Book Birthday for Wild as the West Texas Wind

Happy Book Birthday!

It was on this day in 2019 that Wild as the West Texas Wind came out! It’s a whopping 322 pages (over 100,000 words) and it was a heck of a lot of fun to write.

The title comes from the song by Marty Robbins called El Paso, which happens to be one of my favorite songs in the whole world.

I was chatting with someone at GRL (2018? – the party was a cowboy western theme and I came dressed as Felina….) and they said “You should write a cowboy story.”

The original title was Kidnapped by Outlaws, but that didn’t have the same ring, and then I thought why not call it after my favorite line in my favorite song?

“Out in the West Texas town of El Paso I fell in love with a Mexican girl
Nighttime would find me in Rose’s Cantina
Music would play and Felina would whirl
Black as the night were the eyes of Felina
Wicked and evil while casting a spell
My love was strong for this Mexican maiden
I was in love, but in vain I could tell
One night a wild young cowboy came in, wild as the West Texas wind
Dashing and daring, a drink he was sharing
With wicked Felina, the girl that I love”

Here are the tropes:

• Secret kisses and skinny dipping in the desert.
• Scrappy guy from the present goes back into the past.
• Outlaw who longs for hearth and home.
• Harmonica music in the purple twilight.
• Shaving lessons and horseback rides.
• Heroic rescues.
• Sweet, smexy funtimes.

Also, Tam is a pretty horse and she knows it!