My Second Chance Series and Me

Before death happened in the family, I had wanted to move to Washington state and become a high quality Christian school teacher. I thought God had planted a seed in my heart to move and live there and marry a CEO of that school. I fashioned myself after my name sake. After all, I would be a foreigner in Washington, but the desire faded as anew desire took root in my heart. It began as I read books about cowboys and ranchers. Two books I remembered reading help plant that new desire:  The Cowboy's Touch by Denise Hunter and a Cowboy for Christmas by Kristen James. But where to live? I lived in California for most of my life and I have contempt for California, and not because of politics but because I'm tired of living here. I want a place of my own. My mother didn't live in Iowa all her life and my father didn't live in Washington State all his life--they met and married in New York.  After my mom birth gave to my sister, my father moved us to California--where his mother had  grown up.
I have done my research and discovered that there are ranches in Montana. (Denise set her book in Montana and she is from Colorado.) I thought why not? A state I have never been too. Abraham had never been to Canaan yet he moved there (though Abraham didn't know where, God showed him).  And from there, I have set the Past Hunter in Bozeman, Montana
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​"As Eric shared his secret, Julie’s throat ached. Was there something she could do to relieve his suffering? Pray for him? She had and would. Julie had a good upraising. Although her parents had sheltered her, they showed her the love of Christ. Eric had none of that. He had his share of darkness and misery. He and his little brother suffered under the hands of their drunk and abusive father. It had drained her of all that was in her heart. And what about Drew? His mother became pregnant? She needed to share with him, to help him see where she was coming from." 

Julie was a woman after my own heart. Like Julie, I grew up being sheltered by my parents, but her life experiences (except for the rape which I will write about another time),is something I want mirrored in my own life. Julie's first real boyfriend is a rancher from Montana. And as Julie grew up Baptist so did I  yet later our religious experience changed from Baptist to Charismatic or Pentecostal.
Sometime later in my life God confirmed through a vision that I would marry a rancher and that desire hadn't left.  
I have never thought about writing a series, but authors were doing it. I needed to write a continuation of book one and it named it Baby Blues. Yet I wrote it like a sequel and not a series. However, they get a second chance in the story (more about it in the next blog) so its  series in regards to the same couple. I made up for the series with book 3 involving Julie's friends Beth.
There may or may not be a book 4. I'm still waiting for sales on my series to pick up before I write a Christmas story and for reviews to come in. Time will tell.