Where the Bluegrass Grows v2
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed a few changes where my books are concerned. The first was that what was once the “Equestrian Romance Series” is now the “Maryland Manor Series!” There were a few reasons for this change, which I’ll share in another post. The second was that I revised Where the Bluegrass Grows, formerly Book 1 in the series, and then turned it into the Prequel.
As many of you know, my series consists of 4 books – 3 novels and 1 novella. After some back and forth though, I decided to undertake a pretty sizeable revision of Where the Bluegrass Grows and make it the Prequel. The first reason for the revision was to clean up some grammar, spelling, etc. errors. The second was to update some parts that felt outdated, and the third was to smooth out the story so it flowed a bit better. And finally, I decided to make WTBG a little cleaner from a romance perspective. My books will still be romances, but I realized that the friendship between the three main characters overshadowed, (in a good way), the romantic relationships. I’ve been told that my series is like The Saddle Club all grown up, and I think that’s a pretty fitting description!
I published WTBG in 2016 – but I started writing it in maybe 2010 or 2011 – so ages ago – and as I grew as an author, I started to feel like WTBG wasn’t my best work. And some of it, quite frankly, felt really outdated, especially when the characters are mainly communicating via email instead of text!!
I always say I wrote this book in fits and starts. While writing it, I was working full-time, freelance writing for equestrian publications, moving from our townhouse to our farm, riding as much as possible, and renovating our almost ninety year old house. So much was going on, always. Sometimes I’d have a burst of creativity and would work on the book every day for a week or two…and then sometimes it would be six months before I’d open the file again. So if the book felt a little herky-jerky, that’s why. But not anymore – I tried to smooth it out a bit so it rolls better from one chapter to the next.
While I believe that my recent revisions greatly improved the book, I still felt that WTBG wasn’t the best start to the series. Book 1 of any series needs to start with a bang to hook readers and encourage them to want to continue…and I just wasn’t sure WTBG was doing that. I wrote Kicking On, formerly Book 2, pretty quickly, and for that reason I think it’s a stronger start to the series. It is now Book 1.
I also realized as the series continued on, that Molly, our main character in WTBG, kind of slips into the background book by book. Kicking On is Macy’s story, Taking Off is Erin’s, Jingle Horse is Macy again, and my forthcoming book, (out this summer!!), is Erin once more. I do want to circle back to Molly at some point, but I don’t have any plans for another story of hers at the moment.
Since Macy and Erin kind of take over, I felt comfortable pushing WTBG to the side a bit by making it the Prequel. It’s there if my readers want some background info about the characters and want to learn a bit more…but if not, they can get right into things with Macy in Kicking On.
And to answer the most frequently asked question when I announced this change – if you have already read WTBG, you don’t need to read it again…unless of course you want to lol!! The ending is the same as is the basic plot and storyline.
Finally, to commemorate all these changes, I thought it fitting to change the cover image as well. I LOVED the previous cover, but I wanted something new to mark the beginning of this new era.
I’ll be sharing the reasons behind the renaming of the series soon! I have lots of fun things in the works for my books this year, so I hope you all stick around and join me for the ride!