Our Story BEFORE The Story ~ Rance Shepherd & Larae Collins ~ Hill Country Redemption

My name is Rance Shepherd. You’ll have to excuse me, I’m befuzzled. I just learned my high school sweetheart is back in town, right next door. Larae was the only girl I ever loved, but her dad didn’t approve of me because he thought I just wanted her money.

What he didn’t know is, my mom came from money. But her family kind of cut her off because she married my dad. So, I guess you could say history sort of repeated itself, except I left Larae alone so her relationship with her dad wouldn’t be ruined.

I never told her anything about my run-in with her dad, but dated other girls, just to convince her we were over. Since we went to a private school, they were all rich too, so I got a reputation for being a gold digger. Just like her dad pegged me even though it wasn’t true.

Now, eight years later, I decide to buy the house next to her dad’s old house. She’s been in Dallas forever and I never thought she’d come home. Just as soon as I try to start my business stocking cattle for rodeos, here she comes. And she’s thinking about starting up a rodeo on her property. Right next door.

I could really use this job since I’m needing to make a name for myself. I’ll just have to ignore our history and lingering feelings and talk her into hiring me. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. I’m going over there right now. We’re both adults. Even though I made mistakes with Larae when we were teenagers, I’m a Christian now.

I can see her out by barn talking to her foreman. And she still takes my breath away. Wait, who’s that little girl? Could she be Larae’s? I mean, what’s it to me if Larae has a child. Except that it means, she moved on. While I haven’t.

***

What am I thinking? I can’t stay here. Not with Rance right next door. Oh, hello. My name is Larae Collins. This is my childhood ranch where I grew up. And since my dad went to Heaven a few months ago, I came home to sell it. But Jayda, my little girl loves it here and since the rodeo I worked for in Fort Worth downsized me out of their marketing department, my foreman is trying to talk me into starting a rodeo here.

It’s a fun idea. Owning my own rodeo, where no one can downsize me, running it the way I want, not serving alcohol. Because let’s face it, riding bulls and alcohol don’t mix. I’d love to have a truly family atmosphere where no one has to worry about getting killed by a drunk driver on their way home. The way my mom did when I was a teen. I could even name the rodeo after her.

But Rance is right next door. And he can’t see Jayda. He can’t know he’s her father. Back in high school, he dumped me for someone else. And then I found out I was pregnant. After he dumped me, he dated one rich girl after another. Proving Daddy was right about him, he only wanted my money. As soon as I graduated, I moved to Dallas and no one ever knew about Jayda from my home town. Other than Daddy.

I’ve changed since then. I’m a Christian now and Jayda is a blessing that came out of past mistakes. Even though I know I should tell Rance the truth about her, he hasn’t changed a bit. He’s still irresponsible and I figure his stock contracting business will bore him eventually and he’ll go back to traveling the rodeo circuit. If I’d known he was here, I’d have never come home.

All I have to do is keep him from seeing Jayda for a few days, get the rodeo setup in place, and head back to Dallas with no one the wiser. Maybe the rodeo will stop the flow of red ink from the ranch and I can run it from afar. If it doesn’t, I can still sell and find another job. I’ve got the money Daddy left me, but Jayda is my first priority and I’d like her to have an inheritance someday.

Here comes Rance down my driveway. If I’m going to do this rodeo thing, I guess I should hire him. It won’t matter as long as Jayda stays in the house and we leave ASAP. But here comes Jayda too. Oh, he can’t see her. I have to head her off, convince her to go back inside. It’s probably too late since he’s seen her. But since Jayda is small for her age, most people assume she’s five or six. Maybe Rance won’t realize he’s her father.

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Our Story Title:   Hill Country Redemption         

Our Story Genre:  Contemporary Romance

Our Story Released:   March 17, 2020

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The Author of Our Story:    Shannon Vannatter


Award winning author, Shannon Taylor Vannatter writes contemporary Christian cowboy romance and has over a dozen published titles. A romance reader since her teens, she hopes to entertain Christian women and plant seeds in the non-believer’s heart as she demonstrates that love doesn’t conquer all—Jesus does.

She gleans fodder for her fiction in rural where she spent her teenage summers working the concession stand with her rodeo announcing dad and married a Texan who morphed into a pastor. In her spare time, she loves hanging out with her husband and son, flea marketing, and doing craft projects.

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Get Connected:

• Shannon’s Website
• Shannon’s Blog
• Shannon’s Facebook
• Shannon’s Goodreads
• Shannon’s Pinterest
• Shannon’s Amazon Author Page
• Shannon's Newsletter ~ Sign up for Shannon's newsletter to get a free ebook and behind the scenes information.

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WHERE can the book be purchased?

• Amazon
• Barnes and Noble
• (Available at Walmart from mid-March until mid-April)

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Ten copies of Hill Country Redemption will be split among commentors on her blog tour. Winner’s will be revealed on Shannon’s Blog on April 13th

Our Story BEFORE The Story ~ Taming Petra ~ Cameo Courtships Collection

Hi everybody. I’m Petra Jayne Breaux—better known as Buckskin Pete Hollingsworth. I just bet you’re wondering how a young woman from a well-to-do Pittsburgh family came to settle in Colorado under the name of Buckskin Pete. Well, here’s the tale. My beloved Aunt Letitia and Uncle Peter invited me to go on a grand tour of the wild West with them, and I agreed. I was having the time of my life…right up until Uncle Peter fell ill. Only then did Aunt Letitia tell me he was dying. He passed away in Cambria Springs, and I was so heartbroken, I couldn’t leave. But I couldn’t support myself either. That is, until a new friend—a dime novelist—helped me. I’d tried to enter the Founders Day wood chopping contest, but they wouldn’t let women compete. (Since my grandfather was a woodsman, I learned my way around an axe as a girl.) So my friend suggested I dress up in buckskins and enter myself under an assumed name. Sure enough, I cut my long hair off, put on that buckskin suit, and entered under the name of Buckskin Pete Hollingsworth. I won the competition, the name stuck, and I’m steadily working as a scout, tracker, and other odd jobs. Oh, and thanks to my friend, I’ve got a whole series of dime novels written about me now.

And I’m Reverend Dustin Owens. I never woulda figured myself to become a preacher. Not with my upbringing. I was raised in a saloon, after all. My mother was…well, let’s be honest. She was a soiled dove, and my father…let’s just say I never had occasion to meet him. I lived in that world until I was nineteen. That’s when something terrible happened that forced me and my little sister, Josephine, to run. We wound up in Wyoming under the care of a godly man who helped us heal from our difficult pasts. As I opened my heart to the Lord, I felt Him drawing me into ministry. Can you imagine my surprise when, not all that long ago, He told me to return to this area and start a church? Almost exactly where it all began. I have to admit, I wasn’t too sure about moving back to this area until I happened to bump into a pretty, short-haired gal wearing buckskin trousers. She got my attention…and if you want to know why, well, please read our story. Taming Petra, part of Cameo Courtships.

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Our Story Title:  TAMING PETRA - Cameo Courtships Collection

Our Story Genre:  Christian Historical Western Romance

Our Story Releases:  June 1, 2019

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The Author of Our Story:   Jennifer Uhlarik

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has finaled and won in numerous writing competitions, and been on the ECPA best-seller list numerous times. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers and lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, college-aged son, and four fur children.

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  Get Connected:

• Website: www.jenniferuhlarik.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenniferUhlarikAuthor/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/JenniferUhlarik
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jenuhlarik/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenniferuhlarik/

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WHERE can the book be purchased?

• Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cameo-Courtships-Stories-Touched-Legendary/dp/1643520482

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Jennifer will be honored to gift a winner a signed copy
of the entire
CAMEO COURTSHIP COLLECTION

Be sure to leave a comment to be entered in the drawing

DRAWING TO BE HELD WEDNESDAY EVENING ~  July 10, 2019

Our Story BEFORE The Story ~ Sand Creek Serenade

Sadie: Hello, everyone. I am Sadie Hoppner. Doctor Sadie Hoppner, that is. Perhaps you find it odd that a twenty-two-year-old woman like myself would become a doctor in 1864, but I’ve never wanted anything more in my life. Many of my relatives were or are doctors or nurses, so I guess the love of medicine and the healing arts is in our family blood.

Five Kills: And I am Five Kills of the Tsitsistas People, or as you might call us…the Shy-anne. I have lived twenty-five summers, but only the last fifteen have been among my mother’s people. My first ten summers, I lived with my white father in a…how do you say…house?...far from the Tsitsistas.

Sadie: I guess you could say the love of medicine was what brought my dear mama and papa together. Papa apprenticed under Dr. Garnett, my grandfather. Mama served as grandfather’s nurse, so she and papa spent a lot of time together, fell in love, and eventually married. They adored each other, or so Papa tells me. Unfortunately, I never knew Mama. She died bringing me into this world.

Five Kills: Those first ten summers were a happy time for me. Despite the many differences between my mother and father’s worlds, they loved each other. My father was a hunter and a trapper. Every day, he filled my belly with the savory meats he brought home, and every night, he filled my mind with stories of great adventures and brave feats in battle.

Sadie: I don’t remember exactly when it began, but as I grew, I started to read papa’s medical texts. Knowing that their joint love of medicine connected Mama and Papa, reading those texts helped me feel a connection to Mama as well. When I began asking Papa questions, he would sit me on his knee and help me understand the words and concepts. I grew to love that time with him, and it eventually turned into a formal apprenticeship.

Five Kills: Father shared many stories. They were written down in books, but his favorite stories were written in a special book, much larger than the others. The stories in the special book told of White Man’s God and His relationship to His people. The stories from that book lived in my mind and heart long after Father died and I went to live with the Tsitsistas. My mother’s people had other stories to tell, and Father’s stories faded in my memory.

Sadie: Before my formal training was complete, Papa fell ill. He did his best to prepare me as a doctor, but the sickness took him before either of us felt I was ready to wear the title. So…God bless him…my older brother, Ben, also a doctor, asked special permission for me to come live at Fort Lyon where he serves as the army surgeon. I packed up Papa’s texts and a few other belongings, moved across the territory, and completed my apprenticeship under my big brother’s watchful eye. That’s how I came to be at the fort while Major Ned Wynkoop worked to broker a peace treaty with Five Kills’ people.

Five Kills: When the Tsitsistas chief, Black Kettle, went to Tall Chief Wynkoop to ask for peace with the Army, we were told to camp alongside the Army fort. It was there that I saw this woman. (I have never called her Say-dee. I call her Trilling Bird, for she is pretty and her voice is soothing, like a bird’s song). The first day that I saw her, she had books. Large books like Father’s special one. I wanted very much to see them and try to remember the stories Father told me, but the soldiers were too quick to send me away, back to the Tsitsistas camp. But I vowed to return.

Sadie: Yes, he did—and caused quite a stir when he came. But we’ve probably said enough, Five Kills. They can read the rest of our story themselves by purchasing a copy of Sand Creek Serenade. I’m told the “link” (whatever that is) is below. And one lucky person will win a paperback copy of our story by commenting on our conversation here.

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My Story Title:   Sand Creek Serenade

My Story Genre:  Christian Western Historical Romance

My Story Released:   March 14, 2019

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The Author of My Story:    Jennifer Uhlarik

 Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has finaled and won in numerous writing competitions, and been on the ECPA best-seller list numerous times. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers and lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, college-aged son, and four fur children.

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  Get Connected:

• Website: www.jenniferuhlarik.com 
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenniferUhlarikAuthor/ 
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/JenniferUhlarik 
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jenuhlarik/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenniferuhlarik/

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WHERE can the book be purchased?

Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Sand-Creek-Serenade-Jennifer-Uhlarik-ebook/dp/B07MQKTM21/ref=pd_ybh_a_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=PGYCSMSEF0ZC6JVEMJY5

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The author will be honored to gift a winner a signed copy of
Sand Creek Serenade.

Be sure to leave a comment with an email address where you can be reached should you win.

DRAWING TO BE HELD WEDNESDAY EVENING ~ April 3, 2019.