Thank
you, Kat, for inviting me to your blog.
Peggy, please tell us what inspired you to write book one,Yellowstone Heart Song of the series?
Well,
here’s the story….
Yellowstone Heart Song was born on a lone stretch
of Interstate 5, heading home from a
trip to Yellowstone National Park in 2009.
I had asked my very good friend to take a week-long camping trip with me since
my husband was committed that summer to lead a boy scout troop on a backpacking
trip into the High Sierras. My husband didn’t take me very seriously at first
when I told him of my plans to go to Yellowstone on my own; just me and another
woman who had very minimal experience in camping. That made me even more determined to prove
him wrong, and off we went. It was a great trip for Diana and me, I proved that
I was capable of pitching a tent and starting a campfire and even cooking a
meal over it, and that two women could go hiking without getting lost or eaten
by bears.
Daniel
shows Aimee a side of Yellowstone she’s never experienced. She is torn between
her feelings for him, and exposing a secret that will destroy everything he
holds as truth. As her three months come to an end, she is faced with a
dilemma: return to her own time, or stay with the man who opened her eyes to a
whole new world. When the decision is made for her, both their lives will be
changed forever.
Excerpt:
Ai mee
stirred and slowly opened her eyes. One of her rescuers sat a short distance
away, staring at her intently. She pulled herself to a sitting position,
wincing at the throbbing pain in her ankle.
My blog: http://peggylhenderson.blogspot.com/
Driving
through the Utah desert on a thousand mile road trip, the mind has a lot of
time to wander. Although the published story has some changes in it, the
original concept remains the same from when it first took shape in my mind.
I’ve never thought about writing a book of any sort, but I had been reading
romance, especially western and early American historical, for many years. When
this story popped into my head, it came as a complete surprise to me. I didn’t
think much of it over the next months, but the idea always stuck with me in the
back of my mind. I kept searching for books, hoping to find something that had
been published that was similar to what I had in my head, so I could read it.
No luck.
The
following year, on another trip to Wonderland (with husband and children along
this time), I took greater notice of all the places in the park that were part
of that story in my head. The day after we got home, I sat down to write. It
just wouldn’t let me go. I told no one what I was doing. The thought of letting
anyone else see what I wrote was laughable.
A
year later, I had a finished story. Well, a story anyways. Now what? I checked
around the internet and found a critique partner. I struck gold when Carol
Spradling answered my query. She tore through my manuscript with a loaded red
pen and fine tooth comb. Months later, she asked me when I would pursue
publishing. What?!?! I basically ignored her. She wanted to know what I would
write next. Huh??? Okay, I thought. I love Yellowstone, I can’t think of
anything else to write, and I loved the interaction with Carol, so why not
write a sequel? That’s how Yellowstone Redemption came to be.
Carol hated my new hero as much as she loved Daniel in the first book. I told
her to trust me, and that he would end up just fine.
After leading her on a
merry guessing game through the chapters of that book, I completely surprised her
with the ending, and was gung ho to write another. I knew right away I could
never duplicate a story like the one in Book 2, and decided to write a hero who
was just a nice guy, trying to solve an impossible problem for his leading
lady. By now, it became obvious that this was turning into a series, and I
wrote a couple of characters into Yellowstone Awakening, who would be
my main characters for the fourth book, Yellowstone Dawn. The series has
evolved from one stand alone book, to me taking factual events from
Yellowstone’s history, and weaving them into my stories. Yellowstone Redemption
contains a scene that was inspired by John Colter’s legendary escape from the
Blackfoot Indians. Yellowstone Awakening is a fictional account (with true facts
sprinkled in) of the creation of the nation’s first national park, and Yellowstone
Dawn deals with some of the problems the park encountered in its
infancy. The final book in the series, Yellowstone Deception, deals with a
more current issue the park has faced.
Here’s
the blurb for Yellowstone Heart Song:
Nurse
and avid backpacker Aimee Donovan is offered the opportunity of a lifetime. She
encounters a patient who tells her he can send her two hundred years into the
past to spend three months in the rugged Yellowstone wilderness at the dawn of
the mountain man era. The only requirement: she cannot tell anyone that she’s
from the future.
How
did a white woman suddenly appear in the remote Rocky Mountain wilderness?
Trapper Daniel Osborne’s first instinct is to protect this mysterious and
unconventional woman from the harsh realities of his mountains. While he fights
his growing attraction to her, he is left frustrated by her lies and secrecy.
“Good
morning.” She yawned, and rubbed her fingers against the temples of her
pounding head. She glanced up as he walked toward her. Aimee drew in a sharp
breath. With her first clear look at his face, it became obvious that this man
was not an Indian. It was easy to make that mistake in the dark of
night. Although white, he could almost pass for an Indian.
Her
eyes poured over his clothing and appearance. He wore a dark-colored
breechcloth and leather leggings with fringes on the sides. His faded red
flannel shirt had been poorly patched in a few places. Several leather pouches
were draped around his neck, and over one broad shoulder dangled a powder horn
made from the horn of a mountain sheep. A tomahawk and large hunting
knife hung from the wide leather belt around his waist. He wore un-decorated
leather moccasins. His raven black hair fell to his shoulders, with some unruly
strands tumbling over his forehead. Aimee’s eyes moved to his deeply tanned
face, his square jaw line shadowed by a day’s growth of stubble, and dark brown
eyes that betrayed none of his thoughts as he moved ever closer.
Her
pulse quickened as she met and held his hard gaze. She couldn’t help but stare.
Those penetrating dark eyes drew her in. She blinked, but couldn’t look away.
Dear God, she couldn’t recall ever seeing a painting or drawing of a mountain
man that looked like this guy. Images of rough looking, bearded wild men came
to mind. The man in front of her was quite simply . . . stunning. The feral,
masculine virility he projected took her breath away, leaving her head spinning
dizzily, and not from dehydration this time.
My Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Peggy-L-Henderson-author/254755581267700
My blog: http://peggylhenderson.blogspot.com/
My books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and Kobo
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