Sunday, January 17, 2021

MEET AUTHOR CAROLE T. BEERS, WRITER OF COZY MYSTERIES AND RESCUE TALES

Today we welcome author Carole T. Beers, a former award-winning reporter/columnist for The Seattle Times, writing instructor, and contributor to romance and western publications before focusing her attention on fiction in 2015. Learn more about Carole and her books at her website. 

“Saddle up for a great read!” These words jotted on a chalkboard say much about what I write: New West Mysteries with Heart. Cozy but properly chilling amateur sleuth stories, or rescue tales, featuring spirited animal-lovers who stop at nothing to make things right. And have a laugh, love or tasty meal along the way. Why not play to all our senses?

 

I came up with the slogan and displayed it at an author’s booth at our Josephine County Fair in 2019 after finding a horse head-shaped chalkboard at a crafts booth. I might have added the word “hope,” since ALL my books, not only the PepperKaneMysteries, spotlight hope. Second chances, Country values. They deserve to be written on EVERY chalkboard.

 

These are themes of the books and stories I read, whether fiction or biographies, and many of you do, too. I look for tough challenges in reading and writing. Books I can relate to. Books with an appealing hero or heroine. I want to feel I am firmly seated in a book and practically holding the reins. Hence the riding allusion in my slogan. No wonder all my books feature horses, include dogs, and showcase the occasional cat or chicken!


I’ve loved and learned from nature, and animals, from childhood. They teach us so much when we observe and interact with them, such as how to use all the resources at our disposal, communicate in an honest way, and how to live (and love) unconditionally. My earliest scribblings (age 7) had people interacting with animals. Even if “just” a goldfish.


I was inspired to write stories including nature by books such as The Honeybear, Girl of the Limberlost and Desert Storm. Today I still get a lift and kick out of classics like My Side of the Mountain. I became a newspaper reporter to learn discipline and creativity. And relate interesting stories!

 

My non-human family includes my horse Brad, tuxedo cat Velvet, Boston terrier Georgie, and parakeet Sky. We live on a hill in southern Oregon. Interacting with them daily, riding, walking or just hanging out, contributes to physical and mental health. Such as it is. Hopefully you are blessed with innocent “others”—including young humans! And learn from them, too.

 

Always focused on reading and writing, as well as spiritual growth, I quit newspaper work after thirty-some years to tell my own stories. They’re traditionally published by a small independent press in North Carolina. They have a quick turnaround time and let me have a say in cover design and marketing. I love the freedom. It lets me “saddle up and enjoy the WRITE.” I don’t enjoy the edits and revisions as much.

 

Sometimes the mount is stubborn, wild, or willful. But sometimes it takes me to a better place than I could have thought of myself.

 

In from the Cold

Jack Pennington has a heart as big as Oregon’s Rogue Valley, where he’s delivered agricultural equipment and taken in foster children for years. Stalled in his marriage, dreading retirement, and making his final runs over the pass to Klamath Basin, he sees an old, abandoned horse that won’t make it through the coming blizzard.

 

Carly Brown’s life with druggie parents changed for the better when she joined Daddy Jack’s family, and then had a baby with her fiancĂ©. It crashed again when her partner assaulted her, and the baby had special needs. Now her struggles to make a better life for her and her son also seem doomed to fail. 

 

As Christmas draws near, can a despairing old man and struggling young mother find a way through cold prospects to a warmer, brighter future?

 

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