Spark and Fire

By Courtney Pierce

Sorry to break it to you, but men and women are very different in how they forge relationships, especially in print. I’ve nailed the female side of the equation, but I tend to need serious support when it comes to behavior driven by testosterone. It’s like pushing my chapters into the TSA x-ray machine and waiting to hear, “Bag check!” on the other side.

I require all of my male characters to be vetted by the real deal—a manly man. My husband is a prolific reader, a writer, a mountain man, a hunter, a lover, a protector, and happens to have a huge heart (not necessarily in that order). He's the man for the job. He calls B.S. on my prose, becauseI tend to feminize emotions. And that's not how real men think. I can't pretend to know what goes on in an alpha-man brain, so I take the suggested changes with open arms. After six books, criticism makes my work better.

The story magic of a compelling relationship isn’t made up out of thin air. We authors infuse a  a goodly amount of emotional truth into the prose, both about ourselves and the partners we’ve had in our lives. How else could we pull off the creation of a relationship that’s believable? If it's real within the author, then it's real to the reader.

My husband is protective of his family to the point of hanging a 12-guage shot gun at the front door. He's ready for the "what if," and he'd fight to the death should there be a serious threat. Otherwise, he's a pretty mellow guy. I don't completely understand it, but I certainly feel protected and loved as a result. 

First time writers make the huge mistake of creating relationships with endless pages of dialog, usually from the female perspective. Their characters pour their hearts out to each other with endless blabber about feelings. I, myself, made this mistake in one of many drafts of my first book Stitches. I ended up deleting most of it after a heart-to-heart with my editor. I started over.

Relationships are forged with nuance. A glance. A touch. A connection across a room full of people. The unspoken moments create partner magic.

In my next book, BIG SKY TALK, Aubrey Cenderon brings three layers of baggage to her introduction to Sheriff Russell Knowles: the death of her father, several years of being a single woman, and leaving behind a career to transition into retirement. Little does Aubrey know that her baggage will drive the direction of her future—with a little supernatural help.

The sheriff ignites the spark through his protectiveness of Aubrey. He wants her safe from an injured grizzly bear in the neighborhood. The conflict and connection begin with a threat.

Russell Knowles sets off Aubrey’s healing process the minute he meets her. But he has a case to solve and Aubrey has the key. Something isn’t right here—or maybe it’s something quite right and new. His focus in his official capacity wavers in Aubrey’s presence. There’s something about her that awakens his six sense for the unexplained. The threat is of another world. Russell knows it, and so does Aubrey. 

No two people of Boomer age create an intimate connection without a history. Past experiences drive reactions and future actions. It’s inevitable. Characters fight and conquer old demons in order to start fresh. They each learn something new about themselves and grow in the process.

The unexplainable becomes the catalyst for bringing lovers together. The magic of a spiritual connection becomes the driving force.  And that's the magic of a relationship: the belief that something higher fuses two people together.

Love can't be analyzed, studied, documented, or forensically pulled apart to prove it's real. But we know in our heart it is very real.  While you can't touch it, touch is a result. You can't see the pheromones of love chemistry, but our head swoons with them. Our chest tightens from the heart pound, like looking over a cliff at crashing waves . . . 

and deciding 

                     to take 

                                a leap 

                                            of faith.

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Kalispell, Montana with her husband and stepdaughter. She writes for the baby boomer audience. She spent 28 years as an executive in the entertainment industry and used her time in a theater seat to create stories that are filled with heart, humor, and mystery. She studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. Active in the writing community, Courtney is a board member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association and on the Advisory Council of the Independent Publishing Resource Center. She is a member of Willamette Writers, Pacific Northwest Writers Association, and Authors of the Flathead. The Executrix received the Library Journal Self-E recommendation seal.

Print and E-books are available through most major online retailers, including Amazon.com.

Check out all of Courtney's books: 

courtney-pierce.com and windtreepress.com 

New York Times best-selling author Karen Karbo says, "Courtney Pierce spins a madcap tale of family grudges, sisterly love, unexpected romance, mysterious mobsters and dog love. Reading Indigo Lake is like drinking champagne with a chaser of Mountain Dew. Pure Delight."

Coming in 2022!

When Aubrey Cenderon moves to Montana after the death of her father, the peace and quiet of Big Sky Country becomes complicated with a knock on the door from the sheriff. An injured grizzly bear is on the loose and it must be eliminated before it kills again. The sheriff's insistence that she buy a gun for protection will present Aubrey with some serious soul-searching, because the grizzly-on-the-run is hunting her too . . . for a different reason.