BACK IN THE SADDLE - Ruth Logan Herne - One Free Book

Dear Readers, I’m thrilled to share one of Ruth Logan Herne’s new books with you today. Back in the Saddle is one of my favorite cowboy stories. A contemporary western, it caught my heart from the first page and held on. I loved the characters and the story. The setting was just right for this story. You really won’t want to miss it. Ruth is on the current list of The Forty Best Contemporary Christian Authors. If you go to her Amazon page, you will see an amazing list of books by Ruth.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_10?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=ruth%20logan%20herne&sprefix=Ruth+Logan%2Caps%2C196

Welcome, Ruth. Tell us how much of yourself you write into your characters.

Lena, not too much of me, or I’ll scare folks away! I think there’s always a grain of us in each heroine and a smattering of what we love in each hero, but mostly I base them on what I see going on around me with the young families/parents/kids I’ve worked with daily. So basically I exploit small children, pets, and farm animals for personal gain … Nicely, of course! J

What is the quirkiest thing you have ever done?

My family would assure you that they are too numerous to mention. Let’s just say my children who have an experimental nature most likely got that from their maternal side!

When did you first discover that you were a writer?

I’m pretty sure it was pre-birth, a gift from my amazingly talented mother, so I don’t have any memory of not wanting to read and then tell stories. Certainly pre-verbal, and I can see this in some of my grandkids and the kids I work with. I’m pretty sure that while writing can be learned, storytelling is inborn. I like to think of it as a gift of the spirit, and then I use it just that way!

Tell us the range of the kinds of books you enjoy reading.

I love all kinds of books, but I actually read a lot of non-fiction and/or fact-based stories. Michael Lewis comes to mind, Ben Carson’s books … but I’m a big Herman Wouk fan (Winds of War, War and Remembrance, The Caine Mutiny), I loved the early Nora Roberts stories, Catherine Marshall’s Christy, and Ray Bradbury. More than reading, I love writing, so I spend more time creating than relaxing, but in my world, that’s the best way to relax: Write more stories!

How do you keep your sanity in our run, run, run world?

I’m a New Yorker, from upstate, with six kids, 14 grandkids, and two of my boys are in Manhattan. I love our run, run, run world, so it seems crazy sane to me!

How do you choose your characters’ names?

It depends on the book. Names of the time period make a difference, and if the parent/parents had issues might enter into it. I do some self-naming, friends and kids and folks I love, slipping them in there … and in my current Love Inspired Grace Haven series, I have all the men throughout the novels named after a fallen police officer from 2014. I love that I was able to do that tribute to the people who work so hard to keep us safe.  In the Double S Ranch series, I wanted rugged western names, so Colton “Colt”, Nicholas “Nick” and “Trey”, although Trey wasn’t named because he was third, that was coincidental or God’s timing, because Trey was actually the son of two country music singers who succumbed to drug use and died of an overdose. His mother called him Trey because she thought the name Trey Walker sounded like a country music name. And he became a country music singer a quarter-century later!

I love picking out names!

What is the accomplishment that you are proudest of?

My children are my shining lights on earth, and they’re all so sure of themselves and somewhat feisty. (I blame their father for that.) They were the best gift God could have given me, and I treasure each one of them. Of course they love the fact that their waitress mother is now a published author with nearly thirty books out and more to come, but they probably get tired of hearing about make-believe people! My grandkids, conversely, love hearing stories, so there’s an audience for everyone.

What is your favorite food?

Chocolate with a side of chocolate!

What is the problem with writing that was your greatest roadblock, and how did you overcome it?

The road to traditional publication is a difficult one, so traveling that path was a patience builder and time-tester, but I had one goal in mind and that was to succeed. With the help of my buddies “The Seekers” (www.seekerville.blogspot.com) we formed a pact to pray each other into publication, and it worked, all thirteen of us have been published by royalty-paying publishers. To us, the power of prayer and writing is as clear as anything. And working together gave us an amazing support network.

A very worthy undertaking. Tell us about the featured book.

It’s been a long time since Colt Stafford shrugged off his cowboy legacy for shiny Manhattan loafers and a promising career on Wall Street. But when stock market manipulations leave him financially strapped, the oldest son of legendary rancher Sam Stafford decides to return to the sprawling Double S ranch in Gray’s Glen, Washington. He’s broke, but not broken, and it’s time to check in with his ailing father and get his legs back under him by climbing into the saddle again.

He doesn’t expect to come home to a stranger pointing a loaded gun at his chest— a tough yet beautiful woman that Sam hired as the house manager. Colt senses there’s more to Angelina Morales than meets the eye and he’s determined to find out what she’s hiding ... and why. 

Please give us the first page of the book for my readers.

The sharp metallic click meant one thing.

Someone had a gun pointed in Colt Stafford’s general direction.

He sucked a breath and realized two other things. First, these might be the last two thoughts he’d ever have and that would be a downright shame, wouldn’t it?

Second?

He’d been away from the Double S too long when he couldn’t tell what kind of gun by the sound of the mechanism. Was it his father’s Ithaca Deerslayer or the vintage Remington short barrel?

He put his hands high, figuring this was about as good a welcome as he could expect after being gone nearly seven years. “I’m unarmed and this is my home. Kind of. Who in the name of all that’s good and holy in the West are you?”

A stream of Spanish argued his status, and that brought him to two more things. The person speaking wasn’t his sick father, the man he’d come home to help. It was a woman, and not too tall from the direction of the Hispanic tongue-lashing being laid down right now.

He turned his head slightly.

Backlit from the foyer light, he couldn’t make out her features. Her silhouetted frame said she was petite, but most assuredly feminine.

The gun, however, wasn’t.

See, Readers, doesn’t that opening make you want to know what happens next? How can readers find you on the Internet, Ruth?

I love the Internet! I love to play and pray with folks on Facebook as Ruth Logan Herne and my website is ruthloganherne.com, or you can find me with other authors who love to cook and bake at www.yankeebellecafe.blogspot.com and with a dozen other wonderful friends, sisters in Christ and authors at www.seekerville.blogspot.com where we chat with readers and aspiring authors every single day!

Thank you, Ruth, for sharing this new book with us. I'd love to share any of your books with my readers.

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