That’s where my latest release takes place—a remote Ojibway community in Northwestern Ontario, where spruce trees cover the land, lakes are everywhere, dirt roads go unpaved, and there are ditches instead of sidewalks. The only way in and out is by plane. Even the landing strip at the small airport is gravel-covered. In the winter, you can take your vehicle to your destination, but that depends on what the beginning of the season is like. Such as this year. No cars or trucks can travel on the ice road because there’s too much slush underneath thanks to the mild weather when freeze-up began. As for food, that can get costly. Think triple the amount if you live in a town or city.

But this place has many facilities. There is the band office (think a town administration centre). A recreation centre for kids and adults. A multi-use centre for community events. A primary and secondary school (where my heroine works). A local police station (where my hero used to work). A gas and convenience store. A northern store that supplies groceries, hardware, and furniture (like Walmart but not as big).

Of course, there are traditional places, such as the powwow grounds, the roundhouse, and the sweat lodge.

Being in such close-knit quarters with two thousand people, gossip can run rampant, and that’s what happens to my hero Jordan after that awful night.

I give you The Circle is Small, my contemporary, cultural romance. I hope you enjoy.

THE CIRCLE IS SMALL

An ex-cop returning to face his horrendous past, the woman who won’t forgive him, and the family who’ll never let him forget that he killed their son.

First Nations Constable Jordan Chartrand’s guilt can’t handle the accusing stares from the family left to mourn their son after that horrible night…so he flees from his Ojibway community and the woman he loves. Two years later, his mother’s cancer diagnosis forces him to return to help her.

Devoted schoolteacher Ellie Quill wants nothing to do with Jordan after he bolted to the city and left her behind. Her life goals are set. As for her secret, she’ll keep that to herself, even if Jordan’s begging to know the truth about her child.

When the two are compelled to work on a community project to address the rampant drug problem, their forced proximity slowly melts Ellie’s icy walls. But no matter how much her heart desires to give Jordan the second chance that he’s begging for, she refuses to because providing a life for her son in the tradition of the Ojibway culture is her top priority now, not moving to the city where Jordan continues to hide.

Genre(s): Contemporary Romance, First Nations Romance, Native American Romance
Heat Rating: Level 3
Publication Date: March 17, 2023
Publisher: eXtasy Books

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Add to Your Goodreads Shelf.

You can purchase a copy at eXtasy Books or one of these retailers:

Amazon Buy Links: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com.au
Other Buy Links: Kobo | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords | Google Play | iBooks

About the Author

An Ojibway from Northwestern Ontario, Maggie resides in the country with her husband and their fur babies, two beautiful Alaskan Malamutes. When she’s not writing, she can be found pulling weeds in the flower beds, mowing the huge lawn, walking the Mals deep in the bush, teeing up a ball at the golf course, fishing in the boat for walleye, or sitting on the deck at her sister’s house, making more wonderful memories with the people she loves most. https://linktr.ee/maggieblackbird

UPDATE: The winner is Diane Sallans!
*~*~*

I have a boxed set coming out on April 18th! Or at least the Kindle version is arriving then. If you prefer print, it’s ready now! This is a previously released series, a complete series, being offered in a single boxed set for a savings of $5.98 if you were to purchase them separately.

Pre-order the eBook version!
Order the print version!

Danger Zone includes the following stories…

Dangerous Liaisons
Pampered travel agent, roughing it at an anti-terrorist training school, escapes through the jungle with an undercover DEA agent when a drug lord mistakes her for a rival’s daughter.

Mutiny’s Bounty
A former Navy SEAL races to rescue the passengers aboard a luxury yacht after it’s captured by pirates, but first, he has to rescue the woman he’s trapped with inside a shark cage on the ocean floor.

It Takes a SEAL
A travel agent visiting friends in the Bahamas is stranded on a desert island with a sexy ex-SEAL after their private pleasure cruise is interrupted by men who mistake her lover for a reclusive billionaire.

And that’s my sales pitch! They are fun, very, very sexy, adventure stories with super-hawt alpha males. That’s all you need to know, right? I hope you reserve your copy!

Contest

Keeping to the action-adventure theme, here’s your Saturday Puzzle! For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, solve the puzzle, then tell me what my hero and heroine are trying to escape?

Dear Friends! Mica is here! I hope you’ll read it and that you’ll love it! As always, there’s plenty of action, humor, and sexiness! And if you have the inclination, leave a review somewhere. Tell another reader it’s okay to take a chance on a crazy little town called Dead Horse! ~DD

MONTANA BOUNTY HUNTERS:
DEAD HORSE, MT

Authentic Men… Real Adventures…

An ex-Special Forces bounty hunter, who likes working alone, accepts the challenge of teaching a feisty young woman how to hunt…

Former Army Special Forces, Mica Ford, is a bounty hunter now. He likes the work and likes being his own boss. When a hunt goes awry, and a team of hunters from Montana Bounty Hunters provides an assist, he’s persuaded to at least listen to what the head of their agency has to offer and agrees to a meeting.

Amy Calloway wants more than anything to prove to the people of Dead Horse, Montana, that she’s not a loser simply because she shares a last name with “those Calloway brothers.” Since she’s not cut out for any other more reputable job, she has set her sights on being a bounty hunter. She’s fit, has spent an afternoon or two at the firing range, and has watched every episode of Bounty Hunters of the Northwest – We’re Dead Horse. When she walks into the MBH office to ask for a job, she knows she’s as ready as she’ll ever be.

Mica has no intention of accepting a job with MBH, but he watches Amy work up the courage to demand her chance. Her sincerity and courage impress him, and it doesn’t hurt that she’s cute as hell. He finds himself accepting a trial run working with the team and then commits to training Amy—just to make sure she stays safe. However, keeping her safe while teaching her how to hunt becomes a challenge when Amy starts improvising during takedowns…

Get your copy here!
FREE in Kindle Unlimited!
Also Available in Print!

The seventh A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology is coming soon! This time the theme is mature warriors—those ex-military silver fox soldiers! The stories are short and very, very sexy!

In the coming weeks, the authors who contributed stories will be stopping in at the Delilah’s Collections website to chat about their stories and what inspired them. There will be contests! In fact, there’s one running on that website now. Go check it out! There’s a $10 GC to win!  Delilah’s Collections

Also, be sure to pre-order your copy now! This thick, juicy collection of 14 short stories will cost you only $0.99! Pre-order your copy of Silver Soldiers now!

If you didn’t already know, I’m fast at work on my next Montana Bounty Hunter story, Mica. It’s scheduled for release on February 28th.

I’m having fun with the story, I hope you will too. Naturally, we meet our hero in the middle of a takedown of a skip. I love dropping my heroes and heroines in the middle of the action. Action scenes fly by fast, and there are so many things that can go wrong. I hope you enjoy meeting Mica. He hasn’t met his love interest yet, but she will make a big impression. 🙂

Be sure to get to the end of this post. I have a big ole list of contests you still have time to enter!

Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, Montana — Mica

MONTANA BOUNTY HUNTERS:
DEAD HORSE, MT
Authentic Men… Real Adventures…

Mica Ford wasn’t one to hold grudges. At least not these days. Grudges required fury and bile, and he’d had his fill of pointless anger and heartburn.

However, he was beginning to get a bit perturbed by the crew of bounty hunters working out of an office in Dead Horse, Montana. This was the third time they’d crept into one of his stakeouts. Twice now, he’d had to withdraw from a takedown and let them score his target. There were just too many of them, and again, he hadn’t wanted a dustup, wasn’t looking for a fight. But this time, he’d be damned if he let them scoop a third bounty right from under his nose.

This time, his target was one Norman P. Rudd. The bounty was high enough that Mica could live off the proceeds for a good four months. According to the bail bond company’s description, Norman had failed to appear before the judge to begin his trial for numerous charges stemming from an incident where Norman had gone “postal” on a neighbor whose political campaign posters didn’t share his flavor of affiliation.

Norman hadn’t stopped at simply pulling up the neighbor’s signs and burning them in a bonfire in the middle of the man’s front yard. No, he’d taken a tree branch, set the end on fire, and then torched his neighbor’s house and RV and then set wood he’d stacked beside a propane tank on fire. The explosion from the tank had rattled and broken windows throughout the neighborhood, including Norman’s. Even before the firetrucks and police arrived, the neighbor had pulled in front of his house, jumped out of his pickup, and the two men had entered into a brawl. The neighbor had been horrified by the damage to his home and belongings, but worse, his favorite blue tick hound had been locked inside the house when it was set on fire.

The house and RV? Mica wouldn’t have bothered to do more than shake his head and collect the insurance—belongings didn’t matter much, and you couldn’t take them with you when you left this world, but he could understand someone goin’ loco over the murder of a four-legged best friend. For that alone, Norman was a piece of shit who deserved to spend the rest of his days in jail. However, since he’d lost his mind and fired up his neighbor’s property, Norman had proven himself to be a bit smarter, evading police and bounty hunters while hiding out in the Absaroka Range. Mica couldn’t guess his intentions, but he suspected Norman thought he could hopscotch through mountains and forests to hide out there for a while until he lost some weight and grew a beard—something to disguise his ugly, memorable features. His mistake had been coming in for a night to shower and sleep in a soft bed.

Mica had tracked him to a motel in Belgrade, Montana. The night manager had just confirmed that someone of Norman’s broad build had indeed rented a room at the end of the building. He’d asked for menus from restaurants that offered delivery, then he’d kept quiet, not budging from his room.

Mica had already walked the perimeter of the building and tried peeking into the room, but the curtains were pulled closed and the frosted glaze on the bathroom window behind the building didn’t allow him to make out anything other than the fact there was a light turned on inside the room.

Before he could bust in the door, he had to know that Norman was inside. So, he’d hunkered down in his truck, waiting for his break, hoping Norman ordered food before the last restaurant closed for the night.

He watched through his tinted windows as another SUV and a truck pulled into the lot. He groaned when he saw the female hunter, Marti of naked-body-shop-video fame, enter the motel office. When she’d come out, she’d scanned the parking lot, and her gaze had locked on his vehicle.

So, she knew someone else was on Norman’s trail. Mica snorted. They might have the advantage of more hunters to enter the chase, but he had the better vantage, parked right in front of Norman’s room while they had to park farther down the row.

A small compact sedan entered the lot. It had a lighted sign on top of it, advertising Papa Ralph’s Pizza. So, Norman wasn’t starting his diet anytime soon. The sedan moved slowly down the row of parking spaces, then stopped right behind Mica’s vehicle. A car door slammed, and a lanky teenager ran toward the door, carrying an insulated pizza delivery bag that looked like it held two pizza boxes. Mica partially lowered his driver’s side window so he could listen as he watched the kid knock on the motel room door.

The lights inside doused. The kid stiffened and backed away a step, his head turning side to side like he was unsure of his safety. Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE: The winner is…Stacey Kinzebach!
*~*~*

Last year wasn’t my most prolific writing year—that’s for sure. However, I did have several releases. Some were re-edited, re-released titles (the Dark Realm stories), but most were new series books, including two Brotherhood Protectors books! Today, I just wanted to provide the list and release dates of the titles in case you missed one. If you’re interested in one of the stories, click on the covers to check them out!

• 01/07/22 – AFTER DARK, Dark Realm series, short story
• 01/25/22 – ELI, Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, MT series
• 02/15/22 – HUNK OF BURNING LOVE, Cowboys on the Edge, short story
• 03/22/22 – NO TENDER MERCY, Texas Vampires series
• 04/26/22 – DARK SEDUCTION, Dark Realm series
• 06/21/22 – VICTORIA’S SIX, Brotherhood Protectors: Colorado series
• 07/26/22 – GABRIEL, Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, MT series 
• 08/12/22 – WHAT A WOLF WANTS, Dark Realm series, short story, 
• 10/11/22 – GUARDING HANNAH, Brotherhood Protectors: Team Wolf series

2022 Novels/Novellas

2022 Short Stories

Contest

For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell whether you’ve read any of these stories or which titles might interest you now! Easy, right?

UPDATE: The winner is…Shirley Long!
*~*~*

I’m still working on the big plan, but I’m pretty sure about the stories I’m aiming to release this next year.

A few you already know about:

From Montana Bounty Hunters, Mica, which is set to release on February 28 and Jackson on June 16.

Then there are also a couple I’ll write for a new connected series, We are Dead Horse, MT: Hard Knox, which I hope to release in March, and Cold Hard Cash, set to release April 25.

Then there are some I don’t have covers or titles for yet, but I know you’ll be there when I do get them up, two new group-related projects in my sister’s Brotherhood Protectors world to join my previous efforts:

  

Beyond these? I’m not sure. I have a romantic comedy I started years ago that I’d like to finish called Little Green Dreams, and it’s about, you guessed it, aliens. Maybe another Cowboys on the Edge series story. We’ll see how ambitious I get. This year I slowed way down so far as the number of titles I released. I may not have published a ton of stories, but I’m very happy with the ones I did, so there’s that.

I need to light a fire under my butt. Or have someone give it swift kick every now and then to “motivate” me.

As for other promises? I’ll try to figure out some more fun things to do here on this blog. More guests, more contests, more puzzles? More free reads? A serialized story? More behind the scenes of a writer’s life? You tell me what you’d like to see here and be entered to win a $5 Amazon gift card!

Open Contests

1. Things on a Christmas Tree Word Search! (Contest) — This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
2. Tell me a story… (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
3. Elizabeth Andrews: Starting the Countdown (Giveaway) — Win a FREE book!
4. New Year’s Day Word Search! (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!