About twenty years, I met author Anna Jeffrey at an RWA chapter meeting in Fort Worth. With her
sister Pam Cumbie, the two make up the romantic comedy/mystery writing team of
Dixie Cash. On her own, Anna is a very talented author. (As a friend, she is a
hoot and a half.)
Like
me, Anna grew up in West Texas. She’s a fifth generation Texan who loves most
things western from the customs and culture to the philosophy of life. Most of
her family members were farmers and ranchers or worked in the oil fields.
For
those of you who have never lived in West Texas, it’s another world. That’s not
a criticism, just a fact. Anna and I didn’t grow up in the same town, but the
atmosphere was the same. We grew up during the great oil boom, an era filled
with “real-life” fictional characters who cry to be written into a story. As well, farms and ranches were a part of the landscape.
Talented
in many areas, Anna painted a scene anyone from West Texas would recognize. Many little crossroads in farming communities had a cotton gin, a café/store which
sold gasoline, and at least a couple of houses for the gin’s manager and head
ginner. By the way, the white in Anna’s painting is not snow, it’s cotton/cotton
lint blown from the gin. The stuff drifted for hundreds of yards.
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| Store/post office of Peacock, Stonewall County, Texas |
Anna
has worked in various areas from store owner to realtor and author. Thank
heavens she has kept writing sexy contemporary romance with an edge as Anna
Jeffrey and the romantic comedy/mystery series written with her sister as Dixie
Cash. In fact, Anna is a USA Today bestselling author. Her books have won the
Write Touch Readers’ Award, the Aspen Gold, the More Than Magic, and the NEC
Readers’ Choice awards.
Here’s
a painting multi-talented Anna did of her husband’s coat hanging on the door of
his mountain cabin in Idaho. The medium is opaque water color.
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| Coat belonging to Anna's husband George in his Idaho mountain cabin |
Also
an Idaho subject is the painting of this old abandoned gold mining dredge. Can’t
you just imagine the stories that went on while this was in use?
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| Gold mining dredge, Idaho |
A
subject I love is this old barn Anna painted in oils. I love the colors and the
contrast of the yellow at the bottom and the green forest behind.
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| I love old barns and this one appeals to me |
After
leaving Texas for a while, Anna lived in California, Arizona, Oregon, and
Idaho. The latter is the setting for her first books written as herself, the
Callister series. These were my first introduction to her writing and I loved
each of those books. Her series set in
Texas include the West Texas series, the Strayhorns, Miranda’s Chronicles
(erotic), and—if you crave longer books—the Sons of Texas series. I’ve read
each one and highly recommend them. You can find out more about her at her
Amazon Author Page:
Anna's latest book is as Dixie Cash, a romantic comedy/mystery in the Domestic
Equalizer series. The series features Debbie Sue and Edwina, hair stylists
whose shop was converted from an old gas station. The duo is zany and inquisitive and know everyone in the community. Due to
their success solving crimes, they set up their private detection service
called Domestic Equalizers.
Here's the blurb for YOU CAN HAVE MY HEART BUT DON'T TOUCH MY DOG:
After two divorces, Sandi Walker (Edwina's niece and entrepreneur extraordinaire) is on her own and loving it. As a devout animal lover, she has made a success of the only gourmet pet food bakery in Midland, Texas. She's also a pet foster parent and has fifteen assorted abused and unwanted animals at home. When a golden-colored stray dog with an abundance of personality appears at her door, she can't refuse him and she can't keep from falling in love with him. She names him Waffle and gives him a permanent home.
General Manager of the Flying C Ranch, Nick Conway, has searched for months for his lost dog, Buster. Giving up on ever finding him, he looks for a new dog and finds a puppy at a pet grooming shop. While he went to the shop to see a puppy, he also encountered a beautiful redheaded woman he can't put out of his mind. Little does he know that she found Buster in an alley and has now claimed him as her own. Sparks fly between Sandi and Nick when he steals Buster and sues her in court for custody. It will take a mouthy parrot, a sitting judge, the matchmaking skills of the Domestic Equalizers and Cupid himself to resolve this conflict.
YOU CAN HAVE MY HEART BUT DON'T TOUCH MY DOG Excerpt:
"Nick…began to unload everything off the
tray and set it on the table. Two baskets of hamburgers and fries and a couple
of Hogg’s locally-famous fried pies enclosed inside parchment wrappers. They
were half the size of a dinner plate.
She stared at the array of food. “That’s a
lot of food. I don’t see a small hamburger.”
“A child’s hamburger is the size of a
quarter. Not enough to eat. I got you a regular size.”
Controlling
jerk. Sandi
made a huff of annoyance. “You also got fried pies. What kind?”
“Apricot. The kind my granny used to make
when I was a little tyke. Hogg’s uses lard in the crust, just like my granny
did. That’s why they taste so good.”
She made a mental groan. “A fried pie made by
these people probably has about five thousand calories.”
His brow scrunched into a frown. “You’re not
gonna eat a fried pie after I got you one?”
She shook her head. “I am not. I did not ask
for a fried pie. You obviously aren’t concerned with your diet, but I try to
limit the carbs I eat. I don’t want to have a heart attack before I’m
thirty-five and I want to be able to pass through the front door of my shop.”
He scooted the fried pie across the table
toward her. “One little fried pie is not gonna give you a heart attack or put
twenty pounds on you. Maybe a dose of sugar will put you in a better mood.”
Find YOU
CAN HAVE MY HEART BUT DON’T TOUCH MY DOG on Amazon at this link: http://amzn.com/B01CIL979S
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| Anna Jeffrey/Dixie Cash |
Anna's social media links are:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/annajeffrey
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/annajeffrey/
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| Dixie Cash--Pam Cumbie and Anna Jeffrey |
2 comments:
Thanks for sharing, Anna. I love your books! Wishing you much success.
Thank you for the attention, Caroline. And for featuring my paintings and books. The old gold mining dredge won a blue ribbon at the Idaho State Fair. I painted it so long ago, it has probably collapsed by now. I haven't painted a picture in many years, but I intend to get back to it just as soon as I get everything else done. I have dozens of subjects filed away that I want to paint. I also have a few books to write, too. :-)
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