I can’t explain exactly how westerns and spring came to be linked in my mind, but suffice to say, the weather has to have something to do with it.
Any self-respecting person who rides horses will tell you that summer — at least in Oklahoma and Texas — is way too hot and sweaty for courting. And, while winter is personally my favorite season, out here it tends to come with biting winds, ice, and enough layered winter clothing to make snuggling a futile exercise.
Spring, however, well, spring not only arrives with a promise of good things to come, but also provides the ideal temperatures for riding and the perfect conditions (think spring showers) to facilitate romantic interludes.
So for me, if it’s spring — it’s time for a good western romance from the likes of #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Linda Lael Miller or New York Times Bestselling Authors Diana Palmer and Catherine Anderson. In fact, if you don’t mind tracking down their older books, you can have your choice of historical or contemporary stories from any of these three novelists. Even better: consider a western throwback like the Queen of Wit Claudia Dain’s Wild Americans Series (I suggest starting with Book 1, A Kiss to Die For).
Can’t get into the cowboy corner? All I can say is not so fast. While I’ll admit to reading every single Zane Grey novel ever written as a child — thanks to my Grandma Devlin’s personal library in Colorado and the public library of my youth, I would like the record to show that I did not even begin to listen to country music or cowboy boots until my late twenties (you can blame K.T. Oslin and my baby sister, Becky, for both). In fact, I was known to turn tail and run at the sound of a bad country twang.
But for some time now . . . on those days when the world gets a little too 50 shades of grey, when men seem to have lost their ability to open a gate to the pasture much less a door, when a man who says what he means and does what he says seems to have gone the way of the dinner date, sometimes a western novel is just the prescription.
The weatherman is predicting rain tonight—you’ll find me in my favorite chair with a copy of Miller’s The Last Chance Café (it just happens to have been a 2002 finalist for the Dorothy Park Award of Excellence).
Adios!
—Jeanne Devlin
Diana Palmer is my favorite!!!!! Love her “Long Tall Texans”!!!