Mary Connealy

Author of Romantic Comedy...with Cowboys including the bestselling Kincaid Brides Series

https://petticoatsandpistols.com/sweepstakesrules

My Favorite Things–Flowers

by

I know, it’s obvious.

But still, one of my favorite things is flowers.

I’m not overly talented with flowers, and the acres I live on seem to be clay so not that easy to get things to grow.

But the few I have, I really love.

This clematis was growing on my windmill when I moved in here. It is OLD now and it’s just bigger and more beautiful every years.

 

My stand-by Mother’s Day gift from my four daughters is hanging baskets.  I have hooks on my porch for six baskets.

This year I have three baskets of Impatiens

And three baskets of Petunias.

I’ve got creeping phlox on the south side of the house, also here when I moved in…36 years ago!

No pictures. And a line of different colored lilies on the south side of my garage…also no pictures–but I planted those and they LIVED. Those things, the phlox and lilies are long faded.

If you look carefully at the petunia picture, you’ll see a pink flower through the screen. It’s a flower pot with pink Geraniums.

I want so many more!!!!!!!! This time of year I want Mums so badly…but wow, I’ve killed so many mums. The combo of clay soil and me letting them die of thirst (okay, more me than the clay, I admit it) but still, I love mums this time of years. And I get to drive by many of them, but have none of my own…that survived.

I’ve got a little bed of daffodils that come up so super early every spring, it makes me believe the winter will finally GO AWAY…AND THEN…..THEY FREEZE OFF.

So not that successful of a flower bed…and I planted those. They don’t die though. No flowers EVER…but the plants live on. So there’s an upside.

Flowers…also…once in a while…my husband shows up with a bouquet of flowers. he doesn’t get me birthday/Valentines Day/Christmas/anniversary gifts…but I do get flowers now and then and I find that very sweet. In the middle of his busy day, he thinks of me and turns aside from whatever he’s doing and gets me flowers.

What’s your favorite flower? Do you grow them or buy them or are you occasionally gifted them? Or do they make you sneeze?

Let’s talk flowers…

Coming October 15, Into the Sunset

 

Into the Sunset–coming in October–A Giveaway!!!

by

 

 

Into the Sunset is releasing in October!

Click Here to buy

 

 

It is ALMOST TIME for the exciting conclusion of the Western Light Series.

In book #1, Chasing the Horizon, my heroine Beth, helped her mother Ginny escape from an insane asylum and ran for safety in the wild west. Beth found love along the way.

In book #2 Toward the Dawn, my heroine Kat finds she can’t stand living cut off from the world in the Hidden Canyon where Ginny and her family have gone to hide. Kat escaped from the asylum with Ginny and danger awaits outside those claustrophobic canyon walls.

Now, in book #3, Ginny has to turn and face her tyrant of a husband. She’s been hiding for years now, but the time has come to face the threat with hopes of freeing the other woman locked away with her. She recruits Maeve O’Toole to help with child care…Beth has three children now. And Dakota Harlan comes along to add his strength to their numbers.

Maeve is going along at least in part to get away from trouble at home. And Dakota is embroiled in a family feud and needs to get away from his ranch while he tries to figure out how to stop the personal war that’s tormenting him.

Into the Sunset

Will the sun set on their chance at happiness before they can seize it?

To finally escape the clutches of her controlling husband and the threat of being recommitted to an asylum, Ginny Rutledge enlists the help of her friends, Maeve O’Toole and Dakota Harlan. Fleeing their own tumultuous pasts, the group embarks on a journey to prove Ginny’s sanity. However, as they confront the shadows they wish they could forget, danger looms from unexpected places.

Maeve grapples with her mother’s impending remarriage and seizes a rare chance to escape her homestead–but that means reuniting with Dakota, the man she holds responsible for her father’s death, who is caught in the crosshairs of a vengeful family. As the two of them navigate their shared history and a dangerous mission, Dakota is forced to confront his deepest fears and fight for the woman who has unwittingly captured his heart.

Leave a comment to get your name in a drawing for a signed copy of
Into the Sunset
Do you always read series in order? Do you wait until the whole series is out and read them together? Which part of a western romance do you prefer? The kissing or the shooting?

Over-ruled!!!

by

In my upcoming book

Into the Sunset, which is such a cool name for grand finale in a series!!!

I wrote my first courtroom drama….not the whole book is a courtroom drama of course…and I think I’ve touched on judges and juries before…but this time it’s ON TRIAL!!!

I don’t always manage it, but I get a kick out of writing something I’ve never tried before.

How about we have a fight on top of a train?

How about if I actually have her hanging off a cliff?

How about an extended fistfight, not just a conk on the head with a gun butt?

How about I write a heroine who is NOT a feisty lady ranch?

How about a set a book within a cattle drive?

This time, we’re going to court.

My heroine Maeve O’Toole and my hero Dakota Harlan, are along to help out–him to shoot people…her to babysit. Oddly enough, he does a lot of babysitting and she had to shoot someone, but that’s how action books roll, right?

When Ginny finally emerges from Hidden Canyon to stand before a judge and prove herself sane…you know so she can no longer be locked up in an asylum for lunatics on the say-so of her tyrant husband…she’s got a lot of support. We’ve got a crowd coming out of that canyon. But, among that crowd are a pair of twin toddlers and an infant. They stop by the O’Tooles, folks who came west with them on a wagon train…so see if Maeve will add a set of hands to their company.

Then Dakota, who was their wagon train guide, and a good friend of Jakes (you all remember all these people right? Jake? The hero of book #1, Chasing the Horizon? The father now of those three little ones?) agrees to come along. Dakota is a tough man and just who they need to add to their company. But Dakota has trouble on his back trail, men after him, and getting away from his lonely ranch is a good idea…as long as that trouble doesn’t follow him.

Dakota and Maeve are the romance. Ginny and her husband are secondary but their confrontation pushes most of the story along.

And I had a lot of fun traveling to Wyoming and letting my lady justice of the peace stroll on stage to be the judge.

Nell Nolte, the lady Justice of the Peace from Laws of Attraction.

I’ve read some very good court room dramas. But where does that fit in my skill set which is roping and riding and shooting?

I loved tackling it.

Excerpt

>>>

The judge picked up her gavel. And before she could rap it on the desk top, Rutledge surged to his feet.
“You’re not going to judge this case. This is outrageous. I demand a real judge.” Rutledge leaned against the table, touching the top with his fingertips with one hand, and leaned forward as if he was in charge of a room full of businessmen and none of them were as powerful as he.
Horecroft remained seated but his snooty nose tipped up and Dakota half hoped the man would offer a diagnosis that the judge must be insane to think a woman could do this job.
Maybe he’d offer to lock her up.
The judge rapped the gavel, then studied Rutledge for a long moment.
“You must know that I’m a real judge. Surely, you’re aware Wyoming has women serving as judges these days. Why would you make an insulting statement right at the beginning of this trial that might set me against you? Is that wise?”

<<<

I’ve got a few more things I’ve shied away from. I considered setting a book a ship sailing around the southern tip of South America. But I chickened out. Learning about a historical sailing ship was going to be a massive amount of research. All the nautical terms, the ranks and ship parts…when you actually go to writing about it, it’s daunting. I may still to it–ship board romance, huh??? But that time I ducked it.

Anyway, here comes the judge. And here comes Dakota’s family feud. And here comes feisty Irish immigrant Maeve O’Toole to save the day. Her ma always said a woman’s work was never done, after all.

Into the Sunset…available now for preorder. Coming in October.

Has anyone got suggestions of stuff I should try and tackle? I’ve done a lot of books, and I recognize my own cowardice…which I try and face.

A setting? Or a situation? The Pony Express might be fun. I’ve never set a book during the Civil War, but I’ve had characters dealing with the aftermath.

Just some type of western book you love?

Leave a comment and get your name in a drawing for a $25 Amazon Gift Card.

https://www.maryconnealy.com/

 

 

 

 

Where do you get your ideas?

by

It’s strange what little thing will spark an idea.

I’m driving along, minding my own business…well…on a trip…looking out the window

I have, several times now, had hidden canyons in my books. I’m not sure why the idea appeals to me, but it does. Hidden Canyons or high mountain meadows that no one realized were there.

I once had sisters living on a mountain top, in The Brides of Hope Mountain. The trail down caved off, and they were up there for years and years before they saw another human being.

I had a caldera once, in the Kincaid Brides Series. A caldera is a long gone volcano that blows the top off a mountain and leaves behind this valley…again, hidden. Over the centuries, the valley grows up to grass and trees and becomes this beautiful, lost paradise.

There was a canyon where outlaws hid stolen cattle in Wild Flower Bride.

Calico Canyon was a canyon with a hidden entrance that snowed shut all winter long, trapping the family inside…which to the boys meant NO SCHOOL! They loved it.

I usually have this image in my head of a solid rock wall, or a jumbled of rocks that look impassable.

But driving along. I saw this dip between two mountains. I think it can be called a DRAW. Although a draw may be something else, but this makes me think of that word.

I looked at this and the land seems to just be difficult to cross and nothing to see here folks…move along.

And this….

And this…this one looks especially difficult. Could a horse climb that? A mountain bred mustang?

I’ve often pictured my hidden canyons as having a hidden entrance but not one you needed to climb. I guess in The Husband Tree she had to climb into her high mountain ranch.

But seeing this gave me a different angle on the next series I’m planning to write. I’m going to send my hero home. He needs help and he’s in big trouble. Wounded, with other wounded men with him and with trouble coming after him. And home is up a slope like this. A slope most people wouldn’t even think of climbing. But I looked at that and wondered, ‘What’s on top of that mountain? What’s on the other side of that mountain?’

Now, I’m going to find out.

I’m thinking the second picture is more what I have in mind, but this third one is so daunting. Who would think that, on top of this steep slope is a lush spread of acres with a stream and belly deep grass. Where the eagles soar and the wind makes the tall grass bend and dance as if God Himself is running his hand across it.

Ah, yes. I’m doing it.

This is for the next series, somewhat inspired by the Hidden Canyon my hero and heroine in Toward the Dawn are desperate to escape from.

Do you ever see places like this that spark ideas or dreams, even if you aren’t a writer? Tell me about places you’ve been that take hold of your heart and live with you forever.

I’m giving one lucky commenter a $25 Amazon gift card.

Toward the Dawn just made the ECPA Bestseller list.

Click Here to buy Toward the Dawn

Toward the Dawn is OUT!–AND A GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!

by

 

 A WESTERN LIGHT SERIES–BOOK #2 RELEASED YESTERDAY!

Toward the Dawn

Despite trials that threaten their path forward, hope dawns for a future filled with love.

Kat Wadsworth and Sebastian Jones never imagined their lives would entwine so closely. Forced to flee on a wagon train from a vengeful uncle and an unknown gunman, they live in a hidden canyon with the family that rescued them. But as the days turn into months, they each have separate reasons for wanting to move back to society, and the best way to the independence they desperately crave might be through a marriage of convenience.

However, settling into their homestead in Cheyenne, Wyoming, reveals a different reality for Kat. Her new husband becomes consumed by his inventions, leaving her feeling lonely and isolated. And just when they think they’ve left the danger behind, a mysterious attacker lurks in the shadows, threatening the new life they’ve built. Together, they must confront the perils from their pasts to forge a future with hope and the prospect of love.

I begin Book #2 on a somewhat light note than Chasing the Horizon…Book #1.
In book one we’re escaping from an insane asylum. In book #2 we’re punching a snow drift.
Much lighter.
The whole crowd ran to a hidden canyon to protect Ginny from her ruthless, cruel husband.
Two of them, also scared and running didn’t really get just how isolated they were going to be…..for the rest of their life.
They’re both going MAD…a word that is NOT tossed around casually when you’re an escapee from an asylum.
The bottle neck canyon entrance just will NOT melt open. And when it does, how do a single man and woman ride off together? Is it as improper as all get out.
As they discuss marriage they begin to realize how completely they don’t know each other. Both are in the habit of being secretive. His because thieves are after his inventions. Her because she escaped from the same asylum as Ginny. He also never knew she was a widow. He also never knew her real name.
The one thing they do know is, marriage is in their future if they want out…an they do…then they turn Toward the Dawn…first hoping they can live quietly somewhere and, when that doesn’t work, they know they’re going to have to face their troubles. Face danger. Face their past if they want to have a future.
Toward the Dawn…in bookstore NOW!
Book #3 Into the Sunset coming in October.
Leave a comment to get your name in the drawing for a signed copy of Toward the Dawn