Please Welcome author Ada Brownell as she joins us for the Monday Everything Old is New Again feature here on Whispers in Purple. Take it away, Ada!
The
Peach Blossom Rancher,
By Ada Brownell
A handsome young man with a ranch in ruin
and a brilliant doctor confined to an insane asylum because of one seizure. Yet
their lives intersect. How will they achieve their dreams?
John Lincoln Parks yearns for a wife to
help make the ranch all it should be after his uncle, a judge, ravaged it
before he was murdered. John has his eye on his sister Jenny’s elegant matron
of honor, Valerie MacDougal, a young widow. But Valerie, a law school graduate,
returns to Boston to live. John and Valerie write, but while in Boston
Valerie and one of her father’s law partners try to get three patients
wrongfully judged as insane out of the Boston asylum—and they spend a lot time
together.
Will John marry Valerie or Edwina
Jorgenson, the feisty rancher-neighbor who has been in love with John since
they were in grade school? Edwina’s father is in a wheelchair and she’s taking
care of their ranch. John tries to help and protect this neighbor who has a
Peeping Tom whose bootprints are like the persons who dumped a body in John’s
barn. But John and Edwina fuss at one another constantly. Will John even marry,
or be hanged for the murder?
Purchase Link: http://amzn.to/2arRVgG
At the seed and feed store Charlie’s smile
showed a gap missing two front teeth. “You must have rabbits everywhere.”
“You said it,” Stuart chirped. “Some got loose
this mornin’, but we caught most of ’em.” He held up his poster. “I have a
poster in case we need to try to get customers somewhere else.”
Charlie shook his head. “I have one customer
who buys all the rabbit pelts I can give him, and kids probably will snatch up
the little ones. How much you want for ’em?”
John stepped forward. “How much will you give
us?”
Stu’s eyes bugged when Charlie quoted what he’d
pay. John and Stu unloaded the critters, and Stu had his pockets full of money.
“You did a great job with those bunnies,” John
said as he approached sheriff’s office. “It wasn’t your fault they got loose.”
Stuart’s chin went up as he stared at the blue
sky. “Thanks. I really liked those bunnies, but I knew I couldn’t keep ’em
all.”
John stole Stu’s hat off his head. “You’re
growin’ into a man, boy.”
As usual, boots propped on the desk, the sheriff
snoozed when Stu and John entered his office. John slammed the door shut again,
this time rattling the jail. He had a notion to shout, “Jailbreak!” but
controlled himself.
The sheriff almost fell out of his wooden desk
chair. The wheels started rolling, and he hit the back wall head on.
The man blinked. Then he blinked again and
stared. He touched his skull where it hit the wall. Stuart held his hand over
his mouth so his giggles wouldn’t escape.
John leaned down to Woody’s red face. “Hello.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you two.”
“Guess so.” John touched the gun on his hip.
“Although I don’t think you would’ve got me until you opened your eyes.”
One of Stuart’s giggles escaped. Woody frowned
at him. Then a smile crept under the huge mustache. “What you two boys need?
Come to turn yourself in for the murder of Billy Joe?”John jerked his head
negatively. “Brought something to show ya.” He set the box of rat poison on the
sheriff’s desk.
Woody’s feet hit the floor. “Don’t you go
putting poison on my desk. I eat off that desk!”
“Isn’t there somewhere you can put it for
evidence?”
Woody bobbed his head back and forth. “Anywhere
I put it in here, some mouse or rat would eat it. If it’s evidence, maybe I can
lock it in a cabinet. Where’d ya get it?”
“I found it under a big lilac bush in the back
yard. Nobody at Peach Blossom Ranch ever uses rat poison. We depend on the barn
cats. This stuff would kill chickens and Stu’s rabbits, and if I got another
dog, it would kill him too.” John shoved it toward the sheriff. “It’s a fairly
new box of poison, only half gone, and not weathered much.”
“Well, that’s mighty interestin’,” Woody
drawled. “Wellington and his pa came here a few days ago and said they
discussed B.J.’s murder with Charlie at the feed store. According to them, he
said you’d bought rat poison a few days before Billy was killed.”
The sixth redhead in a family of achievers,
Ada Nicholson Brownell writes with stick-to-your-soul encouragement from her
Missouri home where she lives with her handsome husband. They have five
children—not one of them with red hair or freckles. One is in heaven.
Ada gained experience before becoming a writer
and newspaper reporter. The youngest of her parent’s eight children, she was
the family tattle tale!
Her career started when she was age 15,
when as a youth leader she wrote ideas for a leadership magazine. She expanded
to articles for youth and then to full-length stories in Christian magazines
and Sunday school papers. Her first news job was as a correspondent for the
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel—from Thompson, Utah, population 98.
The author of eight books, she loves
inspirational historical suspense. She’s in the middle of her latest plot
against her leading characters in the third book in her Peaches and Dreams
series, Love’s Delicate Blossom. Plot
is all about putting challenges and disaster into the lives of fictional
characters, and it sometimes hurts her as well.
She
retired from her “real job” at The Pueblo
Chieftain, but still writes occasional op-ed pieces for newspapers as well
as devotions for a teen magazine, articles for Live, blogs and does other freelance
writing.
Her Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KJ2C06
Her blog: www.inkfromanearthenvessel.blogspot.com
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