Monday, December 16, 2013

Rain Trueax Spreading Christmas Cheer!

First I want to thank Paty for having me on her always interesting blog. I really appreciate the chance to share here two of my books—both involving the Christmas season. Writing any book where Christmas is an important part of the plot has, for me, responsibility attached. I know. It sounds simple. Christmas tree. Christmas Eve service. Family dinners. Gifts. Pageants. Religious services. Santa Claus. Baby Jesus. But the thing is there are so many expectations involved with this very busy and important time of year. If I incorporate it into a book and I have several times, I feel a sense of responsibility.

If a person is going through a divorce, separated, feeling hurt or had a family that wasn’t much of a family, then Christmas will have one set of expectations. For those who have great memories of wonderful family sharing, it will be another. A writer may cover it different ways depending on what the characters need but considerations for how it will impact the reader have to be taken into consideration at least by me.

The symbolisms for the season, with both pagan and religious roots, are those of beauty, light, love, family and giving. It’s both fun and challenging to think about different ways to tell the truth of a complex season while giving the reader something positive. Twice in my books I’ve glossed over it, but I have two where it’s an important part of the story-- one its essence and the other its beginning.


A Montana Christmas

A Montana Christmas carries on characters in From Here to There. I realized there was something more to resolve in this story especially since I had opted not to have an epilogue. The novella picks up a few years later where a husband and wife, Phillip and Helene, have worked out a comfortable life where they live part of the year in Boston, where his successful business is based and the rest at a ranch home they built on her uncle’s ranch in Montana. Phillip likes the ranch life, finds he is good at cowboying, and loves to please his wife. What she has next in mind though throws him for a loop.

She wants to invite all of Phillip’s family to spend the holidays on the ranch with her uncle. This had been her second home and a place she had come to love as the place of her heart. Her own parents, wealthy and not particularly family oriented were divorced and heading off hither and yon for the holidays. Helene, who is hoping to have a baby soon, wants family for her child to grow up knowing and that means Phillip’s mother and siblings.

Phillip, who has not had good memories of family Christmases, expects disaster. Although he has helped his mother, brother and sisters, he has been emotionally estranged from them mostly out of self-protection. Christmas seems to him like a time fraught with ways to go wrong, but he wants to please his lovely wife; so he arranges his schedule to be on the ranch. With Helen’s uncle having had heart surgery, the ranch foreman has a lot of work planned for Phillip. Ranch work doesn’t take a break for the holidays.

This story is about family, love, Montana, gathering for the holidays, and ranch living.



Tucson Moon

Tucson Moon is a western historical romance, but it starts off with the Christmas season as Deputy US Marshal Cole O’Brian shockingly learns his daughter, Grace, whom he had left to be raised by her dead mother’s parents, is on the train heading for Tucson to live with him. Cole wants to know his daughter but is ill prepared to be a father to a nine-year old. Fortunately that day, also waiting at the depot is Priscilla Wesley, who sizes up the situation and offers to let Grace stay with her while father and daughter get acquainted.

It’s Christmas and really neither Cole nor Grace have had much experience with the kinds of Christmases Priscilla grew up with or what she offers to them. They are about to learn. Besides the usual Christmas activities like baking cookies, decorating a tree, having a great dinner, this Christmas involves a Yaqui celebration.

Tucson Moon is about a great deal more than Christmas as it takes the story forward with two dissimilar people finding they have more in common than they imagined with danger waiting and trials ahead.



Excerpt:
“All right, we’re in agreement that if it’s all right with Grace, she will stay with you and I guess I can visit, get to know her?”
“That would be my suggestion. You know Christmas isn’t far off.”
That was a holiday Cord rarely if ever thought about. It meant a few more drunks in the bars; but otherwise, it wasn’t anything he had celebrated in any way for years—if ever. It meant Santa Claus? He remembered sarcastically asking Priscilla Wesley if she believed in that personage. He wondered now if Grace did. Hellfire, he was so far out of his depth that he couldn’t see how he could get to the surface. He rose and walked over to the fireplace staring blankly into its darkness.
Priscilla came to stand beside him reaching out to touch his arm. “It will just take time. Actually the holidays might be a good time for you with her. It’s fun to put up a tree, decorate a bit, attend church, sing carols, give presents, have a wonderful Christmas dinner—which is Rose’s forte. It will be a time to ease yourself into what she’s like, who she is.”
He whistled low as he met her gaze. “Can I take notes? I have to admit I know nothing about any of that. My world... well it’s not the same as yours.”
She smiled. “Part of it will be for awhile as you give Grace a chance to adjust to you. As much as you don’t know her. She doesn’t know you either.”
“And what she does know has to be pretty bad given how Janice’s parents felt about me.”
“Well that will all change now—slowly.”
He surprised himself by his urge to reach out and take her into his arms. He resisted the impulse. He realized this was going to be a test of his will power to be close to this woman as he got close to his daughter. He’d always found her physically attractive, challenging but now he saw there was another side. Damn.
Before he could say more or even think of what to say, Rose came to the door. “Lunch is ready. You two ready for it?”
“Grace is hungry now?”
“Yes, she is.”
Priscilla smiled. “Maybe you can eat now too, Marshal?”
He was surprised to realize he was hungry; and although he knew it wasn’t going to be easy conversation around the table, he was ready to give it a try.
As he followed the two women to the kitchen, he thought getting to know Priscilla Wesley was going to be as hard on him as trying to make peace with his daughter. He wondered if he was up to any of it.

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Other places to find my work both contemporary and historical love stories set in the American West. Please come and visit. I try to keep readers updated especially on Facebook and Twitter but lots of images from the books and my own life on Pinterest.

Trailers to all of my books: http://rainydaytrailers.blogspot.com/
Amazon Central with profile and my books: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B006UX64X8
Twitter: Rain Trueax@RainTrueax

Merry Christmas and hope everyone has a great holiday season of their own.



3 comments:

Rain Trueax said...

Thanks so much for having me here, Paty and I look forward to your visit at my blog tomorrow :)

Paty Jager said...

Hi Rain. Trading blog spots is fun! Welcome!

Anonymous said...

Can''t wait to read this, Rain.