contemporary western romance

Welcome ~ Pamela Tracy!

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Bluebonnet Bride

Pamela Tracy HeadshotPetticoats and Pistols is delighted to have Pamela Tracy ride back into the corral here at Wildflower Junction!

Please give her a big welcome!

She is giving away a digital copy of her newest release to one lucky person who comments. See below…

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I’ve visited Petticoats and Pistols many times and am thrilled to be a guest today.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer.  I’ve talked about my first attempts on other blogs, so I’ll tackle my college efforts today (I’ve tried to suppress the memory.)  So far, I’ve hidden the dark truth.  My first real attempt at plot, chapters, and black moment was science fiction <gasp>.  Truly.  When I was in college, I was enthralled by Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Don’t see the movie.  It REALLY doesn’t do the book justice.  And, if you haven’t read the book, you’ll just be annoyed.)  I was also big on Kurt Vonnegut.  Yes, I know, what was a nice girl like me doing hanging around with Deadeye Dick.

Fast forward (years!) to marriage, kids, writing romance books.  About 2008, I was happily writing suspense (and novellas and prayer books.)  Then, the opportunity came to write a contemporary romance for Love Inspired.  I thought, “Okay, I always wanted to do a prodigal son.”  I put my H & H on a ranch and wallah, my first cowboy hero.

Since then, I’ve written quite a few.  I can’t seem to stop.

I’m from Nebraska originally.  I didn’t have a horse, but there were properties all around me and I used to go stand on the fences and feed grass to the horses.  I asked every Christmas for a horse.  My parents got me a bike.  Okay, they tried.  It did move when I said giddy-yup though I had to peddle instead of knee.     Saddle and stand

I worked on a farm one weekend and rode a horse that got spooked.  We wound up in the middle of the cornfield.  It’s hard to get off the horse with stalks off corn pressing in.  Good thing I was a lot thinner then.

Me, I’m not a cowgirl, but I dated a cowboy in college.  I knew he was a cowboy because he had a buckle, chewed, and never wore shorts.  That was the 80’s.  What can I say.

I do love going to the rodeo, though.  I’ve been in Nebraska, Iowa, Arizona, and South Dakota.  Always a spectator.

My niece, who does rodeo and WINS….

Oh, and I took riding lessons in my 30’s.  I rarely fell off but then I also never rode a horse that went faster than a bike with a flat tire and brakes that were stuck in the STOP position.

My heroes and heroines, though, have all kinds of great.  Guess they were born that way like my grandniece.  She has the petticoat, just needs the pistol.

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I’ve been writing now for seventeen years.  And, I live in the third most populated city.  Guess that’s why over and over I write about small towns, girls horses, and cowboys who know how to treat a lady right.

I’ve a new book out this month.  It’s called the Bluebonnet Bride.   It has a bullrider who isn’t looking for love, a business owner who’s fighting to put down roots, a ranch that needs a little tender loving care, and a small town that’s the right size for both of them.  Ah, happily ever after…

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Pamela Tracy is giving away a digital copy of her newest release, the Bluebonnet Bride to one lucky person who comments today!

To connect with Pamela or to find out more about this book and others, please visit her website:  www.pamelatracy.com 

 

 

 

 

 

Anne McAllister Loves Cowboys–especially Jess Harper from Laramie

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Barbara S pic
Anne McAllister

First I want to say thank you to all the members of the Pistols & Petticoats blog for inviting me to visit with you all today. Cowboys have been near and dear to my heart since I was five and fell in love for the first time.

The object of my affection was, of course, a cowboy. He was tall, dark and handsome (5’9″ is tall to a five-year old!).   I followed him everywhere, imprinting on him like a duck.

When he went away again, I was bereft. Fortunately for me, I grew up in a time when every other show on television was a western. I was enthralled.

I was also selective. One cowboy above all set my heart to beating faster — Jess Harper, the second in command at the stage stop on Laramie. (photo attribution to ABC Television) Jess was played by Robert Fuller who understood the finer points of playing a cowboy hero. He had the tall (well, taller than me), dark and handsome bits down pat. He had a gravelly baritone voice that still makes my ears tingle just to think about. Mostly, though, he understood that Jess had to live by his own moral code. The writers of Laramie seemed to understand this, too. It was a western ahead of its time in that respect.

I loved Jess not just because he was gorgeous in a rugged, rough-hewn way. I loved him for the choices he made. What Jess chose to do in any given situation was not always what the law decreed was proper. It was what deep down in his gut, he believed was right. And he arrived at that conclusion after a lot of soul searching. He anguished over the decisions he made.

Even as a child, I loved an anguished hero.

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Jess Harper from Laramie played by Robert Fuller Attribution to ABC Television

I wasn’t the only one. At a writers’ conference a number of years ago, I was tipping back in my chair, dozing a bit and contemplating lunch, when western historical author Jessica Douglass talked about cowboy — particularly Little Joe Cartwright on Bonanza who she always fantasized was “her brother” with whom she had great adventures. But the real hero of her fantasies, she went on, was Jess Harper who was “definitely NOT her brother.”

All four legs of my chair hit the ground with the thump. Jess was two-timing me with her! I was appalled. So was she. But eventually we agreed that we both had excellent taste in men — and cowboy heroes — and that Jess was the quintessential cowboy hero.

We even spoke at the RWA National Conference on the topic of My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys, because of Jess Harper whom Robert Fuller had made so real.

Preparing the talk we decided to send Robert Fuller a letter asking if he would like to comment on the character he’d played so well. Clearly a fan girl heart beats in most of us long after the cowboy has ridden off into the sunset.

One December afternoon, a month or so later the phone rang right when all the telemarketers and political pollsters in Iowa regularly ring. I was not enthused. Imagine my surprised when, instead of a pollster, a remarkably recognizable baritone said, “This is Robert Fuller.”

Believe me, inside this grown-up otherwise responsible adult mother of four, a 13 year old fan girl was hyper-ventilating.

Anne McAllister cover
Click to Buy ‘Last Year’s Bride’

But I managed to marshal my wits and most of my brain cells and we chatted about Jess. I was gratified to learn that he shared our view about Jess’s need to create and adhere to his own moral code. He thought it was the best role he’d ever had. He recognized and articulated his feeling about Jess’s code of honor needing to be personally arrived at. He was as passionate about it as Jess was.

Talking to him then, I realized that a Jess Harper sort of cowboy embodies what I value in all my heroes. Whether they are bull riders or CEOs, architects or archaeologists, opal miners-turned-entrepreneurs or ranchers struggling to make a living on the land they love — all McAllister heroes are at heart ‘cowboy heroes.’ They all have a personal code of honor they are trying to live up to. It isn’t always easy — in fact sometimes it causes more anguish than joy — but it’s not just a part of who they are, it’s the essence of who they are. That’s why I love them.

And I’m happy to report that I had pretty good taste when I was 13 years old!

Anne McAllister

Anne McAllister has written nearly 70 books for Harlequin, Silhouette and Tule Publishing, many of them cowboys — and all of them, at heart, no matter how they earn their living, are cowboy heroes.  
 
Presently she is hard at work on a four book series for Tule Publishing’s Montana Born imprint called Men of Hard Broke Creek due to come out in 2016.  One of them is the brother of her most recent cowboy hero, Cole McCullough, of Last Year’s Bride.
 
She has an electronic copy of Last Year’s Bride, to send to the winner chosen from among the commenters.  All you have to do to enter is tell her what appeals to you about the cowboy hero.  
 
She’d love to chat with you so stop by and visit!

Barbara Ankrum and the fun research into rodeo bull riders!

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Barbara Ankrum
Barbara Ankrum

Hello, my name is Barbara and I’m a rodeo fan-girl.

There, I said it. Yes, I love watching cowboys take their lives in their hands aboard those lunatic pro-bulls. (Screaming into my fists, aside.) But after agreeing to write a bull-riding hero for my next book, I realized how little I actually knew about the mechanics of the sport. I needed to do some research, which is always one of my favorite parts of writing. I’ve discovered many a good turning point through research.

Hours of YouTube marathons yielded these tidbits, for example:

* Bull riders most often use man-made barrel contraptions manipulated by a huge lever to practice on and not (for the most part) real bulls because…life and limb.

* There are coach/mentors who teach/hone bull riding technique, even to the pros. One of these ended up figuring into my story and even changed my hero’s living situation.

* The bull ‘athletes’ are respected every bit as much as the riders and are specially bred to buck. One is even crowned champion at the end of the season for big money.

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Click to Buy

 

* The difference between a slinger –a bull that tries to hit the rider in the head with its horns and a honker: a really ‘rank’ and difficult animal to ride.

Most intriguing was the bullrope—that woven rope/strap that goes around a bull’s chest and which the rider wraps around his gloved hand—which he must release at the end of the ride or risk getting hung up and dragged around by the arm. (The screaming into fists part.) It took a while to figure out the wrap techniques and how riders freed themselves at the end of a ride.

Traditional American bullropes, position the cowboy’s hand directly over the bull’s spine. Each time a bull bucks, the rope slides a little to the left, tightening on the cowboy’s fingers. And if the stars align badly, the cowboy is unable to release this bucking strap from his pinched fingers and he gets dangerously hung up.

Barbara Ankrum Bull rider 1Brazillian bullropes are relatively new on the scene. They appeared with the influx of Brazillian cowboys who have taken many of the top spots on the rodeo charts in the past few years. The bullrope they use is slightly different from the American one.

Their grip handle starts off center, to the right of the bull’s spine, and releases to the right, the opposite direction of the American rope, which takes the pressure off the cowboy’s hand and allows him to easily free himself, preventing hang-ups. Some U.S. rodeos have banned them, claiming they’re an unfair advantage for the Brazillians and U.S. riders who have embraced them, but the jury’s still out on whether it’s simply a smarter design or an advantage. With the high stakes money in the PBR, it’s understandable that some sour grapes linger over these ropes. But I decided to use one in my story, because it felt like a smarter choice for Finn Scott, who had two little children waiting at home for him, along with a temporary wife with commitment issues.

Barbara Ankrum bull rider hung upI loved every minute of writing CHOOSE ME, COWBOY (Part of the Montana Born Rodeo series) And for those who read last year’s, A FAIR TO REMEMBER, this book follows the second of the Canaday sisters, Kate.

I have a $10 Amazon gift card for one lucky commenter here. Just tell me your favorite rodeo event!

Barbara Ankrum is the bestselling author of fourteen books, including her latest contemporary romance, CHOOSE ME, COWBOY, from Tule Publishing. Her bestselling western historical series, ‘Wild Western Hearts’ and ‘Wild Western Rogues” are available on all e-book platforms. She’s been twice nominated for RWA’s prestigious RITA Award.

It’s All In the Detail by Paula Altenburg

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Settings are something that, in a story, are a crucial element, and part of the reader’s sensory experience, but for the most part should be unobtrusive. You want the reader to feel as if they’re in the same time and place as the characters, but you don’t want the setting details to overshadow the story.

Don’t ask me how this happened, but over the past four or five years I’ve found myself firmly planted in the American West. I’ve written Demon Westerns in a dystopian future. I’ve got a paranormal “Cowboys and Aliens” alternate history story coming out soon.  And my current release, Her Secret Love (#3 in the Secrets of Cherry Lake series from Tule Publishing), is a contemporary romance set on the shores of Flathead Lake, Montana. (Check out those images. My husband wants us to move there.)

I’m fairly confident my love affair with the West began the same way as that of most western romance fans—by reading Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour. (How can those author names not appeal to romance readers?)My father recently gave me his entire Louis L’Amour collection—heaven. I tell him they’re Harlequin romances for men. I mean, come on. There’s always a strong woman character who needs a helping hand from the hero, but who can ultimately stand on her own.

The problem for me as a writer, however, is that I’m seriously setting-challenged. I’m an abstract thinker and not at all visual. I can’t read a map. (I once wrote an entire book with the locations upside down and backward from what they are in reality. So far, no one’s noticed.)Descriptive details bore me. And I live on the East Coast of Canada, surrounded by the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic Ocean. We have a large dairy industry here, but if you try to compare our farms to Montana ranches…no.

This is what my world looks like:

 

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Here’s my personal experience with the American West:
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And in my head, here’s what I think the West looks like:Paula5

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Mix those with the chase scenes from Mad Max: Fury Road and I’m sure you can understand the challenge I face.

There are details about the world we each live in that, in our heads, are universal truths, but in reality, are anything but. When my youngest son began university, we took a few of his friends from Oman to see Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia. They kept asking if we could stop the car so they could explore the boggy wetlands that surround the Atlantic beach areas here. They live in the desert. They’d never seen wetlands before.

Cherry Lake, Montana might be a fictional town, but the location is not. Every time I had a bird chirp in Her Secret Love, I had to look up what kind of bird it might be. The trees are different. The grass is different. I had no idea what the seasons might be like. They turn at different times from what I’m used to. Sunrise and sunset aren’t the same. Not to mention, school starts so much earlier in Montana than it does here.

There are four books and one novella in the Secrets of Cherry Lake series.  (Small Town Secrets is free on Amazon.com if anyone wants to check out the series.) That’s four authors who all had to coordinate setting details for the town and its inhabitants. We were lucky in that one of our authors, Jeannie Watts (The Secret Bride), is actually from the area. She’s the Tule Publishing resident expert on All Things Cherry Lake.

Writing this series was a lot of fun. Creating Cherry Lake was a great learning experience, too. I hope to write more stories in this particular setting.

Cinderella's CowboyAnd I hope readers will enjoy the Secrets of Cherry Lake as much as we enjoyed writing about them.

Giveaway:

If you want to learn more about the Montana Born books offered by Tule Publishing, I’m giving away an e-copy of Cinderella’s Cowboy by USA Today Bestselling author Roxanne Snopek:

Sometimes princes look a lot like cowboys…

Chad Anders doesn’t know why mousy Cynthia Henley trips all over her tongue when she’s around him. Nor does he understand his undeniable attraction to this good girl. Wild and sexy is his type, like the dream-girl he caught a glimpse of years earlier he’s never forgotten.

Cynthia’s superpower is invisibility, especially with men. It’s better for everyone that way. Besides, she’s got a cat. She’s okay. But when playboy-rancher Chad hires her, she’s got a chance to shine. Professionally, at least. Until she learns of his fascination with a mysterious dream-girl, who was actually nothing more than a shy teenager on an ill-advised dare all those years ago. Cynthia knows she’s no man’s dream-girl and never will be.

But there’s magic at the ball. Princesses glow in the starlight, princes appear out of nowhere, and, sometimes, they look a lot like cowboys…

 

http://www.paulaaltenburg.com/

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