Author Spotlight: Sinclair Jayne Is In the House!

I know I say this every time Sinclair Jayne is here, but man, I love having her with me! Her books charm the socks off me and she is one of my very favorite authors as well as one of my very favorite people! And I promise I’m not schmoozing my editor–she is just so much fun and so very savvy about writing and books and cowboys! I trust her judgment implicitly and know that she is always going to make my stories better! Plus, she and her husband make terrific pinot noir!

Sinclair Sawhney has been the senior developmental editor for romance for Tule Publishing for over thirteen years. Writing as Sinclair Jayne, she’s published over thirty-five contemporary romances with Tule Publishing. An avid romance reader since sixth grade, she’s savoring her dream writing career. Married with two adult children, she and her husband own Roshni Vineyard in Oregon’s Willamette Valley where she hosts weekend wine tastings while attempting to write one more sentence or squeeze in another scene between pours of Pinot Noir.

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Bonjour Nan’s Amis,

Nan was kind enough to invite me to come today to chat a little about cowboys.  Not just cowboys, but more the enduring appeal of cowboys in a romance novel construct. Sometimes when I sit in editorial meetings at Tule Publishing, and we are reviewing sales—publishing is a tough business with tight margins–we marvel at how our cowboy romances continue to pull in nearly 40 percent of our business.

Tule was founded in 2013—with a collection of rodeo cowboy romance novellas by very experienced love story tellers.  At the time, the digital book marketplace was new and fairly easy to navigate. Now, to me, it feels like a combination of a pinball machine tournament, a battling monsters video game, and an episode of Star Trek with the Enterprise under a Borg attack.

We keep thinking cowboy romances will fade a little from popularity, but they continue to ride and swagger forward. I wouldn’t say it’s easy to find an audience, but the audience is present, loyal and hungry.  My first cowboy romance was Want Me Cowboy. It was part of a Copper Mountain Rodeo multi-author series, and while I was thrilled to be included, I felt like a phony. I’d grown up in Laguna Beach, California. Taught in a small town outside Seattle. Was raising my kids in a suburb of that city nestled along the shores of Lake Washington before we moved south. And while I had recently moved to rural Oregon, we were planting vines, not running cows.

But I do love to research, and I wasn’t too deep into it before I realized Cowboys are the iconic myth of America and the American spirit. Cowboys are aspirational and not just limited to the west. Cowboys can embody the entrepreneurial drive, operate alone, but also step up and collaborate. There’s cowboy magic in rock stars and adversity. A touch of feral, as well as kindness and care. The more I researched cowboys and read cowboy romances, the more the vibe entered my bloodstream. Cowboys embody a spiritual attitude—connected to the land, animals, crops, and community. Their way of inhabiting their body and lives was earthy, filled with zeal, and there was a freewheeling, live-in-the-moment and get sh** done. I loved the can-and-will-do attitude. To heck with my analysis and angsting. Cowboys don’t have time for that.

And YES, neither do cowgirls.

While Cowboy Come Home was my first cowboy hero, my latest release, The Bull Rider’s Baby Surprise, is my seventeenth cowboy love story, and wow, Cash Hunter (real name Benz Telford) is the embodiment of everything I LOVE about writing cowboy love stories. He’s got the swagger. The confidence. The easy charm. Sexy for days, but respectful of women. The fury to compete and win and prove himself. He also had a tough childhood that he rearview mirrors to make his fortune. No whining. No pity parties. Just do the job. Give a good show on the AEBR (professional bull riding tour) and make bank and invest earnings to buy his own piece of future dirt.

This story was so much fun to tell. The writing never felt like work and that is rare. I always love my books after I finish the first draft, revise and polish, but this one just flowed. Cash oozes confidence and success, and my heroine, an intern, just starting out in marketing, has just as much ambition, though no clout—yet. I loved how a crazy situation in the opening scene spins Cash’s life off its axis, and suddenly, Maddy, younger, poorer, and powerless, is in charge. She quietly steps up and seizes the reins. And Cash spends the first half of the book fighting to get his life and power back. And then in the middle of the story, there’s a twist that sends them both scrambling anew.

As a writer, I love to put my characters in the LAST place they want to be with the LAST person they want to have to collaborate with. In real life, I would probably not be laughing my way through that situation as I did when I was writing. The book is full of tropes. Secret baby, secret/found family, enemies to lovers, workplace romance, going home…

GIVEAWAY! For a signed print copy of Bull Rider’s Baby Surprise and some fun western-themed swag, do you enjoy cowboy romances? What are a couple of your all-time favorites? If not, what is your favorite genre, and what is your favorite trope?

The Bull Rider’s Baby Surprise

A Champion bull rider in need of a reputation salvage. The ambitious intern who excels at spin. A forced exile and an unexpected baby. What else could go wrong?

At the end of the American Extreme Bull Rider tour, fan favorite Cash Hunter again sits at the top of the leaderboard. Standing in the winner’s circle opining about his chances in the finals, a woman he’s never seen runs toward him cursing before shoving a baby into his arms and disappearing. Suddenly the golden boy’s tarnished.

Madelyn Ramone always prepares for success and disaster. While tour execs panic, Maddy steps up with her redemption plan. Publicly embrace fatherhood. Go home. Lay low. Document daddy moments. Take a DNA test. Accompanying him wasn’t part of her plan. She’s going to need her own Kevlar vest to resist his potent sexual pull.

Cash is furious. No one believes the child isn’t his, especially the coolly judgmental Maddy. But he needs her. And she’s gunning for the opportunity. Neither wants to buckle up and head to the small Montana town that holds unpleasant associations and memories for them both.

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