From Here to There

To me, the best romances are about more than a romantic relationship but are laid into a story bigger, one that is about life itself. 'From Here to There’ is such a story set into several mythologies, the perfection of another person, of a place, and of histories that might or might not be true.

Helene Lamont, from a tony Boston family, is being married in a lavish Boston wedding when she realizes, no matter what the cost, she's not willing to live a life such as her parents have done. She has seen a better example of what marriage can be like in that of her deceased aunt and rancher uncle. She tells her brand new husband of her decision between the wedding service and the reception.

Multimillionaire, Phillip Drummond is in shock at the idea his trophy wife has turned into an albatross to ruin his carefully built reputation as a business wunderkind. He had the perfect wife to perfect his image right up until she is about to make a fool of him. Helene’s decision throws him back into memories of his growing up in a world, nothing like hers, that he has tried to hide.

When Helene’s Montana rancher uncle, Amos, visits Phillip with an offer to come west to his ranch where Helene will be living for awhile, Phillip at first sees him as out of his mind. What does he know about ranching? He'd be a total dude. No thanks. Still it irks him that his own toughness was not recognized by Helene. Will he also head West despite knowing it is pure foolishness?

Set mostly in Montana, it depicts the life real ranchers live today with its costs and rewards. This book is a love story of two couples, one out of the past through a journal, but also love of the mythology of the West, ranch life, and a region I have personally come to care for very much. From Here to There is about our illusions. It is also about a truth that life is led in the moments between here and there.

It is now available through Kindle at the following link-- From Here to There -- for purchase or borrowing as part of Amazon Prime.

For more of my thinking on this story, click on the button alongside here, Romance with an Edge, where I wrote further thoughts on the story and what is behind it as I see it.

Desert Inferno

Based in Southern Arizona in the country of cactus and dangerous men, Rachel O'Brian loves her life and her career as a successful oil painter.  With her widowed father, she lives on a remote ranch which has been in their family since the late 1800s.

While out on a plein air painting trip, she comes across a dying man which leads to her meeting with Border Patrol Agent, Jake Donovan, a man as hard and tough as the land he is sworn to protect. Rachel, who hasn't thought much about a relationship with any man, is instantly attracted and ready to become involved with someone different than anyone she's known.

Jake sees the beauty in Rachel but is in equal proportion determined to not be involved with a woman clearly out of his league in every possible way. He is a powerful man, with a life free of emotional entanglements which is just how he wants it. Hence the story begins as these two deal with their different goals but equally strong attraction.

Can it be that simple? Of course, not. Southern Arizona in the wilderness is a land of extremes and men who will do anything for power. Hidden within Rachel's world, as a confederate of her father, is one such man who has a history with Jake as well.

So there is danger, sexuality, and the struggle of two people to not only work out a relationship satisfactory to them both but also survive the net closing around them.

Available through Amazon at Kindle

Rain Trueax

Defining oneself is one of the harder things to do. It's something we don't think about often either that is until we need to explain ourselves to someone else for a purpose. Then it's what words will do it? I am an old woman, 68 years old to be exact. There are advantages to being 68-- I have lived a lot of years, seen a lot of things, remember many of them, and have collected stories of life and love which I carry with me. I don't think of myself as an old or young woman. I just am. Some of what that means is amazing to me as I expected being 68 to be far more limiting than it's turned out to be.

I am a woman who bore two children with great joy, saw them grow to adulthood and now have their own families where I see my grandchildren likewise growing and learning about life. Life is such a mystery, isn't it? Glorious and sometimes tragic, life is what makes writing worthwhile for me because it is so rich and full with many stories to tell-- even as they all have been told, of course; but not with my experience set. Only I can tell those.

So back to defining myself and first words that come to mind are nature loving, rural living woman... Born into the hills of the Cascade Mountains, I grew up in the front yard of Sasquatch with wilderness out my backdoor and a gravel road out my front. Schooling began in a country school where there was one room for first through third grades with fourth, fifth and sixth in the building next door. No school bus which meant a mile and a half walk to school along one of those gravel roads where in the spring I could watch pollywogs turn into frogs.

I tell the story because when I think back on memories of my life, the most vibrant ones are relating to nature in some way or another. Walking a dirt road, looking into a stream, watching a bird, swimming in a river, and on go the memories. Those from inside buildings are less strong or not retained as fondly.

Today I live on a small ranch in the foothills of the Coast Range of Oregon where my husband and I raise cattle and sheep. The grandchildren come to visit when they can and they are also being reared to love nature and the outdoors. I don't see my life even now mapped out or where it might be next year. I have always liked living that way with changes possible.

This is all reflected in my stories which are of love, of men and women finding relationships and struggling with all the things that humans always have. Perhaps romantic love has not always been so available but maybe it's been in the heart of men and women from the time they first became recognizably human. We don't have a breeding cycle as so many animals do; so there has to be something to draw us together, make us even willing to sacrifice, and that something is not simply lust but a far deeper connection that goes into our souls and some call soul mates.

Whatever it's called, for me to write about romances is all I really know; but I like an edge to those romances and hence the books I write, I call Romance with an Edge. This is not only what I write but what I enjoy in someone else's book. I like stories of two people coming together with a complication that often proves dangerous. I don't like writing or reading borderline erotica but do like some sex as part of that edge.

The site I called Romance with an Edge was fun to write, still is fun to write, but it didn't answer the question of how readers would find me. That required them looking for my writing name and hence was born this site which will be more of a biography of me and then the books as they are introduced onto Kindle and Nook.

My books come out of my life, my experience, my loves, the stories I have heard of others, and finally my dreams as I definitely have dreamed many romance stories over the years that lay themselves out like a book for me to then retell later. I like character driven books to read and write. That is not to say plot doesn't matter but it's secondary to the development of these characters along with their motivations that drives so much of what will happen.

This site is not about romances in general but my actual books and me. It is here to help readers decide whether to read one of my stories-- or if someone has liked one, that they will find others they might equally enjoy. Here is where the links to finding them and synopses of them will be found. I hope it proves beneficial.