination. She’s even willing to give up a man she’s falling in love with to achieve her dream. Will she get her happily ever after?

Those of us who own pets need good veterinarians. While researching this book, it was interesting to find out some of the strange ways they treated animal ailments in the old west. It’s too bad it took so long for women to find their place in this vocation. I’m glad Aleen was able to achieve her dream.

Do you have a pet? Yes or no. And if you do, what’s your pet’s name? I’m giving away a free e-copy of Miss Hespa to one lucky commenter.  Here’s more about the book:

A determined young woman with a dream.
A handsome doctor willing to help her.
And one big, fat obstacle… okay, maybe two.


AMAZON

Hespa Pendergrass dreams of becoming a veterinarian. But if she can’t convince her parents she’s got what it takes, her dream will never become a reality. Lucky for her, a professor at the college she wants to attend, agrees to meet with her. With this man’s backing, she was sure to get in! There was only one problem. Okay, maybe two. Her parents still didn’t think she had what it takes, and they carted her off to Fiddler’s Gap for her best friend’s wedding. So what if she agreed to be the maid of honor! If she didn’t get back in time, she’d miss her one chance of speaking to the professor! How was she going to convince her parents to high tail it back to Baltimore?

Temple Garrett came to Fiddler’s Gap for the peace and quiet. He even sent off for a mail-order bride. But when the Pendergrass family shows up in town for a wedding, his world is turned upside down. Hespa Pendergrass fancies herself a veterinarian in training, and wouldn’t you know, she’s good at it? After she helps with someone’s plow horse and a few other animals, Temple is convinced she has want it takes to survive the training needed to become a veterinarian. Unfortunately, he should have paid closer attention to what his heart was doing while working with her. For once she went back to Baltimore, he’d never see her again. Did he have the strength to let her go and chase her dream? Find out in this sweet, heartwarming historical western full of love and laughter!

Ladies with Brass and a Giveaway!

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In my latest book, Miss Ellie Mae, (The Brides of Fiddler’s Gap, Book 4) I decided to have my heroine play the tuba. She’s petite, so handling a tuba is no mean feat. But she does it and my old west town full of musicians determined to build their orchestra (and marry off the bachelors) are very happy to have her!

When we hear the word tuba,  many think of a sousaphone, which is the instrument used in marching bands. Though it is also played in regular bands as well. Women playing brass instruments wasn’t the norm back in the day, and to see a ladies brass band was almost unheard of.

Even today, ladies brass bands are a rare phenomenon. However, there was a “golden era” for them in the late 1800s and early 1900s here in the USA.

Of course, it wasn’t uncommon to have a few women  in brass bands, but they were still a minority. The male-dominated British brass bands didn’t see any major involvement from women until the 1950s. In contrast, women in USA brass bands were more prevalent and faced less discrimination.

The first female bands appeared in the 1850s and 1860s as part of family musical groups. Non-family female bands emerged in the 1870s, and were quickly embraced and accepted here in the United States. While some bands consisted solely of women, others had male directors or occasional male players. The skill of these women was as good or even better than the guys in the band, and were chosen for their skills rather than their appearance.

Some of these female bands were professional or semi-professional, performing on stage, touring with vaudeville troupes, or going off on concert tours around the country. Most, however, were local and provided entertainment services similar to those of male bands.

In my Brides of Fiddler’s Gap series, some of the brides come from well to do or wealthy families. This is because in the nineteenth century, part of every wealthy girl’s education included learning to play the piano and sing. As cities and the middle class grew, playing an instrument  became a standard of that class. Unfortunately, the musical instrument repertoire for  women was small. Women were often discouraged from playing orchestral instruments as they didn’t look lady-like or getting a good sound from the instrument required too much strength. The bassoon is the toughest instrument to play as far as lung power. The flute the second. Though women were allowed to play those. In the early 19th century stringed instruments, like the violin, were associated with the devil; therefore, respectable girls generally didn’t play them. Now that little nugget was a surprise to me!

Have you or a family member ever played an instrument? I’m giving away one free e-copy of Miss Ellie Mae (The Brides of Fiddler’s Gap, Book 4) to one lucky commenter. Here’s a little more about the book:

Ellie Mae Ruggles was horrified at the thought of an arranged marriage to the likes of Elmer Grant. How could her parents even think she’d be interested in the old codger? So, she took matters into her own hands and made a run for it. Maybe it wasn’t the best decision, but it was the only one she could come up with in the heat of the moment. Now here she was, in a nothing of a town called Fiddler’s Gap after seeing an advertisement for a mail-order bride. But now that she was here, she wasn’t so sure she’d done the right thing.

Cassius Herber was elated that someone had answered his advertisement for a virtuous woman who was also a virtuoso. He was the third man in town to get himself a mail-order bride. But his wasn’t too happy when she first arrived, and was also having second thoughts if his guess was right. How was he to win her? He wanted to court her a little first, but was that giving her too much of chance to change her mind and hightail back to where she came from? And wouldn’t you know, just as he’s making some progress, the unthinkable happens. Can Cassius win his bride and convince her to stay?

AMAZON

Bounty Hunters and a Giveaway!

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In my newest release, my heroine is the daughter of a deceased lawman who was also a bounty hunter. In my story, he’s been a gun for hire, then a lawman, and then a bounty hunter. He was also a famous sharpshoot in the civil war. But you always stumble upon little tidbits after the book is done, and I happen to with this one. For one, bounty hunters in the old west didn’t all look like Randolph Scott. And two, my heroine’s father couldn’t have made a living as a bounty hunter unless he was really good at it.

 In fiction most bounty hunters are the rugged, independent (and handsome of course) men we see  romanticized in movies and books. But this didn’t exactly represent the majority of bounty hunters at the time. For one, most of them were lawmen or employed by detective agencies and private companies like Wells Fargo. In other words, they moonlighted as bounty hunters. Heck, my dad moonlighted while he was still a homicide detective, and worked for the Oregon Racing Commission on their security. Once he retired, they made him the chief of security. But things were a little different in the old west.

To see how different, a study was done. Out of two hundred and fifty-five gunfighters, only a small handful fit the typical bounty hunter depicted in the movies, and even then, they only pursued bounties sporadically. The sad truth was, most rewards were too puny to bother with and not offered often enough for anyone to use as a consistent source of income.

Even so, there were men who became bounty hunters out of necessity, hoping to supplement their meager wages as lawmen. Heck, even the  famous lawman Pat Garrett collected a bounty for killing Billy the Kid. Others worked for banks or train operators.

And among the small percentage of gunfighters that could be classified as true “bounty hunters” because they managed to scratch out a living by getting rewards on a consistent basis, it was no picnic to get your money. Pat Garrett may have successfully captured Billy the Kid in 1881, but he had to really fight for the five-hundred dollar reward from Governor Lew Wallace of New Mexico.

The governor had placed an ad offering the reward for the notorious outlaw’s capture. But when Garrett  showed up to claim the bounty, Wallace tried to stiff him, stating it was a “personal offer” that wasn’t binding on the territory itself. But after persistent efforts from Garrett, he eventually received the reward – though not before local citizens expressed their disgust by raising eleven hundred dollars and sending it to Garrett.  I bet that upset the governor, but at least someone was willing to pay poor Mr. Garrett  for his trouble.

Have you read books or seen movies that have a bounty hunter as the hero? I’ve got a bounty hunter in my stable of characters. Lucius Judrow from my book Love is Blind.  My current book, Rescued by the Preacher only has the daughter of a bounty hunter, but the hero is a spy for the president. Jules Monroe was a preacher for all of a few months before he was recruited as a spy. Now he’s stuck in Apple Blossom, in the Montana Territory, in a town full of quirky characters. Sixteen of which are all clamoring to get married now that a preacher is in town. But when a young woman stumbles into the church the day he’s just finished his first sermon things get a little off track. He doesn’t know who the woman is, but he’s determined to help her. Can Jules help a woman who’s been attacked by outlaws, be undercover as the new town preacher, and protect the person he was sent to warn that trouble was coming? It was a lot to juggle, but hey, he can handle it. It’s why he was chosen for this mission. Now if he could just keep himself from falling in love, he can wrap this all up in a nice bundle and be on to the next mission. But darn if his blasted heart doesn’t have other ideas!

I’m giving away one free e-book copy of Rescued by the Preacher to one lucky commenter. Just tell me if you’ve ready any books or have seen a movie where there hero was a bounty hunter.

 

An Old West Mailwoman and a Give Away!

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Who doesn’t like Gary Cooper? He’s been in his fair share of westerns and I’m sure most of us have seen at least one of them at some time. But did you know, that when Gary Cooper was just a little tyke, he crossed paths with a larger-than-life figure? The year was 1900 when little Gary met Stagecoach Mary, a six-foot-plus powerhouse who could outdrink, outsmoke, outcuss, outfight, and outshoot any man around. As Gary put it, “She could take down any two fellas in the territory, and she had a knack for knocking back the hard stuff like nobody’s business.” Mary also went on to delivering mail. But before she got to that point, she had quite the life.
Mary was born into slavery in 1832. The Civil War eventually set her free, and she found herself working on the Robert E. Lee steamboat. She loved regaling folks with tales of her adventures, like the time the boat raced against the Natchez in 1870, with crew members tossing anything they could find into the boilers to keep them firing hot.

Later on, Mary landed a job with Judge Edmund Dunne, becoming a trusted figure in his household. When tragedy struck and the judge’s wife passed away, Mary was there to help, proving her mettle to the core.
Things took a wild turn when Mother Mary Amadeus Dunne, the judge’s sister, ventured to Montana to start a school. Mary followed, stepping up to nurse the ailing nun back to health and then sticking around to tackle whatever needed doing at St. Peter’s Mission. From hauling freight to fixing up buildings, Mary did it all, even if her language and rough edges rubbed some folks the wrong way.

Despite the occasional raised eyebrow, Mary endeared herself to many, earning nicknames like “White Crow” from Native Americans who couldn’t quite figure her out. And when trouble came knocking, Mary wasn’t one to back down, whether it was facing off against a skunk or settling a score with a disgruntled coworker in a gunfight.

Eventually, Mary’s path led her to become the first black woman to manage a mail route in the United States. Armed with her trusty rifle and a no-nonsense attitude, she tackled snowstorms, wolf packs, and even the occasional keg of spilled molasses with her trademark gusto.

After retiring from her postal gig at age 71, Mary settled into a quieter life in town, where she became a beloved figure among the locals. From free meals at the hotel to a new home built by the community after hers burned down, Mary’s impact was felt far and wide.

When she passed away in 1914, the whole town turned out to bid her farewell, a testament to the lasting legacy of a woman who blazed trails and captured hearts wherever she went.

Decades later, Gary Cooper, now a Hollywood icon, fondly remembered the indomitable spirit of Stagecoach Mary, celebrating her as a symbol of freedom and resilience in Ebony Magazine. As he put it, she wasn’t just another face in the crowd—she was a force of nature, as unstoppable as she was unforgettable.

I haven’t written any books about mail carriers in the old west. But I do have a lot of mail-order brides! I’m giving away one free mail-order bride e-book of mine to one lucky commenter! Just tell me a story about the mail, or mailmen or women. Funniest story I have is about the time our mother was supposed to be getting neighbor’s mail for them while they were on vacation. We also had to feed their goats and horses while they were gone. She set the mail on a stump and went to feed the horses, and one of the billy goats started eating the mail. Unfortunately, he ate the neighbor’s paycheck!  Howard the neighbor, who worked for the forestry department, had quite the time explaining that one! Do you have a fun story? Share it in the comments!