The Story of My First Novel

Gone to Texas: A Desperate Journey

The Story of my first novel, and the journey this story has taken.

Gone to Texas is the first novel I wrote, after western author Dusty Richards issued a challenge at the Ozark Creative Writers weekend in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. For all those who had never written a novel before, if we wrote our first novel and made it a western, the winner of his contest would win a full read of the manuscript by his agent. Back then that was too big of an opportunity for me to pass up, so I met the challenge and wrote my first book. 

Historical novels require much research and setting my novel on the trail required me to research every town and settlement on the trail as well as the land they would travel across. Set on the Old Chisholm Trail, in 1867, the first year the trail opened, was a huge challenge all its own. The trail runs from Kansas to Texas, so I researched the land and the towns and settlements along the trail. It would not have been enough to go there as many things changed since 1867. For instance, Red Rock was a settlement that year but today there is nothing remaining except a rock. I relied on old newspapers to know what was happening and where in that year.

By the following year when writers met in OCW in Arkansas again, Dusty no longer had his agent. But Dusty sat with me and went over the manuscript pointing out things I needed to change. I came home and made those changes.

Then I entered the story in Bobbi Smith’s writing contest at the Romantic Times Booklovers convention in St. Louis, where it won third place. She met with me and told me the story needed to begin in chapter three.

I came home carved those chapters out and revised the story. Then I entered it in the American Title II contest put on by Dorchester Publishing and Romantic Times Booklovers magazine. My story was a finalist, and I became one of ten authors competing for one publishing contract from Dorchester. Readers voted online and each month two of us were kicked off. My story made it to round two before being kicked off. Agents were interested and it wasn’t long until I’d signed with an agent. 

My agent wanted me to add a prologue and to add sex to help him sell the story. I added the prologue, he thought it would sell, and it did.

He sold my story, now titled A Desperate Journey, to Samhain Publishing in a boiler plate seven-year contract with a one-hundred-dollar advance.

A Desperate Journey came out in e-book in 2008 and in print March 2009 in trade paperback for fifteen dollars. That was a lot to ask for a paperback from a brand-new author back then. It was not an easy sell.

Corey Messler invited me to sign my book at Burke’s Books, the oldest bookstore in Memphis. I set up my first book launch party there for March 2009. It was a rainy night, but many showed for the reading and to buy copies. Orders were called in to the store and one couple bought five copies to give as gifts. That night is my fondest memory of all the book signings I have done since and I will always be thankful for Corey and the Burkes team for helping me to launch my first book.

When the seven-year contract ended, rights reverted to me, and I was able to re-publish the book as an Indie author and publisher. It just needed a new cover and a new ISBN number. Samhain later closed their doors.

In 2025 I was able to publish a large print hardcover edition for libraries and for gift giving.

In 2026 my cover artist since 2013 had several strokes and closed her doors. To be able to move forward into the future, I’m having new covers made for many of my books.

Going back to the origins of Gone to Texas: A Desperate Journey, I have rebranded the book genre as historical western. It no longer has the prologue or sex scenes and now can be read as the book was originally written, as a western. It never did fit as a soft western historical romance.

I’ve always been known for writing gritty westerns. Let me show you, not just tell you, so you’ll have a better picture of that.

My second western, Dangerous Ties, was a novella written for a call Samhain put out to their authors to write for an anthology. Dangerous Ties begins with a woman strung up over a mine shaft and the rope is breaking. She’s also been branded over one breast. My publisher said they would publish it if I made it erotic romance. But that is not what I write. So, after they turned it down, I sold it to Desert Breeze Publishing, and they released the novella. 

It wasn’t until I got rights back for both books that I went on to write the third which would connect the two as the daughter in Gone to Texas and the son of the couple in Dangerous Ties fall in love in Deadly Adversaries after she is abducted by the man who had her father killed.

All three westerns now have new covers and are listed as historical western. These are closed door with no sex scenes. There are gunfights. I write gritty westerns.

Eighteen years after the first publication of A Desperate Journey, the story is now available in the original as Gone to Texas: A Desperate Journey and this summer I am celebrating that release.

Go to my books section to find each title and the venders where it is available. You can also request the book for your library or bookstore to order by using the ISBN number as they are all available through Ingram. I will be bringing them all out in large print hardcover for libraries and for large print readers this summer.