Jacquie Rogers: Much Ado About Marshals

Much Ado About Marshals
by Jacquie Rogers
Buy links: Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Smashwords

(First published at Paty Jager's blog)

Jacquie Rogers grew up on a farm in southwest Idaho, milking cows, riding horses, hoeing beets, and all the other things that need to be done on a farm, creating experiences which have proved to be a rich source of story fodder. Now she lives in Washington State with her husband. The only animal she herds these days is her cat, Annie. And no, Annie doesn’t cooperate all that well. Jacquie’s first ambition was to be a baseball announcer, but that didn’t work out so by age 8 she decided to be a foreign correspondent because they get to go to exotic places. Having children took care of that dream, so she ended up doing all sorts of other jobs before she took up the keyboard.

Her current release is Much Ado About Marshals, a Western Historical Romance. Also available is a western contemporary, Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues, and two fantasy romances, Faery Merry Christmas and Faery Special Romances.

What led you to write a Romance?

Graveyard Point:
My old playground

Once upon a time, I was bedridden with a bad case of pneumonia and ran out of books to read. Disaster! My daughter brought me a Romance novel, but I adamantly refused to read it. Out of desperation for reading material, I finally did read a few Romances, and liked them so well I read several dozen more during the month of recovery. Then I started writing my own story, and hasn’t stopped since.

To expand on my beginnings as a writer, I was (still am) inspired by really great books. They’re fodder for my soul. I hadn’t read Romance before my daughter forced me into it. To understand a writer, you have to understand their reading habits. I cut my teeth on Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour and other traditional Western authors, then moved on to Mystery and Fantasy. I read those genres obsessively for several years.

But in all these books, something was missing, and that something was the completion of the human experience. Westerns end with the good guy triumphing over the bad guy, Mysteries end with the culprit in handcuffs, and Fantasy ends when the world is saved from the ultimate evil force. There’s more to life than that, though. Missing from these other genres is our primal need for a mate and children, the urge to nurture our souls with love. Without that, a story isn’t complete, because our internal primal urges drive us in a way that external forces can’t and don’t. I find a more complete humanness in Romance novels.

What’s next?

I have two projects and I don’t know which will be published first. One is book two of the Much Ado series, Much Ado About Madams. It’s so new, I don’t even have a web page for it yet. We’re still in the editing stage with that one, although if anyone posts a review, they’re welcome to a sneak peek at book 2. Book 3 is also in the works, written but I haven’t decided on a title yet.

The other project is called Faery Hot Dragon, and is a dragon-faery story. I’ll self-publish it as a novella and then co-publish with Eilis Flynn, who also has a dragon novella.

Much Ado About Marshals description:

Laugh out loud funny plus plotting so clever and seamless makes Much Ado About Marshals my favorite new recommended read.

~~Amber Scott, author of WANTED (Dead or Alive)



Cover model Kyle Walker



Daisy Gardner wants to be a detective just like dime novel heroine Honey Beaulieu. To her delight, her sister shot a bank robbery and he got away, so now she even has a crime to solve. But her parents insist she marry a man whose farm is miles from town. She can’t solve crimes stuck out there. What better solution than to marry the new marshal!

Rancher Cole Richards saves his friend from robbing a bank, but is shot for his efforts, and now is a wanted man. His friend takes him to Oreana to see the doc, where Cole’s mistaken for the new marshal. Now he faces a dilemma few men have to face--tell the truth and face a gulty verdict and hanging, or live a lie and end up married. Either way could cost him his freedom.

Excerpt from Much Ado About Marshals

by Jacquie Rogers

Copyright © 2011 Jacquie Rogers

(COLE is pursuing two dangerous bad guys, and in doing so, investigates a cave, where he finds DAISY, the woman who is just as determined to marry him as he is to remain a bachelor and avoid the hanging tree.)

“Stay right there, buster,” Daisy yelled, “or I’ll blow your head into Kingdom come!”

Cole froze. There was nothing more dangerous on the face of this earth than a scared woman, and while Daisy sounded more confident than he thought she ought, surely she was scared out of her wits. She kneeled by an old trunk holding a pair of handcuffs in her left hand, training a pistol on him with her right.

“Daisy?” he said softly. “It’s me.” He relaxed, relieved she was safe--and plumb tickled he hadn’t walked down the bore of one of the Rankin brothers.

“Marshal?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Put the lantern up to your face so I know for sure.”

He did. She lowered the pistol and smiled.

Cole hadn’t found the Rankins, but what he had found was far more dangerous.

* * * * *

Daisy uncocked the pistol, set the lantern down, and flew into the marshal’s arms. “I’m so glad you’re here!” He hugged her back, a possessive hug that thrilled her to her toes.

“I’m so glad I found you,” he murmured in her ear. “I was--er, we were real worried about you.” He pulled her even tighter into his arms.

Memories of what he’d done the previous night sent warm tingles from her breasts to her thighs. Her body ached for more--she wanted more. “You found me,” she whispered, and raised her face, licking her lips.

He stared at her mouth, his eyes dark with the same wanting that churned inside her, she was sure. She couldn’t have been more sure. She wrapped her arms around him and rubbed his back. The cave was hard and cool--the marshal was hard and hot.

“Daisy, I can’t . . . We shouldn’t . . .” He lowered his lips to hers in a tender kiss, then deepened it until he’d tasted her completely.

She flicked her tongue on his, urging him on, her breasts tight against his chest, her pelvis moving against his groin. She wanted more than he gave her the night before. She wanted everything he had to give her, now and forever. She sought--demanded--his warmth, tugging his shirttail from his britches, plunging her hands under his shirt to feel the smooth, warm skin on his back.

He gave a low groan. “Oh, God, woman. This isn’t what you want.” He pulled back, but she didn’t let him go.

She wouldn’t let him go! She’d had a taste of the wonders that happen between a man and a woman, and it had only made her hungry for more. Only with the marshal, though. Only him. She pressed her lips against his neck and ran her tongue to his earlobe. He shuddered, the movement urging her to do more.

Unbuttoning the top button of his shirt, she kissed the little indentation below his Adam’s apple, then unbuttoned the other buttons and peeled the shirt off him. He fell to his knees and pressed his face in her bosom. Tingles shot through her body with such ferocity, she thought she might faint with pleasure. She plunged her fingers through his hair and held him at her breast.

This night, she, Daisy Gardner, would discover all the wonders of being a woman.

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Please let me know if you review Much Ado About Marshals and I'll send you the first chapter of Much Ado About Madams! Just send the review site to jacquierogers @ gmail.com. Thanks!

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