Solstice publishing
The Searching Place
UPDATE! The Searching Place was released last month and is available on Amazon.
My newest book, The Searching Place will be released with Solstice Publishing spring 2019. The story is a light-hearted small town cowgirl romance set in southeast Tennessee.
Here’s a bit about The Searching Place….
Lily is on the hunt for her muse and redemption.
The once bestselling romance author Lily Perkins is in a bind after her fifth divorce has left her practically penniless and her last book was axed by the publisher. At the urging of her agent and friend, Nate Kinser, Lily moves east to find her muse and write her next best seller.
Carter is a cowboy womanizer that initially sees Lily as the next conquest he can toy with as everybody in a small town knows what a woman with her history is like. When his attempts to get her in bed fail, he realizes she’s not the conquest he thought she was. In the end, they both fall harder than they wanted to but there’s a catch – Lily’s long term agent Nate has suddenly left his wife for her.
When Lily is injured in a barrel race, both men rush to her side to protect the feisty cowgirl writer that has captured their hearts and Lily must choose between them.
Stay up with the latest news on my Facebook page.
Update — NEW COVER! 
Movie Script For Lost Betrayal
It’s been three years since my western romance, Lost Betrayal, was released by Solstice Publishing. Since then my paranormal short story, Winds On Indian Mound, and my children’s picture book, Francine The Workin’ Stock Cowgirl, came out last year.
The next project that I was working on since 2015 was The Searching Place. It’s a romance about a best-selling romance author and cowgirl that’s down on her luck when she meets a farrier with a bit of a past in a small town. That project, however, has been put on hold.
I’ve always wanted to write stories for Lifetime and Hallmark, and have always thought Lost Betrayal would make the perfect movie for them or RFD-TV. With a disaster, a budding cowboy romance, and a lost horse how can it not be the perfect story line for a great movie?
When the opportunity came up to write the script for Lost Betrayal, I jumped at the chance even though I had never tackled writing a movie script. After all, I know the story better than anyone!
I’m currently a little over ten thousand words in and I have to say it’s a totally different experience than writing a book. In some aspects, it’s a lot more labor intensive in that you have to think out all the logistics for the props.
For instance, if a male character is wearing a cowboy hat you can’t just list “Cowboy Hat” or your hero might be wearing one of those crunched up little wannabe beach cowboy hats. Lord knows, we can’t have that! No, you have to specifically state, “10x Resistol black felt” cowboy hat, or “Bangora straw cowboy hat with a cattleman crease”. Every real cowgirl knows the hat and crease better be authentic or the whole story is ruined!
Another thing I’m learning is that dialogue is center stage. That’s what drives each scene, if you think about it. With a book, while you do want to show instead of tell, you’re not always relying as heavily on dialogue to tell the story. With a movie, you are.
One thing I do like about script writing is the characters. You have to have great details for age and appearance for the people that line up the actors for the movies. For me, I’m visually imagining the actor that’s playing the part in order to do that and it makes those characters in the story come to life even more.
It’s been a challenge being out of my comfort zone but I’ve enjoyed it tremendously. Screen writing is definitely something I want to try more of and I hope I get the opportunity to do so. In the meantime, I’ll be working on finishing the script and then rounds of edits.
After the movie script, I plan on self publishing some short stories and seeing how that goes. Stay tuned!
UPDATE OCTOBER 23RD — Only 2 more scenes to write before editing begins! Also, my newest children’s book, Pedro’s Problemo about a Chihuahua thqt has to ride a horse to prove he’s royalty from Mexico, is releasing with Dingbat Publishing next month!
Talking With Maureen Gregory…
This week we talk with fellow Solstice Publishing author and horsewoman Maureen Gregory. I think you’ll enjoy getting to know her, especially since she’s a fellow horse lover, loves animals and has a great sense of humor!
Tell us about where you live & what your day to day life is like.
I live in rural England in an area known as the Peak District, with my husband Chris and a collection of creatures great and small. Our home is a very old stone farmhouse, we can only date it back 400 years, but it is older than that. The lounge has old oak beams, the main one was off a ship apparently! There is a stone fireplace, in the winter the fire is blazing, but today, it is hot and sunny.
When I am writing I sit at an oak table with the window behind me. As I have two small dogs and one cat there is always one of them curled up on the chair and one in my lap. The only problem is when Minty (the cat) decides to walk over the keyboard.
My routine is dictated by the weather! If it is lashing down with rain/snow/hail or blowing a gale I get my outside chores done as quickly as possible, come in, light the fire, have breakfast and begin writing. However, if the weather is ok, I like to ride my horses, and potter about outside. At the risk of sounding a bit bonkers I confess to spending hours sitting with my two pet sheep – Rambo & Sweep, just chilling out and pondering on this and that. I then look at my watch, shriek “OMG where has the time gone!” and rush back into the house.
Tell us about your horses and what you do with them.
I have two horses Apollo and Jassmin. Apollo is a Welsh Cob, chestnut with a flaxen mane and tail. He is twenty now and still very lively. We do dressage competitions together, but our favourite is dressage to music. He loves it. We recently won a dressage to music championship, despite the speakers to the main arena breaking down just as we started our test. I couldn’t hear a thing, but Apollo could, and I just followed his lead.
Jassmin is a ten year old coloured Gypsy Cob, she has blue flecks in her eyes, long white eyelashes and a long flowing mane. On a recent hack a little girl shouted out “Oh look that horse has angel hair!” She also has silky white feathers.
My friend made a short promotional video to promote my novel, and it features Jassmin, looking very windswept. Although she is not typical of a dressage horse she has lovely light paces and does very well in competitions. Our favourite pastime is just hacking out along the many bridleways and lanes.
I also have the pleasure of owning Dylan the donkey. He is fifteen, very loveable and cheeky. Dylan doesn’t really do anything, he just is!!
Do you write full time?
I gave up a career in psychiatric nursing and mental health counselling to renovate an old farmhouse. It took several years and after the work was completed I decided not to go back to that line of work. I felt as if I had moved on and things would not be the same if I went back.
I began to write short stories for magazines, with some success before I decided to concentrate on writing my debut novel. Also by that time I had added to my collection of fluffies and furries, paws and claws, so alongside assisting Chris with his paperwork I find my day is busy enough.
Here’s some info and a review on her book The Seventh Wave….
In the novel deceit, obsessive love, betrayal and murder are threaded alongside the fabric of normal life. Emma is convinced she has found the man of her dreams, until she suspects her lover may have a darker side. Was he a cold, calculated killer or a victim in someone else’s deadly game? Emma believes she will uncover the truth, but are some lies better left undiscovered?
Review:
“Beware the Seventh Wave,” begins with Emma rushing to make it to a funeral. Things just haven’t been going her way for a long time. An early morning argument with her husband, Phil, left her feeling exhausted. She over slept and was running late. A quick breakfast from the local eatery drips on her clothing. The weather is gloomy. To just top her day off, she scraps the side of her car trying to enter the cemetery lot. Nothing is going right.
At the funeral, she knew she was going to be running into her ex-boyfriend and his wife, Mark and Alicia. She just wasn’t prepared for the reactions she was going to be experiencing. Seeing Mark brought back feelings that she tried so hard to suppress over the years. But what can you do when you are both married to someone else?
As we all do when we are trying to sort out our lives, Emma is conflicted with her feelings. Instead of checking into a hotel as she originally planned, she returns home to find what can be the most devastating thing ever. Walking in she finds what she’s hoping is a romantic event planned for her only to find her husband in the throes of passions with her friend Katie.
Totally in shock, Emma had the difficult task of trying to sort out her life. Does she fight for her husband and marriage? Does she give up and let the other woman win, again? Is she ready to restart her life all over again? Is there anyone in her life that she can actually trust?
It’s a phone call from Mark, a week after the funeral that sets Emma up for the most drastic and important event in her life. With her marriage failing, she willingly runs to Mark in hopes to help him in a time of need. But will the help that she offers Mark, help her find what she is missing in her?
How can people find your work? (List all your buy links & contact info — this is about promoting you!)
Buy Beware the Seventh Wave by Maureen Gregory on Amazon UK
Maureen Gregory’s Amazon UK Author Page
Book Trailer: Beware the Seventh Wave by Maureen Gregory
Maureen Gregory’s Website – www.maureengregorybooks.com
Maureen Gregory’s Facebook Author Page
Link to Maureen Gregory on Goodreads
Twitter @MaureenMgregory
Profile name on LinkedIn: Maureen Gregory
Any parting words of wisdom for those writers looking to be published?
If you think you can do it, or you think you can’t – you are absolutely right! It’s all in the mind-literally.
Feel free to include comments, etc.
Just a bit thank you for hosting me on your blog. Happy riding, writing & all the other things that make life worth while FJ!
Thanks again!
Lost Betrayal is coming out March 5th on Amazon!
I’ve got a couple days before my next interview so I thought I’d share some news in the meantime.
Solstice Publishing is releasing my debut romance novel, Lost Betrayal, on March 5th on Amazon in Kindle format. This is a modern western romance with a few flames thrown in. Check out my Facebook to find out the buy link and keep up with news on my next book. You can also follow me on twitter.
UPDATE – Lost Betrayal was released a little early! You can download it on Amazon.
Probably one of the biggest things that is important to me in writing this type of book is authenticity. If nothing else, when it comes to horses this book is the real deal. I eat, sleep, breathe horses. You can’t talk to me too long without it wiggling into the conversation somehow. I’m not one of those starry eyed horse women that think all horses are my friends. I’m a woman that rides colts, loves working the most difficult horses even when I get bucked off, and that is always striving to see how far they can go. I do my own feeding, saddle my horses, and clean my own stalls….well, when my husband is running short or time or we’re at a show.
By the way, to give you some background on the book, it took me ten years to write Lost Betrayal. I got the idea years ago after watching the news about a really bad tornado. The last couple of years have spurred me on as we had some devastating tornadoes closer to home in east Tennessee, northern Georgia and Mississippi.
One fact that haunts me more than anything is that in a disaster large animals are often the last to be rescued. Anyone can rescue a person or a small animal. Not just anyone can rescue a thousand pound animal that’s scared to death that can’t be reasoned with. It takes a certain set of skills that are not that common. Also, people and small animals get more press time than anything so their needs are met quickly. Large animal needs often go unmentioned to the general public but they’re just as important.
If you’d like to see the book trailer, here’s the link – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urkSTWnMNr0
Here’s a little bit about the book –
THE FUTURE OF THE RANCH HANGS IN THE BALANCE
Sage is just getting her life back together when a tornado touches down and destroys her family ranch in northern Georgia taking her hopes, her dreams, and the very horse that the ranch’s future hinges on. An ex rodeo cowboy with a past, Garrett has sworn off rodeo and the last thing he needs is entanglement with a woman on a wild horse chase but there’s too many unanswered questions, such as how a horse could stay gone so long.
Refusing to believe her horse was killed in the storm and refusing to give up on the ranch, Sage begins the journey of rebuilding her life once again and searching for the horse that to her, holds the past, and her future. Garrett’s past and a malicious betrayal jeopardize her efforts. Is she strong enough to push past the hurt and the lies in order to get back all she holds dear?
Here’s the book cover!
Next week I’ll be talking with western author, Tell Cotten about how ranching and writing. In the meantime you can read about his newest book, Cooper on his blog. I’ll also be interviewing romance writer, Stephanie Berget about barrel racing and her books. You can check her out on her website. So stay tuned! Can’t wait for you to find out about these folks!
Talking In The Barn 