Interview with Mary Connealy

Mary Connealy is the author of Petticoat Ranch, Calico Canyon, and Alaska Brides. She has signed an exclusive contract to write for Barbour Publishing for the next four years and she is thrilled.
She is the mother of four daughters and married to a Nebraska rancher. You may visit her on the web here or on one of her blogs.

Tell us a bit about your newest release. What led you to choose to write this story?

Calico Canyon – Lassoed in Texas Book #2 is a suspenseful, inspirational, historical western, romantic comedy. In Petticoat Ranch I talked about a man who’d never been around women, dropped into an all-girl world, so I decided to do the flip side of that story in Calico Canyon.
I took prissy, Miss Calhoun, the school marm, and shoved her, completely against her will, into an all-male world.

The thing with trying to do this is to focus on their complete fish-out-of-water story, make it as extreme as possible and still have the hero be heroic, the heroine be delightful and loveable. Not that easy when she doesn’t understand anything about his wild, ill-mannered boys, less about him and nothing about marriage.

There’s a line in Calico Canyon I loved while Daniel is watching her cry, terrified of tears:

He and his boys stood absolutely immobilized. The wind moaned around the house and Daniel wondered if he’d have to dig them out in the morning. They lived on fairly high ground. They got a beauty of a snow storm once in a while, he’d heard. A blizzard might cut them off from civilization for a spell, if you could call Mosqueros civilized. Then he realized there was no way they were going to get to church in the morning. Daniel liked church. He did. But once he showed up with Miss Calhoun in town, his marriage was a done deal.

And that’s when he realized he was still trying to think of a way out of this. But Daniel Reeves was no fool. He could dream all he wanted. He was tied to this woman.

John whispered again, “Is she supposed to get all sad like that, Pa?”
“Yep, in my experience with wives, they’re supposed to fuss about something all the time. I’ve never had me one that didn’t cry up a storm at the drop of a hat.”
Grace lifted her head and scowled through her tears.
Daniel was surprised at his urge to laugh. She was really a mess. The oh-so-tidy Miss Calhoun kept getting herself slopped up more and more. He wondered when she’d gather her wits together enough to care about that.
“Did it ever occur to you that you might be doing things to your wives that make them cry?” She pushed her hair off her soggy face with shaky hands.
“Nope.” Daniel shrugged. “Never was nothing I did.”

This is just Daniel being absolutely clueless and having no idea what it takes to make a woman happy.

The foundational conflict between Daniel and Grace isn’t the fact that they loathe each other—although that’s huge. It’s the fact that Daniel completely blames himself for his first wife’s death in childbirth, plus how brutally hard it was for him to survive with newborn triplets. He is so deeply traumatized by it that he won’t risk having another woman be with child. But, once he calms down and accepts his fate of course, Daniel has a God given, perfectly natural desire for his new wife.

What would you like readers to gain from reading your book?

Fundamentally I want my readers to be entertained. And I want it to be in a way that isn’t offensive to their faith. That’s my goal. The faith lesson in Calico Canyon is that God is faithful to us, even when we aren’t faithful to Him. And clinging to God’s faithfulness, if we just can, should make us live bravely. Of course we fail but if we could just remember how much God loves us and how faithful He is to us, we would have no fear.

Why historical fiction?

I wrote for a long time before I got my first book published. I’ve written everything in nearly all genres and historical was just the one that finally hit. I really enjoy writing cowboys, it so that’s fine with me.

I’d written a couple of historicals before Petticoat Ranch, they’re now contracted to be published next year. YAY! The first one, Montana Rose, was my attempt at a prairie romance, similar to Love Comes Softly by Jeanette Oke. Of course the basic premise, a pregnant woman whose husband dies and leaves her alone in the west, is the same but I went far afield from Jeanette Oke. The Sequel to Montana Rose is The Husband Tree and I think that’s about the funniest book I ever wrote, it’s due for release in 2010. Calico Canyon though may be my most pure romantic comedy. All the nonsense with those unruly boys makes for lots of fun. I can’t seem to write anything without going for the joke. But Montana Rose ended up being more cowboy than prairie and I kept playing with the genre until I came up with Petticoat Ranch

What is your most memorable or humorous moment as a published author?

Well, memorable is easy. There is no greater moment than the day I got my first contract. Every year Barbour gives out one contract at the ACFW conference. (American Christian Fiction Writers). In 2005 I knew I had a chance. They had been in touch several times about revisions to a book, which is very, very encouraging. Then, when the moment came, they called someone else’s name. Okay, FINE! I’ve been rejected before. I can handle it. Then, after Kathy Kovack got her contract, Tracie Peterson says, “And this year we’re giving two. We’re offering a contract to Mary Connealy.”
I went up on stage, in front of 350 writers, all clapping, people hugging me as I stumbled up there. It was so, so, so, so sweet. (wow, this computer doesn’t have enough so’s)

With more than one book under your belt, what lesson have you learned that you wished you’d known early on?

Ummmmmm I seemed to learn everything as slowly and painfully as possible. I feel like writer’s contests and attending a conference made the difference in getting published, but I’d done a lot of improving in those years of writing quietly, mostly by myself so when I finally figured out about contests and conferences and connections, I was ready with a good book.

How do you go about layering your stories with all the senses? Do you put them in as you go or when you rewrite?

Come back tomorrow to find out the answer!

Be sure to leave a comment this week for a chance to win a copy of Calico Canyon.