The Rancher’s Lady inside edition

Don’t you just love precocious kids? Those ones that touch your heart and make you really think about things. Not sassy or know it all, but the ones that ask thoughtful questions and want to know more and more and more. I do, so that’s why I put Alyssa in The Rancher’s Lady. She thinks deeply. She cares a lot. She questions the status quo. I had so much fun writing about Alyssa as she challenges her father, Hank, and her teacher , Ellen, about their relationship. Alyssa has some characteristics of my grand-daughters and some from other kids I’ve been around.

I chose to make the prequel novella for the Lake Chelan series to be set far in advance of when the rest of the series starts. It takes place nine years before the next book in the series. Because of that, you’ll see glimpses of Alyssa as she grows up and in the Burlap and Barbed Wire series she’s ready for her own happily ever after. She doesn’t know that of course!

Hank and Ellen make appearances in the other series books also, along with their many offspring. I loved making Hank a cowboy, everyone loves a cowboy! He’s the quiet deep thinker type, but can also cook up a storm to feed his kids, and has no problem being both mother and father to his three kids for the two years following his first wife’s death. I just love a man whose a man’s man and who doesn’t think he’s too good for “Women’s Work”. That’s Hank.

If you have any questions on why I did what I did in the story, feel free to ask them. If you haven’t read it, there’s still time to do so!

shirleypenick

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