Thursday, July 28, 2016

A visit with Kari Lynn Dell, author of Reckless in Texas + Giveaway

Please join me in welcoming author Kari Lynn Dell. She's here to chat with us about Violet and Joe, characters from her new book - Reckless in Texas.

Take it away, Kari!

If I were to give Violet and Joe, the stars of Reckless in Texas, a bit of advice, it would be to watch out for the four most dangerous words in the English language. No, they’re not We need to talk, or How do I look? They’re not even These aren’t my underwear, That’s not my lipstick or My boyfriend is home!

If you want to see true fear, watch my husband’s eyes when I say, “So I was thinking…”

Like me, Violet Jacobs is a dreamer with a lot of big ideas, who is dying to bust out of the comfortable groove Jacobs Livestock occupies in the minor leagues of professional rodeo. Unfortunately, she’s the only one in the family who’s not satisfied with the status quo. But maybe she can persuade the rest of them to make one little change? Thus, her adventure begins with, “So I was thinking we should hire a younger, more exciting bullfighter for our rodeos.”

But not even Violet was prepared for Joe Cassidy. What would possess one of the hottest bullfighters in the country to come slumming at their backwater rodeos? Well, it all started with a fight, some false accusations, and his friend Wyatt saying, “So I was thinking, Joe, you should call your jerk boss’s bluff and head to Texas instead of staying here in Oregon and taking his crap.”

Like I said, those are some dangerous words.

So I was thinking… has prefaced every major change in the twenty-five years of my marriage. It is to blame for four career changes on my part, the purchase of at least five horses, three houses and a goat. It’s why there is currently a kitten sitting on my keyboard, even though we’re not really cat people. After hearing those fateful words, my husband has arrived home at various times to find a deck, two walls and part of an arena missing.

It’s also how my South Dakota spouse ended up living in a camper trailer in eastern Oregon during our first winter in the Pacific Northwest. Ten years later, I got to thinking again and the next thing he knew he was raising cattle on my family’s ranch in Montana. My overactive imagination is why my grandfather’s old wooden granary is now the living room of what was a 600 square foot bunkhouse, where we lived with our three-year-old son (yes, we were doing the tiny house thing long before it was cool).

So I was thinking… has been the seed of our best and worst adventures. It’s why we once drove all night from Winnemucca to Tacoma for a couple of Labor Day rodeos, and what possessed us to traverse trails in the Oregon wilderness that, despite what the lunatic who drew the Forest Service map said, were not suitable for horses. Thanks to my bright ideas we have paddled across lakes and floated rivers, took surfing lessons and flew down ziplines, and peered off of more cliffs and waterfalls than is sane or reasonable for a person who’s scared of heights.

Because of So, I was thinking… my husband has learned how to install drywall, a bathtub complete with plumbing and four different types of laminate flooring. He has experienced the joy of staining concrete and installing second floor windows. Really, he should be thankful. So I was thinking… has expanded both his horizons and his skill set.

But I think it’s only fair to warn Violet that when a cowboy springs a So I was thinking… on you, he’s not messing around. To my recollection, mine has only done it twice. The first time I ended up married. The second time…well, that’s why we have a son.


Reckless in Texas
Texas Rodeo, #1
Kari Lynn Dell
Sourcebooks Casablanca
August 2nd 2016



Violet Jacobs is fearless. At least, that’s what the cowboys she snatches from under the hooves of bucking horses think. Outside the ring, she’s got plenty of worries rattling her bones: her young son, her mess of a love life, and lately, her family’s struggling rodeo. When she takes business into her own hands and hires on a hotshot bullfighter, she expects to start a ruckus. She never expected Joe Cassidy. Rough and tumble, cocky and charming, Joe’s everything a superstar should be—and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out he’s way out of Violet’s league.

Joe came to Texas to escape a life spiraling out of control. He never planned on sticking around, and he certainly never expected to call this dry and dusty backwater home. But Violet is everything he never knew he was missing, and the deeper he’s pulled into her beautiful mess of a family, the more he realizes this fierce rodeo girl may be offering him the one thing he never could find on his own.


Kari Lynn Dell is a ranch-raised Montana cowgirl who attended her first rodeo at two weeks old and has existed in a state of horse-induced poverty ever since. She lives on the Blackfeet Reservation in her parents' bunkhouse along with her husband, her son, and Max the Cowdog, with a tipi on her lawn, Glacier National Park on her doorstep and Canada within spitting distance. Her debut novel, The Long Ride Home, was published in 2015. She also writes a ranch and rodeo humor column for several regional newspapers and a national agricultural publication.


1 comment:

  1. I want to read RECKLESS IN TEXAS because I want to fall in love with a cowboy! Thanks for the wonderful giveaway!

    ReplyDelete