©Peggy McKenzie 2018

It’s November and getting close to the holidays again. It’s my favorite time of the year. I decorate every corner, sofa, window and deck with Christmas stuff. I love Christmas!

But wait, let me stop you right there. Although Christmas season is awesome (and it is—no doubt about it) what about—wait for it—waaaaait for it—what about Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving, you ask? You mean the time of the year we celebrate our forefathers and cram our face with all of our favorite foods (and some not so favorite—like an elderly’s aunt’s green bean casserole where she actually uses broccoli instead of green beans?) Yeah, that time of the year. It’s an awesome time when family and friends get together and have fun and food. But what if we put a new spin on Thanksgiving? What if we actually took the time to be thankful?

It sounds corny, but let’s think about it for a minute. What if we focused just for a few minutes with some quiet reflection on what we all have to be thankful for. Pick a spot off the beaten path that you enjoy—a chair that looks off your deck, a rock on the side of a mountain, beside a lake somewhere. Maybe choose a time when the kids are in school and the spouse is at work. A time when you can hear yourself think—really think. Turn off your phone. Your television. Your computer. Free your mind.

Personally, I like to sit by the fire with a giant cup of spiked coffee on a chilly day. The fire is popping in the fireplace. Maybe some snow falling softly in the pines. Best of all, there’s a huge stack of firewood just waiting for me to stuff it onto the grate. There’s nothing worse for killing the warm fuzzies than to have to put on your boots, hat, coat and tromp out into the snow to carry in armfuls of wet firewood.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr. I digress—

Back to being thankful—as far as I know, there isn’t any playbook or magic wand on how to approach gratitude. It just takes some thought and an open heart to discover what truly makes us happy. We may be surprised that it isn’t the things we thought. Look, we all have blessings in our life just as we all have hardships in our life. There’s always gonna be someone worse off than we are and there’s always gonna be someone better off than we are. The key is to be grateful for the things we experience in our lives every day. Even the bad stuff, because without the bad stuff, we can’t really appreciate the good stuff.

Okay, off my soap box. Now that we have a mindful appreciation of the blessings in our lives, let’s move on to Christmas, shall we?

SARAH—ANGEL CREEK CHRISTMAS BRIDES is a series about women left in Charleston, South Carolina after the end of the Civil War.

Money was hard to come by. Men were even harder to find.

Confederate widow, Sarah Caldwell, has lost everything. Her husband. Her home. Her fortune. And now, she will lose her young daughter if she doesn’t leave Charleston before her contemptible in-laws convince a court to grant them custody. When Sarah’s four best friends decide to answer an advertisement for brides somewhere in Montana Territory, she decides to join them praying the law won’t follow.

An injured expatriate of the Union Army, Quinn Cassidy, is now the sheriff of Angel Creek. He likes the tranquility of this little mountain town and vows to protect it. But, when five beauties from Charleston step off the stage coach, he wonders if he can. The dark-haired woman, with the little girl in tow, walked into his life and into his heart. Now, he needs a Christmas miracle to keep his new bride out of his jail.

Get your copy here!

*~*~*

GRACE-BRIDES OF THE RIO GRANDE is a series about four orphans who bond with a gregarious woman who owns a saloon and refuses to allow these women to become prostitutes. When one of the young women is forced to kill a man to in self-defense, these four women flee to find justice and love with the men of Creede, Colorado.

The only family Grace Sinclair has known includes three other orphans and the bawdy saloon owner who took them in eight years earlier. Grace has appointed herself big sister, friend and protector to the three younger girls, seeing to their welfare as best she can with no money, no family and no hope for much of a future. When one of her sisters kills an over-ardent saloon patron in self-defense, Grace knows her only chance of keeping her little family together is to hightail it out of town so the law will think she’s the murderess.

John Malone didn’t send for a mail-order bride, but somehow he finds himself wed to a feisty city woman hellbent on forcing him to confront the misery and loss he’s been hiding from since the devastating loss of his wife and infant son. His plan to convince the young woman he’s not a fit husband and the unsettled Colorado wilderness is not a fit place for a lady quickly goes awry, plunging him deeper into trouble when he finds himself falling for his sweet bride.

Get your copy here!

*~*~*

FAITH-BRIDES OF THE RIO GRANDE Despite the improbable odds of a half-breed orphan getting a fair trial after being accused of murdering the son of the mayor of Kansas City, frontier justice has given Faith No-Name a second chance at life. For the past two years, Faith’s trust—indeed, her very future—has been in the hands of a talented young attorney. She’s fallen in love with the handsome Irishman but she’s not naïve enough to dream that a respectable white man would consider marriage to a woman of mixed blood who’d grown up with three other orphans under the eye of a bawdy saloon keeper.

Defending the dark-haired, doe-eyed young woman accused of murder has tested Liam O’Brien’s sense of justice in ways he never imagined. Every time he looks at her, he is reminded of the horrible Indian raid that left his parents dead and his sister kidnapped. He escaped, but only because he hid from the marauders like a coward. His heart is a dark tempest of rage, loathing and guilt that makes it impossible for him to view Faith as anything other than a savage heathen…except the more he learns about her, the more his prejudices are challenged.

Get your copy here!

I wish each of you a wonderful holiday season filled with friends, family and fabulous gratitude.

Peggy McKenzie
Writing Happy Endings and Second Chances One Story At A Time
Where love becomes legendary.
www.peggymckenzie.com

Brides of the Rio Grande Series
Langley’s Legacy
Angel Creek’s Christmas Brides
Wild Deadwood Tales Anthology: Proceeds benefit THE WESTERN SPORTS FOUNDATION

About the Author

Born and raised in Oklahoma, Peggy McKenzie was a barrel racer in her younger days. When she grew tired of banging her knees on the cans, she decided to learn to team rope with her husband. Then, she took it a step further with the horse power and bought herself a Harley.

In 2014, she retired from her career as a fraud examiner for the State of Oklahoma. She and her family moved to beautiful southern Colorado where she continues to write her novels about the romance of the old west. Peggy is currently finishing up the last two books in her Brides of the Rio Grande series and is looking forward to her next writing project, a collaborative effort with five other Best Selling Authors called Angel Creek Christmas Brides. She loves to take walks in the mountains and she’s always up for a hook in the water.

Peggy has been in love with reading romance since the ripe old age of fourteen when she picked up her first “forbidden book”. She continues to enjoy reading all types of romance genres. Some of her favorite authors are Callie Hutton, Hildie McQueen, Merry Farmer, Lily Graison, Sylvia McDaniel, Carolyn Brown, Christie Craig and Alice Clayton.

Look for Peggy on the following social media sites:
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Amazon
BookBub

UPDATE: The winner of the free download is Elysian Fields!
*~*~*

The second story in my two-book “Heart” series is out today! This series includes True Heart and Lone Heart, that follows the Wyatt men who own a ranch in Colorado. True is the straight-arrow brother, who bends his own rules when he meets the woman he falls for like a ton of bricks. Lone, who’s a footloose rodeo cowboy, finds a reason to stick around when he meets his true love.

Lone Heart

Temptation this wicked has only one explanation—the devil has dimples!

When ex-rancher and rodeo cowboy, Lone Wyatt, saunters into a small Oklahoma town, he isn’t expecting much. After his brother married the woman they both loved, he’s been rethinking his life, opening himself to the possibility of finding his “one and only”—but he’s in no rush. Until he meets Charli Kudrow. One wary glance from her haunted eyes, and he’s ready to tear through every objection she offers. He knows there’s a hidden fire inside her just waiting to erupt.

For the first time since she lost her childhood sweetheart, widow Charli Kudrow feels a spark of attraction for the young cowboy who seems set on seducing her. Thinking she’ll never see him again, she succumbs to temptation, only to discover that little “spark” was more of raging wildfire. When her foreman hires Lonny, there’s no escaping his wicked, flirty ways.

Get your copy here!

In case you missed it—True Heart!

Two men plus one woman equals three bodies on fire…

True Wyatt’s hands are going to be full enough keeping the herd alive through the dead of winter. The last thing he needs to hear is that his brother Lonny rented out their isolated hunting cabin to a reclusive writer—especially a sassy, disaster-prone brunette. Who has the time to babysit a city girl until Spring?

With a deadline looming, erotica writer Honey Cahill is looking forward to six distraction-free weeks to finish her next book. However, between Lonny’s flirty sensuality and True’s hard-edged intensity, the Wyatt brothers set the stage of her imagination for a winter of wicked delights.

However, the fire that destroys the cabin is as real as it gets. Forced to shelter under True and Lonny’s roof, the temptation to experiment—all in the name of research, of course—is overpowering.

Get your copy here!

Contest

Win a free download of True Heart by telling me something cool, weird, or strange about you!

I have a two-fer series, which includes True Heart and Lone Heart, that follows the Wyatt men who own a ranch in Colorado. True is the straight-arrow brother, who bends his own rules when he meets the woman he falls for like a ton of bricks. Lone, who’s a footloose rodeo cowboy, finds a reason to stick around when he meets his true love.

True Heart is out now! Lone Heart is following very, very soon. So, buckle up! You know it’s going to be a hot and fierce ride.

True Heart

Two men plus one woman equals three bodies on fire…

True Wyatt’s hands are going to be full enough keeping the herd alive through the dead of winter. The last thing he needs to hear is that his brother Lonny rented out their isolated hunting cabin to a reclusive writer—especially a sassy, disaster-prone brunette. Who has the time to babysit a city girl until Spring?

With a deadline looming, erotica writer Honey Cahill is looking forward to six distraction-free weeks to finish her next book. However, between Lonny’s flirty sensuality and True’s hard-edged intensity, the Wyatt brothers set the stage of her imagination for a winter of wicked delights.

However, the fire that destroys the cabin is as real as it gets. Forced to shelter under True and Lonny’s roof, the temptation to experiment—all in the name of research, of course—is overpowering.

Get your copy now!

Growing up I was a sucker for history. How people lived in ages past always intrigued me. Born in 1956, I grew up a child of the 60’s Black is Beautiful movement. Nacent pride in being Black — as we were calling ourselves then — intensified my curiosity. I hungered for anything and everything that could teach me African American history. That’s why TV shows touching on the hidden stories of African Americans stick with me to this day.

I remember Ossie Davis guest starring as an ex-slave caring for his son on Bonanza. Watching Yaphet Kotto on High Chaparral where I first learned about Buffalo Soldiers. I can still see the boxed paragraph with illustration in the pages of the old TV Guide highlighting the episode. Little did I know as I watched those shows and others like them I too would be using historical fact to create historical fiction.

My most recent novella, Better To Marry Than To Burn, was inspired by a true story.  African-American married women in Arizona mining towns advertised back East to bring marriageable women West. They convinced the unmarried miners to settle down instead of fighting over prostitutes all the time. What a great set up for an opposites-attract second-chance romance.

This wasn’t my first encounter with the concept of mail-order brides. I used to watch a show called Here Come The Brides about three brothers who owned a logging company in Seattle. Bobby Sherman, a teen idol back then played Jeremy the youngest Bolt brother who stuttered and David Soul, later of Starsky and Hutch fame, played Joshua the middle brother. Its premise was the Bolt brothers had loggers who were tired of having no women in their lives and were ready to quit. The solution was to send oldest brother Jason, played by Robert Brown, back East to Massachusetts and return with single women looking for husbands. Many would be available and willing thanks to the lack of men created by the Civil War. I remembered the show had done excellent episodes on finding mates for Jewish and Chinese characters. Somewhere in the dusty recesses of my memory I knew they had done an episode trying to match African Americans, too. Was the memory real or had I made it up? Lo and behold, Google showed my memory was still good.

“A Bride for Obie Brown” had aired in 1970. I was pleasantly surprised to rediscover who had played the roles of Obie and his intended bride Lucenda. They’re now household names although I wonder if some of you may not be old enough to know who they are. Here’s a hint: their equally famous partners were actress Tyne Daly and jazz musician Miles Davis. Can you name them?

Better To Marry Than To Burn

Erotic African-American historical romance
Release date: April 25, 2018

Learn more here: https://amzn.to/2JyLKu1, here: https://bit.ly/2DHdb0x and here: www.michalscott.webs.com.

Freed Man seeking woman to partner in marriage for at least two years in the black township of Douglass, Texas. Must be willing and able to help establish a legacy. Marital relations as necessary. Love neither required nor sought.

Caesar King’s ad for a mail-order bride is an answer to Queen Esther Payne’s prayer. Her family expects her to adhere to society’s traditional conventions of submissive wife and mother, but Queen refuses. She is not the weaker sex and will not allow herself to be used, abused or turned into a baby-making machine under the sanctity of matrimony. Grateful that love is neither required nor sought, she accepts the ex-slave’s offer and heads West for marriage on her terms. Her education and breeding will see to that. However, once she meets Caesar, his unexpected allure and intriguing wit makes it hard to keep love at bay. How can she hope to remain her own woman when victory may be synonymous with surrender?

Excerpt:

With thanks to God, he pushed past her flimsy drawers to the moist welcome of her center. Her 
vaginal walls gripped his fingers with surprising 
force. No amount of twisting or turning wrenched 
them free. God, to have that grip surrounding his 
shaft.

He pulled back and studied her face. Eyes still 
closed, a sly smile bowed her perfect lips. She 
enjoyed this battling as much as he.

“Was I too brutal for your enjoyment, Mrs. 
King?”

Her eyelids rose with the slow grace of sunrise. A gleam as sly as her smile shone in her gaze. “You call that brutal, Mr. King?”

She unclenched her lower muscles, allowing his fingers momentary retreat. With great care, she grasped his hand then slid his fingers between her folds once more.

“Holy Christ, woman. What—?”

The gentle rubbing robbed him of his ability to think.

“Jesus, have mercy,” he wheezed.

She slid his fingers from her wet sex into his mouth. He moaned, lost in her delectable taste.

Without taking her gaze from his face, she raked her gloved hand down his chest, across his belly, to his groin. Anticipation tensed his muscles in the wake of her touch. He watched mesmerized as, with a practiced ease, she unbuttoned his fly, pushed past the fabric, sought, found and stroked his cock. Her woolen gloves imparted a delicious friction he couldn’t oppose, even if he’d wanted. Delight enlivened every muscle in his body, including his jaded heart.

Jesus. This couldn’t be more than arousal. Could it?

Her fingers squeezed and his body arched upward on the yes swelling his spirit with joy. He threw back his head, mouth open, ready to shout as he neared the point of release.

Then she let him go.

He doubled over, slain by the abandonment. His lungs constricted, bereft of air. Reason deserted him too.

She stood and smoothed down her skirts with the hand that had massaged his shaft more deftly than he ever had. Reseated, she grabbed the reins and snapped the leather against his horse’s rump.

“Get up there.”

The wagon jostled Caesar from side to side. Still unable to straighten up, he looked into eyes gleaming with triumph. Her lips curved in a regal smirk.

“Was I too brutal for your enjoyment, Mr. King?”

I”m in Hawaii! Don’t hate me! It’s been on my bucket list for years! I’m on a “writers’ retreat”! Cough! Seriously, we have projects to plan and stories to write (in between the “research trips”).

I’m just poking my head in the door to let you know that I have three books coming very, very soon, and I’m hoping the descriptions below will tempt you into pre-ordering every one!

The covers for the two “Heart” books are placeholders I made. My sister’s my cover artist and she’s on this trip with me, so she won’t create the final, luscious covers until we’re home. Don’t let that discourage you. Read the descriptions. One’s a menage!

And Cochise? Ah, if you love a tall, dark and handsome hero with a long black ponytail, who’s quiet and intense… Yeah, well, it’s scheduled to release in June, but I’m hoping to get it ready for late May-early June. So, stay tuned! And pre-order, so you don’t miss it!

Enjoy! ~DD

True Heart

True Heart
Coming May 15th!

Two men plus one woman equals three bodies on fire…

True Wyatt’s hands are going to be full enough keeping the herd alive through the dead of winter. The last thing he needs to hear is that his brother Lonny rented out their isolated hunting cabin to a reclusive writer—especially a sassy, disaster-prone brunette. Who has the time to babysit a city girl until Spring?

With a deadline looming, erotica writer Honey Cahill is looking forward to six distraction-free weeks to finish her next book. However, between Lonny’s flirty sensuality and True’s hard-edged intensity, the Wyatt brothers set the stage of her imagination for a winter of wicked delights.

However, the fire that destroys the cabin is as real as it gets. Forced to shelter under True and Lonny’s roof, the temptation to experiment—all in the name of research, of course—is overpowering.

Get your copy here!

Lone Heart

Lone Heart
Coming June 12th!

Temptation this wicked has only one explanation—the devil has dimples!

When ex-rancher and rodeo cowboy, Lone Wyatt, saunters into a small Oklahoma town, he isn’t expecting much. After his brother married the woman they both loved, he’s been rethinking his life, opening himself to the possibility of finding his “one and only”—but he’s in no rush. Until he meets Charli Kudrow. One wary glance from her haunted eyes, and he’s ready to tear through every objection she offers. He knows there’s a hidden fire inside her just waiting to erupt.

For the first time since she lost her childhood sweetheart, widow Charli Kudrow feels a spark of attraction for the young cowboy who seems set on seducing her. Thinking she’ll never see him again, she succumbs to temptation, only to discover that little “spark” was more of raging wildfire. When her foreman hires Lonny, there’s no escaping his wicked, flirty ways.

Get your copy here!

Cochise

Cochise
Montana Bounty Hunters, Book #4
Coming June 26th, but I hope sooner!

Former Army sniper, Cochise Mercier, left Denver SWAT under a cloud of controversy, which was why he ended up back home in Montana, and where he heard about the Montana Bounty Hunters. The “cloud” didn’t seem to bother his new boss, so he’s “all in” and finding he enjoys hunting down fugitives for bounties, encumbered by fewer rules.

Sammy McCallister is a by-the-book sheriff’s deputy, who has a beef with bounty hunters. Forced to stand by with her gun in her holster, while hunters take down scumbags, she’s particularly irked by the new guy in town. Cochise, with his long black hair and thousand-yard-stare makes her uncomfortable, itchy in ways she’s never felt before. When she finds herself needing his help late one night, the reason for her irritation becomes all too clear. She wants him. But first, they have to make it out of the mountains alive…

Pre-order your copy here!

In case you hadn’t heard the news, my Plum Creek series is returning to bookshelves starting in February. This trilogy was originally published with Kensington since 2009/2010 but I got my rights back and decided to put them out there again. It’s a trilogy set in Reconstruction era Colorado. These are for sure erotic historical romance with lots of smexy scenes but also deep, wrenching emotions and an incredibly satisfying HEA. I’m excited to bring these back!

The trilogy begins with book 1, THE EDUCATION OF MADELINE. I wrote Madeline to be a tall, curvy, thirty-two year old spinster in Reconstruction era Colorado, 1872. She’s rich, hated because of her wealth, and needs to learn how to experience life.

The hero, Teague, is a big man with a dark past who enters Madeline’s life. She grabs hold of the opportunity with both hands, and they begin an adventure together, with many twists, turns, and unseen dangers.

I loved Madeline—she embodied what I struggled with as a curvy woman with low self-confidence. She discovers she’s fierce, courageous, and unwilling to settle for what the world has planned for her.

I’m happy to say THE EDUCATION OF MADELINE releases on February 27 in both ebook and print. The cover is beautiful, and I can’t wait for y’all to meet Madeline and Teague. Book 2, THE REDEMPTION OF MICAH, releases in April. Followed by the third book, THE SALVATION OF SARAH in late May. Each book has a new cover, is freshly edited, and is ready to find a whole new group of readers. If you read the original years ago, the stories themselves haven’t changed.

If you haven’t, be sure to be plum with me and visit Plum Creek!

The Education of Madeline

Plum Creek, Colorado 1872

The Right Man Comes Along…

Madeline Brewster practically owns Plum City, Colorado. But at thirty-two, she knows she has missed any chance for happiness. Until she finds a tall, strong, handsome Irishman on the wrong end of the hangman’s noose. Suddenly this unconventional woman comes up with an outrageous idea…

Teague O’Neal has rugged cheekbones, tousled black curls, and eyes as blue as the sky, even if he is caked in Colorado mud. The men insist they caught him horse-thieving, and there’s something desperate about him that says he’d do anything for a buck.

Maybe it was pure chance, or maybe it was something more that brought Madeline and Teague together. But one thing’s clear, between a woman who has just about everything she could ever want, and a man who’s lost that and more, they might find something in between worth living for.

Contest

Comment for a chance to win one of three eBook copies of The Education of Madeline I’m giving away!

The Latest from Texas Cowboys – Slow Rider

When Joe Chavez and a fellow sheriff’s deputy pull over a speeding motorcycle in the middle of the night, neither is particularly shocked to find Paraiso’s wild child, Sarah Michelson, riding bare-assed naked, nor are they surprised when she invites them to join her in a sexy threesome.

Talking her way out of an embarrassing date with the county judge, who just happens to be her daddy, Sarah promises the officers the ride of their lives. Having the men turn the tables on her and introduce her to some scary D/s play, she learns some things about herself she never suspected. Too bad Joe will never see her as anything but a sexy hell cat in need of taming…

Get your copy now!

Coming in February!