Writing Christmas with the Texas Cowboy was a total blast to the past for me. Over five years ago, I traveled to Texas Hill Country with the Tule team and several Tule authors to research the Hill Country so that Tule could create a new town in Texas, similar to what the Tule team and so many authors over the years created and developed Marietta, Montana. We stayed in a VRBO in Fredericksburg and enjoyed several days of shopping, picture taking, researching, wine tasting, visiting tourist sites, including a historic dance hall.
And we chatted, planned and plotted to not only create the bones of Last stand, but also the history, businesses and legacy ranches and family. We also brainstormed a catastrophic event that the initial group of authors would include in their first series to layer in some cohesion between very different series.
Traveling and working with so many talented authors was so much fun and inspiring. I would love to be a part of more multi-author series. All that creativity and collaboration feeds my soul and pushes me to UP my game.
I created a rather dysfunctional ranching family—The Wolfs–that had been torn apart by tragedy, secrets, scandal and addiction (that’s me—a ray of sunshine, always in fiction). My goal was to create three estranged brothers and over the course of the series, have them reconnect, come to terms with their past, and of course, boot some of their baggage as they met their match in a heroine. The first book A Son for the Texas Cowboy was of course a reunion romance—my favorite trope. But I realized as I started crafting the stories for the other two brothers—August and Anders—that reunion romances worked beautifully as they are so trapped by their past and their legacy. Falling in love forces them into the light (even as they fight it, or course).
I’ve been missing my Texas Wolf Brothers. I wanted to revisit them. Check in. See how they are building their own legacy and families. As I was crafting my Coyote Cowboys of Montana series in Marietta, I had a brainstorm. I had a new team leader of the group, and if I made him a secret Wolf Brother, I could send him back to Texas at the end of the Coyote Cowboy of Montana series.
This is only one of the many reasons I LOVE being a writer. I can build my own world and family and friends. So meet Wolf Conte, who knows that he has three half-brothers thriving in Texas he’s been avoiding for decades. The LAST thing the independent Wolf—a Special Forces soldier, not a cowboy–wants to do is go home, meet his secret family, be reminded of all he craved but never had, face the ghosts of his own past and the barrel racer he left behind.
Too bad Wolf. I sent you home. The trick with writing romance, is that it’s not about falling in love. It’s about being forced to face the ONE thing (or things) your hero or heroine want to avoid. And while your H or H or both are dancing around trying to cope and achieve their goals and move on, they are inexorably falling in love, even as they do their best to slip the rope and run in the opposite direction. Merry Christmas Wolf and Taya.
*** GIVEAWAY ***
For a chance to win a copy of “Christmas for the Texas Cowboy” along with a surprise Christmas ornament and reader swag, email me at [email protected]
When sending my hero home to Last Stand Texas, I googled annual weather reports and pondered temperature averages. Not particularly snowy though local weather forecasters try to play it up for drama. Most of my Christmas books have been set in Montana, southern Oregon’s Siskiyous, or the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee—lots of snow so I was a little worried about how to create a true Christmas atmosphere. When you are reading a Christmas romance, does it need to have snow to feel fully authentic? Are you disappointed if a Christmas romance is set in a warmer climate.
About the Author.
Sinclair Sawhney is a former journalist and middle school teacher who holds a BA in Political Science and K-8 teaching certificate from the University of California, Irvine and a MS in Education with an emphasis in teaching writing from the University of Washington. She has worked as Senior Editor with Tule Publishing for over seven years. Writing as Sinclair Jayne she’s published fifteen short contemporary romances with Tule Publishing with another four books being released in 2021. Married for over twenty-four years, she has two children, and when she isn’t writing or editing, she and her husband, Deepak, are hosting wine tastings of their pinot noir and pinot noir rose at their vineyard Roshni, which is a Hindi word for light-filled, located in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Shaandaar!
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