Want to Listen to One of My Audiobooks for FREE?!?

I said free, and I meant it!

ONE Audiobooks (which has produced all my audiobooks) chooses one title in their catalog each month to let people listen to for free.  And in March, that book is Dancing and Doughnuts, my Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling!

All you have to do is go to the OneAudiobooks website and follow the directions.  

No strings attached.  (If you don't have an account there, you do need to create one, but that doesn't cost anything, and you aren't signing up for anything.)  Once you follow the directions and save Dancing and Doughnuts to your account, you will have until June 1 to finish listening to it.

It's kind of like borrowing a book from the library, where you have a certain number of weeks to read it, and then you return it.  You don't get to download and keep the book for free, but you get to experience it for free, within a certain timeframe.

If you're new to my books, I write cozy Christian westerns.  My Once Upon a Western series retells fairy tales as clean YA historical fiction.  These are non-magical westerns with no cussing or smut, containing sweet PG-level romances and mild violence only (think an old John Wayne movie from the 1950s).  

Dancing and Doughnuts is about a Civil War veteran trying to find work in a small Kansas town.  He takes a job trying to figure out who is spiking the refreshments served at a family-run dance hall.  Twelve sisters, uncountable doughnuts, rowdy cowboys -- nothing can stop our hero from solving this mystery and helping the family resolve some bigger problems in the process!

The audiobook version is read by Steve Corona, whose narration of my book One Bad Apple won a SOVA last year.  Steve has been my ideal narrator for Dancing and Doughnuts since the idea of audiobook editions for my books first entered my head, and he absolutely knocks this narration out of the park. Do yourself a favor and listen to it for free while you can!

Don't Miss the Black Friday Book Sale!

Are you ready for the most wonderful time of the year?  It's nearly time for the Black Friday Book Sale!  The time when a couple hundred indie authors (including me) put some or all of their Kindle books on sale for $.99 or FREE!  From Black Friday through Cyber Monday, you can stuff your Kindle full of amazing indie books at ridiculously low prices.

I'm marking all six of my Once Upon a Western books down to 99 cents.  Same goes for A Noble Companion.  And all the authors of Follow the Lonesome Trail agreed to lower its price to 99 cents for the weekend as well!  

This price drop is part of the massive indie book sale showcased at blackfridaybooksale.com, a site run by the wonderfully organized Perry Elizabeth Kirkpatrick.  My books are mainly in the Historical Fiction section, except for A Noble Companion, which is in the fantasy section.  A lot of other books in the Cornerstone Series (which ANC is part of) are part of this sale too.

All of the books included on that sale site are clean, which means they do not contain smut, the violence is non-gory, and any cussing is kept to a below-PG-13 level.  There are a couple hundred authors involved in this, which means hundreds and hundreds of ebooks available at their lowest price possible!

It looks like the price for my books has already dropped even though it isn't Black Friday, so if you want to go shopping a little early, go right ahead ;-)

Alan Ladd and My Writing

It's Alan Ladd's birthday today :-D 

This year, to celebrate, I'm going to share about the ways that Alan Ladd has shaped my writing and my books.

When I write fiction, I see and hear the story in my head like a movie.  I can replay scenes, move the camera angles, rewrite lines, and so on -- I see and hear it all in my imagination, and I write it down from there.  Because I love movies, I tend to use actors and actresses as a kind of jumpstart for my imagination, and often "cast" specific stars in different roles.  Eventually, the characters step a bit away from who I have cast as them and come to life in their own ways, but it's a good way to get a book started, for me.

(If you're ever curious about exactly whom I have cast as different characters in my books, I have Pinterest boards for all my books with character choices, pictures of setting and clothing and objects that I have saved as I research, and so on.)

I fell for Alan Ladd hard back in February of 2016.  At that time, I was working on rewrites for my Sleeping Beauty retelling, The Man on the Buckskin Horse, which had won a contest and was to be published in the anthology Five Magic Spindles.  I didn't actually recast any of the characters as him, since they were all very much themselves by that point, but he did help me out with one scene.

One of the changes the editors had me make after I won the contest was to give my "handsome prince" character, the gunfighter Luke Palmer, a backstory.  And I needed to write a scene where Palmer explains his past to Miss Emma, my "fairy godmother" character.  I banged my head against that scene for the longest time because Palmer Did Not Want To Share His Trauma.  At all.  Not a bit.  And I finally threw my hands up in disgust, booted my usual actor for him out the door, and tried running the scene in my head with Alan Ladd in the character instead.

And the character sat down, got a little quiet, and then reeled off this heartfelt speech about how his experiences as a Civil War surgeon had led to his present job as a gunfighter for hire.  One writing session.  Bam.  Whole scene, perfect and complete.  And, when I reread that book (because, yes, I do reread my books -- I write them because I want to read them!), I see and hear Palmer as his tall, dark self... except for that scene, where he flips into quiet and fair Alan Ladd.

Well, I had such a good time working with an imaginary Alan Ladd in my head while rewriting The Man on the Buckskin Horse, I knew I wanted to write him again.  So, when I was casting my Little Red Riding Hood retelling, Cloaked, I put him in as the woodcutter character, Hauer.  And Hauer absolutely stole my heart.  This is Alan Ladd in his 50s, which he never quite reached in real life, and I loved getting to imagine him a bit older and with a lot of life ahead yet, even if only as a fictional character.  (Hauer would obviously be a bit older than in the photo above, but it captures the Hauerness of Hauer too well to use something else.)

I even dedicated Cloaked to Alan's memory, and a tradition of dedicating my Once Upon a Western books to a Classic Hollywood actor or actress was born.

It's pretty easy to know which character I cast Alan Ladd as in my Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling, Dancing and Doughnuts, if you know his full name is Alan Walbridge Ladd.  I gave Sheriff Gideon Walbridge that last name as a placeholder because I didn't have a name for him initially, and it stuck.  Sheriff Walbridge is Alan in his 40s, wise and starting to mellow, but still sharp and ready for trouble if it comes his way.

I was so giddy when I realized that Hauer could show up again in One Bad Apple, my Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs retelling.  It takes place a decade before Cloaked, and I spent a long time scrutinizing the personal history I have for Hauer to make sure he could be there in Missouri in 1873.  I tried not to tell too many people ahead of time that he was going to show up again in it so he would be a fun surprise for initial readers, and the reactions I got to his return were everything I hoped for.  

Because I love Hauer dearly, I am especially pleased that he got to be the first character to show up in more than one Once Upon a Western book.  The little ties and crossovers will keep coming as the series lengthens, I promise!

Dan McLeod in my Beauty and the Beast retelling My Rock and My Refuge is the kind of friend we all should have.  He's had so many sad things happen in his life, but he never lets them get in the way of being a good friend to those around him.  I love his quiet dignity, his determination to do anything rather than lose another son, and the fact that he is both soft and resilient.  I want to write more characters like that.  

I have loved the last name McLeod since I was a kid and first saw the movie El Dorado (1966), in which John Wayne's character has a frenemy named McLeod.  I only heard it pronounced, I didn't see it spelled, and thought it must be spelled McCloud, which seemed to me like the absolute coolest name ever.  I even gave it to a character in a story I was writing at the time.  I was super disappointed to later learn how it is actually spelled... but I still love the way the name sounds, so I used it here for a character with lofty ideals and a high moral character, who lives high in the mountains.  Like a cloud.

If you look at the Pinterest board for A Noble Companion, my Ugly Duckling retelling, you'll see lots of photos of a young Ewan McGregor, and not one of Alan Ladd.  That's because Alan was my original casting for Javier Moncada, the love interest.  I wrote the first couple of drafts with him in mind, but then switched Javier to Ewan McGregor because he was a better physical fit for what the character as I was writing him.  But I still hear all of Javier's dialog in Alan's voice when I reread the book.  I loved finally getting to write him as a younger character!  

And then I went right back to writing him older in my short story "Safekeeping," which is in the anthology Follow the Lonesome Trail.  He just has a bit part, and barely any lines, as the weary Dr. Masterson who drinks too much.  In a way, that's me kind of addressing Alan Ladd's own struggles with alcohol, which is also something a lot of people I know have dealt with.  It's not a big focus of the story, but it's there, and my own headcanon involves Dr. Masterson eventually moving away from town and getting (and staying) sober with the help of his daughter-in-law.  

Those last two books are not part of my Once Upon a Western series, but the book I'm about to start writing is!  It's a retelling of The Steadfast Tin Soldier, it involves a Civil War veteran amputee, and Alan Ladd is once again playing a supporting character in it.  I think his character is in his late twenties, a bit older than the main character, and again something of a mentor, because I just really love writing him that way, I guess!

Beyond that?  Who knows!  Will I one day write a book without Alan Ladd in it?  I mean, yeah, it could happen.  It probably will, one day.  But for now, you can expect to keep seeing characters show up in my books who look, sound, and behave like characters he often played.  Because my imagination isn't tired of him yet :-)

A Wintery Sunshine Blogger Award

Yes, it's true.  I'm here with another Sunshine Blogger Award post!  This time, I was nominated by Astrya of Inkling Corner.  Thanks, Astrya!  I have such fun with these sorts of posts :-) 

Here are the Sunshine Blogger Rules:

1. Display the award’s official logo somewhere on your blog. 

2. Thank the person who nominated you. 

3. Provide a link to your nominator’s blog. 

4. Answer your nominator’s questions. 

5. Nominate up to 11 bloggers. 

6. Ask your nominees 11 questions. 

7. Notify your nominees by commenting on at least one of their blog posts.

And here are Astrya's questions!

1. What was the last book you read? 

Snowhawk by Deborah Koren, book two in her Dark Throne duology.  These books are high fantasy, meaning they take place in a fictional world (as opposed to low fantasy, which takes place in our world but with magical elements).  They're edge-of-your-seat, high-stakes adventures with ordinary people stepping up to save their kingdom from those within and without who are poised to destroy it.

You can read my review of Balefire here and my review of Snowhawk here.

(From my Instagram account)

2. What are you looking for in a ‘perfect’ movie adaption of a classic?  

The same thing I'm looking for in a good movie adaptation of a modern movie or play:  capturing the characters in a way that feels true to the characters in the book, and portraying the story in a way that makes sense for the medium.

It's no secret that I'm not a "purist" when it comes to movie adaptations ;-)  I even made this little button illustrating that fact years and years ago, and it remains in my blog's sidebar to remind people of this.  You cannot translate a work between two different mediums without changing things, because every medium -- be it print, radio, stage, or film -- has its own peculiar restraints, its own strengths and weaknesses.  A slavish reproduction in a new medium of a story created in a different medium will inevitably fail to work in some way or other.  And what is the point of creating an exact replica of a story in a different medium?  Bring something new to the story!  I have learned more about Hamlet from the 20+ stage and film versions I have seen than I would have from only reading the text itself (though I usually pick up a new nuance or detail when I reread it, too).

3. What’s your favourite season of the year and why? 

Winter!  I love snow.  And, yes, I know whereof I speak -- I lived in Iowa and Michigan as a kid (and in the Thumb of MI, where Lake Effect snow is magnificently mountainous), and in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Connecticut as an adult.  I've had to drive to work through snowstorms, I've had to shovel my driveway more than once in the same day, and I've had to help get my car out of a ditch.  Yet I still LOVE snow.

4. If you could go anywhere in the world for one week, where would you go? (This could also be a fictional place.) 

New Zealand so I could see all the Middle-earth filming locations and sets and so on.

5. If you could choose your own name, what would it be? 

Reid James.  I might use that as a non de plume at some point.

6. If you had to write a short story about anything, what would it be? 

I've written more than a hundred short stories over the past 30 years.  And I'll be writing another beginning in January.  If I want to write a short story about something, I do it, or I plan it out to write in the future.  

My next one will be about a fur trapper who's left a poke of gold by a deceased friend, but discovers the gold is being held in the safe of a greedy saloon owner who is unwilling to let go of it (or all the other semi-legally-gotten money in his safe).  It'll be part of an anthology of western short stories being put together by Allison Tebo.

Meanwhile, I do have ten short stories out in a collection called Prairie Tales: Volume One.  You can learn more about my books here.

7. What was the worst movie you watched this year and why? 

Probably Pan (2015).  I didn't care about any of the characters, a lot of the special effects were kind of kludgy, and even though I love Hugh Jackman very much indeed, he actually managed to annoy me in that movie.

8. British or American spelling? 

Well, I'm an American, so I tend to stick to American spellings, except for the word 'grey.'  I much prefer the British spelling, 'grey,' to the American spelling, 'gray.'  It simply looks more grey.

9. Desert or Forest? 

Forest.  I love forests, but I hate deserts.  Well, actually, I just hate both heat and dryness, but that means deserts are a huge NO from me.

10. What is your favourite piece of music (or two, or three, because I know how hard these questions are)? 

Well, I'm always partial to "Mack the Knife" when sung by Bobby Darin, I've been jamming to Harry Connick Jr.'s "We Three Kings" rendition on repeat this week, and I never get tired of the main theme from The Magnificent Seven written by Elmer Bernstein.

11. What was the last movie you watched?

Horizon: An American Saga, Chapter One (2024), which I rewatched this week while chatting online with my best friend while she watched it too.  I loved it when I watched it twice in the theaters this summer, I loved it again this week while watching the DVD at home, and I am ridiculously impatient for them to get a move on and release Chapter Two already!!!

Also, I've realized that my favorite character in the whole thing is Sgt. Major Thomas Riordan (Michael Rooker).  I thought he was my second-favorite, but this third viewing made me realize I really love him best.  (But I still have high hopes for Junior Sykes [Jon Beaver] to get a cool redemption arc of some kind.)

Now it's supposed to be time for some nominations.  However, I just tagged a whole lot of people with The Christmas Movie Tag, and this is a really busy time of year, so... I'm actually not going to tag anyone.  However!  I WILL provide eleven questions for anyone who wants to join the fun.  If you like my questions, you can consider yourself tagged, fill out the questions, link back to this post, etc.  If you do that, please leave me a comment here with a link to your post so I can see your answers!

My Questions:

1. Movies or books?

2. Singing or dancing?

3. Walking or swimming?

4. Cotton candy or popcorn?

5. Road trips or airplane rides?

6. Snow or rain?

7. Fantasy or sci-fi?

8. Ketchup or mayonnaise?

9. Elephants or polar bears?

10. December or July?

11. Hot dogs or hamburgers?

Play if you want to!

"One Bad Apple" Wins an Audiobook Award!

OH MY GOODNESS!!!  The audiobook version of my Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs retelling, One Bad Apple, just won the SOVA for "Outstanding Audiobook Narration -- Faith-Based or Metaphysical -- Best Voiceover."  I may swoon.

I am so grateful to God for bringing ONE Audiobooks into my author life, and for them being able to get Steve Corona to narrate both Dancing and Doughnuts and One Bad Apple. 

Not sure if I mentioned this on here before, but Steve and I went to college together, where he was in some amazing theatre productions (which I sometimes helped make sets for).  After college, he pursued acting and has been in some movies (including one of my top five favorites, The Lone Ranger [2013]).  I have long wished I could get audiobooks made just so Steve could read some of them -- and God made that happen, via ONE Audiobooks.  And now he has blessed our work together even more!

You can get my audiobooks basically everywhere that audiobooks are available, including from libraries via Hoopla and so on!

Guest Post for the Brave Authors Blog

I've written a guest post for the Brave Authors blog that's all about how and why historical fiction authors can and should include minorities in their books.

You can read that article right here!

I know most of my posts lately have been about my writing and not about movies and so on.  I've got some fun movie posts planned, I just need to make time to finish them!  Everything is busy for everyone this time of year, so I hope you all understand :-)

The Black Friday Book Sale!

From Black Friday through Cyber Monday, the Kindle editions of ALL of my full-length books will be only 99 cents each!

That means you could buy all six Once Upon a Western books, plus A Noble Companion, for less than $7.

And if you're looking for amazing deals on hundreds of other good books, you need to visit BlackFridayBookSale.com because Perry Elizabeth Kirkpatrick has once again assembled the most magnificent collection of clean books across genres, all of them 99 cents or less this weekend!  And, by 'magnificent,' I mean there are more than 700 books listed there.

I'll be shopping the sale myself this weekend.  It's such a fun way to try new authors or fill in gaps in a collection.  I'm not quite finished with all the e-books I bought via last year's sale, in fact!

"Prairie Tales" on Tour + Launch Goodies!

If you buy a copy of Prairie Tales, Volume One as a paperback or an ebook anytime before the end of August, 2024, you are eligible to get a packet of book launch goodies!  Those include:

• one bookmark featuring a closeup of the cover art depicting a woman reading
• one sticker that looks like a camping mug with Once Upon a Western facts on it
• one sticker depicting symbols from the five fairy tales retold as full books in the OUAW series

Want a set of those goodies?  Enter your info into this form by August 31, and you'll get them!  They are available worldwide.

Now, about that book tour!  The Prairie Tales book launch tour begins today, and here is a full schedule of events for the week, with links to the participating blogs and accounts, as applicable:

• August 5
  + tour info on Instagram (IG) from @cozy_woodland_cottage_knits,
  
  
  
• August 6
  + written interview on IG with @faithblumauthor,
  + book review on IG from @thepurplegiraffe reads,
  + book review on IG from @jillions_of_stories,
  + book review on IG from @onemorebook2read 
  + live reading of a new story from this book on my IG, @rachelkovacinyauthor, at 10pm EST
  
  
• August 7
  + live interview with @elisabethaimeebrown on IG at 1:30pm EST,
  + written interview on IG with @bethanywillcock_author,
  + book review on the blog Ink Castles,
  + book post on Facebook from Suey Nordberg,
  + book review on IG from @aliciaandherbooks
  
  
• August 8
  + live interview with @eldmountain on IG at 7:30pm EST (part 1)(part 2)
  + book post on IG from @books_with_cordy,
  + book review on IG from @thefilmdirectorswife
  
  
• August 9
  + written interview with Elisabeth Grace Foley on her blog,
  + a guest blog post about retellings at Old-Fashioned Book Love
  + book review on IG from @jennyabeereadsandwrites,
  + book review on IG from @knitty05

I have color-coded that a bit so you can see the different sorts of tour stops a bit more easily.  Please note that the times of the live events on the 6th, 7th, and 8th are all Eastern Time.

If you want to buy a signed copy of Prairie Tales (or any of my other books), you can always do that by filling out this form.  When you do, I'll email you to discuss your payment and shipping.

Advance reviews are coming in!  Check these out:

Cover Reveal and ARC Sign-Up for Prairie Tales: Volume One

Another cover reveal?  Yup.  This time, it's for the sixth book in my Once Upon a Western series!  Prairie Tales: Volume One is a collection of ten short stories that are all related to the first five books in the series, whether as sequels or prequels to those books.

Here's the official synopsis:

Discover ten re-imaginings of fairy tales, folk tales, and even a Mother Goose rhyme in this heartwarming collection. Journey across the plains of Nebraska and Kansas and explore the mountains of Wyoming and Colorado with characters from the "Once Upon a Western" series—or meet them for the first time! Encounter a mattress filled with apples, a runaway basket of gingerbread, a house that looks like a shoe, a disappointing Christmas tree, and a Halloween prank gone wrong. Each short story brings a classic tale to life, offering fresh adventures and cozy charm in the Old West.

The ten short stories included are:

• "None Too Particular" (The Princess and the Pea) 
• "Let Down Your Hair" (Rapunzel) 
• "I'll Do It Myself" (The Little Red Hen) 
• "No Match for a Good Story" (Scheherazade) 
• "Run, Run" (The Gingerbread Man) 
• "Who Lived in a Shoe" (There Was an Old Woman) 
• "The Ugly Evergreen" (The Ugly Duckling) 
• "The Wind Makes a Poor Husband" (The Mouse's Marriage) 
• "The Blizzard at Three Bears Lake" (Goldilocks and the Three Bears) 
• "Gruff" (Three Billy Goats Gruff)

And now, it's time to show you the whole cover!

I think this just might be the prettiest cover in the series yet!  And look how wonderfully it meshes with all the others:

If some of those short stories sound familiar to you, it's because five of them have been previously available on their own as free e-books, and two of them have been free Christmas gifts to people who subscribe to my author newsletter.  If you're keeping up with my math here, that means that three of these short stories are totally new and have never been available before!  And none of them have been available in print before this.

Prairie Tales: Volume One will release on August 6, 2024, which is in less than a month!  But if you don't want to wait that long to read it, you can apply for an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) by filling out this form.  I will give out a limited number of ARCs, and they will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, so if you want one, you'd better sign up soon!

The Kindle edition of Prairie Tales is available for pre-order right here already, and you can also mark it as want-to-read here on GoodReads.

I'll be offering some book launch goodies, and taking this book on a virtual book tour during its launch week, so keep an eye out for news about those!

Oh, and yes... the title includes the words "volume one."  I fully expect to keep writing books and short stories in this series, which means there will be another volume of Once Upon a Western short stories one day!  I currently have plans for the next three books, and ideas for a couple more short stories.

Fun Interview about Audiobooks

Want to read an interview where I talk about how my books are getting audiobook versions?  Author Donna Jo Stone and I had a nice chat about them recently, and you can read that right here on her blog.

As a matter of fact, the audiobook edition of Dancing and Doughnuts is finished!!!  You can currently get it from One Audiobooks and from Audiobooks.com, and it will be available from Amazon Audible and elsewhere soon.

Five Books? Surreal.

It's a little hard to believe I have five books out now.  Five!  One was amazing.  Two was terrific.  Three and four felt like really good progress.  But five books, out in the world, on people's shelves.  On my own shelves.  Somehow, five seems like a significant number.  Like I'm not just dabbling in publishing my books.  Like this is a real series now, not just a few books that I keep saying is a series.

(from my Instagram)

My launch tour for The Man on the Buckskin Horse is over.  I've updated the links in the tour post if you want to check out any you've missed.  It feels really fitting that this novella would be the number five book, the book that makes me really sit back and say, "Yup, this is a real series.  I'm an author with staying power."  Because this is the novella that launched my publishing career, when it was published in the Five Magic Spindles anthology in 2016.  It's like a homecoming of sorts, that I'm able to bring it into my series officially at last.  And in such a pretty illustrated edition!  I love it a lot.

That's probably enough rambling about this book.  I'll leave you with this cool book video that Deborah Koren made for me :-D

Book Tour for "The Man on the Buckskin Horse"

It's book tour time!  The illustrated edition of my Sleeping Beauty retelling, The Man on the Buckskin Horse, releases Tuesday!  Here is a link to it on Amazon, where you can get the paperback and Kindle editions.  (Well, the paperback drops on Tuesday, and you can pre-order the Kindle until then.)

I have put together a short online tour for this release, including several interviews, lots of book reviews, and some other types of stops as well.  For website and blog stops, I will update links as things go live.  

Note that the interviews on Monday and Friday are live events that you can join on Instagram and watch as they happen, and even ask questions during!  Those will be archived on Instagram as well, to watch any other time that works for you.

Here is the book tour itinerary:

Monday, April 29

Live interview with @books_with_cordy at 8pm EST on Instagram

Book review by @jillions_of_stories on Instagram

Tuesday, April 30 -- Release Day

Post by the book's illustrator, Skye Hoffert, on her blog Ink Castles

Book review by @thefilmdirectorswife on Instagram

Book review by @ive_seen_a_new_world on Instagram

Wednesday, May 1

Book review by Kilmeny on her blog VT Dorchester

Book review by @giltedgedpages on Instagram

Book review by @thepurplegiraffereads on Instagram

Thursday, May 2

Interview with Suey Nordberg on YouTube

Book review by @elisabethaimeebrown on Instagram

Friday, May 3

Live interview with @eldmountain at 7pm EST on Instagram

Book review by @aliciaandherbooks on Instagram

Don't forget that if you buy a copy of The Man on the Buckskin Horse by May 31, you are eligible to receive a pack of related goodies!  There's more info about that in this post.  

As always, you can order signed paperback copies of my books via this form.  I don't have paperbacks for Buckskin on hand yet, but I should have them soon, and will ship them out as soon as I have them.  All paperbacks ordered directly from me before May 31 will automatically receive the packet of goodies.

Goodies for "The Man on the Buckskin Horse"

When you buy the new illustrated edition of my Sleeping Beauty retelling The Man on the Buckskin Horse between now and May 31, you can receive a packet of related goodies!

All you have to do is buy a copy (paperback or ebook) before the end of May, and then fill out this form.  I will send you one bookmark, two stickers, and one art card of your choice!  All of those feature artwork by Skye Hoffert that are also in the book.

If you haven't read this novella yet, here's what it's about::

As the local midwife and sole medical professional in her Nebraska community, Miss Emma always wants to help. When she learns the Owens family's bitter enemy has hired a gunman to force them from their home, she rushes to the Owens homestead to warn them. But the gunman has arrived sooner than expected. Despite Miss Emma's efforts to protect her friends, her actions only worsen their plight. Now, Rosalind Owens battles a severe infection, and Miss Emma's medical skills aren’t enough to save her. 

Professional gunman Luke Palmer was hired to remove the Owenses from their land, but he now suspects the family has a legal right to stay. As fear and uncertainty grip the Owens family, Palmer offers his aid. Can they trust him, or is his offer a ploy to remove them from their land for good? Amidst these conflicts, Palmer faces his own internal struggle, torn between his wish to forget the past and the urgent need to save an innocent life.

You can pre-order the Kindle edition here right now, and the paperback will be released April 30!

As always, you can order signed paperback copies of my books via this form.  I don't have paperbacks for Buckskin on hand yet, but I should have them right around the release date.

Upcoming Book Releases

Yes, that title is plural for a reason!  I have several new releases and rereleases in the works for 2024, and it is long past time for me to be talking about them here.  Life has been kinda... extra... the last couple of months, and things like blogging have gotten shoved to the back burner a bit.  Part of that mayhem has been that I have a LOT of book projects I'm working on all at once, so let me give you a quick run-down on what is on the horizon for my books!

First off, I'm releasing my Sleeping Beauty retelling, The Man on the Buckskin Horse as an illustrated paperback on April 30!  It will also be available (with the illustrations!) for ebook -- you can pre-order the Kindle edition here already.  The illustrations are all by Skye Hoffert, whom I commissioned to do character art for My Rock and My Refuge.  It was such a joy to work with her again!

This is the novella that won the Rooglewood Press retelling contest and was included in their 2016 anthology Five Magic Spindles.  The publication rights have reverted back to me, and I am excited to be able to finally make this book an official part of my Once Upon a Western series!

Info about book launch goodies and so on will be coming after Easter, so be on the lookout for that.

Okay, that's announcement number one.  Here's the next one:

I will be releasing a collection of ten short stories this summer!  There will be two stories related to each book in my Once Upon a Western series, all either prequels or sequels to those books.  You've been able to read some of those stories before, but three will be brand-new, and several others have only been available to my author newsletter subscribers previously.

Speaking of which, if you haven't signed up for my author newsletter yet, you can do that right here.  It's a much faster way to find out about my book news than waiting for me to have time to post things on my blog ;-)

Okay, piece of news number three:

I have signed a deal with ONE Audiobooks to produce audiobook versions of my entire Once Upon a Western series, including the short stories that I'll be releasing this summer!  This is a dream come true, and I am really excited about this additional way for people to access my books.

(This is the same company that I wrote A Christian Reader's Guide to Jane Eyre for last year, which should be released sometime this spring.)

And now, my fourth and final announcement:

Last fall, I was invited to be part of a multi-author series called the Cornerstone Series which will be a set of sixteen novellas, each retelling a fairy tale, but focusing on a side character from the fairy tale.  So, imagine a Cinderella retelling that's about the fairy godmother, or a Snow White retelling that focuses on the huntsman, that kind of thing.  (Those are examples ONLY -- I don't know if any of the authors are writing anything like that.)  The series will be all non-magical fantasy novellas, which means there may be fairy tale creatures like unicorns or mermaids, or other fantasy elements, but there will be no magicians, witches, wizards, or sorcerers.  

My book, A Noble Companion, is an Ugly Duckling Retelling that focuses not on the ugly duckling himself, but on a childhood friend.  It is set in a fantasy version of Spanish California in the early 1800s where there are talking animals and a dragon.

I'll be revealing more about A Noble Companion in the coming months, and it will be released November 12.  You can already pre-order the ebook on Amazon if you want to.

Okay!  That's all my news!  Are you breathless?  I kind of am. That's a LOT to be working on in one year!!!  Drop a comment below and tell me which of these projects you're the most excited about :-D

Black Friday Indie Book Sale!

This weekend, the Kindle editions of all four of my novels are marked down to $0.99 for Black Friday, and will be through Cyber Monday!  They are usually $2.99-$3.99, so this means you could theoretically get all four of them for less than just one ebook copy of My Rock and My Refuge.

And not only that, but my books are part of the annual Black Friday Indie Book Sale hosted by author Perry Kirkpatrick, which includes more than 500 ebooks all priced under a $1.  Check out her website to browse the complete list of books that are included in this sale, and start reading some great books this weekend!

Here are direct links to each of my Kindle books that are on sale on Amazon, just to make life easier for you:

Cloaked

Dancing and Doughnuts

One Bad Apple

My Rock and My Refuge

Happy reading!  And, happy Thanksgiving!

Another surprise!

My Rock and My Refuge has won another award!  This time, it has been named the second place winner of the 2023 PenCraft Award for Literary Excellence in the Christian Historical Fiction category!

I am endlessly grateful to God for giving me the ability, tenacity, and opportunity to write books and share them with others. He has blessed my efforts so much. To God be the glory!

If you haven't read My Rock and My Refuge yet, but you love historical fiction, fairy tale retellings, Christian fiction, and/or very clean and gentle romance, I think you might like this book ;-)  It's a Beauty and the Beast retelling set in an 1870s Colorado silver mining town. If you have read it, please leave a review for it somewhere! Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, Northwestern Publishing House, wherever. Even just a star rating or a simple "I enjoyed this book" is always a plus!

Surprise!

What I'm about to announce in this post was a surprise to me, so I know it will be for you too!

My latest book, My Rock and My Refuge, has been selected as a 2023 Finalist in the WILLA Literary Awards Young Adult Fiction and Nonfiction category!

God is so good!  I have dreamed of someday winning this award for pretty much the entire ten years I have been writing western novels.  To even be a finalist (which is like a runner-up) is such an honor. I thank God for blessing my writing efforts and helping me become a better storyteller with every book and story I write. To God be the glory! 

The WILLA is awarded by the Women Writing the West organization to outstanding writing focused on women and girls in the North American West. If you would like to see the list of all of this year's winners and finalists, you can find that right here on the Women Writing the West website. My Rock and My Refuge has some amazing company on that list! 

If you haven't read this book of mine yet, and you're curious what other people think about it, you can check out its reviews on Goodreads.  You can also order a copy from Northwestern Publishing House, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble.

A New Author Interview

Fellow historical fiction author Patricia Meredith interviewed me on her YouTube channel today!  We had a lot of fun discussing everything from how I started writing fairy tale retellings, to whether I will keep writing westerns after I finish this series, to what authors and movies influence my writing, and beyond. 

You can watch that interview here:

Sweeping Away My Autumn To-Do List 2022

Today is the end of November, and tomorrow will officially feel like winter in my mind, even if it won't be very wintery outside where we live for another 6 to 8 weeks.  That means I'm ready to see how I did with the items on my Autumn To-Do List for the year.  Here we go!

(All photos are my own, mostly from my Instagram account)

~ Publish My Rock and My Refuge -- Check!  My retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" is out in the world, and you can buy it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million, Book Depository... or directly from me!

~ Finish my third Classics Club List -- Check!  You can see it right here.  I read fifty classic books for it in just over two years :-o

~ Start a new Classics Club List and read 2 books for it -- Check! My new list is right here, and I've read six books for it already!  They were:

• The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
• Prince of Thieves by Alexandre Dumas
• Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Among the Shadows by L. M. Montgomery
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
• The Christmas Hirelings by M. E. Braddon (review to come)

~ Read 12 books off my TBR shelves -- Check!  I read thirteen:

• Flight by Jan Burke
• The Convivial Homeschool by Mystie Winckler
• Crown and Cinder by Kendra E. Ardnek
• Song of the Valley by Britt Howard
• Prince of Thieves by Alexandre Dumas
• Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Among the Shadows by L. M. Montgomery
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
• The Vanderbeekers Make a Wish by Karina Yan Glaser
• Kidnapped by Jan Burke
• Gilead by Marilynn Robinson
• All is Calm; All is Bright by Colleen Coble (review to come)
• The Christmas Hirelings by M. E. Braddon (review to come)

~ Watch 3 movies off my TBW shelves -- Check!  I watched six:

• Marlowe (1969)
• Nightmare Alley (1947)
• Gold of the Seven Saints (1961)
• Kidnapped (1971)
• Dead Man's Folly (1986)
• The Mirror Crack'd (1980)

~ See Marlowe in the theater -- Fail, but only because its release has been pushed away to February.  Not my fault at all.  I WILL see it, if it's playing anywhere within an hour's drive.

~ See See How They Run in the theater -- Fail.  I blame publishing a book for eating up all my free time for most of this autumn.  I hope to get it from the library.

~ Watch Andor on Disney+ -- Semi-fail.  We only have 4 episodes left to watch, and I'm hoping to burn through them with Cowboy over the next couple weekends.  I am really, really digging the show, but he's kind of meh about it, so that's part of why we haven't finished it yet.

~ Host an Oktoberfest gathering -- Check!  We had some lovely friends over to enjoy good German food and lots of conversation and fun.

~ Go to Colonial Williamsburg for the brick firing -- Check!  We rented a beautiful 1700s house with my brother's family and stayed there with them and my mom for four nights, visiting Colonial Williamsburg and the Yorktown Battlefield, riding the ferry across the James River over and over, and generally having a jolly, yet restful time.

~ Make pumpkin cream cheese muffins -- Check!  I made them twice, in fact.

~ Host my TENTH annual Tolkien Blog Party! -- Check!  We had a wonderful time celebrating J. R. R. Tolkien and his wonderful writing.  Can't wait to do it again next year!

Onward and upward! Wintertime, here I come :-)