THE COWBOY STEALS A LADY: Release day blog post featuring Anne McAllister

Hi Everyone!  Hope that you’re all doing well and are finding a bit of life outside the house these days.  It’s been an interesting year, hasn’t it?  

One of the things I’ve reflected on this year is the jobs people do and how they have had to change the way they do them.  Mine has not been a big change. I still write exactly where I always have, and while I do my work as a genealogist and family historian online almost exclusively now, I haven’t had to adjust too much (though I do miss regular visits to courthouses, archives and libraries). 

Others are not so lucky.  Shane Nichols, the hero of The Cowboy Steals a Lady, as a rodeo roughstock rider would have had his world changed quite a lot. He’s lucky I wrote the book before Covid-19 entered the picture. If he thought he was going stir crazy as a result of the freak injury that was keeping him from competing (he was helping out a friend with a truck and a trailer and ended up getting his thumb sewn back on!), he would definitely have been swinging from the rafters (even with his healing thumb) during this past year!  

Shane’s impulsiveness combined with his innate goodheartedness was the starting point for his story.  Only this time he isn’t helping a friend with a truck and trailer.  His rodeo buddy, Cash Callahan, even more of a rolling stone than Shane, is bemoaning his former girlfriend Milly’s impending wedding to a sane, safe, stable accountant (in other words, the opposite of Cash).  Cash insists he would do something about it, except he has drawn a great bronc to ride at a rodeo in Texas on Saturday.  

Shane, who sympathizes with his buddy’s predicament more than you or I probably would (or frankly than most of the rest of the world would!), decides to help Cash out.  He’ll talk to Milly, make her realize that Cash is really the man she loves, convince her to call off the wedding and wait for Cash.

Or he could just spirit her away for a day.  She can’t get married if she isn’t at the wedding, can she? 

See? Impulsive.  Good-hearted, but, um, seriously misguided.  He was such a fun hero to work with!  

And Poppy? The heroine he made off with?  Practical, determined, no-nonsense, Poppy is a woman with a long history of dealing with her father, the judge, who has bulldozed in his own way. She was a perfect match for Shane – even though she was the florist, not the bride!

I had such a good time with those two and their story.  After the angst of Shane’s older brother, Mace, and his wife, Jenny, in The Cowboy Finds A Family, I really wanted to write a book that made me smile while I was writing, one that even made me shake my head and laugh at times. Shane and Poppy gave me that.  I got up in the morning eager to spend the day with them.  

There were other perks, too.  I got to revisit the cabin where Mace had lived in his book. This time, though, It was up to the porch in snow.  I also got to go back to high school days and recall rivalries between local football teams.

It was at the football game that I met a new character who so charmed me that he’s going to get his own story soon.  I got to meet Poppy’s father who made me realize where Poppy got her grit and her resolve.  And I got to watch Shane’s impulsiveness and honor do battle more than once over the course of the book.  All in all, I had a good time.

Not to mention the chicken.  

I hope you’ll get a chance to meet the chicken.  Poppy does, too. And Shane?  Er, well, not so much.

Photos of florist, cabin, football game and chicken used with permission/Depositphotos.com

Years ago someone told Anne McAllister that the recipe for happiness was a good man, a big old house, a bunch of kids and dogs, and a job you loved that allows you to read.  And write.  She totally agrees.