Bachelor
in the Boondocks
by
River Ames
Genre:
Clean Contemporary Romance
Jared
Sherman has been coerced into spending six months of his life in the
small Missouri town of Green River. His uncle wants to merge their
businesses, but before the older man will talk business, he’s made
it a pre-condition of the agreement that his nephew move to Green
River.
Jared,
a big city sophisticate, is having trouble wrapping his mind around
country living. He feels as if he’s traded in his life in the fast
line for a sojourn straight out of a rerun of the “Andy Griffith”
show.
Except,
Jared doesn’t remember an episode that had Sheriff Andy standing in
the buff with only a flimsy pair of frilly curtains preserving what’s
left of his dignity while being surrounded by the broken glass of his
bedroom window.
Cue
Amelia Greene.
“Call
911, and I’ll break your arm.”
She
can understand him not wanting anyone else to see him in this bizarre
situation, but his tone is unacceptable.
Being
the good neighbor that she is, and because it was her younger brother
whose baseball smashed through Jared’s window, Amelia helps Jared
free himself from the shards of glass essentially holding him
hostage.
Jared
Sherman is a man who’s counting the hours until he can escape the
confines of country living. Another countdown is underway,
however.
He’s
counting down the next time he can steal another sweet kiss from a
woman who’s so devious he can’t figure out how she manages to be
so darned seductive. Maybe by wearing her flaming hair in a bun,
going about in long-sleeve blouses, and forgoing expensive perfumes,
she’s discovered a sure-fired way to entice even the most
dyed-in-the-wool bachelor.
Who
would have ever thought the natural look could inflame a man’s
desires?
Good
grief, she was literally the girl next door.
But,
he was a man who had no intention of living in the boondocks, minus
the docks.
River
Ames spent the first eighteen years of her life in Southern
California. Here is a partial list of some of the cities in which she
lived: Pasadena, South Pasadena, Duarte, El Monte, Arcadia La Puente,
Lomita, West Covina, Pacifica, Santa Monica, Palmdale, and Hacienda
Heights. In some of those cities, she lived at six different
addresses. In the city of La Puente, River's family lived in four
different houses on the same street. The non-glamorous reason for all
the moves was habitual eviction necessitated for non-payment of rent.
It was an interesting way to grow up.
River
attended twenty-six different elementary schools, two different
junior high schools and four different high schools. In one
elementary school, she was a student for only three days.
Perhaps,
because she was so frequently identified as the "new girl,"
the pattern of River being an observer instead of a participant in
the interactions going on around her seemed a logical fit for her
personality.
When
she was thirteen, River read "Gone with the Wind." She
skipped three days of school in order to finish the book in one
sitting. Disappointed in Rhett for "not giving a damn,"
River wrote her own sequel--in long hand, on three-hole punch,
notebook paper. The opening line? "Tomorrow dawned bright and
fair." In less than fifty pages, Scarlett had been transformed
into Jane Eyre and Rhett had fallen in love with her all over again.
After
Southern California, River has spent the next part of her life living
in the semi-rural town of Idaho Falls, Idaho. She is a graduate of
Idaho State University, majoring in Health Education Sciences and
Addiction Counseling. She's worked the past ten years at a Behavioral
Health Center where she assisted children, teenagers, and adults
committed in a 24/7 secured facility because of mental health
challenges they are experiencing.
River's
books celebrate the good-natured humor that lays at the heart of most
of our human predicaments. The conflicts are significant, yet it is
her characters and their quirky (yet somehow universally relatable)
thoughts, words, and choices that reflect a light-hearted peek into a
world we wish was real. The amazing thing is that these worlds are
real to readers for the time they visit there.
Readers
have said: "In a River Ames book, one minute I'm laughing out
loud, and the next I have a lump in my throat."
River
is currently readying a historical novel, "Gideon's Justice."
This three-part novel is Book I in a three volume western series set
in the Colorado Territory.
GUEST POST
Do you have any “side stories” about the characters?
My secondary characters often have their own stories to tell. It is
through my secondary characters and their experiences that my heroes
and heroines are able to gain insights to their own challenges.
Do you prefer to write in silence or with noise? Why?
Definitely
not silence and not with noise, either. I write to music. I click on
Pandora and have a favorite playlist. I love the soundtracks from
Last of the Mohicans and Brave Heart. Listening to major motion
picture soundtracks seems to draw me into my characters’ world and
gets the creative magic flowing. My imagination also reacts well to
orchestrated Christian music, along the lines of How Great Thou Art,
Amazing Grace, and other classics.
What do you read yourself and if so what is your favorite
genre?
My
reading preferences seem to be in a constant state of flux. I love
Dean Koontz’s novels (The ones in the midpoint of his career) One
Door Away From Heaven, From the Corner of His Eye, and Watcher are
among my favorites. I’m kind of a wimp, though, so some of his
writing is just too gruesome for me. Jayne Krentz, Linda Howard,
Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and Julie Garwood are among my favorite
romance authors. Again, though, I skim through their graphic sex
scenes. Linda Howard’s Open Season and Mr. Perfect are two of my
favorites that she’s written. Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ Dream a
Little Dream is my all-time favorite book that she’s written.
Do you see writing as a career?
I definitely want writing to be a full time career. One of my
challenges is that I have several passions that compete for my
writing time, i.e., gardening, fixing up my house, and crafting. All
three activities provide outlets for my creativity that truly satisfy
something deep within me.
Do you write one book at a time or do you have several going at
a time?
I concentrate on writing one book at a time. And yet, I have a
half-dozen or more novels in my head. I’ve created files for them.
And, when a bit of dialogue between their characters, or a plot twist
comes to me, I make detailed notes which I later type up and put in
their respective folders.
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