Guest Post by New York Times Bestselling Author Ruth Ryan Langan or R.C. Ryan

On November 5th I  posted my review and giveaway (5 copies) of R.C Ryan's latest book Montana Glory.

Ruth is awesome! I was able to talk to her on the phone during a Hachette Book Group interview here.

Thanks to Hachette Book Group, I have a guest post by Ruth Ryan about a question I am sure she is asked quite often. So without further ado, I give you Ruth....

Why Write About Cowboys? By R.C. Ryan

The area of Michigan where I grew up was once sparsely-developed country, although it is now fashionable suburbs. The acreage behind my childhood home was owned by a man who trained polo horses, and I grew up hanging on the fence and watching those graceful horses go through their paces. I was wildly in love with horses, and my fondest wish was to be able to ride them.


What I didn't know, and learned only years later, was that the owner of the horses, seeing me there day after day, approached my parents and asked if he could hire me to exercise them on a daily basis. My parents talked it over, and because polo horses are extremely high-spirited, they decided they wouldn't tell me about the offer. Instead, they told the owner they felt it best to refuse their permission.


When I heard about this years later, my first thought was that I'd been robbed of my greatest dream. But in retrospect, I realize that my parents were only concerned with my safety. I've always been small for my age, and not very athletic. I see what happened to big, strong, athletic Christopher Reeve when tossed from his horse, and know that it could have been my fate, had my parents not been so vigilant. Still, the thought of flying across a field on the back of one of those magnificent animals will haunt me forever. To this day I remain avidly in love with horses.


As for cowboys, I just think they're incredibly sexy. They represent a way of life that calls to me. From the feedback I've received about this series, my readers agree. There's just something about a cowboy that stirs all kinds of emotions. Their way of life is rugged; their fortunes tied to the whims of weather. No nine-to-five job for them. Their days and nights blur together, often disrupted by a hundred different problems that arise in any given week. And though they are privileged to help bring new life into the world through their herds, and they experience the joy of seeing perfectly-planted fields of crops, they must also face death in those same herds, and the destruction of entire crops if the weather turns on them.


Even though today's ranchers avail themselves of all the latest technology, their way of life seems bigger, stronger, deeper than our own ordinary lives. There is something so solid, so deeply 'American' about cowboys that stirs the heart and touches something in our collective souls.