LEIGH GREENWOOD--REAL MEN WRITE AND READ ROMANCE!

Leigh Greenwood

Award-winning author Leigh Greenwood's name is an icon of romance, especially western romance. WYOMING WILDFIRE was published by Zebra in 1987, only a couple of years after he joined Romance Writers of America (he later served two years as the national president). Since then he's published 45 more books and four novellas. He has a BA in Voice and an MA in Musicology from the University of North Carolina. His minor in history has no doubt served his writing well. He taught music in schools and/or was an organist/choir director in churches for thirty-two years before retiring to write full time. He has three grown children who occupy distant parts of the United States. In addition to writing, he enjoys gardening and singing in both church and community choirs. Most of all, he says he would love some grandchildren before he gets too old to play with them. If you want to know if one of his books is still available, contact Dorchester at 1-800-481-9191 or contact Leigh through his website http://www.leigh-greenwood.com/.  

And now, here's Leigh:  



Available NOW in e-book;
Coming in trade-size print in October



As some of you may know, the past year has been full of change and uncertainty.  And at my age – I’ll be seventy this year – I’ve come to appreciate predictability as I never could thirty or forty years ago.   I won’t go into detail because there were times the situation seemed to change each week, but the end result is that my publisher of nearly twenty years stopped publishing my books in paperback format and backed out of a contract for the last two books in the Night Rider series.  Almost as bad, my back list was suddenly unavailable.  And the last three books in a bargain edition of the Seven Brides series were never released.  Readers were bombarding me with questions neither my agent or I could answer.  The obvious answer to all this was to seek a new publisher, but even that had to wait while questions of rights were worked out.  There is still more to be done on that score, but I have now moved forward.

    In December, I reached agreement with Sourcebooks to publish the last two books in the Night Rider series.  They are scheduled to be released in April and October of 2012, but these dates can change.  The previous five books in the series are TEXAS HOMECOMING, TEXAS BRIDE, BORN TO LOVE, SOMEONE LIKE YOU and WHEN LOVE COMES.

    TEXAS NOBLE (working title) is the story of Ivan Nikolai, a Polish prince whose family lost their estates when Prussia, Austria, and Russia divided Poland among themselves.  He came to America to seek his fortune but got caught up in the Civil War then ended up working on a cattle ranch in Texas.  Unexpectedly, he is given the opportunity to earn enough money to return to Poland and assume his position among the nobility.

    Carla Reece is prepared to dislike Ivan before she even meets him because she believes Laveau diViere cheated her brother out of the half of their ranch which he has asked Ivan to manage.  Neither of them is prepared for the attraction they feel for each other.  Though their interests are opposite, they soon find themselves working together to uncover still another piece of villainy perpetrated by Laveau diViere.  This leads to a closeness that soon has both of them considering possibilities they would never have given a second thought just weeks earlier.

    The last book in the series – as yet untitled – is about Nate Dolan who lost his brother when Laveau diViere betrayed their troop to Union soldiers.  Nate has bought a ranch and met a young woman, Roberta, who everyone hopes will enable him to think more about the future than about the past.  That all changes when Laveau diViere engineers a raid in which her father is killed.  When the blame for the raid settles on Nate’s shoulders, Roberta vows revenge.  In the exciting conclusion to the series, we finally learn what happens to Laveau.  I doubt it’s what you expected.

    What will I do after that?  I don’t know.  I have an outline for another series, but there are many decisions still to be made in the aftermath of the Dorchester debacle.  The most important, in my mind, is seeing that all the books in the Seven Brides, the Cowboys, and the Night Riders are available once again.  In the meantime, I’ll soon start the last book in the Night Rider series.  I’m always relieved when I manage to complete a series.  I dread the possibility of leaving one unfinished.  I remember feeling a huge sigh of relief when I finished the last of the Seven Brides.

    Wish me luck for the coming year.  Maybe this time the news will all be good.