
Historical Author Merry Farmer
Please welcome multi-published, award-winning, historical, author Merry Farmer who is promoting her book A Fool for Love. To wet your appetite Merry is giving away a copy of her book Our Little Secrets. To be eligible, please post your email address in your comment.
Ella: Merry, your bio said you’ve been writing all your life. What made you finally made you decided to decide to be published?
Merry: I’d actually toyed around with the idea of publishing years ago. I attended a few conferences, joined RWA, sent out about a dozen query letters, but it was all half-hearted. Something about the publishing world turned me off. Instead I focused my energies on writing itself. Then, about two years ago, I was at the Philadelphia Writer’s Conference, and the buzz of self-publishing was in the air. I listened to what people were saying, the predictions about how self-publishing was the wave of the future. I knew then that that was the path I was meant to take. So I dusted off the novels in my Noble Hearts medieval romance series, hired a professional editor, and went to work.
I’ve learned so much in the last two years! My wonderful editor, Alison Dasho, taught me so much about the craft of writing. The connections I made with fellow authors taught me volumes about the business and marketing side of writing. I love the world of self-publishing and the accountability that goes along with it, although at this point I am keeping all of my publishing options open.
Ella: You started your career writing medieval romances, how did you make the jump to Victorian era westerns?
Merry: It wasn’t so much of a jump as a slide. I actually wrote the embryonic story that has grown into all four of the novels in the Montana Romance series years before I started writing The Loyal Heart (the first book in the Noble Hearts series and the first novel I published). It also helped that I’ve earned not one, but two degrees in History. The Medieval and the Late Victorian periods have always been my favorites. Both were times of immense social and technological change. Both drew heavily on romanticism. And it’s no surprise at all that Medievalism was enjoying a revival in the late Victorian era, thanks to the Pre-Raphaelites. I also see a lot of parallels in both time periods to the changes and challenges of the world we live in right now. Ultimately though, as someone who is passionate about all eras of History, it would be too hard for me to only ever write about just one.
Ella: What advice would you give people just starting out in the writing profession?
Merry: Write. I know that might sound obvious or trite, but the single most important thing that any writer can do, whether they’re just starting out or have been at it for fifty years, is to write. Write to entertain yourself. I grew up writing the stories I wanted to read because no one else was writing them and because they meant something special to me. I’ve written volumes of fan fiction for myself (from Indiana Jones to soap operas I used to watch to Harry Potter and beyond), I’ve rewritten the ends of movies and TV series when I didn’t like the way they concluded or when I wanted more, and I rewrote bits of my own life to turn out better than they did in reality. None of it will ever be published, but I learned more about character, setting, theme, stakes, and credibility from writing to entertain myself than I could have if I’d just taken classes or read books.
Beyond that, don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. Get people to read your stories. Submit to agents. Hire an editor to give you a detailed professional opinion. Enter contests. Self-publish if you feel moved (but not before the book is ready). I feel like I waited about ten years too long to break out of my fears and seek to be published. I got lucky when self-publishing took off just as I was ready to be bold, but I also regret not trying harder sooner.
Ella: That’s great advice. Now, what you’ve all been waiting for the excerpt from A Fool for Love.

Fool For Love
Fool for Love – Blurb
Eric Quinlan was born a cowboy and a rancher and intends to die a cowboy and a rancher. But when his ranch is in danger of failing, he travels to the wilds of London looking for a business deal to save it. What he finds there are stuffed shirts, odd manners, and a damsel in distress.
Amelia Elphick’s life is over. She may have been born a lady, but when she finds herself jilted by a lover who leaves her pregnant, she seems destined for a life on the streets. When her employer’s rough but handsome houseguest, Eric, offers to rescue her from ruin, she has no choice but to say yes, even if it means moving halfway around the world.
But Amelia finds herself saying yes to more than a ticket west. What starts with a harmless lie tangles Amelia and Eric in a web of desire and deceit that exposes passions and turns their worlds upside-down. Eric believes Amelia holds the key to saving his beloved ranch and giving him the family he always wanted, but can he save her from the demons of her past without losing himself in the process?
People do foolish things when they’re in love….
Excerpt from Fool for Love
“Miss Elphick,” Mr. Quinlan began. He stopped twirling his hat with a long, drawled, “Yeeeaaah.”
Amelia could do nothing but stand there, her brain foggy from shock and tears and betrayal.
Mr. Quinlan cleared his throat, pulling her attention back to him. He shifted his weight to his other leg, let his arm drop, hat in one hand, and looked her in the eyes. She had never seen a man so anxious, as if he was the one in utter disgrace.
“Look, I’m really sorry about everything that happened last night.”
Amelia lowered her head. “I … I am so sorry you had to witness that, Mr. Quinlan.”
“Yeah, well so am I,” he mumbled. “That Mr. what’s-his-name was a total ass, treating a lady like that.”
She looked up, her stomach twisting. “Oh no, sir,” she corrected him. “I’m afraid I was the one in the wrong.” It was all she could do not to choke on the words. “Mr. Hayworth was perfectly within his rights to react as he did. I … I am not a lady, I-”
“If he had tried that where I come from,” Mr. Quinlan interrupted, striding across the room to her, “he woulda had about a dozen men all over him. It’s pitiful to dismiss a lady such as yourself like that.”
An ironic smile twitched at the corners of Amelia’s mouth. “I’m afraid you misunderstand, Mr. Quinlan. I … I am a fallen woman now. My disgrace is complete. It was not my place to cause a scene.”
He puffed an annoyed sigh and threw his hands out, narrowly missing a vase of hothouse flowers with his hat. “You know, I never understood you English people and your ‘places’. A lady’s a lady as far as I’m concerned.”
“But my family,” she fumbled, no desire to explain the past.
“Your father did something bad, I dunno,” he finished for her, his tone not caring. He paced a few steps to a small table and fingered the edge of it, picking at an invisible spot. He flicked his hair out of his face and darted a glance out the window at a passing carriage. Amelia bit her lip as she watched his antics.
Finally, he shook his head and turned away from the pouring rain outside the window. “Well, this isn’t how I wanted to start things.”
Amelia fidgeted with her skirt. “Start what, Mr. Quinlan?”
He ran a hand through his hair and paced back to where Amelia stood. When he reached her, swaying too close for a moment then backing off a step, he screwed up his mouth as if something were trying to escape from it and he wasn’t sure if he should let it out or keep it in. His back and shoulders were stiff as he glanced to Amelia, then at the floor, out the window, and back to Amelia again. It struck her that his awkward ways were uncommonly charming.
As soon as the dangerous thought entered her mind, she pushed it away.
Finally Mr. Quinlan sighed and let his tension drop. “It’s like this.”
Amelia raised her wary eyes to meet his.
“I suppose a fine lady like you is mighty attached to a fancy place like this, but I understand that you’re in a heap of trouble after last night and got no place to go. Now, I know it’s short notice, but I’m leaving London to head back to Montana tomorrow and I was wondering if, well, if you might want to come with me.”
Amelia’s sore eyes widened. Her breath caught in her throat. “Go with you?”
“Yeah.”
“To Montana?”
He shifted. “I’ll pay for your passage and all. I don’t mind doing it at all after what I saw last night. It seems to me that you’re pretty much sunk here. But Montana is just lousy with opportunity these days, even for women. Cold Springs could use a smart, pretty girl like you, and … and, well, that’s it.” He ended his speech by blushing and lowering his head, looking up at her through his lashes.
Amelia’s heart fluttered, but it had nothing to do with Mr. Quinlan’s charm.
Montana. It was a world away, a world where no one knew about her father drinking away his fortune and leaving his wife and daughters to make their own way. It was a world where no one knew how her mother had positioned herself and two of her daughters in rich men’s beds so that they could continue to afford the luxuries they were dependent on. Most importantly, it was a world where no one knew how she, Amelia Elphick, had foolishly thought going to a man’s bed would solve all of her problems.
Our Little Secrets – Blurb
Michael West swore he would never fall in love again. So when the beautiful and wily Charlotte steps off the train looking for a new life he jumps at the business opportunity her search for a husband presents. Engaged forty-five minutes after meeting, married the next day, Michael thinks he’s found everything a respectable man should have. Except that Michael is as far from respectable as they come. They agreed not to ask questions about each other’s pasts, but when the past seeps into their present Michael suspects his passionate new wife is not who she says she is. But can he keep her at arm’s length when he’s already fallen in love with her?
Charlotte Baldwin has a secret. She fled Philadelphia to escape the sins of her past, but someone is following her. What better way to hide than by marrying Michael West, Cold Springs, Montana’s enigmatic shopkeeper? A new name, a new life, and am amorous husband is exactly what she needs to leave her sins behind. But when it comes to keeping secrets Charlotte may have met her match in Michael. And when a connection neither of them expects catches up with them, the shocking revelation means Charlotte may have run right into the arms of her enemy.
No sin stays a secret forever….
Book links:

Our Little Secrets
Our Little Secrets
Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0087KI4T4
Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0087KI4T4
Smashwords – https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/167282
B&N – http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/our-little-secrets-merry-farmer/1111649170?ean=2940033267514
Fool for Love
Coming Soon
The Loyal Heart
Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005R4K75W
Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005R4K75W
B&N – http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-loyal-heart-merry-farmer/1106051739?ean=2940011541537
Smashwords – https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/92993
The Faithful Heart
Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006PUDD44
Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006PUDD44
B&N – http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-faithful-heart-merry-farmer/1108068341?ean=2940032960553
Smashwords – https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/117240
The Courageous Heart
Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009Z1AATQ
Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009Z1AATQ
B&N – http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-courageous-heart-merry-farmer/1113712615?ean=2940015912661
Smashwords – https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/250038
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