Collee Coble Lonestar Series
Book 1: 2008 Book 2: 2009
IT’S NO SECRET:
I AM AN ADMIRER OF COLLEEN COBLE and HER BOOKS!
It should be known its no secret that I am an admirer of Colleen Coble. She is the CEO of the ACFW, American Christian Fiction Writers organization and her list of credits and awards is extensive: Best Books of Indiana, the ACFW Carol Award, the Romance Writers of America RITA, the Holt Medallion, the Daphne du Maurier, National Readers’ Choice, and the Booksellers Best. She has over two-million books in print and loves to write romantic mysteries because ‘she loves to see justice prevail.’ Of all her series and stand alone novels I have to say that the LONESTAR SERIES are among my favorite books of all time.
Collen did something amazing with this series. Each book is a marriage of convenience concept but instead of set in historical times these are all contemporary stories and they work for this present generation of readers. In fact, they work amazingly well.
A Synopsis of my personal journey:
I first came upon reading Collen’s work in 2010. I was at a low point in my professional and personal life. As I have written elsewhere in this blog I had been in broadcast radio from my mid teens to late twenties in the mid 1970s to 1980s, in Broadcast Television in the late 1980s and back to Radio to finish that decade. Those years started in El Paso and went through the 1980s in the oil rich boom and bust of Odessa/Midland. In 1990 I hit a glass wall professionally and my career was all but over. I relocated home to El Paso as many basin residents went back to college. The plan was to be in television Creative Services and News Promotion and trusting God to take me there I was a 31-year-old freshman in 1990. By 2001 I had a BA and MA in Journalism/Communications, reached my goal of TV station management in Creative Services but had health challenged parents who required better medical care so we all relocated to the DFW area some 700 miles east where I thought I’d be a pearl in the oyster of the top 10 DFW Market. Little did I know I’d look at the 80s as the best years of my broadcast life because I would not land another broadcast job or career position ever again.
After reinventing myself and custom tailoring my resume first for brodacast TV, then for Christian Media, followed by deviations to Education, Corporate Media and finally opening my own company again in 2003 I starved and struggled throughout the first decade of the 2000s in Dallas-Fort Worth. Many struggled like me. Many I knew from Midland/Odessa and El Paso never broke into the market. A few did but it was short lived and for one of the worst stations in the market of the Tribune/Warner affiliate. Only John Roman and J.J. Davis really excelled in the DFW market. The rest of us floundered and starved.
So it was after filing for business bankruptcy in late 2007, something I should have done in 2001, and going to work in the general unskilled labor market, in various retail jobs, that I landed at Costco in late 2007 just after my father passed away after a decade of illness. At rock bottom by my definition and far from two degrees and 25 years of experience I was as depressed as a man could get without checking out early in life. I tried several times to jump start my professional career in grant funded documentary, educational and historical preservation work, succeeding briefly producing advertising for digital cinema clients but did not like the clients I had who haggled over my prices like a pair of sandals in an old Mexico marketplace. Truth was, my eras of professional media was over and in a computerized era where kids and consumers could film and edit High Definition for less than a few hundred dollars my time was definitely over.
Adding insult to injury my health began to fail and post a 2009 crisis and emergency surgery I was sidelined nearly permanently without much hope life would ever get better. But there in the midst of it all God continued to speak to me. The only difference is that I finally relented and listened. Throughout the 1980s, 1990s and first decade of the 2000s I sensed God was telling me to write for a living. Specifically in Christian Fiction. However, between those who said it couldn’t be done and my own doubts I was good enough to even start I kept writing novels a hobby and outlet past time that was just something private I did. So in 2010 with little funds I found myself searching the bargain books racks at my local Mardel’s and finding a book by Colleen Coble.
Now I did not know Collen Coble from any author then. I had been a early fan of Roger Elwood and Frank Peretti while studying Stephen King’s ON WRITING: A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT in audio boook form while working night security for the big box retailer. Collen, however, opened my heart and mind to a familiar and bold new world.
Colleen Coble: The right author & the right setting at the RIGHT TIME!
I was at the right place and the right time to read about a West Texas Rescue Ranch for both horses and children that in turn seemed to rescue the lives of broken men and women at the same time. I started a little out of order but it really didn’t matter. One could read any of the Lonestar books as stand alone novels to get into the series. I happened to start with 2010’s Lonestar Homecoming and got right into some of the places I had traveled in life. The setting started in San Diego. I had been there in my childhood to pre-teen years. The action was quick in an Amtrak ride from there to Alpine Texas. I had ridden that train too. I had been to Alpine in the 1980s and 1990s both through the edge of the Big Bend National Park, Marfa, Van Horn and Sierra Blanca west to El Paso and Alpine, Fort Davis, Fort Stockton, Peacos and east to Odessa Midland. The settings were familiar and Colleen did an excellent job painting the area in broad strokes and people with a lot to loose and with God the world to gain.
First, for your benefit here are four synopsis’s from Amazon about each novel. At the end I will talk about each and what they meant to me.
SYNOPSIS FROM AMAZON.COM
Book 1: Lonestar Sanctuary
In the quiet safety of the Bluebird Ranch, old promises resurface and unexpected love brings new hope.
Though tragedy has wrecked her life, Allie Siders holds on to the hope that her five-year-old daughter, Betsy, will speak again. But with a stalker out for revenge, all Allie can think about now is their safety. She must sever all ties and abandon life as she knows it. She heads to the peaceful Bluebird Ranch, nestled deep in Texas hill country, and to the only person who can help them.
The ranch is a sanctuary for abused horses, and also for troubled youths: the perfect place for Betsy to grow and recover. Ranch owner Elijah DeAngelo eagerly welcomes the duo. But Rick Bailey—the ranch foreman and DeAngelo’s right hand man—hasn’t decided to let his guard down . . . yet.
Promises made long ago soon force Rick and Allie to work together to escape danger. Will they discover love along the way?
Book 2: Lonestar Secrets
Can a secret be kept forever?
Five years ago, Shannon Astor left the beautiful high-mountain country of West Texas as a single mother. She was desperate for a fresh start and a way to keep the secrets of her past buried. It almost worked.
Until a chance to make a better life for her daughter leads her right back home. To the very place of the past betrayals.
But it also leads Shannon to horse-trainer Jack MacGowan–her handsome high-school nemesis, now a widowed father. His daughter looks so startlingly like her own that Shannon can’t help but question the circumstances surrounding her daughter’s birth. Wary of each other’s intentions, Shannon and Jack reluctantly join forces to untangle a deep mystery that swirls around Shannon’s parents, a lost Spanish treasure, and a legendary black stallion.
If Shannon can learn to entrust her secrets to the man falling in love with her, the truth just might set her free.
Book 3: Lonestar Homecoming
For most, it’s the safest place on earth. For Gracie, it’s the last place she wants to be…and the one place she must return.
With nothing but five dollars and the wedding dress she’s wearing, Gracie Lister flees with her daughter by train to West Texas, to the town she ran away from so long ago. There they find refuge in the home of Michael Wayne–devoted single father, seasoned soldier–who gives Gracie a job caring for his two children and the hiding place she needs from her former fiancé.
Michael and Gracie aren’t looking for love, but it finds them right away. And then trouble comes to call in the form of Gracie’s ex-fiancé who is now on the FBI’s most-wanted list. Together, Michael and Gracie must find the strength they need to protect their newly forged family.
Book 4: Lonestar Angel
*2012 Carol Award in Romantic Suspense.
Eden’s hope is rekindled when Clay delivers astounding news: their daughter has been found.
Five years ago Eden and Clay Larson’s baby was stolen and never found. Eden blamed herself, Clay lost himself in work. Their young and rocky marriage ended. Or so Eden thought.
Now Eden’s moved to a new town. She’s found faith and is trying to rebuild her life. She’s even dating again—a sweet guy who plans to marry her someday. But then Clay arrives out of the blue and delivers shocking news: they’re still married. What’s more, Clay has been searching for Brianna all this time. And he believes he’s found her: their daughter is in Bluebird, Texas, at a youth ranch.
To uncover the truth, Eden and Clay sign on as counselors at Bluebird Ranch. Working together, they rediscover their love for each other. But danger is closing in—Eden, Clay, and their young charges are in jeopardy. As they fight to save their family, Eden realizes that God has been fighting for them all along. And His plans are for a more abundant life than they’ve dared to hope.
The Reviews: Steve Myers, amateur reviwer.
I can say this about Collen’s books: They are easy to get into with the story and even after putting them down its easy to rejoin at any point and feel as if you knew what had occurred before and pick up where you left off back into the heat of the action. She has a gift I admire greatly.
In Lonestar Homecoming Graice and Michael were characters I found appealing and quickly. Graice more than Michael but I am drawn to beautiful women often in trouble and on the lam in need of a rescuing if not slightly reluctant and wounded man. I am one of those to say the least. I bought into every aspect of the story except the very last of the ending. For the first book I read it seemed to wind up too fast and a bit like a Walker Texas Ranger one hour episode. But on a scale of 1-10 rating a ten the best and 1 the worst, it was really an 8 overall for me. And it did not stop me from picking up the other three.
The second book of my pilgrimage with Colleen was Lonestar Secrets. Once again I was easily drawn to Shannon and Jack. Their stories were believable and I found myself interested in their journey from start to end. This time the ending seemed plausible and more realistic. Either I had grown as a reader or God was working more on me as a writer. Written in 2009 and I reading in mid 2010 it spoke to me. Or God spoke to me. He was suggesting “if this is the trend of top writing your Shadows Over Olson novel from 1992 has the potential to plant you as a writer.” So my pilgrimage to even consider writing is due in large part to the GREATNESS of what Collen Coble was crafting. But I still wasn’t convinced I could come close to her mastery of and exceptional book.
The third book in my journey Lonestar Sanctuary I could not purchase or read fast enough. Having Allie start as a rodeo barrel racer at the El Paso Coliseum, a place where I had spent a great deal of my mid to late teens was easy to picture full of rodeo trailers and the broken down old one the character of Allie was in. In fact it was one of the scariest scenes when the intruder terrorized her while in the tiny shower from the other side of the flimsy door. It was during this book that I began to see the potential a man in his 50s born in El Paso might be able to write after all in similar stories of my teens to fifties that have settled like books on the shelves of my mind and heart. Thanks in large part to Colleen Coble I started to believe that voice of God in the midst of this book.
I felt as if I knew the character of Allie and her five year old daughter Betsy. I had known many women and their daughters who were like them. When they broke down on a two lane road in the middle of the desert off of I-10 I could visualize that stretch of West Texas further West between Sierra Blanca and Van Horn of an interstate I strayed from in any season of the year. But the Bluebird Ranch described of Elijah was similar to one I worked for in 1997-1999 in the lower valley of El Paso for Rancho de Paz (the ranch of peace). I really got into the characters with images of places I had been.
Now yes, many of these places or similarities of places are from my lifetime. But its interesting that my now 82-year-old mother, 50-something year old sister in law, and dozens of friends who had never been to those areas still were as wrapped up in the novels by Colleen as I was. They echoed the easy ability to get into each book and pick back up from whatever page or chapter they left off from. All raved how special a writer Collen is. The hero or lead male character of Rick Bailey is well crafted as well. Especially for a man who was very reluctant to buy into Allie and yet hard to resist her beauty at the same time. I fell for Allie in a heartbeat as the composite of several women I had known in my lifetime. I suspect I’ve always been and still am attractive to that character even if rarely coming close to fulfilling that in a love relationship.
About the time I read Lonestar Secrets what should be the first in the series I attended a Christian Adult Book Fair at Rush Creek Christian (Disciples of Christ) Church in Arlington Texas and met two dozen first time to multiple published authors and some of those for decades. They included Ronnie Kendig, Arlene James, Lena Nelson Dooley, writer and agent Terry Burns, and several others who raved not only about the ACFW but also of Colleen Coble. There were a lot of God moments in that stage in my life, that small one day conference and my literal nervousness showing up with my laptop, a chapter of my work and going from table to table asking each author how they got started, how they progressed, and what the process was like of both selling and then working with publishers and editors till their book was perfected for publication. It was a great turning point experience.
When I finally joined the ACFW in April of 2011 I was welcomed to the organization by none other than Colleen Coble. To be on the author loops having interaction with each writer both published and pre-published was like being among colleagues, friends and in some cases heroes or mentors. One who befriended and helped me considerably in the early months was author Stephanie Grace Whitson. I owe her a lot for getting me this far so quickly and much to Arlene James (aka Deborah Rather), Margaret Daley, Gail Gaymer Martin, and so many personal friends I made on the path here, like Wade Webster and Joy Avery Melville.
But the day I had mail and a series of e-mail conversations with Colleen Coble was as if I was in contact with a star. The only difference is that she made me feel like a colleague and was as interested to read my work as I was of her subsequent releases. It was not hard to rave about Lonestar Sanctuary as it became my favorite in her series equal with Lonestar Secrets.
In the process of corresponding with Colleen Coble I learned one of her mentors was Karen Kingsbury. I enjoyed Kingsbury’s Contemporary Above The Line series called Take One, Take Two, Take Three and Take Four set in the Hollywood Film Industry. Where I considered Colleen at the pinnacle of Christian Fiction she considered Karen Kingsbury there, and both of them in awe and respect of Francine Rivers. It was one of Francine Rivers novels And the Shofar Blew in 2004 that healed a lot of wounds from a bad encounter in Christian Media from a mega-church and mega name that to say the least did me wrong professionally, personally and spiritually. So that was the trifecta of confirmations I was at the right place and at the right time to start a writing career.
It wasn’t until the ACFW National Conference held in September of 2012 and here in Dallas Fort Worth at the DFW Airport Hyatt Regency that I finally picked up the last in the Lonestar series titled Lonestar Angel. I had hoped to meet Collen Coble at some point of the four-day conference but in the midst of some 2000+ people that just did not happen. But I did pick up an autographed copy of Angel in the bookstore the Friday before the Saturday night gala. And it was just enough to have seen Collen speak at several of the opening and subsequent day corporate meetings in the grand ballroom.
Actually, I should take that back. I did see her name plate in the mentor meeting time frame when I was with my mentor appointment of Gail Gaymer Martin. Except Colleen had that block of time off. But to have one-to-one time with Gail, later Margaret Daley, with Harlequin Love Inspired Senior Editor Melissa Endlich, and my agent of hopeful choice Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency, were gifts from God I never could imagined possible a year earlier in 2011 or those moments reading of those names unknown to me shopping the shelves of Mardel’s, Lifeway, Family Christian Stores, Amazon or CBD.com. Later meeting a wide range of Harlequin writers, Steve Laube, Chip MacGregor, Karen Ball, Rachelle Gardner, Cara Putnam and so many others went from being star struck to feeling as if I were a colleague as time went on. It was surreal and rewarding at the same time.
Post the Conference of 2012 I went through a six-week period of what some call the post-conference blues though I called it the post-conference Mush. My mind was mush and writing trying to incorporate everything I learned was mush as well. But again it was Colleen Coble that broke through. Reading and listening at the same time to the audio version of Lonestar Angel meant without a doubt her winning the 2012 Carol Award for best Romantic Suspense novel was spot on target.
As I read Lonestar Angel everything I learned at the conference and what my Critique Editor was teaching me came into focus. Like identifying the parts of speech or diagramming sentences in an advanced college level English course so I started to identify POINT OF VIEW, DESCRIPTION, SHOW verses tell, and the elements that make a great novel.
Collen’s novel was an exceptional tutorial as I followed the stories of Eden and Clay. Both were introduced brilliantly and unexpectedly teaming to return to Texas and find their kidnapped daughter. It all transpired at the Bluebird Ranch and nearby sites in the town, the area where Clay grew up and desert region. There were familiar support characters from other parts of the series and the sub-support cast of children and several small part adults but nevertheless memorable people that made the book exception. It certainly deserved the Carol Award that I had the honor of attending and watching Colleen accept and present a humbled speech in acceptance.
Colleen has since moved on to several more novels including the present TIDEWATER INN. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the Hallmark Channel at some point doesn’t turn her work into movies and/or a series of her own much like Debbie Macomber’s CEDAR COVE. See the post on Cedar Cove in my blog post list.
I have to pay tribute where its due and thank Colleen Coble for being as much a part of my journey towards publication as inspiration showing me how well a writer can write. I’m laughing a little too. Collen showed me in both several posts and personal letters how a writer edits as well. She wrote she had a professions friend edit her work up to four times before its ever seen by her publisher and then with the publisher’s editor it can have as many as 3 or four more edits again.
I think it was James Michner who wrote “I’m not a great writer but I am a great re-writer.” The hardest thing I had to learn is not that I won’t be edited but that what I read of my favorite writers is not a first draft of their work. For a while I was depressed because my first drafts were nothing like what I was reading in their books. But I’ve come to treasure editors as I edit my first novel HER LEADING MAN in the STARS AT NIGHT series targeted for Harlequin Love Inspired Historical division.
I’ll close by stating I picked up a Kindle version of one of Colleen’s early first novels when she was still learning the craft. In fact I stand corrected, we are always learning the craft of writing. Its an ongoing process. That, thanks to Colleen as well.
A few weeks ago I read Maggie’s Mistake that was first published as a Heartsong Presents book back in May of 2002. She recently got the rights back and published it herself as an e-book on Amazon Kindle. And as someone who started off her lifetime taking over 8 years to get her first novel published this early book soon after was a wonderful read as well. I wish I were as good as the Colleen Coble of 2002 as I am today in 2013. But I will get there. Eventually. And I know that overnight success stories may seem overnight but defined for those who live them as decades in development. I do know that when I get there one of the most excited and kind applause will come from Colleen Coble. She’s just that type of mentor and encouraging writer of all she comes into contact. And I am blessed I have been one.
Book 3: 2010 Book 4: 2011
For more information about Colleen Coble visit her website at: