What a privilege it is to be here this morning, standing in the shadows of this great group of authors! Gosh, there’s Kylie and Cindy--we’re practically neighbors--and ohmygawd, Debra Dixon! Deb, your Goal, Motivation and Conflict is my Bible. I’ll always believe it was your book that helped me land inside the Harlequin Historical powerhouse--and, of course, there’s Kathleen who I’ve known for a really long time, and . . . okay, enough babbling.
I’m here to talk about my new book, right?
The Cattleman’s Unsuitable Wife is my twelfth western romance, and it’s starting to hit the store shelves as we speak. Up to now, I've written about longhorn cattle, mustangs, a thoroughbred race horse, Gypsies, mercenaries, a female outlaw, and a nun on the run.
I've never written a word about sheep.
That's what this new story is about. Sheep. So I had to do some reading on the woollie creatures, and the research has been surprisingly interesting.
For instance, did you know one sheepherder can handle 3,000 sheep all by himself? With the handy assistance of his dog, of course. Compare that to 6 or 7 mounted cowboys needed to ramrod a moving herd of 1,000 head of cattle.
I also learned sheep tend to have an assortment of, well, annoyances. They're unpredictable, defenseless and in need of constant tending.
**Sheep feed at odd hours of the night, which forces the herder to round them up again--in the middle of the night.
**Should a stray sheep find itself bogged in mud, he just stands there. Doesn't make a sound. He waits patiently to be rescued--or to die.
**If a young, frisky sheep rolls playfully in the grass, he can't get up again. His legs are short and light, and he can't get the momentum. He'll need help to get on all fours again.
**If a ewe or wether (had to look this one up--it's a young castrated male) wades into water, and its fleece is long, he becomes too water-logged to climb out. Again, he'll need help. Or drown.
**Bleating sheep means life is normal. When sheep are terrified, they make no sound at all.
**Adult sheep will stand in silence while a wolf snatches a lamb. No attempt is made to save the poor thing. The lamb, I mean.
**Young ewes are often indifferent mothers. If she fails to recognize her newborn, she'll wander off, clueless that the baby needs milk. Again, the sheep herder must help.
Historically, cattlemen despised flocks of sheep on the range. They believed, at least at first, that the woollie animals had sharp hooves that cut and trampled the grass, and that the cattle refused to graze where sheep had earlier trod because of the smell they left behind. Many a range war was fought because of the cattlemen's determination to dominate the range and rid themselves of the mutton-punchers.
And so my new story goes--with a hero who is a cattleman and a heroine who tends sheep with her father. It’s a pairing rife with conflict, and though I didn’t intend it at the time, The Cattleman’s Unsuitable Wife has turned into the first book of a trilogy. The second book will be The Cattleman’s Christmas Bride in the Cowboy Christmas anthology, slated for release in October, 2009, by Harlequin Historicals. Then, to wrap things up, my current wip which will be out sometime next year.
So do tell. Have you ever had a pet who did the darnedest things? One who didn't have a clue about the most basic things in life? Who was always and forever getting into trouble and needed to be rescued?
I did.
We took in a deaf Boxer a few years ago. She was a sweet thing, but ver-ry difficult to train and discipline because she couldn't hear us well. Which may or may not have anything to do with her compulsion to eat rocks. And then throw them up. At 3:00 in the morning.
Dang, I hated seeing those rocks on my carpet in that pile of vomit--and I have no idea why she ate them in the first place. I never once saw her do it--but she nosed around our landscaping and swallowed them whole, without fail.
That's my tale--I'd love to hear yours! Take a minute to tell us, and you'll be in a drawing for a copy of The Cattleman’s Unsuitable Wife!
