Today's Special - - B.J. Daniels

I'm delighted to welcome B.J. Daniels to The Romance Dish today.  I've been reading B.J.'s books for a number of years and had the pleasure of meeting her in person at last summer's RWA conference.  

The USA Today bestselling author lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and three Springer Spaniels, Spot, Jem and Ace. When she isn’t writing, she quilts, snowboards, camps, boats and plays tennis.  To contact her, write: B.J. Daniels, P.O. Box 1173, Malta, MT 59538 or email her at bjdaniels@mtintouch.net Check out her webpage and blog at www.bjdaniels.com

Take it away, B.J.!

Imagine that you’ve weathered a lot of losses in your life. Now all you have left is a struggling sheep ranch and an old sheepherder who is more like your grandfather than hired help.

            Then the worst happens. The young man you sent to help the sheepherder is a suspect for murder, your faithful sheepherder is missing and Deputy Sheriff Bentley Jamison is at your door.

That is what happens to Madison “Maddie” Conner in my new book FORSAKEN. Maddie is an amazing woman who I fell in love with the first time I met her. She’s strong and determined and capable. She’s been running the sheep ranch by herself for years with only the help of Branch Murdock, her sheepherder.

But now she must pull on her boots and ride back into the unforgiving Beartooth mountains to find

out what has happened. Worse, Deputy Jamison refuses to let her go alone because he suspects what they will find when they reach the sheep camp is a murder scene.

What made this book fun for me to write was that Jamison is a greenhorn from back East. He doesn’t know anything about the wilds of Montana let alone sheep. But he does know about murder since his former job was as a homicide detective in New York.

Trapped together in a late summer storm high in the mountains miles from civilization with a killer, the two have to work together to survive.

I love writing about strong women but I have to tell you, Maddie is my favorite. She has accepted her life, one that only includes hard work. But the greenhorn deputy reminds her that she is a woman and still desirable.

This book idea came from meeting one of the real-life sheepherders who used to take a flock of two thousand sheep back into the Beartooth wilderness, a trek of over 150 miles, and three long summer months without seeing another soul other than his “tender,” the young man who took care of the camp.

I spent some time recently in that area. There are no roads, no houses, nothing but high mountains, rocky cliffs and beautiful wild meadows. There is some cell phone coverage if you are on one of the highest peaks, but even that is sketchy. The only way to get back into this country is on foot or a horse.

Maddie is as beautiful and as wild as this country she loves. But she has no idea what is waiting for her back in the mountains.

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did writing it. Maddie Conner could be my favorite character of all time. A character like that needed a special man. Deputy Sheriff Bentley Jamison is that man.

B.J. Daniels
www.bjdaniels.com

Thanks, BJ!  I'm looking forward to reading Maddie and Bentley's story!  Is there anything you'd like to ask our readers today?

Question: Maddie and Jamison are older than a lot of "romance" novels. Do you like reading about characters who find love after having had other lovers/marriages?

Okay, readers.  Let's see some comments!  BJ is giving away three signed copies of Redemption, the second book in her Beartooth, Montana series from HQN.  (open internationally)