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For those of you who have not yet read my books, my stories are generally set in the American West of the 1800’s and feature vividly-described, historically accurate settings that span the US from Missouri to California, from Canada to Mexico. Many of my books portray the poignant history of our Native Americans, and though the characters are my own, I use real historical locations and events in all my novels. I must be doing something right, because more and more men are writing to tell me how much they enjoy my westerns, too. Louis L’Amour has always been one of my favorite writers, and I am very flattered that my male readers compare my books favorably with his!

As many of you already know, I was selected as the September 2013 Spotlight Author on fellow romance- writer Winnie Griggs’ website, “Small Towns, Big Hearts, Amazing Grace.” Winnie writes inspirational historicals for Love Inspired, and she conducted a very extensive interview with me about my life and my writing. If you missed it, you can still read the interview here!

Recently we lost an icon of TV westerns, James Arness, better known as Matt Dillon of the longest-running TV western ever, GUNSMOKE. I was very saddened to hear this, partly because Matt Dillon was my hero in my teens, and also because there are so few TV heroes left — actually, none that I can think of. TV sets no good examples of a strong line between “good” and “bad” any more. The old westerns did that. Cheesy sometimes, but kids understood that if you did something “bad” you had to pay for it. Respect, honor, manners — very little of any of that on TV any more. GUNSMOKE survived as long as it did because it had several characters with whom one could identify and empathize — like Doc Adams, Chester Good, Festus, and Matt Dillon’s long-time “girlfriend” Kitty. The only western hero left as far as I can see is Clint Eastwood. When he is gone it will be a HUGE loss for quality movies as well as another icon of western movies and also TV (remember Rowdy Yates of RAWHIDE?). I always wanted to be able to meet James Arness in person, but now that will never happen. Still, he remains “alive” to me through continued re-runs of GUNSMOKE, which I watch every evening.