Jodi Thomas is here today to talk a little it about her latest historical release, Promise Me Texas, a Whispering Mountain novel.
New York Times bestselling author Jodi Thomas returns to Texas for an unpredictable adventure in romance that sets two unlikely hearts on fire
Promise Me Texas
On a midnight train, four hours away from her wedding, Beth McMurray discovers the devastating truth about the powerful senator she’s about to marry. Convinced nothing could make this stormy night worse, the train wrecks, and she tumbles straight into the arms of an outlaw.
Andrew McLaughlin doesn’t believe in loving except between the pages of his writings. He loved deeply once and thinks he’ll never survive another loss. To save a friend, he climbs aboard a train heading toward Dallas. In the moment before the train crashes, he saves a beautiful woman and is injured in the fall. He wakes up to find she’s claimed him as her fiancé—and now they’re both on the run, and destined to do everything it takes to make an unexpected promise of love come true.
Over the years of writing I’ve included a writer as one of the characters in a book many times. Maybe it’s because I understand them so well. In my new historical romance, PROMISE ME TEXAS, I wrote about Beth McMurray and Andrew McLaughlin.
Beth is the spoiled, loving, very proper, youngest child of Teagan McMurray from Whispering Mountain.
Andrew is drifting through life with no direction. Like most writers, he’s interested in people of all kinds. When he comes across a gang of outlaws, he can’t resist tagging along to hear the stories they tell. Once he realizes they are about to rob a train, he can’t step away without putting his friend in danger.
These two very different people find a most unusual love amid all the friends and family who are trying to ‘save them’ from themselves. Their make-believe marriage begins to feel very real as Beth lies to her father, the great Teagan McMurray.
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 has always commented 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 Thomas
www.facebook.com/
www.twitter.com/jodithomas
Giveaway: Use the rafflecopter widget below to enter to win a copy of Promise Me Texas (US Only).
Sounds great. I love Jodi’s books. Thanks for the giveaway.
I love discovering new – to me anyway – authors! Promise Me Texas looks great!
Interesting characters
It looks like a story where the heroine matures and grows which is a favorite of mine.