When I was a girl, my best friend’s family kept horses at their rural Houston-area home. They also owned a small ranch near Buffalo, Texas, and my family often vacationed there. (Our parents were best friends, too, and her father our family doctor.) My brother, Kent, and I fished, shot arrows into hay bales, and tramped through pastures, heedless of the bulls giving us the eye.

Our father pulled rolling beds outside for all four of us kids to watch meteor showers and search out the constellations at night. We paddle through livestock “tanks” on rafts made of fifty-five gallon drums. We attended services at the small church in town, and visited the local Dairy Queen. All in all, we had the grandest of times, and though they were the only times I spent “in the country,” they went a long way to cementing my love of and fascination with that life.

Setting out to write my Dalton Gang series, I knew I wanted to portray the reality of ranch life (or a close, fictional approximation) and not write stock “white-hat” cowboys. Dax Campbell, Casper Jayne, and Boone Mitchell are good guys, but they’ve got a lot of crust hiding that fact. The three became best friends in junior high, but went their own ways after high school, and haven’t seen each other, or the town of Crow Hill, Texas, for sixteen years. Now they’re back, tied to the land by a shared inheritance, and determined to make a go of a losing proposition.

Heroes and Heartbreakers gave UNFORGETTABLE, the 3rd book in the series, a “First Look,” and said: There’s a stark reality to this series in its portrayal of ranching life and small-town Texas. This is no cozy small-town contemporary. Even as it paints nostalgia of the way high school football rules in Texas and centers community camaraderie, it’s frank about the part that’s not pretty, the fact that drought and heat take down many more ranchers’ way of life than those that ever thrive.

I can’t even tell you how much I love this paragraph. This reader cut straight to the heart of what I’d wanted to show in the imaginary town of Crow Hill, Texas. The hard lives my characters face make their victories so much sweeter, and in the case of the Dalton Gang, the best victories are those Dax, Casper, and Boone find with the women meant to be their mates.

If you’re interested in reading UNFORGETTABLE, (and if you liked Friday Night Lights, I think you will) I’ll give away three digital copies (either Kindle or Nook, please specify). And I hope if you do read Boone’s story, you’ll revisit the series and read about Casper and Dax, too!

Thank you all for sharing your lovely Christmas stories with us today. 

We had such a great response I decided to give away two copies of A Pioneer Christmas instead of just one. 

 

Book Winners are:

Rebecca Booth & Shannon McNear

 

 

Please send mailing addresses to 

Margaret@margaretbrownley.com

 

 

 

A doctor practicing medicine without a license

A cook with a powerful fear of rawness

A town full of men, all with a belly ache and none of ’em can stay away from the pretty lady running the diner in a cloud of black smoke

A few unexplained ‘accidents’ that might be attempted murder

True Love complete with mayhem, gunfire and laughter.

Fired Up

Coming in September.

 

Here’s the thing about the west.

Women were rare. I honestly think that for most men who were in any position to marry, if they could find a woman, they married her. There just were no single women in the west. Even women who worked ‘above stairs’ in saloons often married. Any woman could count on almost instant proposals upon appearing in a western town.

And, for the most part, women were treated decently. A woman was a rare and precious thing.  The most evil villain wouldn’t harm a woman.

So, in my books, the women meet the men and get married really fast. I mean like days, sometimes weeks. But by no means is there a year long courtship. And it’s not because I write romance novels and these things happen fast in romance novels.

No.

It’s because that’s how things were.

And in true life, it wasn’t all about romance either, or even about … sex. A man and woman really needed each other. It took two people, working hard to make a home. A man working hard from can see to can’t see outside. A woman doing exactly the same inside. Making a meal was often hours of  hard work. You had to dig vegetables. Mix up bread and let it raise. Roll out pie crust. You want milk? Go milk a cow. You want meat? Go kill a chicken. And I haven’t even talked about washing clothes or sewing clothes or planting a garden or caring for children.

So a man living in the west either worked for a rancher who had a bunkhouse … with a cook. Or he ate in a diner in town. Or he had to cook his own food somehow. And that took a lot of time.

Never has marriage been more of a necessity and more of an equal partnership.

Not really much romance about it, but I suspect the bond was incredibly true and deep. They needed each other and they knew it.

So…

See a woman

Propose

She said yes

They get married immediately

He goes back to work

She starts cooking and setting his house to rights.

That ain’t a romance novel folks.

So I have to cause trouble.

Which is so unkind.

Dare and Glynna in Fired Up are so obviously perfect for each other they should have married the day after Dare shot her worthless husband at the end of Swept Away. (okay, awkward way to open a woman up to romance, but still, her first husband was a lout, she wasn’t shedding any tears…except maybe of gratitude)

But Glynna’s son hates Dare and might be trying to kill him…the boy has threatened it often enough.

And Glynna is getting rich with her diner…serving badly burnt food…which the cowpokes who flood in everyday don’t seem to mind as long as pretty Glynna will speak to them and smile.

And Dare doesn’t know much about doctoring. He learned to be a doctor in Andersonville prison. His main skills are amputation and throwing a blanket over the head of a dead man.

So Glynna’s a successful businesswoman while Dare’s pretty poor. Not a very good situation for a romance.

But that doesn’t mean we can stop the course of true love. It just isn’t going to be smooth.

Especially if one of these murder attempts is successful. Dare really doesn’t know why people keep trying to kill him, he tries to be a good guy.

So today why don’t we talk about modern conveniences and how things have changed in the partnership of marriage. I blame electricity for women becoming second class citizens. It’s all Edison’s fault. Electricity made running a household so much easier that women had time on their hands, and yet, there they were still at home. After centuries of backbreaking hard work to care for her family, they could just pull a chicken out of the freezer instead of catching on in the yard.  Buy a loaf of bread instead of baking one. Switch on a light instead of trimming wicks and filling kerosene lanterns or making candles. Toss the clothes in the washer instead of stoking the kitchen stove … in August … to heat up water … to wash clothes.

But who wants to go back to that? So women’s work became much less respected because it became much EASIER. You think that’s right? Any thoughts?

Fired Up

Trouble in Texas Book #2

Coming soon

http://www.maryconnealy.com

 

Congratulations to  EMMA and to MELODY DURANT for winning my second chance copies of THE BALLAD OF EMMA O’TOOLE.

Ladies, if you’ll send me your snail mail, I’ll get those books right out to you

elizlane123@msn.com

To the rest of you, thanks so much for your comments.  To me, you’re all winners.

 

The winner of Renee’s latest book is…

 

Lis

 

CONGRATULATIONS!

Email your snail mail address to renee@reneeryan.com

     Like most writers of historical romance, I love researching the past.  I adore getting lost in former days and learning what life was like “back then.”  I am consistently amazed at the unusual tidbits I come across, things I never learned in my high school or college history classes.  It’s these small factoids and glimpses into times-gone-by that make the past come alive for me. 

     Having said that, while in the early plotting stages of my lastest book in my CHARITY HOUSE series, I knew I didn’t want to focus on the typical outlaw or cowboy or even rancher.  I wanted something different.  Thankfully, I fell across an article on the Golden Age of Theater and the ideas quickly burst forth.

     During my research I became fascinated with the premiere acting family of the American Theater: The Barrymores.  You’ve probably heard of Drew Barrymore, an accomplished actor in her own right who has garnered a lot of popularity and success, despite a few setbacks in her youth.    

 

     Maybe you’ve even heard of Drew’s famous grandfather and his equally talented siblings: Lionel, Ethel and John Barrymore. There is no question that these three Barrymores dominated early American cinema.  But, contrary to what I had thought prior to my research, Lionel, Ethel and John weren’t the first to “tread the boards” in their family.  They literally grew up in the theater.  Their parents, Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew (AKA Georgie Drew Barrymore), were famous stage actors during the Golden Era of American Theater – 1880-1920.

     The patriarch of the family, Maurice Barrymore, was born Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe in India.  His father was a surveyor for the British East India Company.  Young Herbert was sent back to England for his education.  He attended Harrow School and then went on to study law at Oxford University.  Much to his father’s chagrin, Herbert fell in with a group of actors and never became a barrister.  In order to spare his father the shame of his chosen profession, Herbert changed his name to Maurice Barrymore.

     After some success on the British stage, Maurice left for America in 1874.  He made his Broadway debut in December 1875 in the play Pique.  In the cast was a young actress, Georgiana Drew.  After a short courtship the two married and proceeded to have three children, the above mentioned, Lionel, Ethel and John. 

     Maurice eventually started his own theater company and toured across the country, stopping in cities in Arkansas, Louisiana and even Texas. He was a true pioneer of the stage. 

     So, tell me, who is your favorite actor in modern cinema?  Leave a comment and I’ll put you in a drawing to win my July release, THE OUTLAW’S REDEMPTION.

HEY, ALL!
Because I’ve had several great posts that came in after I closed my contest for a copy of THE BALLAD OF EMMA O’TOOLE, I’ve decided to give away one more book to be drawn among the latecomers.  I will wait till 10:00 pm MST (that’s midnight on the East Coast) on Wednesday August 14 to do the drawing.  So if you’re just coming on board to post, you still have one last chance.
Or if you posted for the earlier drawing and didn’t win, feel free to comment again for another chance.  Hey I just want people to read my book!

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!!!!!

Petticoats and Pistols went live on August 13, 2007.

WE’RE 6 YEARS OLD!

Since there were more than 20 reader posts, I round up and awarded 3 books.  Wish I had enough for all you wonderful ladies!  The winners of THE BALLAD OF EMMA O’TOOLE are:

Maxie,

Cate S

Catslady

If you’ll email me with your snail mail, I’ll get the books right out to you.  You can contact me at elizlane123@msn.com.

Thanks to all of you who commented.

Elizabeth