WIND RIVER RANCHER, Book
2, Wind River Valley
series, is an emotional story that will suck every reader in. I’m known for
gritty, visceral and emotional writing, and this book is no exception. It just
happened to catch the eye of Publisher’s Weekly and it received a ‘starred’
review (like winning an Oscar) on 12.3.16.
This series I’m writing is about military vets returning home from combat from
all over the world, mostly focused on the Middle East. Having been in the US
Navy during the Vietnam War era (I served stateside as a weather forecaster at
USNAS Moffett Field (now known as Silicon Valley) near San Francisco, California.
I know PTSD because I’ve lived with it all my life. I came out a dysfunctional
family where when I went to bed at night wondering if I’d wake up the next
morning to see the dawn or not. When you live in that kind of violent, unstable
environment for the first 18 years of your life, you are branded with such
constant threat of death and physical violence, for the rest of your life.
I didn’t even know I had PTSD until it surfaced and was defined with a specific
set of symptoms during the 1980’s. Most people don’t realize PTSD occurs because
of life-and-death threat, either abusing a person mentally, emotionally or
physically—or a combo of all three, will create it. You have wars in the world,
and then you have wars in families where the children are forever stamped with
it, just as the combat soldier is branded with it for the rest of their life, too.
Then, living becomes a daily, sometimes hourly challenge to SURVIVE through that
day. And every day after that. I created the military romance in 1983 with
Captive of Fate, Silhouette Special Edition, because I wrote what I knew. And
having come out of the Vietnam War generation of military vets who were blamed
for the war (instead Secretary of Defense, McNamara was the architect that
framed the Vietnam War and should have been blamed instead), we carried a
country’s heavy baggage as a consequence. The USA bought McNamara’s “fake news”
that it was the military men fighting in that country, and it was their fault
the war came into being. The fake news stuck and my Baby Boomer generation
‘bought’ it lock, stock and barrel. From then on, our military was seen as evil,
baby killers and murderers.
I wanted to do something to reverse how American’s saw and regarded our men and
women in uniform, who sacrificed so much for our country, and sometimes were
wounded or died, doing it. I created the military romance to turn people’s minds
around as to how they perceive our brave heroes and that they were not ‘baby
killers,’ as they were constantly called during the Vietnam war era and afterward.
Later, I created Morgan’s Mercenaries saga-series, about military vets. It
became a world wide bestselling series—45 books strong from 1999 to 2015. The
vets I wrote about had a heart and I was able to show civilians through my
stories, that they were truly heroic patriots.
That’s the backstory on the Wind River Valley series
for Kensington Books. I have never written a book where my intent wasn’t to
educate my readers in some way about some thing. Having been in the military, I
write what I know. And I know it well, even the PTSD issue that plagues so many
returning from combat.
Book 1, WIND RIVER
WRANGLER, the hero is an ex-Army Special Forces operator, Roan Taggart. He
has left the Army with PTSD, no longer able to function at that high level any
longer in black ops duties. He gets a job as a wrangler at the Wind River Ranch,
where it’s quieter, it’s out in Nature and he is slowly healing from his
internal PTSD wounds. Only, as life usually slaps us in the face, one way or
another, he’s thrown back into a threat/life-and-death situation with Shiloh
Gallagher, a writer from New York City. She’s escaped to the ranch to hide from
a stalker who has torn her life apart. Figuring if she lives in Wyoming to
write, her stalker won’t find her and she can breath once more, not look over
her shoulder 24/7/365. Roan’s peaceful, back water life explodes when the
stalker locates Shiloh. Once again, he’s thrust back into a combat situation.
And for Shiloh, the nightmare begins anew when she thought she’d found safety at
the ranch.
Book 2, WIND RIVER
RANCHER, the hero is an ex-Marine Corps captain who commanded a company of
Marines over in Afghanistan for years. The deployments, the combat, eventually
took a toll on him, too. Reese Lockhart was a twenty-year man, his only dream
was to become a Marine officer and protect his people, guide them and support
them. Only the Afghanistan war gradually wore him down and sucked the life out
of him, as it did so many others. He was given an honorable medical discharge,
against his wishes. His whole life-dream has been shattered. He’s fractured
internally by the PTSD, and you will meet him two years later as his story
unfolds. He’s degraded to being like so many other vets we see on the streets of
every city in the USA: shamed, hopeless, depressed and he cannot hold a job. In
this book, I took “the gloves off,” as we say, and delved into the hero’s state
of mind, his distorted emotions, his thinking he was a failure in every possible
way.
EXCERPT: the opening to Chapter 1 of WIND RIVER RANCHER by
Lindsay McKenna
Reese Lockhart’s stomach was tight with hunger as he stood at the outskirts of a
small Wyoming town called Wind River. The sign indicated a population of two
thousand. He’d gone a month without decent food. Six inches of snow stood on the
sides of the road where he’d walked the last ten miles on 89A north. It headed
toward Jackson Hole, where he was hoping to find work.
The town, for a Monday afternoon, was pretty slow. A couple of pickup trucks
came and went, a few people walked along the sidewalks on either side of the
highway that ran through the center of town. He halted outside Becker’s Hay and
Feed Store, an aged redbrick building standing two stories high. The red tin
roof was steep and sunlight reflected off it, making Reese squint. Bright lights
now hurt his eyes.
Taking a deep breath, feeling the fear of rejection once again, he pushed open
the door to the store. Would he get yelled at by the owner? Told to get out? It
was early May and snow had fallen the night before. The sleepy town of Wind
River still had slush on its streets midday.
The place was quiet, smelled of leather, and he saw a man in his sixties, tall,
lean, and with silver hair, behind the counter. He was sitting on a wooden stool
that was probably the same age as he was, an ancient-looking calculator in his
work-worn hands as he methodically punched the buttons.
Girding himself, ignoring the fact he hadn’t eaten in two days, Reese’s gaze
automatically swung around the huge establishment. A hay and feed store was
something he was familiar with. Maybe the owner wanted some part-time help. He
needed to make enough money to buy a decent meal.
Shoving away the shame he felt over his situation, he saw the man lift his head,
wire-rim spectacles halfway down his large nose, his blue eyes squinting at
Reese as he approached the long wooden counter.
“Howdy, stranger. Can I help you?” the man asked.
“Maybe,” Reese said. “I’m looking for work. I saw you have several big barns out
back, and a granary. Do you have any openings?” Automatically, Reese tensed. He
knew he looked rough with a month’s worth of beard on his face, and his clothes
were dirty and shabby. At one time, he’d been a Marine Corps captain commanding
a company of 120 Marines. And he’d been damn good at it until—
“I’m Charlie Becker, the owner,” the man said, shifting and thrusting his hand
across the desk toward him. “Welcome to Wind River. Who might you be?”
“Reese Lockhart,” he said, and he gripped the man’s strong hand. He liked
Charlie’s large, watery eyes because he saw kindness in them. Reese was very
good at assessing people. He’d kept his Marines safe and helped them through
their professional and personal ups and downs over the years he commanded Mike
Company in Afghanistan. Charlie was close to six feet tall, lean like a rail,
and wore a white cowboy shirt and blue jeans. Reese sensed this older gentleman
wouldn’t throw him out of here with a curse— or even worse, call law enforcement
and accuse him of trespassing.
The last place where he’d tried to find some work, they’d called him a druggie
and told him to get the hell out; he smelled. While walking the last ten miles
to Wind River, Reese had stopped when he discovered a stream on the flat,
snow-covered land, and tried to clean up the best he could. The temperature was
near freezing as he’d gone into the bushes, away from the busy highway, and
stripped to his waist. He’d taken handfuls of snow and scrubbed his body,
shivering, but hell, that was a small price to pay to try to not smell so bad.
He hadn’t had a real shower in a month, either.
“You a vet, by any chance?” Charlie asked, his eyes narrowing speculatively upon
Reese.
“Yes, sir. Marine Corps.” He said it with pride.
Wind River
#2
The new novel from the bestselling author of Wind River
Wrangler
Something to hold on to . . .
Not so long ago, Reese Lockhart was commanding a company of Marines. Now his
life is spiraling out of control. The Bar C ranch outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming
may be his last chance to save himself . . .
Shaylene Crawford, an Afghanistan veteran herself, knows all too well the
demons of PTSD—that’s why she’s determined to turn her family’s cattle ranch
into a place where wounded warriors can work, find a home, and rebuild their
souls. Her embittered father nearly drank and gambled the place away, but with
help from a small crew of vets—including the newest arrival, the quietly
compelling Reese Lockhart—she intends to hold on to her dream. And when someone
tries to destroy that dream, Reese will do whatever it takes to defend her . . .
Romance Western
[Zebra, On Sale: December 27, 2016, Paperback /
e-Book, ISBN: 9781420141764 / eISBN: 9781420141771]
The "Top Gun of Women's Military Fiction," Linsday McKenna has had 145 books
published under the McKenna name since 1981, most dealing with military or
mercenary subjects, for several publishers: Simon and Schuster, Warner, Avon and
Berkley, Harlequin/Silhouette. She is the originator of the Military Romance
genre, with "Captive of Fate," Silhouette Special Edition, 1983. She has sold 23
million books worldwide and in 33 foreign languages. She proudly served in the
US Navy and was a meteorologist.
what a powerful reason, Lindsay, to write the beautiful stories you do for us to enjoy. Thank you for your work and your service.
(Fresh Fiction 10:19am December 27, 2016)
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