Eleven years ago—exactly eleven years this month, in fact—I started writing a novel for my 2009 NaNoWriMo project about a girl who inherited a Wyoming ranch after her grandfather’s murder. I ending up hitting the goal of 50,000 words needed to win, but didn’t produce a complete book—I wrote out of order on whatever scene I had ideas for on a given day, so I ended up with about a dozen fragments in separate Word documents (I typed my first drafts in those days *shudder*). I still have those files, and no, you’re not going to get to see any of them; they’re awful.

I don’t remember exactly why I stopped working on the book after NaNo. Abandoning half-finished stories, probably because I started too many without having a clear idea of where they were going, was my worst writing fault for many years and this was probably no exception. But unlike some abandoned stories, I never fully quit on this one. Every once in a while over the years I’d pull out the pair of battered pink notebooks containing the outline and update it with new ideas. I changed the title. I changed the identity of the criminal (twice). I renamed most of the characters. I took characters out and put them back in again (and then took them out again). I tried to rewrite the opening chapters once or twice, but they just didn’t work.

Then, finally, sometime in the summer of 2017 I had the idea that would prove to be the key: to try rewriting it in first-person, in a style inspired by Mary Stewart’s vintage romantic-suspense novels which had become some of my favorite books. And it worked. It finally gave the novel the spark of life it had been lacking. It required a little more re-jigging of the outline to have my protagonist be present for all important scenes, but I think that gave it a little more focus.

Of course, it wasn’t all smooth sailing from there. I still had to write the darn thing. I dropped it and picked it up a few more times over those few final years, but this time I kept plugging at it until it was finished (cutting a couple of unnecessary subplots and re-renaming a few more characters along the way). October 2020 proved a fitting climax, with my computer crashing irreparably just as I was entering final edits, and a bit of clutching-the-disheveled-locks over an important scene that had to be pulled apart and pieced back together at the last minute. But we made it through, this novel and I: perhaps not with as much grace as I would have wished, but hopefully with more than I would have been capable of a few years or even a few months ago.

All this long-winded reminiscing is merely a lead-up to announcing that today, at long last, Land of Hills and Valleys is a published novel. I’m not sure it will feel quite real to me until I hold a copy of it in my hands. It may take a while even then. But I assure you it is real, and here it is:

Her inheritance came with an unsolved mystery.

If she can’t find out the truth, she may lose more than she gained.

Lena Campbell never knew her grandfather—but she always dreamed of visiting Wyoming, where her mother was born and raised. When she receives word that her grandfather is dead and his Wyoming ranch belongs to her, she jumps at the chance.

Only later does she learn that Garth McKay was murdered, and the murder is still unsolved.

Despite this shadow hanging over her, Lena thrives in her new life—and unexpectedly finds love there. And then a new revelation breaks the McKay murder case wide open again, and leaves her reeling.

Caught in a battle to prove the innocence of the man she loves, Lena begins to have frightening doubts. Whatever verdict the jury returns, will she ever know the truth about Garth McKay’s death—and does she even want to?

If you love mystery and romantic suspense in the style of Mary Stewart and Phyllis A. Whitney, you’ll love this story of murder, romance, and coming of age in 1930s Wyoming.

Get it today!

Paperback: Amazon

Ebook: Kindle | Kobo | Smashwords | Apple | Nook