blogs & news
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

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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Why I Write the Books I Write

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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Veteran’s Day–and more

Mea culpa.  I have not blogged in so long that I am almost ashamed to show my face, figuratively speaking of course.  I won't bore you with the reasons; we all pass through some dark valleys now and then, since this is Earth, not Heaven.   I am grateful to say that I...

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Tomorrow’s the Day

Finally. After dreaming and studying and visiting battlefields for nearly thirty years--not to mention writing approximately 140,000 words--it's happening.   Tomorrow, May 7, 2019, THE YANKEE WIDOW, my new book, will be released in hardcover and as an audiobook.  ...

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A Dream Comes True!

On May 7, one of my biggest dreams will come true: my Civil War novel, THE YANKEE WIDOW, will be released in hardcover by Mira Books. This is a big, sprawling rough-and-tumble brawl of a story, with strong characters and lots of research behind it. In early July of...

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