Congratulations to all of you who entered--and there are a LOT of you! Since the prize this month is a novella that is not available unless you can find an out of print anthology, and because it's a "sort of sequel" to a longer book that I've released through Beyond The Page Publishing that is totally NOT like my usual stuff, I'm sending a pdf copy of Dime Store Cowboy to everyone who entered my contest this month.
The main character, Mark Connor, was introduced in Cowboy in My Pocket, a romance I wrote back in 2000 that used--on purpose--every trope ever written in a cowboy romance. I essentially set out to write a parody of romances as a joke, and the more I wrote, the better I liked the way the book was turning out. Tag, the cowboy hero, needs a bride of convenience to save the family ranch, and his trusty side-kick finds one. Only he finds the wrong one. Instead of a barrel racer who has volunteered to play the bride, he drags home a woman he finds wandering along a mountain road who has amnesia...do you see where this one is going?
I had more darned fun writing this book. It ended up winning awards and getting a top pick review from Romantic Times Magazine. What's really funny is that before I sold it to a small epub, I actually had a verbal commitment from an editor at a large publishing house (that I will not name) who had no idea I was making fun of exactly the kind of romances her publisher is famous for. When the senior editor read it, the manuscript suddenly showed up on my doorstop, overnighted back to me!
The main character, Mark Connor, was introduced in Cowboy in My Pocket, a romance I wrote back in 2000 that used--on purpose--every trope ever written in a cowboy romance. I essentially set out to write a parody of romances as a joke, and the more I wrote, the better I liked the way the book was turning out. Tag, the cowboy hero, needs a bride of convenience to save the family ranch, and his trusty side-kick finds one. Only he finds the wrong one. Instead of a barrel racer who has volunteered to play the bride, he drags home a woman he finds wandering along a mountain road who has amnesia...do you see where this one is going?
I had more darned fun writing this book. It ended up winning awards and getting a top pick review from Romantic Times Magazine. What's really funny is that before I sold it to a small epub, I actually had a verbal commitment from an editor at a large publishing house (that I will not name) who had no idea I was making fun of exactly the kind of romances her publisher is famous for. When the senior editor read it, the manuscript suddenly showed up on my doorstop, overnighted back to me!
The title of the book is COWBOY IN MY POCKET and I think it still holds up as a fun romance today. Tag, the hero, is based on my husband (yep, the clueless cowboy hero) to the point where, when our daughter was reading the book she said she had to stop when she got to the part where Tag and Lee were getting up close and personal.
Actual dialog: "Mom! I couldn't read it. I kept thinking of Dad when I read Tag's words, and THEN HE TOOK HIS PANTS OFF!"
Aren't kids great? Anyway, if you like the style of Dime Store Cowboy, you might enjoy Cowboy in My Pocket. And, btw, that's our son and his then girlfriend, now wife, on the cover. He's wearing his dad's cowboy hat, Mel's wearing my Levis, and Sarah was egging them on just out of the frame for the photo shoot. My husband took the picture--it was truly a family affair!
It's going to take me a while to get the copies all sent, but if you don't have yours by tomorrow afternoon, please drop me a note (email, please. I don't always catch all the Facebook messages and notifications, and I'm rarely on Twitter) so write to me at [email protected].
And contrary to what I said about reading JAK's new book, PROMISE NOT TO TELL, I got a whole stack of books I need to judge for a contest, so will have to read those first. That's not a bad thing, though. I've found some amazing authors while judging for contests! Jayne's book is sitting here taunting me, and it's the first one I plan to dig into after I'm through reading the contest entries. Then I've got Eileen Wilks' Dragon Blood, JR Ward's Blood Fury, and Susan' Fox's latest Blue Moon Harbor book, Come Home With Me. I'm gonna be so busy! But, they're incentive to finish my judging.
I hope you're not freezing wherever you are--weather has been yucky here, but nothing like a lot of the country where it's absolutely frigid! Stay safe, and watch for your copy of Dime Store Cowboy. I'll be sending them out shortly.
Kate
Actual dialog: "Mom! I couldn't read it. I kept thinking of Dad when I read Tag's words, and THEN HE TOOK HIS PANTS OFF!"
Aren't kids great? Anyway, if you like the style of Dime Store Cowboy, you might enjoy Cowboy in My Pocket. And, btw, that's our son and his then girlfriend, now wife, on the cover. He's wearing his dad's cowboy hat, Mel's wearing my Levis, and Sarah was egging them on just out of the frame for the photo shoot. My husband took the picture--it was truly a family affair!
It's going to take me a while to get the copies all sent, but if you don't have yours by tomorrow afternoon, please drop me a note (email, please. I don't always catch all the Facebook messages and notifications, and I'm rarely on Twitter) so write to me at [email protected].
And contrary to what I said about reading JAK's new book, PROMISE NOT TO TELL, I got a whole stack of books I need to judge for a contest, so will have to read those first. That's not a bad thing, though. I've found some amazing authors while judging for contests! Jayne's book is sitting here taunting me, and it's the first one I plan to dig into after I'm through reading the contest entries. Then I've got Eileen Wilks' Dragon Blood, JR Ward's Blood Fury, and Susan' Fox's latest Blue Moon Harbor book, Come Home With Me. I'm gonna be so busy! But, they're incentive to finish my judging.
I hope you're not freezing wherever you are--weather has been yucky here, but nothing like a lot of the country where it's absolutely frigid! Stay safe, and watch for your copy of Dime Store Cowboy. I'll be sending them out shortly.
Kate
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