Inspy Romance

Inspy Romance—Fall in Love With a Good Book

Welcome Ruth Logan Herne #giveaway #newrelease

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Today I’m thrilled to welcome my friend and award-winning author, Ruth Logan Herne. Anyone who meets Ruthy will immediately discover that she’s a bundle of energy and can give the Energizer Bunny a run for his money. She’s here to talk about where she gets her story ideas and also, her latest Love Inspired release. There’s a giveaway too, so stick around.

Welcome, Ruthy!

I love writing romance and I am blessed to write delightful stories for multiple publishers… and folks are always asking “where do you get your ideas from?”

My dearest ones, that’s an easy one to answer these days!

I look around.

I look at the families I know, at the families I work with. I look at the statistics of marriages ending in divorce, of cities on their last legs and breathing feebly, of empty churches and quiet pews…

And there you go.

Stories are everywhere. They surround us, they’re part of every neighborhood, and every family. They’re prevalent now, and maybe they always were.

When we read the Bible or listen to scripture, I see a whole lot of the same things going on. Infidelity. Turning from God. Greed. Lust. Power-hungry. Anger…

But my stories and my goals are to take those angry moments, those dark sides, those people in the shadows and bring them into the joy of the light. The kindness of forgiveness. The tenderness of sacrificial love, because isn’t that what it’s all about? To love enough to make a sacrifice for another?

This absolutely beautiful, tender story was just released by Love Inspired… It’s available just about everywhere right now, and I’m so excited about that!

 

We’ve got a broken, grudge-holding family, with years of angst… and two little children, illegal immigrants left with their aunt… and when the mother is killed in Mexico, the aunt pretends to be their grandmother in order to get them the schooling and services they need. But when their preschool teacher recognizes the fraud, she’s required to report it… And in comes the hero, and the last thing he wants to do is go back to his hometown and deal with his workaholic mother… a quality she passed on to him.

Two children and a future in peril. A family broken. A teacher who does the right thing, and helps mend the broken fences of faith…

It’s a story about forgiveness and moving on. It’s a story about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes… and about success and caring and balance and faith, but mostly it’s a beautiful love story where two unlikely people are thrust together to provide temporary guardianship of orphaned children… and love broke through. When you least expected it, Cinderella got her prince and the bonus of two children needing love.

Broken families are my specialty, and writing stories that help women see the beauty and strength within themselves is my calling. God wants his people happy, and since he created romance by creating us, I want to celebrate the joy of that creation… by writing stories that everyone can identify with, the kind of stories we see in our neighborhoods, every day.

Well, except there might not be a plethora of rich, Wall Street business men in our neighborhoods. That’s the fiction part!

And right next to Their Surprise Daddy on the shelves are these two beautiful books, the first two books of my cowboy series “The Double S Ranch”…

 

 

They’ve just been released in mass market paperback size, and they’re sharing shelf space with my Love Inspired books!

Healing broken hearts and broken families begins where we know it should: forgiveness. Now no one ever said it was easy, because people can be crazy stubborn! But it’s so totally worth it.

Forgiveness, a command given by Christ for all his people… And the Easter season is the perfect time to put that command to good use.

We’ve got a lovely giveaway today. I have two books for you, a copy of “Their Surprise Daddy” from Love Inspired AND a copy of book one of the Double S Ranch series “Back in the Saddle”…

I’m so glad you stopped by… I brought fresh coffee and sweet tea and a beautiful batch of pastel frosted sugar cookies with Easter sprinkles because, well… Just because!

 

Multi-published, award-winning author Ruth Logan Herne loves God, her family, chocolate, coffee, dogs and some cats and she loves, loves, loves writing sweet books and meeting readers! Friend her on facebook (yes, she’s a hoot) and follow her on Twitter (@RuthLoganHerne) and see what crazy, fun, busy things are going on at the farm throughout the year. It is possible you’ll learn more than you ever wanted to know!  And to see more of what Ruthy writes, swing by her website ruthloganherne.com or e-mail her at loganherne@gmail.com.

One commenter (from anywhere) before April 27th will be chosen at random to win a copy of “Their Surprise Daddy” from Love Inspired AND a copy of book one of the Double S Ranch series “Back in the Saddle.

Jill Weatherholt (21 Posts)

By day, Jill Weatherholt works for the City of Charlotte. At night, and on the weekend, she writes contemporary stories about love, faith and forgiveness for Harlequin Love Inspired. Raised in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., she now resides in Charlotte, North Carolina, but her heart belongs to Virginia. She holds a degree in Psychology from George Mason University and Paralegal Studies Certification from Duke University. She shares her life with her real-life hero and number one supporter. Their relationship grew on the golf course, and now they have one in their backyard. Jill believes in enjoying every moment of this journey because God has everything under control.


Comments

  1. Hi Jill and Ruth:) I have enjoyed all your books to date Ruth and am looking forward to Peace in the Valley.
    So true, this world is so messed up, how humanity have broken God’s heart! Thanks for writing stories that are not afraid to tackle these issues.
    I have to ask: Safely Home says it is book one of the Watkins Ridge- is there a book 2 coming?
    Blessings:)

  2. Sounds like books I can identify with. Thanks you for a chance to win a copy of them. Blessings to you and your family.

  3. Thanks for sharing about another author’s work today, Jill. It’s always exciting to learn about new authors and their books. I’ve never read fiction about illegal immigrants, but definitely sounds interesting.

  7. Hi, Jill and Ruthy! It’s great to see you both in one place! Happy weekend! Love this post. So I’m working on one story now. Then i get a name for a heroine for another story. And from her name i can see her. Where do i go from there to start a story? How do your stories start? A plot? A situation? A story built around a particular job? Do you have the whole story plotted out before you start writing? Do tell!

  9. Happy weekend to you too, Sally! It’s great to see your smiling face this morning. I’ll look forward to reading Ruthy’s answers to your great questions. Enjoy the day!

  10. My pleasure, Ginger! Oh yes, they’ll love Ruthy…she’s a little spitfire! By the way, I recently finished reading BROKEN HOLIDAY. I really enjoyed it!

  11. Thank you so much! It’s going to be a great weekend, full of rain! I have to try to get a run in though. My son wants me to run a 7.4 mile race. I’m up to 4 miles lol. I need all the strength and energy I can get! Who said running was fun? Oh, right. That was me. Haha! You can answer the question as well, Jill. Anybody can. I’d like to get different perspectives. I’ve written a few and they’ve all come about differently. I think it’s an interesting process. I wrote one straight through. One I wrote in scenes, and had to go back and put together. That was hard! And that’s how the story I’m working on now is progressing. I wonder if that’s normal? I would think you’d find a process that worked and stay with it. But then this next story I want to work on, I have a heroine’s name and that’s it. I have no idea how to proceed from there.

  12. We’ve got rain in our forecast for tomorrow, Sally. I’m not a plotter. I’ve tried, but it’s more fun to let my characters guide me. Typically, I’ll start with a setting and then build my characters by exploring their internal and external conflicts. Have a great run!

  13. Hi Ruthy and Jill! What a gorgeous book cover. Sounds like a fantastic story. Thank you for sharing the inspiration behind your novels, Ruthy. “Stories are everywhere. They surround us…” I love that!

  15. You are a new author to me and I really enjoyed learning a little about you and the books you have written!

  16. Ruth it is refreshing to find stories that share more realistic perspectives. Although the romance genre focuses on overcoming the obstacles to happily ever after it would also be inspiring to go beyond that. This is why I often enjoy series where a glimpse is given of some of the rest of the story. I look forward to reading your books Ruth.

  22. Their Surprise Daddy sounds interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever read a story quite like that before.

  25. I haven’t read your books before Ruth, but Their Surprise Daddy sounds good. I always enjoy discovering new authors.

  26. OH WOW, two of my favorite ladies…Jill and Ruthy! xoxo to both. Love your books…have (or will) read them all. Special thanks to you for your prayers for my recovery. Don’t enter me… I will be getting them in the mail any day!
    Happy weekend to all!

  28. Wemble, so nice to meet you!!! Okay, here’s what happened to Book 2 and 3 of Watkins Ridge… The Double S Ranch series and several other contracts from traditional publishers… When I published Safely Home, I had just begun the next story…. But the indie books took off and sold like crazy, my agent and publishers noticed, and here I am! So this is WONDERFUL!!!! but I have not had time in the busy, marvelous writing schedule to sit down and write the other two Watkins Ridge stories… Did you love Cress’s story? I did… and I left it a little more realistic than some of my publishers will allow. It was delightful to set a story in Wisconsin (I love the Midwest!!!) and see those characters come to life! So I’m hoping I can do their stories… but in the meantime I’m so grateful for the body of work that publishers have requested. I love, love, love weaving stories, it’s like better than chocolate!!!!!

  29. Hi Jackie! It’s great to see you here today! I’m so thankful your recovery is going well. Keep walking, it’s the best thing you can be doing right now. Talk to you soon. Enjoy the weekend! xo

  30. Ruthy, this sounds like such a beautiful story! I can’t wait to read it! (I also love the cover.)

  32. Judy, thank you! One of my readers calls my work “Romantic Realism” and I think it’s a compliment, LOL! But I’m not 100% certain! You know, I’m such a down-to-earth real person… what you see is what you get. I don’t have dual lives, and my readers see me, my crazy family, the farm, the give-and-take and all that makes up being a writer today…. in the age of the Internet so everyone knows exactly where you are. I figured out that just being me was way better than being TWO RUTHY’S… one for the public and one for the private. So my stories come from that same mindset, that I love the reality of being human but I want it blessed by the grace of faith! That faith has been my mainstay from the time I was young enough to realize that God’s blessings rain down free…. and who doesn’t love stuff for free??? :)

  33. Jill, I appreciate the post on finding story ideas. I need to be coming up with something soon!

  34. Pat, I’m so glad you stopped in! I love writing for multiple houses… they each have their own ideas and suggestions and guidelines. You’ll find those differences between the Double S Ranch books (longer and more in depth) and the Grace Haven books (short, sweet romances that I love, too!)…

    And I am so blessed to write for both! And not afraid to inject the realism of today’s world into the stories, both short and long. Nice to meet you!

  35. PRISCILLA!!!! I’m part of the Guideposts Mystery team for “Mysteries of Martha’s Vineyard” with our heroine…. PRISCILLA LATHAM GRANT!!!! :) I love your name!!!

    So nice to see you here, and the beautiful story of Lily and Javier will make you smile… and maybe cry at times.

    I love that book and God bless my editors for letting me explore some of the darker aspects of life while focusing on the beautiful light of faith, hope and (of course!) love!

  37. This sounds like a great book! I’ve put it on my wish list. It’s nice to see you here, Ruth. I’ve only read a couple of your books, but am looking forward to more.

  38. Sally, I am one of the few Seekers who doesn’t read craft books, who doesn’t plot or graph or pin or spreadsheet or any of those things that organize a story…. Having said that, all of those means work well for some authors, and I think that’s the trick is learning who you are, and what you’re good at.

    I’ve come to realize I’m a storyteller. I see a conflict, and I want to know more…. so basically when I start a story (or a series) I can see the basic outline in my head. Let’s do Double S Ranch:

    3 brothers
    Diverse
    Same father
    Different mothers
    Each has a story
    Prodigal son comes home
    One son stays home (but bitter toward his father, heck they’re ALL BITTER toward their father, he was a surly son of a gun!!!)
    One son (adopted) goes to Nashville to prove his deceased drug-riddled parents wrong….

    SO MUCH STUFF…. but that’s it. Then I concentrate on story one…. and I can make the other characters what I need them to be in stories 2 and 3….

    What I saw with Back in the Saddle was a Bernie Madoff type NYC scandal, a highly successful man whose funds are locked up for who knows how long, and Manhattan bills to pay and no money… and a chance to come home and help his sick father….

    And I knew his heroine had to be as tough and scarred as he was…. so a former cop whose father was killed because she brought down a drug racketeering group and they killed her dad as retribution…. So she has to keep her little boy and her mother safe, and assumes a false identity and becomes a housekeeper…

    :)

    That’s where it began.

    I think we all find our own ways of doing this, there are no right or wrong answers, right?

    It is always, always, always the emotion of the story that calls me forward. Not the plot and not the setting…. the emotions of those people. That’s my driving force.

  40. Thank you, Heidi! I love that cover. The Love Inspired art team is amazing…. and those adorable children, safe and happy at last. :) I love it when a plan comes together! (that was from the A Team, my boys loved the A team!!!

  42. I almost posted THIS BLOG in Seekerville earlier this week!!! I had blocked it in and I’d written another one and I saw this and thought “OH! GREAT! I’m A MONTH AHEAD!!!!” and I had it all set up, and then I thought…. wait a minute… I’m on three blogs next week… THIS ONE IS FOR JILL!!!! :)

    That would have been embarrassing beyond belief! Yikes!!!!

  43. Iraines, I’d love for you to try a book… any of them. And you can find them in a lot of public library systems, so check there and that way you can test me without spending a dime… see what you think.

    I am so blessed to be doing this. Yay!!!!

  45. Lots of comments this morning! The books do sound interesting. I’ve got so many already, but am always ready for a giveaway!

  46. Jessica, it was one of those stories that came from several directions…. of course the constant news about immigration from Mexico, the migrant/seasonal workers who are so much a part of our Western NY farm system, and the huge push of drug cartels to use our interstate system to push drugs across the nation…. and then the requirement that teachers are mandated reporters…

    So I thought back thirty years, to what it was like before the Central and South American drug connection was so firm, and how the migrants and immigrants then (legal and illegal) were valiantly trying to make a better life for their families back below the border… And of all the things my church did to help throughout the year….

    And that gave me a basis to set the new story against, children born of a dreadful culture of abuse and drugs and power-hungry men who don’t care about anyone, especially children. It amazes me how horribly wrong this has all gone in one generation…. and I hope it gets better!

  47. Tammy, so nice to meet you! I’m always happy to meet new folks, and I hope you get a chance to grab a Ruthy-book at some time… this one is on sale right now at Walmart for $3.88, and that’s the best price around…. all this months Love Inspired books are $3.88, and I LOVE THAT!!! It’s so crazy affordable!

  49. Jackie, they haven’t gotten there yet??? Because they should have, over a week ago! I did media mail, so I’m going to send them back out. Every now and again media mail goes astray…. I’m so glad you mentioned it!!!

  52. I love my Missy Tippens!!!! :) And I love story ideas. I love looking at an idea and treating it like a Rubik’s Cube (which I have never been able to solve, by the way) and coming up with the “what ifs” of putting it together. Oh, and for Sally Shupe…. I ALWAYS CHANGE THINGS UP ABOUT 3 OR 4 OR 5 CHAPTERS IN!!!!

    That’s when I get to really know the characters and what’s driving them….. so then I go back and re-start the story because now I have a really clear idea of what I want to see happen… BABY ATTACK!!!!! HELP GRABBING MOUSE AND KEYBOARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111

  54. Ruthy, wait until I check my POB …have not checked since Wed…..if I don’t get them, I will e mail you!!

    THANKS xoxo

  55. Hey Ruthy! Welcome to Inspy Romance! I’ve been a fan of yours since… way back, early days in your career, although I haven’t read all of your more recent ones. So.Many.Books!So.Little.Time!

  57. Hey Sally! Stories start in so many ways! For me, I get an idea for a series, and I poke around at the premise and setting for a bit. Then characters begin to audition – sounds weird, but that’s basically what happens. A potential heroine tells me what a story about her would add to the premise, or a potential hero gives me an idea.

    Then I will likely Myers-Briggs (is that a verb? It is now!) the characters in the first few (potential) books in the series to make sure they’re not too much alike. I don’t want to write the same story multiple times but with different names, if that makes sense! And I decide who is “resident” and should be introduced in the first book as a secondary character, and who to reserve for later.

    So I do a lot of setting, theme, and character work, but I don’t plot the novels. I just start writing. Like Ruthy said, often a few chapters in, I’ll discover more of what makes them tick (or ticked off) and revise the earlier chapters to drop hints.

    If I get ideas for new stories or new series — and trust me, there’s a line up!! — I start a new folder and make some notes. Sometimes I might dash out the first scene or two, but then I close the file and return to my current story. I schedule a year or more in advance, so there isn’t time to jump ship. Occasionally I work on one story in the morning (making sure to get my minimum daily word count) and explore something else in the afternoon, but I try to keep that at a minimum.

  59. Welcome Ruth. I haven’t read any of your books yet, but doing a search on Amazon, I do own some in bundles. I’ve been gun shy about reading most bundle packages since I don’t know if I’m getting a book in the midst of a series, lol. That said, I just love your covers and the book outline you shared sounds interesting.

  60. Finding yourself lost in the middle of series can be frustrating, can’t it? Typically, if you pull up the book in Amazon, it will tell you what number it is, if it part of a series. Thanks for stopping by, Andrea! Your name is in the hat!

  63. Ruthy, so true that stories are all around us if we look. And writers are just wired to look. :-) Thanks for shining light in the darkness and giving readers another great read with a happy ending,

    Jill, this is a great spot! Thanks for hosting Ruthy.

    Janet

  64. Thank you so much for breaking this down. The emotions. Yes! I’m going to take notes and see what works as I work through a few of my stories. Thank you!

  65. Hi, Valerie!! Thank you for your feedback. Yes, I think Myers-Briggs is now a verb lol. See, that’s what I don’t want to see, The same characters but different names. It seems when I get on into a story and realize what something should be that I’d written differently, then I feel like I have a mess. I need to view it as learning more about my character/plot/etc and flow with it! Yes, with this heroine’s name that I got, I started a new document and put what came to mind. She’s talking! lol. Thanks!

  66. I love the A Team too! See, I get discouraged 3 chapters in because things start not fitting. I need to change my perspective and start asking questions and see what these characters what at that time and then change as needed. Thank you! That baby attack sounds cute! If you could only teach them to type they could write your stories for you lol!

  67. Yes, do that…. And I updated my influencer list this past February, so make sure I have the right address…. You haven’t changed boxes or anything, right?

  68. Don’t you dare get discouraged!!! I consider those my practice round, and half the time I THROW THEM AWAY and start all over because now I know what I want to say…. I’m not even kidding.

    Oh, the baby attacks are hysterical! This is why I’m up at 3:30 or 4:00 AM to write… because even chatting on a blog is a challenge with BABIES!!!!!

  69. Sherri, thank you for your nice words and for READING A RUTHY BOOK!!!! :) That just makes my day! I’m pretty sure it should be against the law to be having this much fun working!!!!!

    BIG GRIN HERE!

  71. Colleen, it’s so nice to meet you! Thanks for stopping by! And it is a good book…. a solid story of rebuilding, and that’s what I love to write. Life knocks us on our keesters on a regular basis… but faith and grace lift us right back up. It just takes a while sometimes…. and longer when our “human-ness” grabs hold!

  72. Margaret, I’m hearing a country song! “No such thing as a girl too pretty, or too much cash, or too many books!” :) Thank you so much for stopping by, and I am loving all the company! It rocks!!!!

  73. Oh, Valerie, it’s so nice to see you!!!! We’ve been working this gig for years, haven’t we??? And I love it, and I’m so glad you stopped in to swap howdies with me!

    And yeah, that gainful employment, day-job thing is the reality for so many of us…. but I honestly believe (in my case, anyway) that having the kids around, working with young families, seeing the ups and downs of life through their eyes as they balance kids, jobs and aging parents in today’s time period…. I feel like it keeps me fresh and on top of what I want to say. That interaction keeps my brain firing. Does that sound silly?

  74. Oh, I love mysteries, but I don’t know my namesake, Priscilla Grant (additional L and all). I need to change that. Thanks for the tip.

  75. Andrea, Love Inspired is really good about making sure that my series books are all stand alone books, too…. we have an extra editor go over them because my senior editor (Melissa) and I have been part of every book from the beginning…. and we’re a great team. So then they have a new person on every book just to make sure that in my head I’m not assuming folks KNOW THINGS!!!! That’s clutch, right? I think you’d be fine reading them, and generally a series is just nestled together by geography, friendship or family (like the three sisters and sister-in-law and cousin in Grace Haven…) But you KNOW they’re going to get their happy ending because I love a happy ending, Andrea… I LOVE THEM SO MUCH! :) I’m a total Pollyanna at heart!

  76. Merrillee, hey there!!!! It’s so much fun over here, I love it! And it’s fun sharing ideas, isn’t it? It’s one of my faves… along with talking, drinking coffee, eating, eating chocolate, eating desserts, and hanging out with dogs and cute kids. But I do love my writing time!!!

  77. Janet, thanks for stopping over here!!! I remember when Jill first got THE CALL, I could not stop GRINNING!!!! I was so proud of her, and I knew that she had what it takes to jump into the mix…. And I’m still delighted over that….

    And Janet, nice job on the play of words… because my Guideposts’ mystery “A Light in the Darkness” releases in 44 days…..

    MY FIRST MYSTERY!!!!!!! :)

    Oh my stars, life is a blessing, isn’t it???

  79. Ruthy, you’re so adorable! And talented! And energetic! And totally awesome! I can’t wait to meet you in person (hopefully at CFRR)! Is that enough exclamation points? I enjoyed this post, and your new release sounds wonderful. I might have to brave Walmart and get a copy.

  80. Winnie, I would love that!!!!! MORE EXCLAMATION POINTS! There are never too many!!!

  87. Ruth I just love your books! If I should win I’d love a copy of Their Surprise Daddy but I already have a copy of Back in the Saddle so let someone else have it. Thank you!
    tumcsec(at)gmail(dot)com

  90. RUTHY!!! Girlfriend you get around don’t ya? SO nice to see you on Inspy Romance :-) I love how you share about your books and where you get your inspiration for them. It’s funny, I was having a conversation with my husband the other day about how a writer can come up with a story just by people watching. Like people eating in a restaurant, listening to the conversation swirling around you and wondering what their lives are like and…. violia….story! :-) I’m sure there’s more to it then that, but I hope you get my meaning.

    Just like Gail above me, I’ve read/reviewed/enjoyed “Back in the Saddle” and am anxiously waiting “Peace in the Valley” for Trey’s story. I’d sure love to win a copy of your newest LI though! Your novels are engaging, characters realistic and your settings like stepping into the pages of the book. So inspiring :-)

  91. Haven’t read anything by Ruth yet. All of the books sound great & I especially love reading western books.

  94. I do often stop, close my eyes, and try to think how this hero or heroine will react, given their personality, background, etc. NOT how would *I* react! That’s irrelevant.

  95. No, it doesn’t sound silly. Writing is my day job — I’ve been full-time for almost three years now. I know I draw from my kids/grandkids as well as from folks in my church and community. It’s definitely possible to spend TOO much time in front of the computer. (Ask my wrists how they know…)

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