Striking Gold

The second book I'm coming out with is titled, The Color of Ivy.  I wrote this book, many many years ago and is also a personal favorite.  However, I had made some revisions to the original manuscript that I felt improved the book and gave the characters more, well, character.  But somewhere along the way, I lost those revisions.  I was pretty bummed at the time and searched high and low to no avail.  Then the original manuscript went into storage along with all the others when I decided to hang my writer's hat up.  Let me clarify.  I didn't give up writing intentionally.  My desire to write just went away.  I suppose I needed to get on with my life and I felt my dreams of becoming a published writer were holding me back.

Anyway, fast forward to recently when I decided to pull the manuscripts out and self-publish them myself.  When I read The Color of Ivy, I was drawn in once again and still dearly loved the story though knew there was a better version out there somewhere, gone probably forever.  Yes, I could have attempted to rewrite it but it wouldn't have been the same revisions.  Having proofread Color of Ivy, I was getting ready to publish it but first needed a synopsis.  To my dismay I realized that all my notes, queries, research, synopsis, everything but the manuscript itself was gone.  They had all been deleted.

I was pretty upset about that but again went on a major search.  I pulled old PC's out of storage hoping by some miracle a version would be stored on them, but no such luck.  I found a old box of microdisks (remember those) and found one labeled The Color of Ivy.  I hit every used shop, every computer shop hoping to find an old PC with a 3 1/2 inch drive.  I was told the same thing.  No one looks for those old computers anymore so when they come in, they are immediately sent out to trash.  That news alone is pretty upsetting as I mentioned, I had a whole box of old manuscripts in that box of microdisks.  I will never be able to retrieve them again.

But I digress yet again.  When I was unable to locate an old computer, I began to give up and realized that I would actually have to write a new synopsis.  Literally, as I was opening a fresh page on my Word program, it struck me.  I had a drawer of old recordable DVD disks in my hall wardrobe.  Was it possible I backed up my work and put it on one of those.  Only one way to find out.  Start going through them.  All 567,900,732,418 of them.  Ok, I'm exaggerating but it sure felt that many.  There are at least a 100 if not more.

So while the kids were at their dad's and I had all the free time in the world, I started going through the disks.  I have to tell you, it was kind of fun.  I came across old resumes, essays, children's work, music, videos and photos and photos and photos.  I really hope DVD's never go out the way the microdisks did or I will loose so many memories.

But lo and behold, about 1/3 of the way through the disks, I found it.  A file with all my work.  All my manuscripts were on it including The Color of Ivy and it's synopsis.  And even better, the improved revisions!  I felt like I had struck gold.  I think I couldn't stop grinning all day as I reread the revisions and sighed with delight at the improvement in the story.  So, The Color of Ivy has been postponed and will be available in a couple weeks I'm hoping.  If not sooner.  Meanwhile, here's a sneak-peak at it's cover.

And because I have it, here is a very brief synopsis:

He was bringing her back dead or alive.  And if bounty hunter SAM MICHALSKI had anything to do with it, most definitely alive.  He wanted to ensure cold-blooded murderer, IVY MACGREGOR, had her day in the gallows.

Though she might not look anything like a cold-blooded killer with her pale complexion and soft eyes, Sam wasn’t so easily fooled.  Hadn’t his own mother taught him that lesson?  Right before she covered his five year-old face with a pillow?  He survived that attack only to learn a valuable lesson.  The darkest of souls could be disguised in the purest of creatures.

I'm on Amazon!

Just thought this was pretty darn cool.  My book is now available on Amazon.

First Book

Many many years ago, long before I wanted to be a farmer, I wanted to be a writer.  I wrote several manuscripts, attempted to get them published, received rejection after rejection until I eventually couldn't take it anymore and didn't want to waste any more of my life chasing a dream.  So I put the books away, found myself a new interest and goal in life and never looked back.

Until recently.  From much encouragement from my ebook addicted daughter, I pulled the old manuscripts out of storage, reread them, fell in love all over again and have decided to self-publish them myself.  If for no other reason so that all the time and work I put into them did not land them abandoned in a dark and dusty corner of my closet.

I am starting with my first real full length novel, On the Mountain.  It is a historical western romance set in the Rocky Mountains of Canada.  Here is the synopsis for anyone interested in following the link to my e-publishing site.

"On a cold and still night, a frightened woman makes a frenzied escape down a wooded mountainside.  Fear is her only companion.  Silence is her only salvation. 

                Anna Nicholson had lived all her life under the shadow of prejudice in the remote village high on Mount Louis whose reclusive people were considered as wild and primitive as the wilderness from which they lived.  So when she awakes one morning to find herself in a stranger’s barn with a rifle to her face and no memory of how she got there, she is overcome with a gripping fear.  Yet, instinctively knew it did not arise from the big and burly cowboy standing directly behind the Winchester rifle or the other nine fierce cowboys who called the ranch home, but instead from a memory she could not recall.  One, she feared, in which she was the source.  Mistaken for a mute teenage boy, Anna is able to hide unseen and unheard from an evil she could not recall.

                Wade Haddock is the rough and tough but lonely cowboy who finds a frightened Anna in his barn.  Convinced the isolated wilderness was no place for a woman, he allows Anna to hide away on his sprawling Rocky Mountain ranch believing her to be a mute teenage boy.  While gradually succumbing to the bond growing between them, the wall around his guarded heart begins to slowly crumble.  Only to discover Anna’s deception.  And a memory that could destroy their love."

This is the cover.

To read a sample or to purchase the entire manuscript, please click here.  If you do, I sincerely thank you and hope you enjoy the read.  Two more manuscripts are being proofed and edited and will be published shortly so be sure to keep an eye out for those as well.  I will update this blog once they are available.