BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR AUTHOR KATE WYLAND

Kate Wyland is a life-long horse nut who started riding at three years old. A few years ago, she exchanged her tech writing “bug” hat for a fiction writing Stetson. Suspense, romance, horses and sometimes the paranormal are the themes she likes to explore in her books. Learn more about Kate and her books at her website and blog.

Daydreaming

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of my time daydreaming. I was a very late child with much older siblings, so effectively I was an “only” with two sets of parents. My folks moved to California when I was nine, and coming from a small Midwestern town, they weren’t terribly comfortable with the relaxed mores and behavior of our new home. They were also the age of my friends’ grandparents. Add the fact I was shy and introverted, and I ended up feeling like an outsider who didn’t quite fit in.

As a result, I retreated into my horses, my books and my daydreams. While I loved stories set in another time and place, my fantasies took place in the “real” world. I constructed elaborate pictures of where I would live and what I would do. Unlike most of my friends, my future did not revolve around getting married and having a family. I didn’t plan elaborate weddings or design my dream house or fantasize about whom I would marry and how many kids we would have.

I was going to DO something—many times something heroic. In contrast to how I actually saw myself, my dreamer self would be brave and active. She would live on a big ranch in the mountains, raise horses and fly planes. Somehow (there were lots of scenarios) she would save someone’s life or perform some other feat of derring-do. I never told anyone about these fantasies and never wrote them down, either. I didn’t dare reveal that part of myself.

Of course these daydreams never really came true. I did marry and have a family. I lived in suburbia and carpooled instead of flying a plane. BUT I have done some flying. AND eventually we did move to a small acreage that allowed horses. While I have dealt with some emergency situations, I’ve never saved anyone’s life or done anything requiring physical bravery. But I have learned to face my fears over the years and even took on my terror of high places by zip lining down a mountain in South Africa.

Now I write my fantasies instead of daydreaming about them. Forewarning is set on a horse ranch in the Oregon Cascades. Kasey, the heroine, saves a man’s life and ends up facing down bad guys. I never realized before how much she fits my long ago dream self. Wyoming Escape is set on a Wyoming dude ranch, loosely based on one I’ve visited. The heroine, Mikela, must face her fears in order to survive and take down the killer who is after her. Another familiar scenario.

How about you? What did you daydream about as a kid? Have any of your fantasies come true? What do you dream about now?

FOREWARNING

Healing is her life. Will it be her death?

Grieving and guilt-stricken after her husband’s suicide, Kasey Martin closes her energetic healing practice and retreats to her Oregon horse ranch. One night, she rescues a badly injured man, and against her better judgment, uses her neglected skills to save his life. This starts her on an unexpected journey of healing and danger.

Complicating her life is Jim Bradley, an old friend who has long been in love with her and wants her to return to her work. When criminals looking for her patient invade the serenity of her world, she must use her skills to save all three of their lives.

Buy Link