Welcome Guest Cheryl St. John!!!

SEQUINSandSPURS9780373298433Howdy to all the Fillies and everyone at Wildflower Junction! I always enjoy seeing what everyone’s been up to and learning about all the new books. If you’re thinking there was a stretch of time between my last western romance and now, you’re right. I worked on a few other projects and I took about a year off. Now I’m excited to have a new release to share with you.

Take a sexy cowboy, a spirited wild-haired beauty, horses, kids and an orphan and mix them with betrayal, hope, compassion and a steamy romance, and we have Sequins and Spurs.

My working title for this story was Song of Home, because my heroine, Ruby Dearing, is a singer. I worked in a few songs appropriate to the year, which was fun. Ruby ran away from home at a young age, learned that life on the road wasn’t all that glamorous, and returns to the Nebraska farm where she was born to beg forgiveness of her family. There’s an unexpected flaw in her plan: There’s no one left to forgive her.

Forgiveness and second-chances often play a big part in my stories, and this time it’s about accepting the fact that sometimes forgiveness is not forthcoming. It’s also about being able to forgive oneself.

botanical_album_quiltI happen to love Pinterest. I create an inspiration board for each story, where I keep track of research, likenesses to portray characters, clothing, and visual details of the story. You can see the board for this story here.

Among those pictures you’ll see a vintage quilt. Ruby’s mother had a quilt that reminds Ruby of good times. Ruby learns to make quilt blocks out of old clothing. Recently my husband and I got to see the Homefront and Battlefield Quilts and Context in the Civil War, before it returned to the textile museum in Lowell Pennsylvania, where the display items were sent back to their original locations. It was amazing to gaze upon those hand-sewn pieces of history sewn by wives and mothers of soldiers, some made for their men, others for auctions to raise money for supplies. They are pieces of family history that have become the threads of our nation’s history.

I’m giving away a digital copy of Sequins and Spurs to one person who leaves a reply one of these two questions today:

  1. Is there a quilt in your family that embodies history—or have you made a quilt for family members that will become an heirloom?
  2. What’s the most thought-provoking thing you’ve ever seen in a museum?

Thanks for stopping to chat!

photo for website

 

Cheryl St. John is the award-winning author of fifty Harlequin and Silhouette books, which include historical romance as well as contemporary. In describing her stories of second chances and redemption, readers and reviewers use words like, “emotional punch, hometown feel, core values, believable characters and real life situations.”

Cheryl enjoys hearing from readers. Email her at SaintJohn@aol.com.
Find her online at:
Website: CherylStJohn.net
Blog: From the Heart
Facebook author page