Emma Cane | Saying Good-bye to Valentine Valley

I’ve written 6 Valentine Valley novels and 3 novellas, so it’s time for me to take a break from the series and explore a new small town in a series I’m calling “Fairfield Orchard.” I’ve written a lot of books (over 35, written under several different names), and saying good-bye—even a temporary one like this—is never easy.

Before Valentine Valley, I usually plotted in trilogies, where I knew that after three books, I was saying good-bye to those characters and moving on to the next. With Valentine, that all changed. I constructed a complete town, detailed on an intricate map with streets and buildings and landmarks, so I could plot my characters’ movements and always know where they were. I have extensive databases of each character, including description, background, when they entered the story, and what happened to them. These characters inhabited my world for nine stories, and I loved bringing them back, book after book, from waitresses who only had a walk-on part, to the widows of the Widows’ Boardinghouse, the grandmothers of so many of my major characters, who always had a subplot of wacky fun in each book.

Another rewarding thing about the series that I’ll miss is that I set Valentine Valley right where my son lives, outside Aspen, CO. He and I chatted about research and plot lines for every book, and I will miss that immensely. He and his wife helped me work out a complicated scene in my newest book so I could make the cowboy hero, Will, fly his helicopter to rescue our heroine, Lyndsay. I learned from this happy experience and set my new “Fairfield Orchard” series near Charlottesville VA, home of the University of Virginia where my daughter went to school. So now I can ask her all kinds of research questions about what life is like there, just like I used to with my son.

And of course, I’ll miss the characters I created, starting with the two ranching families, the Thalbergs and the Sweets, all those siblings I gave happily-ever-afters to. I’m gratified to be leaving off the series for now with EVER AFTER AT SWEETHEART RANCH. Lyndsay is a math teacher with a secret: she’s written a romance novel and accidentally based the hero on Will, a hard-working cowboy with a tragedy in his past. If you’ve read my books, you’ve met these characters before, because that’s how a series works—I get to return again and again to the characters I grow to love, and give them their own love story.

There’s an excitement starting a new series, of course. I’m looking forward to creating a new town, coming up with quirky businesses and even quirkier townspeople. But I know I’ll return to Valentine Valley some day, because I have so many story ideas for the characters—the people—I’ve left behind.

About EVER AFTER AT SWEETHEART RANCH

Emma Cane's Valentine Valley series returns, as a teacher and her cowboy crush kindle sparks—and something more—in the town that lives up to its name . . .

The only thing hotter than a cowboy . . .

Math teacher Lyndsay De Luca never surprised anyone—least of all herself—until this summer. First, she secretly published her debut romance novel. Then, she started dating Will Sweet, the cowboy of her dreams. And now, Lyndsay's scrambling to hide the juiciest tidbit of all: that the hazel-eyed hero of her steamy fiction is the same guy whose kisses have become her mind-blowing reality.

. . . Is a cowboy in love.

Ever since Will's high-school sweetheart died in a tragic accident, he hasn't been able to commit to a long-term relationship. Lyndsay is the first woman in years who's been able to catch—and keep—his attention. When they team up to teach Valentine's teens about ranch life, Will discovers it's not just her sexy-as-hell smile that has him hooked. Will she be the one to finally break down the walls around his guarded heart?

About Emma Cane

Emma Cane grew up reading and soon discovered that she liked to write passionate stories of teenagers in space. Her love of "passionate stories" has never gone away, although today she concentrates on the heartwarming characters of Valentine, her fictional small town in the Colorado Rockies.

Now that her three children are grown, Emma loves spending time crocheting and singing (although not necessarily at the same time), and hiking and snowshoeing alongside her husband Jim and two rambunctious dogs Apollo and Uma.