WITH LOVE MONTANA – Anthology Release Blog Post Featuring Author Debra Salonen!

Hello, lovely Tuligans! Long time no hear from me, but I’m back with a fun new project called With Love, Montana – Big Sky Mavericks and Friends Box Set.

I love Montana, even though I’ve barely scratched the surface of the state map with my travels there. In 2021 and again this year, my husband and I were asked to help ferry our two youngest granddaughters home from a month-long visit with their paternal aunt, uncle, and cousins in Wisdom, Montana. We actually jumped at the chance to stock up the RV and head out.

The first trip included traveling through the eastern passage of Idaho along the Salmon River. So much green beauty and water. (Since we live above the Central Valley of California, water is a BIG deal.) We took our time, visiting Idaho Falls, Craters of the Moon, and Arco, Idaho, before quietly slipping past an active wild fire on Highway 43 to drop into Big Hole Valley.

Our second trip in late June/early July of this year included a visit to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and 4 nights just outside of Glacier National Park. I swear, exploring this gorgeous area could become a full-time job, except for the winters. ;-)

We were fortunate to book a boat ride on Lake McDonald. And, I really can’t explain how thrilled I was to include as this gorgeous lake as the background of the cover for my new box set: WITH LOVE, MONTANA. 

Here’s a video I tried to shoot from the boat (The wind carried my narration away much of the time).

On our last day in this area, we enjoyed a delightful visit with my friend and fellow Tule Publishing author C.J. Carmichael and her husband, Mike, at their gorgeous cottage on Flathead Lake. I can’t wait to go back!

The next day we headed south to Wisdom. We saw so much beauty along the way it really was impossible to adequately describe or photograph. But a fabulous landscape isn’t the only thing Montana has going for it. While in Wisdom, we were treated to a joyous small-town 4th of July celebration. It truly was community at its best, and if I let my imagination go, I could almost envision Marietta and all my characters strolling about. 

When we got home from this trip, I immediately sat down at my desk and put together a proposal for my Tule editor. “What if we make a box set of my Big Sky Mavericks (the Zabrinski family) books and their newcomer, best friends, retired smokejumpers (Love, Montana)?”  I presented my proposal at a Tule Authors’ Retreat in San Juan Capistrano a few weeks later and Team Tule said, “Yes.”

I’m so excited about this box set on two fronts: one, I love the cover because every time I look at it, I’m teleported back to Glacier NP, and, two, because backlist books are NEW to someone who hasn’t read them, yet. And, while not every author wants to commit their books to a single revenue source (in this case, Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing), I’ve had good luck reaching new readers through KDP’s Kindle UNLIMITED program. Avid readers appreciate the No-risk advantage. If they download a box set and can’t get into it, they simply release it back into the wild. ;-) 

This will be a limited-time experiment, so even if you’ve read a book or two in this series, here’s your chance to fill in the gaps and hang out for an extended visit to Montana. Enjoy!

If you’d like to check it out, you can sample it for free here.

Happy reading.

Deb

About the Author.

Former award-winning newspaper journalist Debra Salonen is a nationally bestselling author with 26 published novels for Harlequin’s Superromance and American lines and one single title release for Harlequin Signature. Several of her titles were nominated for “Best Superromance,” including UNTIL HE MET RACHEL, which took home that honor in 2010. Debra was named Romantic Times Reviewer’s Career Achievement “Series Storyteller of the Year” in 2006. Debra lives in the foothills near Yosemite National Park in California with her husband and two dogs. Luckily, her two children and three grandchildren live close by to keep Debra connected to the real world.