How to Write a Great “Hidden-Child” Romance!

Why “A Rancher’s Pride” Is Getting Universal Great Reviews!

A Rancher's Pride
by Barbara White Daille
Harlequin American Romance
Miniseries: American Romance's Men of the West
Category: Heart & Home

 
"A Rancher's Pride" has enjoyed the highest book reviews. RT gave it 4 1/2 starts, Top Pick, and I've never seen them give 5 stars. (I think they give 5 Stars once every ten years). "A Rancher's Pride" is about as good a 'hidden-child' romance as you'll ever read.
 
In this review I'd like to go into how Barbara White Daille did it.


First, "A Rancher's Pride" starts with the hero discovering he has a child. Often you have to wait two chapters for the hero to make this discovery. It’s almost as if the editor just cut off the first two chapters to get right to the action.

Here’s the opening two sentences:

“The minute Sam Robertson saw his mother's frozen expression, he knew something terrible had happened. He hadn't seen that look on Sharleen's face since the night his daddy died.”

After this I was hooked. But things didn’t let up. Often when the hero finds out he has a ‘hidden-child’, the hero and heroine begin to try and solve their conflicts. Not this book!

In “A Rancher’s Pride” the conflict grows like a snowball rolling down a hill! I was ¼ into the book and the conflict was still growing. This makes for the kind of intense reading that most fans like in a romance. Here’s what the author said about writing this story:

“Writing ‘A Rancher’s Pride’ kept me on the verge of tears, because even I wasn’t sure how Sam, Kayla and Becky could ever reach a happy ending.”

Well, yes, if the author keeps increasing the conflict instead of working it out, after a while, the reader will wonder too!

This is just wonderful writing! The kind of writing that is very hard to do but the kind that fans love most!

The Story:

The hero, Sam Robertson, lives on a ranch in New Mexico. The heroine, Kayla Ward, is the aunt of the hidden child who wants custody. The child, Becky, is deaf and Kayla is an American Sign Language teacher. She can communicate with Becky but her father, Sam, is totally lost.

“A Rancher’s Pride” is a very well motivated story that will grab your heart while ringing true to the last sentence. Don’t miss it!

Highest Recommendation!



The Great Amazon Romance with Life Continues…

21 Years Later…
A Real Life Heroine Continues Her Love Story:

A love of caring
A love of healing
A love of life
A love of a people

Dr. Linnea Smith

Product Details 

Paperback: 238 pages

Publisher: Pfeifer-Hamilton Pubs (October 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1570251401
ISBN-13: 978-1570251405


This is an inspiring book that's a pleasure to read. It gives the reader the vicarious enjoyment of being part of a noble endeavor. In an age of "road rage" and the obsessive accumulation of more and more things (which often do not make us happy), it's exhilarating to experience a taste of Dr. Linnea's life.

Dr. Smith shows us how one can give up almost all the material possessions and creature comforts of the modern world and still find meaning, happiness, and personal fulfillment. Dr. Smith has created for herself a significant life. A life with much to teach a troubled world.

While missionaries have long sacrificed themselves to serve God, win the eternal salvation of lost souls, and earn a place in the pantheon of saints, Dr. Smith does it for the pure humanity of the effort. Goodness is indeed its own reward in this Amazon outpost.

Because of Dr. Smith's "wonderful life", many lives have been enriched and some even saved. More importantly, countless hours of suffering have been alleviated. This is the most humane thing: ending or reducing pain. We all have to die but we shouldn't have to suffer or endure years of pain when a cure is available. Dr. Smith provides the cures that often would not be provided otherwise.

She treats the sick and asks nothing in return; she allows her patients to keep their personal integrity; she respects their beliefs; she grants them respect and maintains their dignity; I think this could be called love.

On the surface, this book is about a one woman medical practice hidden in the Amazon rain forest. Beneath the surface, however, it is about finding meaning in a world that too often seems to be without meaning. Dr. Smith's "life-example" has the power to let you view your own life differently; perhaps with a clearer insight. With one brave decision, everything can change. For Dr. Smith and thousands of her patients, the change has had life-sustaining significance.

When I first read this book years ago, I felt a similar elation reading this book that I experienced when the US Women's Soccer Team won the World Cup. I was proud that our young women could show the world such excellence in a non-American sport. What else would this generation of young American women do in the future now that they saw what they could do? It is the power of their "example" that is so exciting. I stood and cheered in the privacy of my living room. This book still has the power to more me twenty-one years later.

Dr. Smith is such an example, as well. She's one of our own; a human we can be proud of -- a human we would gladly point to if Extra Terrestrials came to earth and wanted to interview an exemplar human being for the Encyclopedia Galactica. Better yet, she is in "real time"; she is alive and still "on-mission". You can be a part of her life. You can support her efforts. You can even bring her medicine if you visit the Amazon -- as some adventurous tourists do. You can visit her website (run by her relatives in the USA.)

As a bonus, the book is very well written and designed. It is also moderately priced.

La Doctora demonstrates the best in mankind. The message is optimistic; the ending, happy. Reading it may make you happy. And maybe, as in my case, it may make you want to stand and cheer as you finish the last page.

Keep up the good work Dr. Smith. You can follow her life in her newsletter. Feeling good and feeling proud and feeling optimistic is definitely worth the price of admission.

How You Can Help

Amazon Medical Project, Inc. TM

Kim Stokes, Administrator

PO Box 194

Mazomanie, WI 53560

Telephone: (608) 795-4792

The Philosophy of Ethics & Redneck Etiquette

If you are a redneck...

1. It is improper to drive your tractor to the wedding – when you're the bride.

2. Your tractor is not a proper vehicle for a first date.

3. A box of OO-buck shells is not an appropriate gift at a shotgun wedding.

4. if you eat the last piece of chicken, you have to kill the next chicken.

5. it is inappropriate to be the best man at your ex-wife’s wedding unless you’re related to the groom.

6. it is inappropriate to pass out at a party while there is still liquor available.

7. it is inappropriate to throw beer bottles at women honkytonk singers if they are pregnant.

8. it is inappropriate to send Valentine cards to cousins -- if you used to be married to them.

9. it’s inappropriate to lend your handicap sticker to someone who is too drunk to park in the regular spaces.

10. it’s inappropriate to ask an author at a book signing if she’s written any real books. (Now that’s a real redneck!)

Special thanks to Mary Connealy – Romantic Comedy with Cowboys for inspiring this post!

Abigail Gordon Spins Another Magical Medical Romance!

“Bluebell Cove” is the Hero and the Heroine is the Author: Abigail Gordon!

Wedding Bells for the Village Nurse

Abigail Gordon

Harlequin Medical Romance

Miniseries: The Bluebell Cove Stories
Category: Classic Romance
Paperback & Kindle editions
 
Read the opening passages of “Wedding Bells for the Village Nurse,” and you’ll quickly see that the real hero in this book is the idyllic setting!

“When Jenna Balfour looked out of the window of the taxi as it cruised along the coast road on a Sunday afternoon in midsummer it was there down below, beautiful and changeless. A strip of golden sand where Atlantic breakers, white edged and powerful, forever staked their claim, and today, as was often the case, surfers were there to challenge them with boards at the ready.

“It had been her favorite place while she’d been growing up and nothing had changed while she’d been studying nursing at a London college. Every time she’d been home on vacation she’d gone down to the beach to surf within minutes of arriving home.”

I just love Abigail Gordon’s writing. She is bold and confident. She lets you know she is going to tell you a story, she sets the stage, fills in the facts, and then weaves her magic. Abigail Gordon is a modern day storyteller. Her stories alone keep the reader captivated. Her writing is free of artifice. Because she carefully sets the story up at the start, her short books provide a much richer ‘read’ that one usually only finds in books twice the length.

The story:

Of course, there is a real hero and heroine in “Wedding Bells for the Village Nurse.” The hero, Dr. Lucas Devereux is a top heart surgeon who was unjustly attacked and almost killed by an unhappy husband whose wife died on Devereux’s operating table. He has taken a simple job as doctor in the beautiful “Bluebell Cove” resort town in England in order to find peace of mind.

The heroine, Jenna Balfour, is a nurse returning home to Bluebell Cove when her mother becomes too disabled to take care of herself. Her mother was the head of the medical practice and never had any time for her daughter when she was going up.

How Lucas and Jenna find love and happiness is the rest of the story. There’s lots of medical action as you would expect in a Medical Romance.

Another Great Story by Abigail Gordon

 
Also Read these Reviews of "Bluebell Cove" Stories:

"Summer Seaside Wedding" 

“The Village Nurse's Happy-Ever-After”

What Happens If Both The Bride and The Groom Runaway from the Wedding Ceremony?

“His Runaway Bride”
by Liz Fielding
Happens!




You might think this is a silly, light hearted, romantic comedy. You’d be wrong. The author actually crafts a detailed scenario in which the story is not only believable but likely!

It’s a solid romance. Both the bride and groom have ample motivation for getting cold feet and fleeing the church. To get back together again will take a complete reevaluation of each of their lives.

How the hero and heroine find themselves and then rediscover each other is what “His Runaway Bride” is all about. Most of the story takes in England with a little time spend in the Caribbean. 

This book is a new eBook release of the 2001 romance. The story is still as fresh and new as if it were written yesterday. The world is changing. More and more authors are having their entire backlist of books made available as eBooks. Now if you like an author, as I do Liz Fielding, you have instantly available dozens of her books, at low prices, and without shipping charges.

Authors Who Compete With Themselves!

Authors will a large backlist of books may well become their own biggest competition! No matter how many new books come on the market, a reader still only has a limited time to read books. The world is indeed changing.

I highly recommend “His Runaway Bride” as an excellent romance – but I should add that the runaway bride is one of my favorite themes.


Highly Recommended!



“How to Help a Greiving Friend” – Winner of the “Wisdom of the Heart” Award!

“How to Help a Greiving Friend” 

 Five Star Non-Fiction!
A candid guide for those who care.

“Wisdom of the Heart” – An Award for Practical Excellence of the Highest Order!

I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t benefit from reading this book or anyone who wouldn’t enjoy reading it. Read the full review here.

Congratulations to Pam Hillman on First Sale!

It was announced today that Seeker, Pam Hillman, has sold her first book to Tyndale.

"So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen". 

Matthew 20:16

All the Seekers Have Now Been Chosen!

Let the fireworks begin!