Discover. . .: In the Book

Monday, September 16, 2024

In the Book

Blogging about life's adventures and books...

Adventures past, present, or future. And my books--then and now.

Last month, I published the complete set of the series, Wild Horse Peaks. This compilation, this series has had quite an evolutionary journey. I'm often asked where I get my ideas or how does a book or story come about. Authors talk like books are their babies. They even celebrate book birthdays. Sounds silly, I suppose, but we don't just write a book, set it free, and then forget about it. I find myself thinking about certain characters as if their life has continued without me looking in. I think about how I might have written their stories differently.

What are today known as the Wild Horse Peaks books have had a journey. In 2012, I had a concept for a series that would eventually become five books. I called the series, Love and Murder. It was my first venture into Romantic Suspense. I intended to weave my love of coffee, my Indian heritage, and Minneapolis into the first book. As it progressed, I moved the setting to Arizona, I incorporated Hopi heritage not my own, but I was able to keep coffee love the same. My heroine owned a coffee shop.

I was able to pitch my concept to an agent and gained representation. I had the first two books written at the time. I wanted her to pitch the series to publishers I couldn't get into on my own. But she worked too slow for my comfort, and we parted ways. In 2013, I submitted the first book to a publisher who had several of my books, and it was accepted with an agreement to publish the whole series. The five books in the Love and Murder Series were published between 2014 and 2018.

By 2021, I grew dissatisfied with lackluster sales. Publishers do very little to promote books. I had done some promotion, but I was busy writing other books too. I had dipped my toes into self-publication with another series and found the waters quite warm and welcoming.

I asked for my rights back for all five books. I was excited. I could dig in, re-edit, make the books better. And I think I did. I wanted a more western flavor, so I changed the setting names. The San Francisco Peaks became Wild Horse Peaks. I updated some of the verbiage and cleaned up any mistakes that had been missed first time around. I was super excited to change the covers to reflect more of the suspense and the story. I also turned it into a four book series with a sequel, which it should've been all along.

Last month, I got another idea...bundle the four books into a complete works set. It's been well received!

If you haven't read all of the books in the series, or if only one, then now is the time to dig into the four book series, Wild Horse Peaks. It's available in eBook and Kindle Unlimited:

Wild Horse Peaks, The Complete Series