This week I’m hosting Deb Kastner with Yuletide Baby (US only) and Janet Chester Bly with Wind in the Wires (US Print; Ebook Worldwide). If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on your post with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (Nov. 30th) evening.
Interview with the heroine from Winds in the Wires by Janet Chester Ely:
1. Reba Mae Cahill, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
I run a ranch with my Grandma Pearl outside the small village of Road’s End in north-central Idaho. We live on a high mountain prairie at 4,200 ft.elev. near the Nez Perce Indian Reservation.
2. What do you do for fun?
I love to ride my black quarter horse Johnny Poe out in the canyon and hills. Once we plunged into a herd of wild horses out in the Nevada desert. However, the fun of riding the wind turned quickly into high danger.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
Confronting my grandmother when there’s an important issue we need to discuss. She can be quite formidable at times and the situations lately have been very touchy.
4. What are you afraid of most in life?
Not finding a suitable husband who can and will partner with me in the caring of our cattle, horses, and wheat fields. Not every gal inherits a ranch, but I will and I’m content with this life career. But Grandma Pearl’s knees are giving out and the work’s a bit much for just two of us. Meanwhile, a motley crew of romantic contenders reside in Road’s End, population 400. The few real prospects I had got deleted one by one. And here I am twenty-five on a speedy track to thirty.
5. What do you want out of life?
My pickup, my horse Johnny Poe, and the strength every day to care for my cows and train my ponies. Oh, and I have my eye on an upgraded horse trailer.
6. What is the most important thing to you?
My faith in God, though I don’t always understand His ways. For instance, how come He didn’t protect elderly Maidie Fortress from all the tragedies in her life? And what’s up with my mom abandoning me at three-years-old? And why don’t I know who my father is? Things like that. It’s all important to me and I’m positive God knows the answers. If only He would give me some hints.
7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?
I read the Bible, usually on Sundays after Grandma Pearl preaches in the little church that meets in our barn. I look up the verses she uses and try my best to apply them. I also read books on horse training and enjoy the inspirational stories in Guidepost Magazine that Grandma subscribes to. That’s about it.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
To get over Tim Runcie, my high school sweetheart. He and my best friend both betrayed me. Sue Anne asked him to the Backwards Dance our Senior year, even though she knew we were dating. They married two months later because she was pregnant.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
Well, Paunch and Blue are our heelers and do excellent work helping us with the cows. Couldn’t get along without them. They help Grandma out in a crucial scene in Wind in the Wires too. And then Scat the cat prowls around the ranch grounds like he owns the place. Not many other cats survive here because he chases them away. As to him being a pet, he’s just there. Know what I mean?
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
That’s difficult to answer. Perhaps back to when I was three-years-old and wish I’d know enough to beg my mom not to leave me and to take me with her on her many travels. Or go to my Senior year and forewarn Tim not to accept a date from Sue Anne, no matter how innocent seeming. But that’s all about me and wanting my life different. The most fascinating time in my mind would be to return to the early 1900s days of the final gold rush in Goldfield, Nevada. Many of the old timers from Road’s End and their parents experienced those old days or heard about them. In fact, parts of those stories are retold in Wind in the Wires. And, actually, some of it affects me too.
