Mary J. McCoy-Dressel

And a new book begins…

Oh YAY. I love when I surprise myself. Ha-ha.

I never planned on writing book six in my Double Dutch Ranch Series: Love at First Sight this year, 2022.

Never say never.

My cover designer had a promotion for some of her premade covers. I saw one and emailed her, saying it fit a future book. Future book. She wrote back to say she’d hold it for me. However, I told her I hadn’t even started the book yet. Well, a few days later I opened a document, typed Chapter 1, and I kept writing. I told her the cover inspired me to start the book. The cover became mine when she began working on it. UPDATE: We ditched the premade cover because I found a different image of the hero, so my cover artist started the cover new, using the same background as the premade. In other happy words, I have a completed cover for this book that won’t be written until 2023.

Even without the tweaks, the cover was more than enough to kick inspiration into gear. The cover is different from my other books. So is the hero. This means, it gave me new ideas. It’s fun writing this book because of the new ideas. He appears in nearly every book in the above mentioned series and the spin off series. I’m talking about my upcoming hero—Rob Adams. Hey, how about that. I mentioned my hero’s name, which isn’t something I do this soon. However, it isn’t his full name.

This book has been in my head since early on when I introduced Rob. He grew up in town and went to school with some of the stars in the series.

As the years flew by, I had more time to develop him. He’s evolved since book one. I knew he’d get a book one day. I already had the opening clear in my head.

Because of the cover, I’m now over 17,900K words and loving the story thus far. I’m amazed and thrilled.

At least I have a jump on it now. However, I’m writing two other books with a fourth on the back burner.

Funny the way things work. In book five, a new character popped into the story—a female named Scarlett—who I thought would be Rob’s heroine when he got a book. In a stern voice, my muse blurted out, “Uh-uh! Not so fast. Scarlett is still healing. We’ll set her aside for now.” News to me because, heck, I’m the author, and I didn’t know about Scarlett’s cousin, who is a perfect match for Rob. So, I say to my muse, “You go, girl. Thanks!”

Well, I had a lengthy excerpt to introduce Rob in this post, but I’m adding it to its own post to make this one shorter and more to the point of the title. The except is one where Rob appears in the first book in the series. So, with this post divided into two posts–Inspiration Strikes Again #1 and #2–it’s your choice to read the excerpt which will follow in the next post today or Tuesday.

Book Six featuring Rob Adams is coming in 2023. The series and spin off takes place in my fictitious town of Canyon Junction in Arizona. I set the series in and around the spectacular Sonoran Desert with the Superstition Mountains as a backdrop.

I’m excited and had to share! Enjoy your weekend.

It’s a holiday weekend here in the U.S. for what we call Labor Day weekend. The actual day falls on the first Monday in September.