What's Next?

I'm often asked the question, "What's coming next?" and right behind it is, "When and where can I buy it?"

So with that in mind...here's what's on the list for the next few months. All ready to pre-order so it will be right there in your hands on the day it comes out!

July 14 (ONLY Six weeks from now), The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop will be on the market. How would you feel if your mother asked the whole group of Prayer Angels to pray that God would send you a husband? And then the head of the prayer committee took it upon herself to put up a brand new post on the sign outside the church: PLEASE PRAY FOR MY DAUGHTER. SHE NEEDS A HUSBAND.

A short excerpt: Stella was not a bit happy with her mother! A tiny excerpt from the beginning of the book... If Nancy Baxter had known that she was turning loose a major shit storm, she would have never put Stella’s name on the prayer list down at the church in Cadillac, Texas. But she didn’t have the benefit of hindsight that hot southern night and she really did want Stella to get married. So when Heather, the president of the Prayer Angels asked if anyone wanted to add a name to the list she spoke right up and said, “Pray for my daughter. She needs a husband.”

The angels took their spirituality seriously so the praying began in earnest and before they were done God had been petitioned by a dozen women to send a husband to Cadillac and to ear mark him special for Stella Baxter. No one dared to ask why she needed a husband but they did have their ideas which turned into juicy gossip by the next morning.


December 15: The Wedding Pearls will be on the market. No cover yet but it's coming and when it arrives, it will debut right here so keep a watch out for it. How would you feel if suddenly your birth mother and grandmother sent a lawyer to ask you to go on a month long road trip with them? And then the stories started coming out about just who that birth mother was and how that your adopted mother had been friends with her?

An excerpt: Sophie laughed. “Oh, hush. I’m glad you are who you are. So you have a tutu mama and a tattoo mama.”

“I have one mama. Lola and I are probably going to be friends but you are my mother,” she said.

“Thank you,” Sophie said. “I hope you are friends?”

Tessa winked at the little girl and she smiled shyly then turned her head away. “Lola is like a bird with a broken wing and she needs me to be her friend but she’s satisfied with that in our relationship, I can feel it. She knits pink caps for newborns and hums lullabies.”

The silence was so long that Tessa held out the phone to be sure she hadn’t lost service. “Mama?” she said.

“I’m sorry. Poor Lola. You said it right, Tessa. She really was like a little bird that had fallen out of the nest too early. Wasn’t sure how to fly or how to stay away from the predators. Bless her heart,” Sophie said softly.

The little girl waved as she and her family pulled their suitcases to the elevators. Tessa wiggled her fingers at the child.

“Lola is going to teach me how to knit,” she told her mother.

“Good luck with that,” Sophie laughed.

“I know. It’s probably an impossible situation,” Tessa laughed.

“Oh, not that it has anything to do with your condition,” Sophie said quickly. She never used the words clumsy or awkward, not once in Tessa’s lifetime. It was always her condition. “I tried to knit when you was a baby. I wanted to make you a special blanket. That thread crawled up my arms and tried to strangle me to death.”

It was Tessa’s turn to sit in stunned silence.

“Tessa Ruth, are you still there?” Sophie asked.

Tessa gasped. “I thought you had a Super Woman cape in your closet. I didn’t think there was anything you couldn’t do.”

“Sorry, darlin’. But there are no capes hiding anywhere in this house. I can dance but I cannot knit, crochet or do any of those things that require finger dexterity. I got all my talent in my feet along with a healthy supply of rhythm and balance. If you learn to knit, I want a scarf for Christmas. Purple will be fine.”

 

Dec. 22: Wild Cowboy Ways will be ready to put into your Christmas stocking so that after the holidays you can sit back and relax with Blake at the Lucky Penny Ranch in Dry Creek, Texas. Blake, his brother, Toby and their cousin, Jud, pooled their resources and bought the Lucky Penny in the middle of the winter. Blake moved right onto the ramshackle ranch. Toby would arrive in the summer and Jud sometime around Thanksgiving. Their goal was to have the ranch showing a profit in five years but they didn't plan on the Logan ladies over across the barbed wire fence at Audrey's Place affecting that plan.

 

An excerpt: Had she gone by foot, Allie would have walked a few hundred yards, crawled over or under a broken-down barbed wire fence and gone another hundred yards to the old house. That’s most likely the way that Granny had gone and it took less than ten minutes to get there. Allie came to a screeching halt outside the house and with a carpenter’s eye saw how much more dilapidated it had gotten since she was last on the ranch.

How long had it been? At least eight years because she’d been divorced more than seven and the last time she’d been there was back when she and Riley, like all the other kids in that day and age, parked there to make out.

A big yellow dog met her halfway across the yard. His head was down and his tail wagging, which meant he wasn’t going to take a chunk out of her butt. But the sight of him did slow her down.

She held out a hand. “Hey, feller, what’s your name?”

The dog nosed her hand in a friendly gesture so she rubbed his ears. “You got my granny in that house, or is she hiding in one of the barns this time?”

The first big raindrop hit her on the cheek and rolled down her neck. It was as cold as ice water and more quickly followed before she made it to the porch. Shivers chased down her spine as the water hit her bra and kept moving to the waistband of her underpants.

She knocked on the door and waited.

“Walter, don’t open that door,” her granny called out loud and clear.

“Are you Walter?” she asked the dog, who’d followed her to the porch, just as the front door swung open.

“No, he’s Shooter. Are you Katy?”

Allie looked up into the greenest eyes she’d ever seen rimmed by dark lashes. Her gaze traveled to his wide shoulders, the Henley shirt stretched over bulging abs and the big belt buckle with a bull rider on it. She had to force herself to look back up, only to find him smiling, his arms now crossed over his chest.

Lord, have mercy! Crazy cowboys who bought a bad luck ranch were definitely not supposed to be that sexy.

 

March 1, 2016: Don't take your boots off because the third book in the Burnt Boot series is also on the way. One Cowboy Too Many is Leah Brennan and Rhett O'Donnell's story. Rhett is a rebel cowboy who rides into Burnt Boot on a motorcycle with steer horns mounted to the front. The feud has not been put to rest and Leah's grandmother forbids her to see Rhett.

 

Again the cover isn't here but I can give you a little excerpt: The rumbling noise of a motorcycle took Leah Brennan’s attention away from the produce in the Burnt Boot General Store. She pushed her cart up a few feet so she could see out the front window, expecting to see leather, chains and a shiny black biker’s helmets on maybe half a dozen cycles after all that noise. It had sounded like dozens of Hell’s Angels had come to town so she was surprised when only one person removed his helmet, hung it on steer horns mounted on the front of the cycle. And she was even more surprised when a cowboy dismounted instead of a biker.

It was impolite to stare but Leah couldn’t tear her eyes away from the newcomer especially when Sawyer O’Donnell shot out from behind the check out counter and rushed outside. Horses and four-wheelers on the streets of the little town wasn’t unusual but motor cycles was an altogether different matter, especially a big, tricked-out Harley with enough chrome on it to blind the angels and, good god almighty, horns mounted on the front. He hung his helmet on the horns and met Sawyer in one of those fierce man hugs that involve a lot of slapping on the back and laughter.

She moved to a better vantage point so she could get a better look at the cowboy. His wavy dark hair was wet with sweat and hung in ringlets to his shirt collar. He fetched a rubber band from the pocket of his tight jeans and whipped it back into a short, little pony tail. Green eyes sparkled beneath heavy brows and a little soul patch of dark hair rested beneath lips that stretched out in a wide smile. A green and yellow plaid shirt hung open to reveal a damp white T-shirt clinging to a perfect six pack of abdomen muscles. He removed the over shirt and slung it over his shoulder, revealing a tat of longhorns on his right arm.

Her breath caught in her chest and she forgot to exhale for several seconds. Her biggest fantasy, other than someday marrying Tanner Gallagher, was to ride on a cycle, holding on to a cowboy like the one talking to Sawyer O’Donnell. Neither one would ever happen but it didn’t hurt to dream.

So there you go...what's next and when it will arrive. All up for preorder at Amazon, B&N and many of your favorite book buying places. Enjoy and happy reading.