Author Jodi Thomas Talks About Promise Me Texas

It’s always a pleasure to welcome award-winning author Jodi Thomas back to Thoughts in Progress. Jodi’s latest installment in her Whispering Mountain series is PROMISE ME TEXAS, which is set to be released tomorrow, Nov. 5.

You can pre-order PROMISE ME TEXAS on Jodi’s website at www.jodithomas.com. 

This charming book is already getting rave reviews. Publishers Weekly has given it a starred review: 

       “Bestseller Thomas strikes gold again with her seventh Whispering Mountain historical (after Wild Texas Rose), set in 1879 Texas. When 24-year-old Beth McMurray sneaks onto a train to surprise her fiancé, former Senator Lamont LaCroix, she's shocked to overhear him bragging about his plans for her and her money. Then robbers board the train and it goes off the rails. Just before the crash, one of the robbers grabs Beth and jumps off the train, taking the fall to protect her. He's hurt, but she stays with him, claiming that he's her husband. The sheriff and the doctor believe that Beth is now Mrs. Andrew McLaughlin, but LaCroix does not. Meanwhile, widower Andrew reveals his hidden depths: when he's not robbing trains, he longs to be an author. By the time Beth drives a wagon out of town, she has collected a pretend husband, two little boys, an ill teen cowboy, and a pregnant young woman, and the adventure has just begun. Complex plotting, superb character development, and touching romantic scenes make this a winner.”

Jodi joins us today to talk about how PROMISE ME TEXAS began. Welcome, Jodi.

When I began PROMISE ME TEXAS, I wanted to start with the notion that sometimes your whole life turns on one moment in time. The day you say yes to something or someone. The night you were in the wrong place at the right time. The single heartbeat when you let love rule over reason.

I wanted to show that now and then, that one choice you made with little time to think it over, may have led you down a road you never dreamed you’d travel.

In my story Beth McMurray is the spoiled youngest daughter of Teagan McMurray who owns the powerful Whispering Mountain Ranch in Texas. Since she was a baby everyone always comments on how beautiful she is. How Perfect. So, of course, she wants to marry the perfect man and waits for him. 

Only one man, a senator from Washington D.C., seems good enough for her wish list. They met when she was sixteen and wrote for years. Now, well into her twenties, she decides to board a train and surprise him as he travels to meet her. Though dressed in trousers, she's packed away her wedding dress to slip into when they finally are together. Only before she has a chance to pull off her disguise, she learns he's not the man she's dreamed of for years. He is self-centered, a braggart, and dishonest.

As the train rushes toward Dallas, she cries as she hides in the last boxcar that carries her horse. Beth knows she has to disappear before he sees her, but how? At a midnight water stop, she watches bandits board the train like ghosts in the rain. Before she can warn anyone, the train wrecks. A strong arm of a man grabs her as the cars tumble. The stranger jumps free of the cars, but is hurt as he protects her. In the darkness, amid all the chaos, Beth must decide to claim the senator, or the robber as her fiancé. The choice will change her destiny as well as his.

I had a great deal of fun writing about a writer trying to live in reality and a beautiful, spoiled woman trying to make up her life as she went along. 

Everyone, even the outlaw leader, tries to give them advice, but somehow they find a crazy kind of love. In my experience it’s sometimes that crazy kind of love that is just right.

Enjoy the journey through Texas as you come along with me meeting people that are very real to me, if only in my mind.

Jodi, thanks for joining us and sharing this look at PROMISE ME TEXAS. You are so right, sometimes a moment can change a person’s life forever.

Jodi is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of 38 novels and 11 short story collections. A five-time RITA winner, Jodi currently serves as the Writer in Residence at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas. Her newest book, PROMISE ME TEXAS, the seventh book in her Whispering Mountain series, releases tomorrow, November 5.

For more on Jodi and her writing, visit her website or connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Here’s what some others are saying about PROMISE ME TEXAS…

       “One of my favorites.” — Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times Bestselling author 

       “PROMISE ME TEXAS is one of the best western historical tales of this year!”— Vickie@ReaderToReader.com

Thanks so much for visiting today. Do you enjoy historical tales featuring a mixture of romance and suspense?

Author Jodi Thomas: Falling In Love And Wild Texas Rose

It’s always a pleasure to welcome New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Jodi Thomas to Thoughts in Progress because it means she has a stunning new book out and a fun story to share.

Jodi’s latest release is WILD TEXAS ROSE, the sixth book in her Whispering Mountain series. 

Here’s a brief synopsis:
Twenty-five-year-old Rose McMurray may be beautiful, smart, and capable of running her family's ranch at Whispering Mountain, but she's backed away from marriage three times without giving anyone reasons. Everyone thinks she is a coward, afraid of any adventure, including falling in love. She's never done a single wild or reckless thing in her life...until now.

Duncan McMurray, like Rose, was adopted into the family. As a Texas Ranger, he swears he'll never settle down and marry. He's been Rose's guardian angel since they were kids but for the first time in their lives he's the one who has caused her to be in danger. 

Somehow, he has to protect her from an outlaw gang determined to kill her without letting Rose know of the danger she's in. He's convinced that her heart can't take the stress if she knows...the only question is can his heart take the nearness of her.

When opposites collide the adventure begins...

Jodi joins us today to talk about the different ways of falling in love. 

I’ve always wanted to write a book that shows the different ways people fall in love and I got my chance in WILD TEXAS ROSE. I found the story great fun to write and loved the humor of the characters as I wrote. I always think of my characters as real living, breathing people who are like all of us, not perfect, but trying. So, come along with me through Fort Worth, Texas in 1876 and enjoy the adventure. 

When I sat down in my study and traveled back to Texas in the 1800’s, I began with Rose McMurray. As a child she drove everyone crazy organizing her world and as an adult nothing has changed. She’s twenty-six and traveled from Whispering Mountain to Fort Worth to help a friend with her wedding plans.  

 
From the first, Rose knows something is very wrong and of course, she sets out to correct the problem. The adopted son of her uncle, Duncan McMurray, has his hands full with a gang of killers in Dallas, but he rides over to help Rose. 

As Rose builds her forces, not only the bride’s life falls in dangers but so does Rose and Duncan’s.  

 
In WILD TEXAS ROSE I loved writing about Rose and Duncan McMurray because I saw them as children in an earlier book called TALL, DARK, AND TEXAN. Though they were both adopted into the McMurray family, they grew up needing to know the other was near. Sometimes people fall in love and sometimes it grows slowly over time. In WILD TEXAS ROSE I had fun looking at all the ways love comes unexpectedly into one’s life. 

Come along with me and fall in love. 

 
Jodi, thanks so much for visiting with us again. I enjoyed your take on falling in love. Watching love bloom (even in a book) is always fun.

For those who haven’t gotten to know Jodi yet, let me share a bit of background with you. She is a fifth generation Texan and it’s only nature for her to set the majority of her novels in her home state. With a degree in Family Studies, she is a marriage and family counselor by education, a background that enables her to write about family dynamics. 

Honored in 2002 as a Distinguished Alumni by Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Jodi enjoys interacting with students on the West Texas A & M University campus, where she currently serves as Writer In Residence. When not working on a novel or inspiring students to pursue a writing career, Jodi enjoys traveling with her husband, Tom, renovating a historic home they bought in Amarillo, and "checking up" on their two grown sons. 

For more on Jodi and her writing, visit her website at www.jodithomas.com or find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/JodiThomasAuthor or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jodithomas

What’s your take on falling in love? Do you think there are different ways of falling in love? Thanks so much for stopping by today and visiting with Jodi as she release WILD TEXAS ROSE.