Joanna Sims's Blog

Travel back in time to the late 1940s, when an earlier generation of the beloved Brand family put down roots alongside the Continental Divide and founded Bent Tree Ranch. Author Joanna Sims is pleased to present these serial short stories to introduce fans of her Brands of Montana books to legendary family matriarchs and patriarchs.

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Like many of you, Christmas is when I miss the people I’ve lost the most. In particular, I miss my mother, Jean.

This holiday season, I find myself inexplicably thinking about my mother’s hands. They were the hands of a devoted homemaker, unadorned and often red from the cleaning products she used to keep our house spotless. Those hands were always cold; the phrase “cold hands, warm heart” fit Jean perfectly.

She used to chase me around the house with those cold hands, putting them under my s...

Travel back in time to the late 1940s, when an earlier generation of the beloved Brand family put down roots alongside the Continental Divide and founded Bent Tree Ranch. Author Joanna Sims is pleased to present these serial short stories to introduce fans of her Brands of Montana books to legendary family matriarchs and patriarchs.

Sign up now, theirfun, romantic, and free!

You’ll receive your first monthly installment by email within 24 hours of signing up!

Email*

Fiction Settings—the locations where your stories take place—are an often overlooked basic element of engrossing fiction. Sure, lots of novice writers mention where the characters are, but they don’t all take the time to bring the setting to life. But establishing a strong sense of place with appropriate, rich details allows the audience to better envision themselves in the action of the story. And that’s a more engaging, memorable reading experience for them. 

Here are five tips for crafting more compelling settings that help make fiction tales more vibrant: 

Use Sensory Details 

Bring settings to life using all the senses. Show what the place looks like, of course, but that’s not enough for settings in which major plot points take place. Are there other people? What’s that noticeable scent? Do the characters hear machinery clanking in the distance or strangers’ mumbled conversations? Can they feel the breeze, oppressive humidity, or the cold marble counter top? Can they taste the baking bread as well as they smell it? Can they taste the excitement? Is there a prevailing mood to the atmosphere? 

Follow Patterns of Natural Observation 

When describing your settings, go first to the most noticeable details and work your way down. In other words, reveal the place the same way your characters experience it. Let your readers become more intimately acquainted with the location exactly as your characters do. Provide them information by having characters react to what they observe. Is there something curious the character feels warrants further investigation? Actively take your audience on that investigative journey. 

Let the Main Character Influence Description 

In most instances, reveal the setting through the main character’s mind and experience. This goes beyond following natural patterns of observation. Use the character’s age and general knowledge and experience when describing the surroundings. For example, if your character isn’t an antiques dealer or enthusiast, it will usually seem weird to go into details about the country of origin and history of antiques in the room. Also, your character’s mood should affect the perception of the setting. 

Balance Brevity and Description Appropriately 

Giving readers just the right amount of details about the setting can be tricky. And it’s largely a matter of writing style and story structure. Too little detail, and the place fails to come to life for your audience; too much, and you disrupt the narrative’s action and even bore people. Be thoughtful and deliberate, and try to address unique or interesting aspects of the setting. Again, this can be a hard balance to strike, and, since this is art, some readers will appreciate things that others don’t. For example, if you’ve read Ann Rice, you know she can describe curtains for six pages. Some readers adore it, others flip past those pages. 

Incorporate Literary Devices 

Engaging fiction writing calls for more than straightforward descriptions. That’s why we authors have so many wonderful literary devices in our repertoire. Similes and metaphors are some of the most common and versatile, and they really let you show rather than tell. Personification, or attributing human qualities to inanimate objects, is another one that can be tons of fun when bringing your setting to life. Don’t merely list what’s around your characters… paint an artistic picture for your readers.

The post 5 Tips to Write Great, Believable Fiction Settings appeared first on Joanna Sims Romance.

My readers may notice that I have Barbara Brand, matriarch of the Brand family, make homemade root beer for the family when they visit Bent Tree Ranch. It’s not just some miscellaneous detail I pulled out of nowhere. It’s actually one of the deep-seated fond memories from the childhood trip that’s the basis of so much in my Brands of Montana books.

On that vacation, I got my first taste of homemade root beer. Like most kids (I assume), I loved root beer when I was young (and still do). But like so many, all I ever knew of root beer was the artificially flavored mass-produced stuff. I never imagined root beer any other way.

Until that one fateful day, when the ranch owner’s wife opened my eyes to a whole new root beer experience. After a full day of horseback riding in the mountains of Montana, hot, dirty, fatigued, and really thirsty (like a real cowgirl!), I shuffled back to the farmhouse to get something to drink. I was offered an ice-cold glass of homemade root beer.

Wow. I couldn’t get enough of it! I drank as many glasses as my stomach could handle. The subtle notes of vanilla, cinnamon, and molasses tingled so wonderfully in my mouth. I look back now and wish I’d had the forethought at 12 to get that recipe.

So, homemade root beer is one of those amazing memories I strongly connect to Montana. It seems inevitable to me that it would figure into my Brands of Montana series. And you know what? Writing this has got me to thinkin’…

I should try to make my own homemade root beer. I just found this recipe online that I’m going to use. If you give it a try—or even better, if you have your own homemade root beer recipe—please email me and tell me about it!

Haven’t read a Brands of Montana book yet? What are you waiting for? Get one for less than the cost of a good root beer float – unless you followed Barbara’s recipe and made it yourself!

Purchase a Brands of Montana Book at Harlequin

The post Brands of Montana Story Inspirations: Barbara Brand’s Homemade Root Beer appeared first on Joanna Sims Romance.

The highly anticipated new installment of the Brands of Montana Harlequin Special Edition series is due out June 2016

Taylor Brand had always played by the rules. Almost twenty years into her marriage and career, she’d managed to convince herself that her less-than-perfect life was perfect for her. Until the day her husband came home and asked for a divorce.

At nearly 40, Taylor had to start over, and she decides to do something drastic: sell her house, take a leave of absence at work, trade in her BMW for an early-model VW bug, and head west to her Uncle Hank and Aunt Barbara’s ranch in Montana. It was time to fulfill her dream of horseback riding along the Continental Divide Trail (CDT).

*

Professional bull rider and cowboy-for-hire Clint McAllister had already lived a rough and rowdy life. Too banged up to chase the rodeo circuit for another year, he’d returned to the only other life he knew: wrangling cattle at Bent Tree Ranch. He never expected to be babysitting the boss’s niece on the CDT.

Nor does Taylor want some ill-mannered cowboy as a personal bodyguard on her trek to self-discovery. But, she’s using her uncle’s horses and camping gear, so she’s stuck following his wishes.

*

On their ride along the Continental Divide, a mutual respect develops and grows into friendship and an undeniable attraction. That’s when Taylor comes up with a plan to take one more shot at the one thing in life she’s always wanted: to get pregnant.

Clint likes Taylor and is attracted to her. But when Taylor, who’d spent years of her life and thousands of dollars on fertility treatments without any success, approaches him with the proposition to pay for his sperm donation, he immediately declines. He’s desperate for money, but not that desperate.

Then comes the message that his truck and fifth wheel—his only home and means of getting back to rodeo—have been repossessed. Clint changes his mind, and Taylor draws up a contract offering him enough money to get his life back on track and releasing him from any financial or familial responsibility for the child. So, they strike a baby bargain—one that lets them both, separately, get what they most want.

Falling in love wasn’t part of their bargain…

Get ready to fall in love again and secure your copy now!

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The post Sneak Peek: High Country Baby, the Forthcoming Novel by Joanna Sims appeared first on Joanna Sims Romance.

An early reader was curious about a plot point in my forthcoming romance novel High Country Baby. She wanted to know if there was any personal significance to the character Taylor's dream of horseback riding on the Continental Divide Trail.

Yes, there is.

As I've talked about before, I chose the Montana setting featured in my Brands of Montana series because of a childhood trip there. I loved my time on a real cattle ranch right alongside the Continental Divide, and the amazing landscapes and the people I met there made lasting impressions on me.

I was 12 years old at the time, had a serious passion for horses, and the romance of the cowboy lifestyle was immediately evident to me, even at that young age. I did and learned a lot on that trip, but there was one thing that called to me, that was clearly a quintessential experience for the area, that I didn't get to do: ride a horse along the Continental Divide Trail...Read More

An early reader was curious about a plot point in my forthcoming romance novel High Country Baby. She wanted to know if there was any personal significance to the character Taylor’s dream of horseback riding on the Continental Divide Trail.

Yes, there is.

As I’ve talked about before, I chose the Montana setting featured in my Brands of Montana series because of a childhood trip there. I loved my time on a real cattle ranch right alongside the Continental Divide, and the amazing landscapes and the people I met there made lasting impressions on me.

I was 12 years old at the time, had a serious passion for horses, and the romance of the cowboy lifestyle was immediately evident to me, even at that young age. I did and learned a lot on that trip, but there was one thing that called to me, that was clearly a quintessential experience for the area, that I didn’t get to do: ride a horse along the Continental Divide Trail.

Not that I didn’t have the opportunity.

My father, my brother, and I saddled up and headed toward the trail with a guide from the ranch. But the horse I was on, known to be a little bit of a troublemaker, reared his head back and bonked me on the nose. I wound up with a nosebleed while he trotted me off into a nearby lake. Thus our adventure was cut short, and the opportunity didn’t arise again.

So, like Taylor in my upcoming High Country Baby novel, I have a dream of horseback riding the CDT. I’m determined to do it some day. But for now, I get to have the incredible experience vicariously through my characters, just like my readers!

Get ready to ride the trail too and pre-order your copy of High Country Baby today!

Pre-order

The post Horseback Riding the Continental Divide Trail in High Country Baby appeared first on Joanna Sims Romance.

If you’ve read any of the contemporary romances in my series The Brands of Montana, you’ve met Ilsa, the loyal and lovable German shepherd sharing a life with the Brands. As I’ve said before, it’s a lot easier to write memorable characters if you base them on real people. Well, I guess the same holds true for furry friends!

Ilsa is based on a real dog my father found in our orange grove in Merritt Island, Florida. Every Sunday, we’d go down to the grove with Dad. On one such occasion when I was 7 years old, Dad spotted a German shepherd dashing through the orange trees.

I don’t know how many parents would struggle for 15 minutes to round up a fairly dirty, large stray dog (complete with fleas and ticks) and load her into the front seat of their Mercedes. But my Dad did just that. But then, he’s the guy who only missed one single day of law school, and it was to take his German shepherd Silver to the vet when she was sick.

Little did I know at the time that our new beloved family pet would work her way out of my treasured memories into the pages of my books so many years later!

Haven’t read a Brands of Montana book yet? What are you waiting for? Get one for less than the cost of a nice glass of Merlot—and it keeps you warm much longer!

Purchase a Brands of Montana Book at Harlequin

The post Character Inspirations: Ilsa, the Brand Family Dog appeared first on Joanna Sims Romance.

Recently, a reader asked me the following question about a detail in my book Marry Me, Mackenzie!

“I'm confused. You wrote Dylan's mother was older than Aunt Gerri and that she was 83, which would mean his mother was in her 50s when he was born. I assume he is in his 30s now. Things like that drive me crazy, why didn't you just make the aunt younger than 83?”

Inspiration for Dylan

As any fiction author will tell you, characters are often inspired by people we know in real life. In fact, that was my first piece of advice in another post ... continue reading.
Marry Me, Mackenzie!