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BIG SKY RIVER Coming to the Hallmark Channel

BIG SKY RIVER Coming to the Hallmark Channel

I am so excited to announce that "Big Sky River" will be appearing on screen this summer! The movie premieres on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries Channel the on Sunday, Aug. 7 at 9 PM ET/PT. The Story: Tara Kendall leaves New York City for the summer and books a rental...

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“You Better Run a Little Faster Than That”

“You Better Run a Little Faster Than That”

Dad and Uncle Jack went to Madison Square Garden.          They met the legendary Gene Autry, and character actor Slim Pickens, who had yet to begin his movie career, was one of the rodeo clowns.  (These days, these brave souls are called bullfighters.)          Uncle...

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Beer and Pie is Better than a Bar Fight

Beer and Pie is Better than a Bar Fight

After the War, but before I was born in 1949, my still-single dad, Skip Lael, was a rodeo cowboy, a bull-rider, to be exact.          He and my Uncle Jack Lael, who was a champion bronc rider, were headed back East, probably driving an old truck held together by spit...

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Hogging the Limelight from Day 1!

Hogging the Limelight from Day 1!

I could be accused of loving the limelight—right from the very beginning.  You see, I was born a few years after the Second World War, on June 10, 1949, to Grady “Skip” Lael, age 23, and Hazel Bleecker Lael, age 20, in Spokane, Washington.          Although he’d...

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National K-9 Veterans Day

I recently saw a blurb in Woman's World magazine about a day to celebrate the four-legged soldiers who support our troops, and I was immediately onboard.  Dogs (and other service animals) make an enormous contribution to the human race, not only in the Armed Forces,...

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First of All, Thank You

Your kind words mean the world to me!  Thank you so much for reaching out. Today, I have some questions for you.  Please respond in the comments below this blog: 1) Would you be interested in an LLM podcast or YouTube channel?  I would interview other authors, talk...

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Why I Write the Books I Write

Working on the Country books, starting with Country Strong, I’ve found myself thinking about what’s important to me—and to so many of you, my dear readers, as you’ve kindly told me—and how these elements are reflected in my stories.  They appear in all my contemporary...

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The Magic of Seed Catalogs

Few things brighten a dreary winter day like the arrival of a seed catalog or, better yet, several of them.  The covers are always brilliantly colorful, overflowing with blue-ribbon produce and/or glorious flowers, and inside those pages, well, the magic continues....

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Country Strong

That's the title of my new book, which will be released in six days, on January 21, 2020.  I love, love, LOVE that title, for more reasons than one.  (I'll get to that.) Country Strong is the first novel in a trilogy of contemporary Western romance, set in the...

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What’s Cookin’?

The whole house smells mighty good as I write these words.  I have a small turkey stewing in my 18-gallon roaster/slow cooker--the big bird, reserved for Thanksgiving, when my dear friends Jean and Curt will be visiting, is still in the freezer, awaiting the big day....

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It’s probably true that….

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  For right now, I figure I'm strong enough, thank you very much.  I'm hoping I get to coast a while before I have to undertake any more heavy-duty learning experiences, but since I'm not in charge of the universe (thank...

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