Win a set of photographs: His Montana Rescue by Vella Munn

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Vella Munn will be awarding a several photographs of Montana's wilderness sent via email (international and U.S. giveaway) to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Vella Munn’s World of Dreams

Don’t tell anyone but I’m cheating a bit. Instead of showing the view either inside my writing space or outside my at-home window, I’m sharing what is just beyond my family’s summer cabin because it is connected to His Montana Rescue, one of the books in my Montana Lakeside romance series.

Since I occasionally try to be honest, despite the titles, I admit the family cabin is in Oregon within an hour’s drive of world famous Crater Lake, but wilderness is wilderness and mountains are mountains. I get high when I’m surrounded by evergreens, the air is pure, and the sounds aren’t manmade.

I was raised in small, remote communities. For three years, my mother, sister, and I lived in a tiny mining/logging town at the bottom of a canyon in northern California. Mother was the teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. There was no TV, no radio reception, and sometimes winter storms cut us off from the outside world. We loved it! My sister and I had a river to swim in, a forest to explore, and trees to climb. We pretended we were explorers and Indians. We saw bears, cougars, deer, skunks, and porcupines on a regular basis. The handful of other children in town were just as wild and adventurous. Of course everyone knew who the teacher’s daughters were and were used to seeing us with our arms full of pinecones and discarded antlers. The miners and loggers served as unofficial babysitters.

My sons had a somewhat more ‘civilized’ upbringing, but we lived in a small, historic Oregon town while they were growing up. If they weren’t in school or it wasn’t pouring, they were outside—like their mom had done. Unless they were on their bicycles on the narrow county road, I didn’t worry. (Maybe I should have because years later I learned they and their friends had explored some abandoned gold mines including tunnels that went under the streets).

My background and the affinity I have for the wilderness is what prompted me to write the Montana Lakeside series. I wanted my characters to embrace the natural world and have it embrace them as part of the healing process. I ‘moved’ the action from Oregon to Montana because Tule Publishing asked me to, but what my characters and I experienced remained the same. I have always felt at peace when I’m surrounded by nature and wanted to have the same thing happen to my characters. In an attempt to be able to examine that experience as fully as possible, I set each of the four books during a different season. (Romancing The Montana Bride is a novella that takes place in a single day)

I’ve written over 70 books. The majority take place far from cities because I’ve never lived in or been able to connect with urban areas. Obviously, I took the advice to write what I know about to heart.

Former firefighter Echo Rose may have recovered from the injuries that nearly ended her life but the emotional scars still linger. She now devotes herself to protecting wildlife and sheltering her heart until local contractor Rey Bowen reminds Echo that life can offer so much more.

Rey Bowen is not the only one at Lake Serene with secrets and a desire to reboot his seriously derailed life. Meeting Echo reminds him that life can sparkle with joy and laughter and passion, but can he show the cautious Echo how to love again even as he struggles to trust his own heart?

Enjoy an Excerpt:

“Ranger Echo Rose,” a rumbling voice said.

Taking it slow, she turned in the direction the words came from.

Rey Bowen was looking at her, or rather looking down at her. He wasn’t a giant of a man, just a shade over six feet, but that didn’t stop her from remembering she was at least seven inches shorter and only one hundred twenty pounds. For reasons she was careful not to examine too closely, she’d told herself the breadth of his chest and width of his shoulders were responsible for her unsettling reaction to him.

What was she thinking? Hadn’t she learned, painfully, to keep emotional distance between herself and men? She had, darn it. She’d never drop her guard.

Until she’d done in her ankle, she’d spent much of her time around physical people, most of them men. She still was around more men than women, but in recent months she'd mostly rubbed shoulders with people who spent their days behind desks.

Despite how she'd been forced to earn her living since last summer, she believed she still understood the physical male. When he was around women he was trying to impress, the breed carried himself as if he was a bull elk, strutting a bit, hard muscles pushing against too-tight T-shirts, and gazes giving out bedroom vibes.

Rey did none of those things. Instead, it was as if he’d built an emotional wall around himself. The reason was none of her business, darn it. She had enough to do dealing with her own life.

About the Author:

Vella Munn freely admits to being a dedicated and sometimes demented fiction writer. She has always been drawn to nature and those who feel at home in it. A career writer, she has had way over 60 books published, most of them romances both past and present. As far as personal statistics go, she has one husband, two sons, four grandchildren, and is owned by two rescue dogs. Home is southern Oregon within a two hour drive of Crater Lake. She frequently visits Montana in her mind and heart.

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