Born to Write?

 

https://bookswelove.net/martin-paula/ 

Born to Write?

Were you ‘born to write’ or did you make a conscious decision to become a writer?

A few years ago I read P.D. James’ top tips for writers. She died in 2014 aged 94 and is probably most famous for writing the Adam Dalgliesh mystery series.

Her first point was: You must be born to write.

She said: You can't teach someone to know how to use words effectively and beautifully. You can help people who can write to write more effectively and you can probably teach people a lot of little tips for writing a novel, but I don't think somebody who cannot write and does not care for words can ever be made into a writer. It just is not possible.

Nobody could make me into a musician. Somebody might be able to teach me how to play the piano reasonably well after a lot of effort, but they can't make a musician out of me and you cannot make a writer, I do feel that very profoundly.

This really intrigued me. Was I born to write? All I know is that I’ve written stories ever since I was about 8 or 9. Throughout my teens, I wrote cheesy romance stories one after the other. I also kept long diaries – I remember one (when I was 16 or 17) which ended up as a folder about 3 inches thick by the end of the year (oh, how I wish I had kept that diary!). I wrote lengthy letters to penfriends and, later, when I moved away from home, to several friends back home.

In that sense, I have always been a writer. I’ve always had a feel for words and phrasing, and the flow of sentences. It really is something I ‘feel’, rather than something I know.

That doesn’t mean my writing is as good as P.D. James’ writing, although during the past few years, I think I have learnt to write more effectively. Not necessarily following all the ‘rules’, but certainly making my writing ‘sharper’, using simple techniques like getting rid of speech tags and overused words, etc

One thing in P.D.James’ words struck a chord with me. Unintentional pun there, but as child I learnt to play the piano. I wasn’t good, I knew I wasn’t good, but I persevered and by my late teens I played adequately enough to accompany the hymn singing at my local church. However, I wasn’t a musician. I played from technique, and not the ‘feel’ of it. There is a world of difference between technique and that ‘feeling’.

I’ve read blogs and articles where some people have said they ‘decided’ to become a writer. That’s something I’ve never understood. Can you ‘decide’ to become an artist or a musician – or a writer? In my case, there was never a conscious decision. Writing is as integral a part of me as breathing!

What do you think? Can you ‘make a decision’ to become a writer, or are you born with something within you to create stories and write them?

Find me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paulamartinromances

Link to my Amazon author page:  author.to/PMamazon  

Staking a Gold Claim by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

 

    

 

https://www.bookswelove.com/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

https://www.audible.ca/pd/Romancing-the-Klondike-Yukon-Audiobook/B09Y62PLWV?ref=a_series_Ca_c10_lProduct_1_3&pf_rd_p=e54256e9-89bd-44c1-980b-adcad688db4e&pf_rd_r=Q9TGZH9B27KBHZP9Z7XY

         https://www.bookswelove.com/donaldson-yarmey-joan/                                               

       In the late 1930s my father, Oliver Donaldson, and his brothers, Gilbert and Albert, made their living by panning for gold on two gold claims on the Salmon River, now called the Salmo River, in southern British Columbia. In 1980, Dad, my Mom, my husband Mike, our five children, and I went on a holiday to the Salmo River and the site of the former claims. We found the bottom two rows of logs, all that was left of one of the cabins they had lived in and the second cabin, which was still standing, on the other side of the river.

       Under Dad’s direction we all panned the river. The children were quite excited at finding gold to take home. We toured the area seeing where Dad and his brothers had walked into town to sell their gold and buy some staples and where they had hunted for deer and picked apples to live on. After the trip, Mike and I vowed that someday we would return.

       In the spring of 1992, Mike, and I found ourselves preparing for a death and a wedding in our family. At the beginning of that year, Mike’s oldest sister Sallian had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and one of our sons and his fiancé had set a wedding date. For almost five months we visited Sallian, first at home and then in the hospital. I cannot describe the anger, sorrow, and frustration I felt as I watched what the disease was doing to her. She lost weight and the ability to look after herself. During her final month she was hardly more than a skeleton.

       For those same five months I experienced a mother’s delight and happiness as I helped with the marriage plans. I made the cake, watched my son pick out his tuxedo, found my dress, arranged for my hairdo, and planned a mixed shower of friends and family.

       Balancing my life while dealing with the opposing emotions was truly hard.

       Sallian died on May 25 at age 54. On June 27 over 300 people attended my son's wedding and partied well into the night.

       Like most people it took the death of someone close to me to make me realize how important really living is. I knew Mike and I had to do something adventurous with our lives, something out of the ordinary.

       That summer of 1992 we decided to leave life as we knew it and get a gold claim. Mike found books on gold panning and spent many hours talking from my Dad. He bought new rectangle-shaped, plastic gold pans, vials, and snuffer bottles. I phoned the Minerals Branch of the B.C. government and they sent us a map showing the separate gold claim regions of southern B.C. We set our sights on the Salmo River area.

      For our home we found a used twenty-four foot holiday trailer that had a floor plan we liked. Coincidentally, the people we bought it from had two gold claims in the Yukon. We sold our house, quit our jobs and on September 1, we began our journey west. Mike was pulling the holiday trailer with our half-ton truck, which had our all-terrain vehicle in the back. I was in our smaller four-wheel drive pulling a utility trailer with our prospecting equipment and other paraphernalia we thought we might need.

       It took two days of slow travel to reach the Selkirk Motel and Campsite on the side of the highway at Erie, about three kilometres west of the town of Salmo. We set up camp, hooking up to the water and power. We had until freeze-up to find a claim.

       Next morning we were up early and off to the Gold Commissioner’s Office in Nelson. There were no changes in the maps we had been sent. Since there was no need for both of us to get a Gold Miner’s Certificate, Mike bought one, two red metal tags, and a topographical map, and was given his recording form. We were hopeful as we headed to the Salmo River.

       Although the open spots we were looking for were on a different section of the river from my fathers, we didn’t mind. Getting a claim on the Salmo was what mattered. As we neared one location we slowed down and began watching the bush for a post with a tag on it that would show the boundary of the neighbouring claim. When we found it we checked the number on the tag with the number on the map and it matched. We went down the steep bank, holding onto small trees and bushes to keep from sliding. Mike ran a few pans from the downstream side of a large rock, one of the places Dad had told us that gold collects. Others were on the inside of curve on rivers and in the roots of trees beside the water. However, at this part of the river there wasn’t any gold to be found.

       We drove to another site further downstream. The bank was a sheer drop to the river. Discouraged, we returned to the campsite.

       The next day we went to find Dad’s former claim. We drove down to the border crossing at Nelway and turned right just before the Custom’s office. We travelled beside ranches and alongside the Pend D’Oreille River. After we crossed the bridge over the mouth of the Salmo River we turned right onto a narrow, gravel road. It was steep in places and there were many sharp curves just as we remembered. We drove over Wallach Creek but after that we couldn’t find anything else that looked familiar. It had only been twelve years since we had been there. When we went in 1980, it had been forty years since Dad had lived there, but he found it. Our memories were not quite as good as his.

       With a growing sense of urgency we spent days checking Rest Creek, Erie River, Limpid Creek and many others with little success.

       The Salmo River kept calling us and we returned to the bridge and mouth of the river. Mike tried for gold. No luck. We drove along the south side of the river where we found the second cabin Dad had shown us. There was a truck and camper in the yard. We stopped to talk to the man there and learned that four people, three men and a woman, now had my Dad’s and my uncle’s claims. He told us they were the two best claims on the river.

       I explained where the cabin had been on the north side and he told us how to reach it. This time we found the trail to the river and came upon the remains of the log cabin. Just past it we stood on the bluff looking down on the river as we had done twelve years earlier with my parents and our children. The memories came flooding back: the walk to the river with each child carrying a pie plate to use as a gold pan, finding gold only to discover that we had nothing to put it in, one daughter coming up with the idea of sticking it to bandages, camping near the river.

       But we didn’t have time to linger. We were working against the weather. Mike went over our maps of the Salmo River again and this time noticed that there is a small portion on the curve of the river that was open near the old cabin. Because the claims on either side formed rectangles it was missed by both of them. We found the posts of those claims then hurried to Nelson to confirm that the piece was available. It was.

       There wasn’t time to stake it that night so we had to wait until morning. We rose early, went out to the river and put one of Mike’s red tags on the post of the claim to the east of ours. Mike took a compass and orange flagging and we began to mark off the distance, tying the flagging to trees as we went. At the end of five hundred yards Mike cut a tree, leaving a stump about three feet high. He squared off the top and I nailed up our final tag with the information scratched by knife point onto it. The claim was five hundred yards by five hundred yards and was called the Donaldson.

       We hurried back to Nelson and handed in the recording form. We were ecstatic. Not only had we located an area on the same river as my father, but we actually had part of his old claim. We went to the river and found a clearing for us to set up camp when we came back the next spring. Mike took his gold pan and headed down to the water’s edge.

       I followed and sat on a large rock. As I watched the water flow sedately by, a deep sense of relaxation settled over me, the first I had felt since the beginning of the year. It helped me begin to deal with the fact that I had witnessed Death at work.

       Sallian was the first one in either of our immediate families to die. I had seen the tragedy of death strike my friends but didn’t understand how devastating it could be until it happened to me.

       We spent the winter in our holiday trailer in a campground in Vancouver and returned to the claim in the spring. Our campsite was in the middle of tall pine, birch, spruce, and cedar and I could just barely see the mountain tops to the south. The mountains to the north were higher and made a lovely backdrop to the trees. Each morning I walked through the bush to the river. I sat on a large triangle-shaped rock and watched the water drift by. A partridge sometimes drummed in the distance. Birds sang in the trees. I would take a deep breath of the cool, fresh air. It was a good place to be.

       We panned for gold, explored the area, and generally enjoyed our freedom but soon our adventure was over and in the fall we returned to the real world. We never did find much gold but then, for me, it really wasn’t about the gold.

       My mystery/romance novel, Gold Fever, is loosely based on my gold claim experience.

The Magic of a Horse by Victoria Chatham

 

AVAILABLE HERE

Most people have an interest or hobby about which they are passionate. It could be gardening, golf, quilting or fishing. For me, it is horses. My parents, as non-horsey people, never understood where my passion for all things equine stemmed, but I lay this lifelong love of horses squarely on my father’s shoulders.

After surgery that had nothing to do with war wounds at the end of WWII, my father faced a lengthy recovery period. His occupational therapy of choice was making soft toys for his then unseen baby daughter. He arrived home when I was two years old. I promptly howled at him but was quickly pacified by the beautifully made animals he brought with him—a pink rabbit, an elephant, two dogs, one white and the other black, and a blue felt horse with an arched neck and flowing mane and tail. ‘Horsey’ became my instant love and constant companion.

In the post-war era, we still had door-to-door deliveries, and I quickly learned the sound and names of the vendors’ horses and ponies. At six and seven years old, spending long summer holidays in Cornwall, I knew and rode every one of the beach ponies. At eight years old, I had my first formal riding lesson. At nine and ten, I spent the summer holidays with my grandmother and two cousins who were as horse-mad as me. It wasn’t long before we found riding stables where we worked all summer for our rides. We handled the most bloody-minded ponies imaginable, unaware at the time of the valuable lessons they taught us. When I was thirteen, we moved to an urban area with not a horse in sight, but I read about horses, drew horses, and hand-crafted horses from pipe-cleaners and wool.

 When I was sixteen and contemplating a career, my parents refused to let me leave home and take up the prized working-pupil position I so coveted, which would have earned me a horse riding instructor’s certificate. At eighteen, I left home anyway and worked in hunting stable until marriage and family ended that career. When my daughter, now a teenager, became interested in riding, we haunted our local riding stables. Most evenings after riding, we would go to the local pub, The Ragged Cot. It was here one evening that, after some quick calculations on a napkin, she announced, “You know, Mum, with what we spend at the stables, we could have a horse of our own.”

 My old dream of having a horse resurfaced. If we did this together, then having a horse became financially viable. Between us, we agreed on our criteria. Our horse would have to be of medium height and hardy as, having no stable, it would have to live out. It had to be good in traffic as we had the prospect of a lot of road riding before we got to bridle paths and other off-road tracks. Sex, age, and colour were optional. Versatility for combining our equestrian ambitions was essential. We started scouring the classifieds and travelled all over our county and two neighbouring ones, only to become quickly disillusioned with the vagaries of advertising.

 A horse described as ‘onward bound’ had no brakes. A mare described as a ‘good jumper’ proved it by jumping out of the paddock where we put her several times. After four days of a two-week trial and seeing the probability of numerous looming liabilities, we returned her to her owner. As summer came to a close and we had not found our dream horse, we decided to end our search for that year. Then, in the last week of September, I opened the local paper and was immediately drawn to an advert that read: ‘15hh chestnut gelding for sale. Six-hundred pounds including tack.’

 Right size, great price and, I thought, too good to be true. I put the paper aside but picked up the phone two days later. The young woman who answered sounded breathless, as if she’d been running, and said, “Oh, I’m so glad you called!” Did we know each other? But no, Diana was simply anxious to sell her horse as her wedding to a non-horse person was only weeks away.

“Could you tell me a bit about your horse?” I asked.

“Well,” she began, “his name is Paunt House Royal Lancer, and he’s a full-bred Arab and—”

I stopped her there. I didn’t want a full-bred anything, especially something as exotic as an Arab horse.

“But you must at least come and meet him,” she exclaimed. “He’s a lovely person.”

Now, the concept of a horse being a ‘lovely person’ was a bit beyond me, but I got swept up in her enthusiasm and arranged to meet her and her horse the following Sunday. She said to look for a white-walled house with a red-tiled roof beside a bus stop. We had no trouble following her directions. Paddocks and neatly kept flowerbeds surrounded the house. As my daughter and I walked up the garden path, the front door opened, and Diana greeted us like old friends.

“You’re perfect,” she said as she looked us over. “Lancer is going to love you. This way.”

We followed her around the back of the house, slightly bemused by her certainty that we would be Lancer’s new owners. We stopped at the paddock gate, immediately entranced with the sight before us. Beauty, it is said, is in the eye of the beholder, but here beauty stood almost knee-deep in lush green grass. 

Here was a horse whose coat glowed as brightly as the crust of a loaf of bread fresh from the oven. The graceful curve of his neck and head, the crescent-shaped tips of his ears and the flaring, questing nostrils declared him a true Arab horse, the fabled drinker of the wind. Behind the fringe of his thick forelock, we could see one full, round eye, gleaming with interest, intelligence, and unmistakable kindness.

We stood silent and stunned as he came toward us. His legs parted the grass soundlessly, making him appear to glide rather than walk. His warm and moist, sweet-smelling breath washed over us as he gently nuzzled us in turn. We drank in his greeting and called him ours.

We had so much fun with him for the following four years.We jumped him, sometimes successfully, I rode him in dressage classes and showed him in-hand. He became a much-loved part of the family and was as happy on our back-lawn as he was in his paddock. But then our lives changed and we had to find him a new home, as had Diana. For a while we kept in touch with his new mom, but even though that connection finally faded, the magic of a horse called Lancer never did.

Victoria Chatham

  AT BOOKS WE LOVE

 ON FACEBOOK

 MY WEBSITE

NB: Images from the author's collection.

 

A mystery writer's mind is like a __________ (fill in the blank)

 

Please allow me to back up for a moment and explain the genesis of the blog's title. I was walking through the kitchen and saw a partially covered newspaper headline: "Woman eats Roommate". While most normal people would be horrified and quickly uncover, or cover, the article, my mind wandered. "Hmm, how would I handle that in a mystery? Would it work best in the Pine County or the Doug Fletcher series?"

My second child, Heather, who hasn't read any of my books, says the inside of my head is a scary place she doesn't want to explore.

What can I say? My mind runs to mystery plots when I see something intriguing. To address the "Woman eats Roommate" headline, the entire title was "Woman eats Roommate's Groceries." It was a Dear Abby headline, and totally uninteresting when compared to the plots that were raging through my head.

To be frank, yes, mundane events and stories send me off on mystery tangents. A retired Lutheran minister asked how many books I had in print. When I replied 25, he asked how many full-time writers I employ to do the writing for me, and what part I played in crafting the books. Laughing, I explained that my staff was tiny and part-time, paid only in signed copies of the latest book. The writing, outlines, plots, characters, and the typos, were all my own. He was amazed that I was consistently writing four books a year.

Writing is a solitary endeavor. I spend a few hours a day behind my laptop, with the characters speaking to me, and little other interaction with the outside world...unless a curious headline, conversation, email, or newspaper story captures my attention.

The latest Pine County mystery, Fatal Business, is an example of my wandering mind. My cop and horse consultant may have suggested the premise of a deer hunter failing to return to his camp at sunset. After that idea "pinballed" around my brain for a few days. I studied maps, researched gunshot wounds, tapped into my biology and medical education and experience, then crafted an outline involving a small-town businessman who disappears, later to be found, dead. Was he a murder victim? Or did he die in a tragic hunting accident?

Read Fatal Business to find out.

Hovey, Dean - BWL Publishing Inc. (bookswelove.net)

www.amazon.com/Fatal-Business-Pine-County-Book-ebook/dp/B0B365MLXQ

Fatal Business | Universal Book Links Help You Find Books at Your Favorite Store! (books2read.com)

Revising and Rounding Out my New Brunswick Brides Book, by Diane Scott Lewis

 

To purchase, On a Stormy Primeval Shore: Click

Four years after the first publication, my Canadian Brides book is undergoing revision, and now released in Audio. I need to purchase this format and listen to how my story is expressed.

When a professional reviewer mentioned the bad guys were one dimensional, after praising the rest of the novel, I knew what needed to be done.

I'd go through it and add dimension to all the side characters, especially the villains.

It was actually an enjoyable process. What drove this or that person to behave the way they did? What makes a person turn to crime instead of traveling the straight and narrow? A cruel childhood, an abusive parent, nothing but failure or loss in their later life?

Of course, a character can experience all of this and still turn out fine. But others turn bitter.

My main villain needed several life changing experiences, and a turn to alcohol, which intensifies his feelings of persecution and need for revenge.

I gave other characters a boost to show their hopes, wishes, and a glimpse of their backgrounds and motivations.

Woven into this is the history of the province of New Brunswick. A wild land my heroine, Amelia, travels to in the late eighteenth century to marry a man picked out by her father; but she finds love with someone else. A most inappropriate man.

Gilbert is French Acadian, scorned by the 'entitled' British. The Acadians were slaughtered and burned out when England took over the colony. Or deported elsewhere.

The Deportation of the Acadians by Henri Beau

Will Gilbert remain bitter, or assimilate with the changes? His love for Amelia will cause problems all around.

The Canadian Historical Brides is a wonderful series, showing the history, the romance, the struggles, of all the provinces at different times. The divergent people who settled in Canada. 

All great reads. Find them HERE.

Diane lives in Western Pennsylvania with her husband and one naughty dachshund.

To find out more about her and her books:  DianeScottLewis

Vegetable Gardening: Fresh Vegetables from Our Garden to Our Dinner Table: Zucchini Cake Recipe #vegetablegardening #zucchini #gardening

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard by JQ Rose

Rescuing a naked woman lying in a geranium bed? Investigating mysterious murders? These are not the usual calls in a Florida retirement community for volunteer first responder Jim Hart.

Click here to discover more books by JQ Rose 

on her BWL Publishing author page.  

You just need a garden and a library!

 What a special time of year for people who love fresh veggies. July and August are the prime months for harvesting vegetables from our garden. This is the time of the year when we get paid back for all that hard labor in planting and nurturing those lovely plants. 

We are reaping the rewards now.

Not only does gardening provide rewards of fresh, healthy food, but the labor also is more satisfying than going to a stinky dark gym to exercise. Planting, digging and weeding the plot is one of the best ways to keep a happy, strong heart.

Warning!! It's zucchini time. Zucchini is a prolific plant. Once it gets growing, the harvesting goes on and on and on. You'll need several recipes to have some diversity in your diet.
I'll share a zucchini cake recipe at the end of the article.

Green tomatoes. Fingers crossed we'll have a long enough season for the tomatoes to ripen.
We had a late spring. The weather was so cold and rainy, Gardener Ted thought he would never get any crops from our garden. Unfortunately, many seeds rotted in the cold ground and had to be replanted. The good news is the sun finally came out and warmed up the ground so the beans are flowering and looking healthy today! We may pick a handful by the end of the week.

I picked my first green pepper this week. I love, love, love green peppers. You too?

The potato plants are blooming. They show promise of producing tasty spuds.

Lettuce on the left. Romaine and Magenta. We have had to give lots of lettuce away to friends and family and to the local food pantry. What a rewarding experience when people smile when we hand them the fresh lettuce. Nothing like it.
I've made two batches of slaw from crisp heads of cabbage. Nothing like the sound of the crack of a head of cabbage when you split it with a sharp knife. I cut the head in halves or quarters, cut out the core, then soak it in salt water for about 15 minutes.
The salt kills any insects hiding within the layers of leaves.

I know, the black-eyed Susans are not veggies, but oh so pretty.

In my scary story, Terror on Sunshine Boulevard, the main characters are Gloria and Jim Hart from Michigan. They spend winters in a retirement community in Florida. Jim is a year-round gardener with a garden Up North and one in Florida. He grows waaaaay too many vegetables so they give them away to friends and family. Gloria is always searching for delicious ways to cook vegetables so she has a choice of dishes for their dinner table. 

Hmmm...these characters are suspiciously similar to the author and her husband. LOL...Yes, I based them on my life, but Jim and Gloria are a bit more fun and quirkier than we are!

Zucchini
Image by congerdesign from Pixabay 

Since I can't pass a zucchini through the Internet to you, I will share a great recipe with you for Zucchini cake. 

ZUCCHINI CAKE

3 c. flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Sift together these dry ingredients into a bowl and set aside. (I don't use a sifter.)

3 c. sugar 

11/2 c. vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla

4 eggs

3 c. shredded zucchini

1 c. chopped nuts

Beat together sugar, oil, vanilla, eggs and zucchini

Mix all ingredients together. Fold in nuts.

Spray 9 x 13-inch pan with oil--do you flour your pans?

Bake at 350 degrees C  for 1 hour

Cool in pan, then sprinkle with powdered sugar or frost with cream cheese icing

Mmmmm. Good.

TIP: Use 3/4 c. applesauce and 3/4 c. oil instead of 1 1/2 c. oil to reduce fat

So I leave you with this delicious recipe. 

I hope you and your family and friends enjoy the cake.

Our Michigan garden

****

Thank you for your support of my novels and memoir over the years and for your support of BWL Publishing.

Click the links below to stay connected with JQ Rose. Thank you.

Author JQ Rose and Gardener Ted

JQ Rose's Focused on Story Blog

JQ Rose, Author Facebook Page 

Dig Deeper by Helen Henderson

Windmaster Legacy by Helen Henderson
Click the cover for purchase information

A question I have been wrestling with lately is how to make a character real. Reference books on characterization offer various tips, then it is in the author's hands. I remember reading the western novels by one of my father's favorite authors. After a while I realized the author had fallen into a rut. Each lead male character had the identical physical description down to hair color.

A novel notebook or series bible helps me keep the characters straight from book to book and within a series. Although cover images are not always selected until the work is completed, a practical reason to reuse the same hair color is the availability of cover models. You don't want to write a character with an unusual hair color, then find out that there is no suitable cover shot. Editing an entire novel to just change hair color wastes time and increases the possibilities of error. And that doesn't even include the possibility of a character getting mad at me as their creator and refusing to cooperate in telling the story.

My favorite part of a character is their backstory. The character's past and how their experiences, culture, and family all blend together to not only form the individual's personality, but also how they will react to a given circumstance. What can be a challenge is not putting everything I know about a character into a story. To create mystery while allowing the reader to use their imagination in a blending of the writer's and the reader's vision, details need to be sprinkled like a fine spice rather than giving the reader an encyclopedia.

A child who grew up during the Great Depression might handle money differently than one who knew only an abundance of opportunity. One might reuse items until they are no longer functional and put money away for lean times. The other who never knew hard times or went without, might never have two cents in their pocket because they spend everything they have and trust there will always be more.

A lot of considerations went into creating the archmage, Lord Dal. A chieftain's son, magic cost him the possibility of leading his clan. Yet he retained knowledge obtained during his formative years. A talented horseman and skilled swordsman helped him obtain a position in a mercenary unit, but a natural ability to lead helped him rise through the ranks. These same skills aided him after his powers asserted themselves and he eventually became archmage, head of the School of Mages, and responsible for all those with powers. In response to the totality of his experiences and background, duty, honor and loyalty were ingrained into his personality.

       Part of a character is his friends. In the case of Lord Dal,
a long-time friend is the head stallion of the falaire herd, Tairneach.

While not all characters receive a detailed physical description, follows is Lord Dal's. In Windmaster Legacy, he is in his early thirties. Even though men from the M’twan Mountains run to long in the leg, Dal is a full head taller than many of his kin. The scars on his forearms from practice blades and actual battles tell of his experiences as a mercenary.

Dal's black hair is short on sides and falls to just below shoulder in back. Besides his muscular frame which hints at his true strength, one of the first things many people notice about him are his light brown eyes that tend to sparkle with an internal amusement.

I hope you've enjoyed this deeper dig into Lord Dal.

To purchase the Windmaster Novels: BWL

~Until next month, stay safe and read.  

Find out more about me and my novels at Journey to Worlds of Imagination.
Follow me online at Facebook, Goodreads or Twitter. 

Helen Henderson lives in western Tennessee with her husband. While she doesn’t have any pets in residence at the moment, she often visits a husky who have adopted her as one the pack.

Kayla's Cowboy, another Longview Romance by Nancy M Bell

 

To find out more about Nancy's books click on the cover above.

For any of you familiar with my Longview Romance series, you'll recall that Rob Chetwynd and Michelle Wilson were engaged. Or at least that's the impression Michelle had, not to mention all of Longview. So it was a shock when Rob came back from the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas married to someone else.  And that someone else was a dressage rider, not someone familiar with rodeo. Kayla Dunbarton had no idea of the hornet's nest she was going to encounter when she accompanied her new husband home to Longview, Alberta. 

Kayla's Cowboy tells the tale of how this wedding came to be and the events leading up to the nuptials. Not to mention the fall out afterwards.

Here's a short excerpt to tempt you. Kayla's first meeting with Rob which doesn't go so well:

She’d just finished taking the bridle apart and was dropping the bridoon bit and the curb into a pail of warm water when the curtained stall door opened a bit.

“Anybody here?” A male voice asked.

“Get out of there, Chetwynd,” another voice cautioned.

What the hell? Kayla pulled the door all the way open and fisted her hands on her hips. “What do you want?” she demanded. “Who the hell are you?”

“Aw, c’mon now, pretty lady. I was just wantin’ to say hello and admire your horse.” The tall cowboy pushed his hat back on his head and grinned down at her. His gaze swept her up and down, lingering on the swell of her breast below the gapping neck of her old sweatshirt.

“I asked what your name was,” she repeated. “And I don’t appreciate you just inviting yourself into my tack room. There was something interesting about the man, his jeans snugged against his lean hips, broad shoulders filling out his western shirt. There was some kind of advertising emblazoned all over the red shirt but she couldn’t make it all out. The cowboy just continued to grin at her in appreciation.

“I’m sorry, m’am. I’m Cody, Cody Butters and I apologize for my partner here, he’s a little short on manners.” The second man elbowed in front of his friend.

“Hell fire, man. She should know who I am,” the first man said belligerently.

Kayla’s temper flared and she glared over Cody’s shoulder at the cowboy. “I haven’t a clue who you are, and I could care less. Why don’t you go back under the rock you crawled out of?”

“He don’t mean no harm, m’am. He’s just a mite uncivilized, is all,” Cody intervened. This idiot, is Rob Chetwynd, the reigning Bull Riding Champion.”

“At your service,” Rob swept his hat off and made a deep bow.

Kayla sighed in exasperation. “What do you want? I have things to do.”

“Just wanted to say hello and say how much we enjoyed your riding,” Cody said with a meaningful glance at his friend.

“Actually, I wanted to see if your little behind was as cute out of the arena as in it,” Rob said, lifting one eyebrow.

“That’s enough.” Kayla grabbed a stable broom from the corner of the stall and smacked him with it. “Get out! Get out now, before I call security.”

“Now, now, there ain’t no call to do that.” Cody grabbed his friend by the back of his belt and started to drag him out of the stall.

“What’s going on here?” Anna demanded, coming to a halt with Wellington in tow.

“These two yahoos invited themselves into our tack room and made themselves very unwelcome,” Kayla told her, still brandishing the broom.

Cody turned and let go of Rob’s belt as Anna came up. “Man, that’s a nice piece of horse flesh,” he said, eyes running over the 17.3 hand gelding in appreciation.

“Yes, he is, and I’d thank you to not touch him and take your…companion…and leave.” Kayla glared at the two men. “Now.”

“Sorry, yeah. I gotta apologize for my friend here. He’s maybe had a bit too much celebratin’, if you catch my drift,” Cody said.

“That’s not excuse for being an ass,” Kayla shot back.

“Yes, m’am.” Cody ran his eyes over Wellington again, stopping when Anna stepped out from behind the big horse into his line of vision. Interest flashed across his face before he dragged Rob away.

“What was all that about?” Anna asked, her gaze on the red headed cowboy. “What did he say his name was?”

“Which one?” Kayla stripped the cooler off Wellington and picked up a brush from the tack box just inside the tack room door.

“The red headed one, not the other one,” Anna said folding the cooler up.

“I don’t know…Cam, Cale, Cody…maybe…why?” She glanced up from her work. “You can’t seriously be interested, can you?”

“Maybe,” Anna dragged the word out. “He seemed nice, I mean, nicer than his friend. And he sure filled out those jeans…” She winked at Kayla.

“Oh, you,” Kayla snorted. “You’d date the devil himself if he had a nice ass.”

Anna grinned. “Probably,” she agreed, chuckling.