Goodreads asked Nicki Ehrlich:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Nicki Ehrlich I grew up loving Western movies and TV. I had been reading some of the old Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour novels. I'm a long-time horse lover and I wanted to write a Western with a strong female protagonist who knows her horsemanship. In my research I realized much of what is the Western genre revolves around the Civil War. I also found women's roles in that war were under-publicized. Ellis River turned into a more literary coming-of-age novel, but its seed grew from the Western.

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