Romantic Reads: The Cowboy’s Amish Haven by Pamela Desmond Wright

The Story Behind the story The Cowboy’s Amish Haven 

by Pamela Desmond Wright

Cowboys and Amish.

It seemed like an impossible combination. However when my (then) agent suggested the combo, I decided to accept the challenge and write a book incorporating all those themes.

At the time, I was coming off a stinging set of rejections for a book proposal my agent believed had a lot of promise. Alas, except for one revise and resubmit from an editor at Harlequin, there were no takers for the book. Unsure how to fix the problems the editor wanted to address, I put the file aside and began working on the first book in my Texas Amish Brides series.

Wait a minute! Texas Amish? No way, you might say!

Why not? There are a few tiny Amish settlements in the Lone Star State, so why not expand it and create the fictional town of Burr Oak? No one said I couldn’t, so I did. Writing up the proposal, I sent it to my agent.

She wasn’t into it. And she dropped me like a stone shortly thereafter.

Agentless, I began the search for a new representative. I soon connected with Tamela H. Murray of the Steve Laube Agency. Instead of seeing the negative, she saw the positive in the project. Soon thereafter, the book was submitted to Harlequin for their Love Inspired imprint.

Determined to prove the project had merit, I kept working on the proposal to turn it into a full manuscript. I was halfway through the book when I had a freak accident and had to go into the hospital for surgery during the height of the Covid pandemic. Barely out of the hospital, I received the news my brother had passed away. Between the accident that almost cost me my life and my sibling’s untimely death, I was thrown into a deep depression. I simply could not function.

After a few months, it began to dawn on me that doing nothing accomplished nothing. I knew to get better, I needed a focus. Writing has always been the way to do that. So, I went back to the book and finished the manuscript. A few months later, the file landed on the desk of Melissa Endlich at Harlequin. Despite the book’s many flaws (and there were many) she found the wheat in the chaff and bought the manuscript. Several rewrites later, the book that had no hope of ever being published was finished. The Cowboy’s Amish Haven releases today (August 24, 2021)!

Oh, and that first project I could not figure out what to do with? I did revise and resubmit. That book sold to Harlequin Love inspired, too!

If you’d like to know more about me and my books, please visit me online at: www.pameladesmondwright.com

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Author Bio:

Pamela Desmond Wright grew up in a small, dusty Texas town. From the time she learned to read, books have been her passion. Beginning with Dick and Jane, progressing through Nancy Drew and then onto romances of all genres, Pamela devoured stories by popular authors. At one time, Pamela was the proud owner of five library cards! 

Pamela won the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award in 2010. She was also a founder of the scam publishers and agents website, The Write Connection, which was transferred to the SFWA through (then) vice-president A.C. Crispin to become Writer Beware. Her experiences with scam agents and publishers was documented in Professor Jim Fisher’s book, Ten Percent of Nothing: The Case of the Literary Agent From Hell.

In 2013, Pam took a break from writing to reassess her career choices. Unable to shake the story bug, she came back to in 2019 with a new focus and vision, fulfilling a promise to write inspirational and wholesome books her entire family could enjoy.

After signing with Tamela H. Murray of The Steve Laube Agency, Pamela sold her first Amish Romance to Harlequin for the Love Inspired imprint. The Cowboy’s Amish Haven will debut in September 2021. Though her characters are often handed difficult challenges in life, they always persevere over the darker times through the power of faith and love.

Like the Amish, Pamela is a fan of the simple life. Her childhood includes memories of the olden days; old-fashioned oil lamps, cooking over an authentic wood-burning stove and making popcorn over a crackling fire at the cabin owned by her grandparents. She also loves needlepoint and has dozens of projects to work on! Someday, she hopes to move into van life, living on the road as a traveling writer.

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Blurb for Pamela’s book, The Cowboy’s Amish Haven: 

Her home and her heart are on the line…

On the same day Gail Schroder’s faced with losing her Amish family ranch, her old crush Levi Wyse shows up on her doorstep. He doesn’t know that when he left ten years ago he’d taken Gail’s heart with him. Now Levi’s her only hope of keeping a roof over her head.

But can this cowboy teach Gail the ropes in time to save her home?

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Buy Pamela’s book on Harlequin, Amazon or Barnes and Noble 

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Connect with Pamela:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PamDWrites/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/pamdwrites
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pamdwrites/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21154533.Pamela_Desmond_Wright
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/pamela-desmond-wright