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carolyn brown

Guest Post & Giveaway with Carolyn Brown, author of Darn Cood Cowboy Christmas

By Barb Drozdowich

Welcome to Sugarbeat’s Books – The Home of the Romance Novel!

Today we are welcoming Carolyn Brown to the blog! She has been here before and we’re happy she’s come back for a visit.  Especially since she brings these books with such yummy covers 🙂  She will be giving away 2 copies of Darn Good Cowboy Christmas to readers that fill out the form below!  You have to have a US or Canadian mailing address for this giveaway because the giveaway is a paperback copy.  If you missed my review from last week, make sure you see what I have to say about this book!  Sit back and enjoy what Carolyn has to share with us!

 

Carolyn Brown Guest Blog, Author of Darn Good Cowboy Christmas

 

Howdy everyone! Thank you so much for inviting me back to your blog to talk about Darn Good Cowboy Christmas. It’s the third book in the Spikes & Spurs series and the second holiday book (Honky Tonk Christmas, 2010) I’ve written and was so much fun that there’s another one on the way in the fall of 2012!

Is everyone ready for Thanksgiving? Got the turkey thawing and the pecans shelled and chopped for pies? In Darn Good Cowboy Christmas Thanksgiving at Liz’s place in Ringgold, Texas came a few days early of the actual date and they celebrated Christmas that day instead of Thanksgiving. Her folks’ carnival had had its last gig of the year in Bowie and they were on their way home to the Texas panhandle for the winter when she had the big party for the whole crew.

She and Raylen, along with whoever else they could coerce into helping them, had spent days getting all the decorations up so that her farm would run the Griswold’s House some stiff competition! And then they spent more time finding just the right Christmas tree to set up in the barn for the party. And it had presents for everyone underneath it.

I thought of Liz and all her road trips with the carnival before she gave up her traveling wings and settled down in Ringgold, Texas when asked to write about my road trips for Darn Good Cowboy Christmas. Liz wanted roots so very badly but to get them she had to fold up her wings and put them away which was not an easy task. Thank goodness Raylen was a patient man and willing to help her set roots into the Texas soil before she had to completely forsake those wings.

And now to answer that question about road trips: yes, I’ve made many trips for this series and for this book. Ringgold, Texas has an estimated population of one hundred people and that’s gathering up the folks in outlying farms and ranches. The actual town is barely a spot on the map where Highway 82 and Highway 81 intersect. It doesn’t have a gas station or a grocery store but it does have a church, an elementary school and a lot of really nice friendly folks.

You’d think that I could make a trip down to that area one time, take half a dozen pictures and a paragraph of notes and bingo, it would be done, but it didn’t work that way. There isn’t a Chicken Fried Café or the beauty shop that Gemma owns right beside it in town but I had to figure out just where it was in the book in relation to Ace’s ranch and the O’Donnell’s horse ranch. Those were figured out in the first book in the series but Liz was new in the area so she had to know about those things. And I had to look at the whole area with her eyes, not mine that had already written two books (Love Drunk Cowboy in Terral, five miles over the border into Oklahoma and Red’s Hot Cowboy in Henrietta, a few miles west of Ringgold).

Traveling from Liz’s ranch to the café, the beauty shop and the O’Donnell Ranch and then across the Red River to Austin and Rye’s house was very exciting even though I’d made the trip several times for the first two books. Her excitement over everything put a new glow on the area and made it brand new for me and hopefully for the readers.

I’d been from Ringgold to Wichita Falls dozens of times but making the trip to Wichita Falls to buy Christmas decorations and presents and passing through Henrietta was another new experience since Liz had never been to those places before. She saw things that I’d missed before like the man selling home crafted furniture on the side of the road near Henrietta.

A road trip doesn’t mean just driving through the town, looking at the mesquite, the Longhorns and the armadillos. It means stopping at fruit stands, mom and pop stores and wherever else the trip takes us. I signed books in Terral, Oklahoma this past summer at their Watermelon Festival and have had lots of feed back from the folks who bought a book saying that I got the locale and the attitude of the people “right on”. One lady said that my characters reminded her of her in-laws. Another asked if I’d lived in the Ringgold area most of my life because it sure sounded like I knew everyone. That’s the result of merely going to the area and getting a feel for it.

Road trips are a must for me because a few years ago I found out just how important they are. I was writing a historical romance set just after the Oklahoma Land Rush and my characters were swimming in a creek up near Guthrie, Oklahoma. On a fluke we took a little road trip to that area and one look at that muddy, clay-banked creek let me know that my character would not have gotten into that water in her brand new white swim dress.

So it was with Liz. I chose her farm land, her house and her barn and went with her to talk to Jasmine about working at Chicken Fried and it took more than one trip across the Red River to get it all right. It really is an area where everyone knows everyone, where neighbors still care about each other, and folks in pickup trucks still wave when they pass whether they know you or not.

Tell me, do you like to read a book where it feels like you are right there, no matter if it is written about a town with a population of a hundred or a bustling big city like Dallas?

Darn Good Cowboy Christmas by Carolyn Brown—In Stores NOW!

 

He’s One Hot Cowboy

Raylen O’Donnell is one smokin’ hot cowboy. He could have any woman he wants, but he’s never been able to forget a certain dark-haired girl who disappeared from his life. So when she suddenly returns to the ranch nexct door, Raylen’s not fixing to let her get away again…

 

And She’s Out for a Sizzlin’ Christmas

Raised in a traveling carnival, Lizelle Hanson thought all she wanted was a house that didn’t have wheels and a sexy cowboy for her very own. But settling down’s going to take some getting used to, and cathing Raylen, the hotter-than-hell cowboy next door, might just take a little holiday magic…

 

 

 

About the Author

Carolyn Brown is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with more than forty books published, and credits her eclectic family for her humor and writing ideas. She writes bestselling single title cowboy and country music mass market romances. Born in Texas and raised in southern Oklahoma, Carolyn and her husband now make their home in the town of Davis, Oklahoma, where she is working on her next book, One Hot Cowboy Wedding, which will be in stores in April 2012. For more information, please visit http://carolynlbrown.com/.

 

I’d like to thank Carolyn for stopping by  and sharing about her story!  Please drop by and see what I had to say about this story and if it sound like something you’d like, fill out the form and cross your fingers 🙂

Thanks for entering – the giveaway is over 🙁

 

 

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Red’s Hot Cowboy by Carolyn Brown

By Barb Drozdowich

Welcome to Sugarbeat’s Books – The Home of the Romance Novel!

Today I’m hosting another giveaway!  I absolutely loved Red’s Hot Cowboy by Carolyn Brown and want to share it with another reader.  If you like the sound of this book, enter my giveaway by filling out the form at the bottom of the review!
Red’s Hot Cowboy by Carolyn Brown
ISBN:978-1-4022-5361-4
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Release: Aug 2011
Source: I received a copy of this book from the publisher to read and review

He wasn’t looking for trouble….
Wil Marshall is only looking for a place to say after a winter storm knocks out power at his ranch.  The sexy cowboy never imagined he’d get entangled in a murder investigation – or that events will ignite irresistible passion between Wil and the motel’s fiery proprietress…
But trouble was looking for them both…
Pearl Richland never expected to find herself in a middle-of-nowhere Texas twon as owner of her great-aunt Pearlita’s vintage motel.  But in the midst of chaos, this spitfire is about to learn a thing or two about fate and love, the silent majority that always has the final say….

Red’s Hot Cowboy by Carolyn Brown is the second book that I have read by Ms. Brown in the last few months.  This book seems to be loosely connected to the first book that I read, Love Drunk Cowboy as there are characters in common.  Wil Marshall is a rancher who meets Pearl when he checks into her motel when his power goes out one night.  Pearl has inherited this motel from her great aunt Pearlita and has given up her job in the big city to be her own boss.  Wil and Pearl set sparks off one anther right from the start.  He calls her “Red” which irritates her and his dog attacks her cat.  Their relationship takes off from there.  The first night at the motel, Pearl prevents some young girls from sneaking into Wil’s room and then she has to go fetch him in jail the next morning after he is mistakenly arrested for murder.  To her astonishment, he pays her back for her kindness by helping clean rooms at her motel the following day.  She’s pretty impressed by a man who doesn’t mind cleaning!

This delightful story rocks along at a good pace.  The humor is plentiful and most of it on the sarcastic side which appealed to me!  The author sprinkles in country music tidbits and being a fan of country music, I found this great!  Right near the beginning of the book there is a section where Pearl comments on being reminded of a Toby Keith song.

She was reminded of Toby’s Keith’s song “I Love This Bar.”  He sang about hookers, lookers, and bikers.  Well, if he’d loved her motel instead of a bar he could have added a bride and groom, a pissed off granny who was trying to corral a bunch of bored teenage grandchildren, and sure enough there was Santa Claus over there in the corner.  Pearl didn’t see anyone offering to sit on his chubby knees, but maybe that was because he’d taken off his fake beard.  He was bald except for a rim of curly gray hair that ended, of al things, in a ponytail about three inches long at his neck.”

The Texas twang comes through loud and clear in the speech of the various characters.  I found myself thinking in twang even when I wasn’t reading the book!  Although I absolutely loved the characters of Wil and Pearl, my most favorite character was Lucy.  Lucy was physically and mentally abused by her husband for years before she decided to fake her death and leave him.  She showed up at Pearl’s hotel covered in healing bruises needing a job.  Pearl gave her a job, somewhere to live, clothes, food and a start at developing her new life.  Lucy’s strength brought tears to my eyes.  She was a wonderful secondary character for this book and in  my mind, almost stole the whole show!

Yet another winner by Carolyn Brown!  A total delight to read and a book I would highly recommend!

Just a side note, I went to the mailbox today and found this waiting for me:

 

It’s obvious to me that this is a great book!  I mean, really, would they put such a yummy man on a book that isn’t good???  Stay tuned for that review – Closer to Christmas, I think.

 

Now for the giveaway.  Just fill out the form to enter.  US and Canadian address please.  I’ll have an international giveaway at the beginning of September!


 

 

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Winners of Love Drunk Cowboy by Carolyn Brown

By Barb Drozdowich

Good Morning All!

It’s time to announce the winners of a copy of Love Drunk Cowboy by Carolyn Brown.

I’d like to thank everyone who who entered this giveaway! This is one of the most popular giveaways that I’ve held for a single book!  I hope the winners enjoy their free copy and those that didn’t get a free copy will go out an buy one 🙂

The winners are:

JoAnna B from Book Love

Emma S.

Both winners have been contacted and will be receiving their books from the publisher shortly!

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