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The Cowboys Book Launch Party

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The Cowboy CollectionHey Everyone,

Mark your calendars! Sandra Merville Hart, Cindy Ervin Huff, Linda Yezak, and I are doing a Facebook launch party for THE COWBOYS–this Thursday evening, August 29, 2019, from 6-10 pm Eastern Time. We’ll each take about an hour to talk about our individual novellas, the characters, research, and other fun facts. There will be several giveaways, including a grand prize of a $50 Amazon gift card. Who wouldn’t love that? Please join us for a few hours of fun, live readings, interesting facts, and fellowship! Hope to see you there!

 

What’s next? Coming in 2020…

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So…I’ve been swamped this year with three book releases, plus my first re-print. In case you missed any of this, here’s what 2019 has held for me so far…and what’s coming in the next couple months.

Sand Creek Serenade came out out March 14.

Sand Creek Serenade

Cameo Courtships came out June 1.

Cameo Courtships

The Cowboys releases in just a few days–August 15.

The Cowboy Collection

My first release from back in 2015, The Oregon Trail Romance Collection, is getting a second print run on November 1 this year–so YAY, you’ll be able to purchase paperback copies again in just a few months.

The Oregon Trail Romance Collection

I’ve also worked on several proposals for new projects that are currently being shopped to publishers, as well as lots of blog posts and promotional work for the above titles. This is all hugely exciting to me, and I’m very grateful for the opportunities that continue to come my way. But all these releases are also the reason why I haven’t shared the news of what’s coming up in 2020. So, without further ado…let me share.

I’ve got two novella collections coming up next year. I’ll share about the first one here. Keep watching for more details on the second in the near future.

The first novella collection is called Blacksmith Brides. It is a 4-in-1 collection from Barbour Publishing and will include stories by Pegg Thomas, Amanda Barratt, Angela Couch, and me. Here’s the back-cover description:

Hearts Are Forged by the Flames of Gentle Love in 4 Historical Stories
 
Worth Fighting For (1774—Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) by Pegg Thomas
Talk of war has surrounded Meg McCracken, including her father and four brothers. Alexander Ogilvie doesn’t care about the coming war; his plans are to head west. When Meg comes to his smithy, sparks fly off more than the forge. But can they build anything during unstable times?
 
Forging Forever (1798—Cornwall, England) by Amanda Barratt
When the actions of Elowyn Brody’s father force her into a marriage of convenience with blacksmith Josiah Hendrick, she consigns love to a bygone dream. But as Elowyn comes to know her new husband, her flame of hope begins to burn again. Until heartache threatens to sever the future forged between them.
 
A Tempered Heart (1861—Charlottesville, Virginia) By Angela K. Couch
Buried under a debt that is not his own, Thomas Flynn’s only focus is gaining his freedom. He has learned to keep his head low and not pay attention to the troubles of others, until a peculiar boy and his widowed mother show him how empty his life has become. After years of protecting her son from slights and neglect of the people closest them, Esther Mathews is not sure how to trust the local blacksmith with her child…or her heart.
 
A Malleable Heart (California—1870) by Jennifer Uhlarik
A hard-hearted blacksmith finds acceptance with the town laundress. But when his past comes to call, will he resist love’s softening or allow God to hammer his ruined life into something of worth?

I’m writing my story for this collection right now, and so far, two chapters in, I’m loving it! After struggling with some of the proposals I worked on, this story is flowing and I’m enjoying the process again! This is great news. I need to have this story completed by October 1, but I’m hoping to really hammer it out in August and have it done soon. 

Now…are you ready? I already have the cover for Blacksmith Brides!!! Want to see it? I thought you might, so…here it is.

Blacksmith Brides--Front Cover

To me, the cover is beautiful, although you might be wondering why it doesn’t feature a man with a hammer standing at an anvil. The truth is, you’d be rather surprised how hard it is to find photos of historically accurate blacksmiths! So the cover artists at Barbour found the picture above, and fortunately for me, it will fit with a scene later in my novella. So I’ll be describing my hero in this pose at some point in the story. Fun.

So…there’s the first part of the 2020 news. Yahoo–new stories coming up! Keep watching for the other half of the 2020 news in the coming days or weeks. 

As always, thanks for reading! Hope you’re as excited as I am.

What coming in 2019

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Coming in 2019

It’s been a while since I’ve updated you all on what’s going on. So let me do that.

I’ll actually have four releases next year. Three new titles and one re-releasing in a second print run. They are:

Sand Creek Serenade–coming March 14. After releasing seven novellas in the last several years, this one is my first novel-length title. That makes me a very happy woman!  It is a historical romance set against the backdrop of the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 Colorado and features a romance between a female doctor and a Cheyenne brave. It was a load of fun to write, and we’ve been working with the art department to finalize the cover these last couple of weeks. It’s beautiful–so keep watch. I’ll do a cover reveal sometime soon!

Cameo Courtships–coming June 1. Another novella collection, this time a 4-in-1 collection with Susie Dietze, Deb Marvin, and Kathleen Y’Barbo. In this collection, an heirloom cameo is given to a young woman by Queen Victoria, and it is passed from one family member to another. As each woman wears the precious piece, she discovers love. This is the first collection I’ve been in where we had a family connection between the stories, so it was a load of fun working with the other authors to be sure we weaved in hints of foreshadowing for the upcoming stories or little touches to reflect back on previous ones. I’m so excited to see it all together. My story is Taming Petra and is the second story in the collection. Can’t wait for you all to read it.

The Cowboys–coming August 15. This is another 4-in-1 collection, this time from Smitten Historical Romance. The other authors are Cindy Huff, Sandra Merville Hart, and Linda Yezak. When we brainstormed ideas for what collection we wanted to write, each of us agreed on Cowboys first. My story, Becoming Brave, is about a group of cowboys driving a herd north. It’s the first time I’ve written about a cattle drive, so it was much fun to try something new!

The Oregon Trail Romance Collection–second print run coming in November. This was the very first collection I participated in, and it was a real thrill. While the e-book version has been available all along, the print run ran out long ago. It’ll be nice to have new copies in circulation again.

I’m feeling hopeful there will be further contracts coming soon, though maybe not before  January. Stay tuned for more news as it breaks. For now, I’m going to start on the sequel to Sand Creek Serenade.

 

The Story Behind The Brigand and The Bride

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The Mail-Order Brides CollectionHi all! Jennifer Uhlarik here. I’m so excited to share with you the story behind the story on The Brigand and The Bride, my selection from The Mail-Order Brides Collection. So…where did the idea for this story come from? As I pondered the idea of a mail-order bride story, I knew it needed to be different than a previous mail-order bride story I’d done (Wedded to Honor from The Convenient Bride Collection). I began thinking of different scenarios and quickly struck on the idea of a woman marrying a stranger to escape her outlaw family. Probably not the most original of ideas—but then, every story’s been told a million times already. It’s the fun twists you add that makes a story unique. So as I pondered the heroine that was taking shape in my mind, I saw a scene begin to unfold.

The heroine hurries through town, anxious about being caught by her brother. Rather than heading straight to the church, she stops in the seamstress’ shop to pick up a suit for her mail-order groom—something they’d pre-arranged through their letters. Suit in hand, she goes to the church, lays out the clothes and grooming supplies for him, then waits in the sanctuary. A bit later, the hero rushes in, shaves and cuts his hair, dons the suit, and steps out of the room, where the pastor’s wife shoves him down the aisle, scolding him for his lateness.

The scene played so vividly in my mind’s eye that I knew I had to write it and find out how the rest turned out. From the couple’s first awkward face-to-face meeting to the “quickie” wedding that ensues, I was giggling and grinning ear-to-ear. I sure hope you’ll read The Brigand and The Bride to find out why!

The Brigand and the Bride by Jennifer Uhlarik
1876, Arizona 
Jolie Hilliard weds a stranger to flee her outlaw family but discovers her groom is an escaped prisoner. Will she ever find happiness on the right side of the law?

Purchase from your local bookseller or online at:

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Books-A-Million
Christian Book Distributors

juhlarik-HR-3Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has won and finaled in numerous writing competitions. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. She currently writes historical novellas of the American West for Barbour Publishing. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers and lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, college-aged son, and four fur children.

 

 

First Loves Forever Romance Collection

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I promised you further news…and here it is, better late than never. On March 26, I signed a contract for the First Loves Forever Romance Collection, a compilation of nine historical romance novellas where first love is rekindled. My story, Heartfelt Echoes, brings back characters from one of my earlier novellas, Mountain Echoes, (found in The Courageous Brides Collection). If you’ve read the earlier story, you will remember Travis, and perhaps you’ll remember the young woman, Millie, who Travis met and fell in love with in the final chapter of the story. Heartfelt Echoes brings the two back twelve years later. If you haven’t read the earlier story, you might be interested to know that both Travis and Millie are deaf. (Talk about a challenge–I never realized how often I layer in sounds as I put words on the page!)

I’m in the beginning stages of writing this novella, and already, I love it. It’s got excitement, intrigue, and a happily-ever-after ending I can’t wait to write. Hope you’ll look for the First Loves Forever Romance Collection. It releases April 1, 2018. Of course, be watching the Heroes, Heroines, and History blog for giveaways of this and other collections I’m involved in as we draw near to each release date! I blog there on the 25th of each month, and I have some just-released or just-about-to-release collections I’ll be giving away!

Thank you all for reading! Have a great weekend.

Happy News!

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Last year was one of those years where writing just didn’t seem to happen. At least, not in the form of finished projects. I spent the bulk of my writing time creating many new ideas–all written in synopsis form–but never really got to writing any of them into completed manuscripts. So while progress was made, it felt like nothing was really happening because I wasn’t seeing the word count go up on any one project.

Well, I’m thrilled to announce that one of those many synopses I have written is now contracted with Barbour Publishing. They have offered me a contract for my novella, The Outcast’s Redemption, to be included in The Secret Admirers Romance Collection. This will be my fourth novella with Barbour, and I couldn’t be more excited.

Take a look at this gorgeous cover!

The Secret Admirer Romance Collection

The Secret Admirers Romance Collection will release on May 1, 2017. Please follow my page to keep up with my latest news!

My Creative Calling Came Early

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juhlarik-HR-3Thank you so much for stopping by. I’m glad you came.

You know the old saying–“Hindsight is 20/20,” right? That phrase has never been more true than with my writing. Every child is born with a yearning to imagine and create, though it takes different forms for each child. Some pour their creativity out in paintings or drawings. Others choose crafts. Still others express their creativity with music.

My creative avenue was writing, and I believe it has been in my blood since the day I was born. I have photos of myself as a young toddler with pencil and paper in hand, scribbling before I was old enough to know how to write. I fell in love early in life with books, when my mom would take me and my older brothers to the library, then let us snuggle in next to her to read what treasures we’d found. It was a very special day each week when the Bookmobile drove into my neighborhood and I got to peruse the shelves there. By the time I was five, I began sneaking out of bed at night to cut notebook paper into quarters, staple the pages into booklets, draw pictures of earthworms on each page, and write stories about the wiggly little creatures. And when I wasn’t doing these things, I was dreaming up elaborate stories to act out with my best friend each day that we’d play together. But even then, I didn’t recognize the gift that was inside me.

It wasn’t until I was twelve that the writing bug really hit me. That was the age that “playing pretend” was getting to be kid’s stuff, and my friends were moving on to chatting about more mature topics, like the cute boys they had crushes on. Sure, that was all fun, but I missed the worlds I’d created in my imagination, and I missed acting out the lives of my made-up people. So when a good friend mentioned that she was writing a novel, it sparked the idea that I could keep on doing those things and not be branded a baby or a fool by my peers. I just had to write those elaborate imaginings down! (Thank you, Holly Zimmerman, for the inspiration. We lost track of each other long ago, but I wish I could tell you that you are one of the main reasons I am a writer today).

In high school, I served on my alma mater’s literary magazine staff, where the idea of seeing my writing published first started to germinate. After high school, I went on to major in writing at the University of Tampa where I began my first novel-length project. That story was a practice field that would teach me much of what I needed to know about writing novels. It took six years to finish the first full draft, and another four years to rewrite, edit, and polish it into something I could show to publishers. (Yes, it was published many moons ago–along with a second stand-alone novel, but both have long been out of print). 

My early adult life was spent in working various day jobs while staying up all hours of the night to fit in some writing time. I never gave up the dream of writing and being published, but in those early days, it was more difficult since it had to be fit around job, home, and family. It has only been in the last seven years that I’ve been able to stay at home and write on a full-time basis. God has blessed me with three publishing contracts so far (see my books here), and I have lots of stories in mind to write, so here’s hoping there’ll be more to come in the near future.

Thank you again for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed reading the nutshell version of my writing and publishing journey, and I hope you’ll look for my books!