Dear Reader,
We’ve been on this journey together for 2 years.
Your boots have trod the trails of Cripple Creek on Colt Bradford’s horse, thrown open the swinging doors of the dusty saloons of Denver with Flint Dogwood, tennis shoes pounded the pavement with Walter Donavan down Bayland Avenue, and baked pied with Peggy Pennington on Somerset Drive.
It’s been a journey.
I can’t share everything that is in store and I wouldn’t in this moment. Some moments are meant to be held, as though in my hands and yours together we breathe in to enjoy it. This sequel is one of those moments.
It’s been a long time coming, a Reckoning of my own in many ways. How it started is not how it ended up. There have been many times where I was unsure if it would ever become what I imagined it to be. I wanted it to expand the world even more than the summer with Flint Dogwood. I wanted it to immerse you so deeply into winter in Colorado that the wind whipped your cheeks and your heart sang in the stables with Lark. I wanted you to feel as though you knew Colt intimately and your heart clenched in moments of his sufferings and triumphs.
I hope that is what it gives to you – not just a book of words onto a page but a gift of my heart that bleeds into its sentences and takes you with me in real time of my imagination.
Cripple Creek in many ways lives inside me. It has brought a piece of my heart to life in ways I could have never dreamed of as a girl. A real confession? I never dreamed of being a writer. Gasp! Writers are clenching their chests in horror. Ha!
Actually, I stumbled up on it. I dreamed of being an Olympic gymnast – of standing up there with Keri Shrug as she won gold. It was a real dream too – I was seventh in the state the last year I competed at only nine years old.
But God had other plans for me. His plans, though at times feel much more modest, they also have deepened my capacity to love. All of my books carry that theme – love that conquers the grave. And that is a love worth fighting for.
So when October 1 comes, if you choose to slip into Colt’s boots again, I pray that it gives you the sense of home, of family, of love, and of redemption. Though the reckoning must come for all of us, I pray it satisfies your soul in ways you never imagined possible.
While I write books for you, ultimately this book was written because I wanted to write something I would want to see on a shelf.
While it’s set in the Old West, it’s not just a western. It’s an epic story of how even in what we may endure in this life, God always carves us out a sliver of His grace that nobody can touch – that is simply ours to hold.
I pray that you take a chance in the sequel – and don’t let the time period fool you either. This book is steeped in romance, in action, in wintery landscapes, and in faith that God won’t leave us broken forever. He will rebuild and can rebuild from even the shakiest of foundations.
And most of all, though Colt is fictional and lives in Cripple Creek – Colt is inspired by a real man that still walks among you. I think that is the coolest thing about the series. You may have seen him before casually getting your coffee and not even have known it. I’ve never shared much about him and that’s more for my sake than for yours. But what I will share as this sequel is about to be published, is that he was a man who planned and desired to carve out his own legacy. And that is the truest part of what made it onto the page.
So reader, thank you.
For your love, your support, your likes, your comments, and your investment in my journey. While it may seem small to you and maybe only a handful of people may buy my novel or even make it to the end of my letter, each one of you means so much to me. God brought you to me because whatever I’ve written, He knows you needed “for such a time as this”. Esther 4:14
Very soon we’ll celebrate together. We’ll grin as the sunlight hits our face when the mountains come up above the horizon. From the first page to the last, I pray you thoroughly enjoy the ride.
I know I have.
