Thank you for inviting me back to Pistols and Petticoats. It’s been a full year since I last visited to promote my second contemporary Love Inspired book, A Faithful Guardian, and I’m so happy to visit you again. I never tire of talking about our favorite genre: western romances. At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll just say I love to cheer for our heroes and heroines as they work through conflicts and adversities on their way to earning their happily-ever-after. Today I want to talk about my brand new release, Feuding with the Cowboy, the third book in my series about the Mattson family of New Mexico cattle ranchers.
True confession: Sometimes I fear I’m committing cultural appropriation when I write about cowboys. Like Nan Reinhardt wrote on this blog the other day (January 6, 2026), I don’t know any real, actual cowboys. It doesn’t count that many, many years ago, I went to high school with some cowboys and cowgirls in my southern Colorado high school. Or that my late sister owned a small ranch in New Mexico that served as my original inspiration for this series. Still, like Nan, I have watched countless cowboy movies and television shows and rodeos. And several years ago, my granddaughter was a rodeo queen, Junior Miss Silver Spurs, in Kissimmee, Florida, and is still a champion horsewoman in college. Those are my only cowboy credentials.
Still, the allure of the cowboy mystique is strong, and I can’t resist visiting my imaginary ranches and creating fictional versions of those real life hardworking, rugged individuals who helped build this amazing country I’m blessed to live in.
Now, about Feuding with the Cowboy and my Mattson family of cowboys and ranchers. In the historical novels I wrote about the beginnings of this family dynasty, I included a feud with another family, one of the staples of Old West stories. Just for fun, I brought that feud forward to the modern day, which of course meant I had to create a Romeo and Juliet story. I mean, if two families have been feuding for over a hundred and fifty years, how could it fail to happen that two young people from those opposing families would fall in love? Here’s the story:
He once defied his family for love. Can he risk it again?
Despite the generations-old vendetta between their families, Sam Mattson fell for Juliet Sizemore in high school—only to have his heart broken and his trust betrayed. And now, ten years later and a single mom, she reappears, asking for his help to gain custody of her troubled half brother. Sam knows he’s wading into dangerous territory, but he can’t bring himself to turn his back on Juliet. Yet old emotions don’t always fade, and Sam’s fractured cowboy heart is already feeling more than it should. Especially when Juliet’s hiding a secret that will transform their lives forever…
Learn more on Amazon or Harlequin.
I’m delighted to share one print copy of Feuding with the Cowboy to a U. S. resident. Please leave a comment below and answer one of these questions: Do you know any cowboys? If so, what’s your connection to them? If not, why do you love cowboys?
South Carolina author Louise M. Gouge writes contemporary and historical romance fiction, winning the prestigious IRCA in 2006 and placing as a finalist in 2011, 2015, 2016, and 2017. She was also a finalist in the American Christian Fiction Writers Carol Awards in 2005, 2007, and 2008, and placed in the Laurel Wreath contest in 2012. Most recently, she was a finalist in the 2023 and 2024 Selah Awards. A former college English and humanities professor, Louise is a 25 year member of American Christian Fiction Writers and Faith, Hope, and Love Christian Writers. Married for fifty-four happy years to her beloved husband, David, Louise is now widowed and spends her days researching and writing her next novel.
You can find her complete Booklist and more info about her writing at her website.
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our riding group.
When I was brainstorming ideas for a new series, I realized this was the perfect time to include Appaloosas! A band of five good friends—as close as brothers. One sets off on a mission to find the famed Paloose horse bred by the Nez Perce tribe. When he doesn’t return as promised, the other four set off to find him. Thus begins the journey of a lifetime…
the path Lewis and Clark explored into the untamed wilds of the Rocky Mountains. Every mile is more crucial now that lung cancer is stealing Pa’s last days faster than she can come to terms with losing him. The journey becomes harder than she ever expected, but paddling upriver through fierce rapids and fighting hungry grizzlies isn’t what terrifies her the most.
In the Tragedy, Find the Blessings…
though, Oliver was a good-for-nothing slacker who didn’t even own a pan. Hard work didn’t pull his trigger. He meandered around boom towns like El Dorado and Yuba, panning, drinking, doing odd jobs, but mostly, drinking. Drifting, lost, he had no real plans for his life.
first spot he saw. Along a bustling creek, he dropped to his knees and started clawing at the sand. He had not dug down two feet when he found a nugget of gold that weighed in at over eighty-five pounds.
I was fascinated by this turn of events in the man’s life. Wham! Suddenly he had a pot of gold sitting in his lap. He had gained something of great value yet lost something priceless, irreplaceable, in one fell swoop. I thought of Job—God blessing him, then Satan cursing him.
to become a better person, maybe make the world a better place.
I’ve always been fascinated with circuit riders. Men traveled from place to place in the Old West preaching the Gospel to the families that settled there. They went where most preachers wouldn’t go and risked their lives doing it. Because they visited a number of small gatherings without pastors every week, they traveled on horseback. They were never called circuit riders by their denominations, but the name stuck. They would preach in cabins, fields, courthouses, meeting houses, basements, and even street corners. They would go wherever they could find people to listen.
1800s. In my new novel, Red Sky Over America, America has that missionary spirit. She wants to go to China to become a missionary, but first she has to travel to Kentucky to confront her father about owning slaves. This is a picture of the John Parker House of the Ohio side of the river across from where America lived. John Parker was a free black man who helped slaves cross the river.
In 1857, America, the daughter of a slave owner, is an abolitionist and a student at Oberlin College, a school known for its radical ideas. America goes home to Kentucky during school break to confront her father about freeing his slaves.
