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I Challenge You to Put Out into the Deep
The film industry is in a weird place right now, but he really loved the story and said he thinks one day it’ll be on TV.
A Destiny in Defiance Through the Eyes of a … Cougar
Something strange about my new release…
My editor was very complimentary about the twist and turns I worked into A Destiny in Defiance as well as the extreme suspense and tension in the last chapters. She found herself so engrossed in the story, there were several places where she forgot to edit because she was too busy reading! (We’ve worked diligently to find and edit those places!)
One of the fun things I did was actually tell a little bit of the story through the eyes of a cougar. Very Rudyard Kipling, I suppose, what, with Two Spears being–I just realized–a type of Mowgli character.
Anyway, the story was tremendous fun to write, took me almost a year (it’s 96,000 words!), and it covers a lot of ground. It’s like a whole TV season in one book. I hope it moves you to tears, anger, heartbreak, and peace.
Oh, and I’m planning on following it up with either a couple of short stories or novellas in 2020!
Questions this book might answer:
Will the rivalry between Charles and Matthew destroy them both? Do Naomi and Two Spears get caught in the middle? Can Naomi keep her beloved from turning back to his dark past? What secret is the new nurse in town hiding? Will Billy and Hannah ever tie the knot or is she thinking about pursuing other goals? Does Emilio love Mollie or is his heart still stuck on Hannah? Why is ranch foreman Lane Chandler such an awesome character? So, so many good storylines! Can’t wait for y’all to read A Destiny in Defiance!
A Destiny in Defiance releases on November 1.
Right now it’s only $2.99 for a VERY limited time. This is a mammoth book (over 96,000 words) so the price will be going up.
Get your copy today while it’s still at this special price.
OR, you can always read for FREE in Kindle Unlimited. I hope you’ll tell a friend about it and, please,
leave me a review when you have a moment.
Not a KU subscriber? You can get it here!
By the way, my newsletter subscribers get FREE stuff, exclusive excerpts, contests, pithy commentary. Why don’t you join me in case WordPress goes as anti-conservative as the other big tech companies?! I’d love to have you along with us!
Or you can follow me here:
Does a New Romance Have a Destiny in Defiance?
Can two people from very different worlds make a romance happen? I just adored writing the sub-plot of Hope and Lane and their potential romance in my new book A Destiny in Defiance. He’s such a pure Texas cowboy and she’s such a feminist–or so she thinks. Here’s a snippet of one of my favorite scenes:
Hope drifted her fingers softly along the edge of the deep cut gouging its way across the man’s palm and frowned. “I’d say this is more than slight, Mr. Chandler. You’re going to need several stitches. Otherwise, this will never heal properly.”
Famous Western star, L.Q. Jones, the inspiration for Lane Chandler
“Dang,” he whispered. “It’s my ropin’ hand.”
“Precisely why we need to stitch it. Without closing it up, a wound this long and deep will scar terribly, reducing your mobility. You want your hand back in working order don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned sheepishly. “I reckon I do.”
“I’ll numb it. The stitches won’t hurt.”
“Ah, pshaw,” he waved away her concern. “I dug a Comanche arrow outta my own shoulder once. After that kind of pain, I can tolerate an itty bitty sewing needle.”
Hope tilted her head, admittedly a little too intrigued by the man. She found the way he told the story of a Comanche arrow in his shoulder and then used the word itty bitty in the next breath…charming. And, my, but wasn’t he handsome?
She frowned at the repetitive thought and forced herself to focus on the tools of her trade. “This will hurt. I’m sorry.” She clutched his hand and poured alcohol in the wound. Mr. Chandler winced but that was the extent of his reaction. “All right, let’s get the stitches in. You’re ready?”
“As I ever will be.”
Amused by his bravado, she smirked slightly and laced a needle with the catgut. “Did your shoulder heal all right?” she asked conversationally.
“Yes, ma’am. Just an occasional soreness. Mostly on cold mornings.”
“You’re very fortunate to have survived such an ordeal.” She guided his hand to the table, resting it palm up, and cautiously put in the first suture; he seemed to barely notice.
“Yes, ma’am. Texas was a wild and wooly place ten-fifteen years ago. It’s only a little better now. We whooped the Indians but the rougher elements have been flocking there since the war ended.”
“Why is that, do you suppose?”
“I reckon ‘cause the law ain’t too intrusive there. A man can pretty much do what he wants, long as he doesn’t cause too much of a ruckus.”
“Will you be going back any time soon?”
He took a moment to answer and Hope for some reason felt certain he was studying her. “I had planned to give McIntyre a year. Help him build his herd and his ranch. I might give it a little longer. Especially now.”
A Destiny in Defiance releases on November 1.
Right now the pre-order price is $2.99. This is a mammoth book (over 90,000 words) so the price will be going up.
Get your copy today while it’s still at the pre-order price.
OR, you can always read for FREE in Kindle Unlimited.
Not a KU subscriber? You can get it here!
By the way, my newsletter subscribers get FREE stuff, exclusive excerpts, contests, pithy commentary. Why don’t you join me in case WordPress goes as anti-conservative as the other big tech companies?! I’d love to have you along with us!
Or you can follow me here:
I’m Your Density — My New Release
My density has brought me to you.
Okay, sorry, if you are not a Back to the Future fan. Density translates to Destiny. But I have a destiny for you. A Destiny in Defiance.
Releasing November 1, it is book 4 in the Romance in the Rockies saga. A Promise in Defiance, Book 3, was supposed to be the last book but you guys just can’t get enough of Charles McIntyre!
I have a lot to say about book 4–its great characters, its politically incorrect views, its robust length–but I thought today I’d share some random insights and a little background on the story.
So, as it often happens, I started A Destiny in Defiance with one idea but some of the other characters simply wouldn’t be quiet. Hence, the story definitely heats up the rivalry between Charles and Matthew, but Naomi has her own set of problems revolving around the men in her life–namely, Charles and Two Spears. There is Hannah, trying to figure out if a woman truly can have it all–love, career, family–or does something gotta give? And Mollie and Emilio move forward. A little.
The biggest surprise, though, came from two new/semi-new characters: Lane Chandler, the foreman at the King M ranch, and Dr. Hope Clark. Lane started leaping off the page, waving at me to give him a bigger part. He turns out to be quite the cowboy. And Hope is a complex character who is tired of being the rope in a tug of war between her fiance and her father. At some point, she needs to figure out what–and who–she wants out of life. Will she find real romance in Defiance?
I’ve posted BELOW a short excerpt from A Destiny in Defiance. Read it and comment on it. I’d love to hear your thoughts. We’re still doing final edits and wordsmithing, but I think this snippet is passably entertaining.
A Destiny in Defiance releases on November 1.
Right now the pre-order price is $2.99. This is a mammoth book (over 90,000 words) so the price will be going up.
Get your copy today while it’s still at the pre-order price.
OR, you can always read for FREE in Kindle Unlimited.
Not a KU subscriber? You can get it here!
By the way, my newsletter subscribers get FREE stuff, exclusive excerpts, contests, pithy commentary. Why don’t you join me in case WordPress goes as anti-conservative as the other big tech companies?! I’d love to have you along with us!
Or you can follow me here:
Now, READ ON:
**Rebecca and Hannah are discussing the mysterious new nurse in town:
A cup of coffee pressed to her lips, Rebecca watched Hannah drizzle melted butter over a steaming biscuit, tear off tiny pieces and feed them to Little Billy. Her glassy stare, however, said her mind was elsewhere. Around them, the Trinity Inn’s restaurant reverberated with chatting customers, tinkling silverware and the clank of dishes.
“Billy thinks I should just ask her outright.”
Rebecca set the cup down. “Why don’t you?”
“Oh, I suppose eventually I will. I just thought by now she would have revealed a little more of her story to me.”
“You said she’s a private person. Those kind don’t open up easily.”
“I guess. It’s just that sometimes when she talks, it’s like she’s saying one thing but thinking another. I don’t know.” She picked up a napkin and dabbed at her son’s face. “I can’t explain it.”
“Awkward pauses? Sentences that seem to redirect abruptly?”
Hannah looked up. “Yes.”
Rebecca nodded. “When I interviewed her, I had that same sense. As if she almost says one thing, but then quickly corrects and says something else.”
“So, what do you think? Do you agree with me that’s something amiss? But not necessarily something terrible,” Hannah was quick to add.
“Possibly.”
“I think it has something to do with Edward.”
“This is all conjecture.” Rebecca took another sip then grasped the cup in both hands. “Pointless speculation until…”
“Until what?”
“Until I actually do a little digging.”
Tearing Down Statues–In Defiance of Censorship
I believe writing historical fiction should mean being as reflective of the times as possible…NOT the current times
Or do you disagree?
Here in the South, we’ve lately had a spate of disgruntled, politically correct folks demanding that every city, small town, village or crossroads with a Confederate statue yank it down. “It’s offensive,” they say. “It’s glorifying slavery,” they say. “They’re statues of racists,” they say.
The statue in my small town of Pittsboro, NC
While I’m not going to get into a debate about the wrong or the right of removing hundred-plus-year-old statues, the argument, in general, disturbs me for one very big reason: WHO should be the arbiter of what makes HISTORY offensive and therefore powerful enough to erase it? Once we start erasing things, where do we stop?
I had a reader leave me a nasty review a few years back because I had characters (in a novel set in the 1870s) refer to Native Americans as Indians. And a few of the characters tossed out some of the labels commonly used to describe Native Americans at the time–such as squaw, Red Man, etc. None of this was gratuitous–it was historically accurate. But that one reader has kept me wondering ever since about censorship. If/when will it finally hit Christian books, magazines, movies, etc.?
As you would expect from me, my newest book, A Destiny in Defiance (releasing Nov 1) pulls no punches. Specifically, I cover the politically incorrect but historically accurate discussion of abortion. Haven’t you ever wondered what soiled doves did when they got “in the family way”? Some of my characters will deal with the very sticky subject firsthand.
Anyway, if revisionist historians start removing monuments, I don’t see anything stopping them from burning books next. What do you think?
So, till next time, happy fall, y’all, and pay attention to the history around you! It may not be there tomorrow…
Susie Anderson–The Doctor Who Treated You, Hell or High Water
The women who built this country did amazing things to make America a better place and rarely complained while they were doing it. They just rolled up their sleeves and jumped in. They didn’t whine or cry. They didn’t call themselves victims when they weren’t treated fairly. They just kept working at doing good for the country or their little corner of it. AOC and Omar could learn a thing or two from these gals. Case in point, meet Susie Anderson.
Born in Indiana in 1870, she moved with her family to Cripple Creek Colorado at the beginning of the town’s gold rush. Deciding she needed more of a challenge than the rough and rowdy mining town could provide, her father encouraged her to attend medical school. In 1893, she entered the University of Michigan medical school. Little did she know how difficult the journey to put two letters behind her name would be.
She graduated in ’97, but while in school, was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The illness would plague her for the rest of her life. She returned to Cripple Creek and tended to the miners there for three years, but the pretty, petite doctor was jilted by her fiancé in 1900. That same year she suffered the loss of her little brother.
In need of a change, she relocated her practice to Denver. Surely, the bustling, modern city would provide a steady flow of patients. Not. Anderson nearly starved to death. Patients were very leery of a female doctor, especially when there were already several male doctors in town. Frustrated, she moved again, this time to Greely, and took work as a nurse. How frustrating that must have been for this gutsy, stubborn gal. Probably the stress had something to do with her TB flaring up. Sick and weak, Anderson moved to Fraser, Colorado to recuperate or die. She breathed not a word of her vocation.
But word got out, as it always does, and her health improved. I wonder if the two events are related? At any rate, the citizens of remote Fraser were delighted to have a doctor. They didn’t care if she was male, female, or a different species entirely. Everyone from lumberjacks to ranchers to pregnant wives came to see her. She occasionally even treated a sick horse.
In her career as a doctor, “Doc Susie” was paid with everything from firewood to food. Cash was an extreme rarity and her living conditions reflected that. Nearly destitute, sometime around 1915 or so she was appointed the Grand County Coroner and the regular paycheck helped ease some of her financial concerns.
She never owned a car but always found a way to visit her patients. Most often she walked, sometimes in hip-deep snow. Mostly, though, friends and family members of patients provided transportation. Anderson was not rich financially, but she earned an esteemed reputation as a fine rural doctor and diagnostician. Her life was not easy but I think that’s how she would have wanted it. She liked fighting for her accomplishments.
She conquered a frontier, both real and emotional, leaving behind a path for other women who dared to dream big. Anderson practiced in Fraser until 1956 then retired to an old folks home in Denver. She died four years later and was buried with her family in Cripple Creek.
Respect the lace.
Ladies in Defiance 