1. I hear you have a border collie in your sweet romance. Tell us about the book.
Pepper is a major player in my book, A Tease and a Trail Run. It’s the second book in the Brighthead Running Club series of sweet/cozy romances about a running club in a coastal Maine town. (You can read them out of order.)
Charlotte has just broken off her engagement after she discovered her fiancé was cheating, and instead of going on her honeymoon this month, she’s going to house-sit for her aunt and uncle. While she’s in Brighthead, she reconnects with Brandon, an old friend who’s still reeling from the death of the woman he loved for years.
Available at select retailers: https://books2read.com/b/BrightheadTrail
2. Why did you add a pet to your book?
I didn’t add a pet as much as the book formed around her. While I was thinking of reasons that Brandon and Charlotte would begin running together, or why Charlotte even needed to house-sit at all, I came across stories of super smart border collies, and I fell in love. I could never have a dog that much smarter than me, not to mention so high-energy, but I could certainly write such a dog.
On her first day in Brighthead, Charlotte returns from the grocery store to find three horses in her front yard. The problem? They don’t own horses. It turns out that Pepper has long since figured out how to get through the invisible fence (“Did we forget to tell you that?”), and when Pepper saw three horses in the road, she knew they shouldn’t be out there—so she herded them into the safest place she could. This dog is smart, and Charlotte’s never had a dog at all, let alone a working dog.
Brandon offers take Pepper every morning for a run so she’ll burn off energy, and soon Charlotte joins him for runs. (And thus starts the romance.) Pepper remains a major player, at one point jumping a fence into forbidden territory to help Charlotte when she’s on the ground and bleeding, and at the end getting between Charlotte and her vindictive ex.
(Pepper doesn’t get hurt, don’t worry! I hate dog stories where the dog dies. Pepper shows up, just as energetic and happy, in two other Brighthead books.)
3. What other books have you written?
There are five books in the Brighthead Running Club romances. In Book Three, Cashman has a stray cat who wanders into his shop every day. In Book Four, Shelly has a betta fish that she got to “replace” her ex when he ghosted her—which is more than a little awkward now that he’s back in town. In a way, the pets of these characters tell you a bit about who they are and what they want. I hadn’t really thought about it when designing them, but Cashman is very much like a stray cat, and you’ll have to read Shelly’s description to understand why she loves Fred the betta fish.
The Runaway Train stories, a different series, starts with a runaway teen and a guy from tiny-town-Texas rescuing a litter of puppies that’s been thrown over a fence and abandoned.
And in the next few months, I’m going to be releasing a series about musicians (also set in Maine) called the Castleton String Quartet. The first one, a novella, should be available for free once it’s got a cover and a title (little details) and I’ll let readers know how to get it if they sign up for my mailing list. (Which you can do here: http://eepurl.com/dEJjI1)
4. How do you promote your books?
For the past few months, I haven’t been promoting at all other than a few Amazon ads. I’ll ramp things up when I get the Castleton books ready to go, with a free series magnet novella (number zero?) to start, plus promos on the first novel. I’m also planning to put all of the Brighthead books into Kindle Unlimited so subscribers can read them for free.
5. Where can readers learn more about your books and connect with you online?
You can join my mailing list here, http://eepurl.com/dEJjI1, but if you’d rather connect with me on Facebook, I have a page there too: http://facebook.com/TheMaddieEvans
At my website, you can see the covers of all my books: http://www.MaddieEvans.com
I also write under the pen name Jane Lebak: https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Lebak/e/B004FRUOLY/
Thank you so much for having me here today to talk about Pepper! It was fun learning about border collies before I started writing, and now it’s fun to share her with others.
Marcia James: Thank you, Maddie, for stopping by my Go Pets blog! I look forward to reading your novels!
READER INVITATION: Would you like to win a Marcia James’ ebook? Visitors to this pro-pet blog can join in the fun, comment, and/or share photos of their pets for a chance to win one of my ebooks! Each month, I’ll randomly pick one commenter to win. To leave a comment and/or a photo, click on the word “Reply,” which is just below the social media icons for THIS interview. (Don’t scroll past this interview to the next interview.) Go Pets!
Book #1, Dressage Dreaming, is dressage:
Book #3, Lionel’s Leap of Faith, is set in the world of international show jumping:
The main character of The Squeaky Clean Skeleton is Victoria Solitaire Madison, but her friends call her Tori. She’s a widow who started a housekeeping business with her best friend, Hazel. There’s just one problem–she hates scrubbing toilets (and most other household chores). When they segue to cleaning out the attic of the Livingston mansion, Tori finds a stray cat and takes it home to keep it from winding up at the shelter.
The Squeaky Clean Skeleton is part of a shared world from Sweet Promise Press that takes place in the fictional region of Blueberry Bay, Maine. Each series featured some kind of an animal. I hadn’t decided when I started writing the book, but Rune, the cat-Irishman worked himself into the story.
Two of the other books I’ve written are Protecting Peyton and Healing Hawk. They are part of the Gold Coast Retrievers shared world of romantic suspense books from Sweet Promise Press. In the photo of my three dogs, the golden retriever on the left is Cinnamon, who inspired some of the scenes with Gilda, the dog in Protecting Peyton.
Hi, Marcia, thanks so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be here and always happy to talk about two of my favorite things…books and dogs!
When I first came up with the idea for Savage Cinderella, I was hiking in the woods with my dog, Zak—a golden lab/husky mix who I rescued as a six-month-old pup and who was as devoted to me as any living being on the planet had ever been. He was my constant companion for twelve years and the best hiking pal a girl could want. On this one walk, just like every writer with an overactive imagination, I started daydreaming. I wondered what it would have been like to grow up in the wild and have been raised by wolves. But when I ‘saw’ Brinn running through the woods, she wasn’t running with wolves.
A Guardian’s Destiny is Book 5 in my 7-book Guardians of Light series published by Champagne Book Group. (Each book is stand-alone, while also fleshing out the same fictitious, magical world.) It follows the epic journey of Verdeen, a newly graduated elven shieldmaiden who was once Queen Dara’s lady’s maid (from Book 1, A Guardian’s Heart), But Verdeen wanted more, and Queen Dara allowed her to attend the warrior academy. But sometimes fate takes you in unexpected directions: 
y characters, allowing my readers to identify with characters made that much more real and sympathetic and believable.
ur & kidney failure. My gray Morab mare Sassy is 15 and retired after insulin-resistant metabolic disorder caused her to founder severely a year ago. Both of my male tabby cats are 7 and afraid of anyone not family. Riley is additionally burdened with neurological issues and recurrent dental disease.
A few years ago, hubs and I moved into one of those over 55 “active lifestyle communities.” At the time, a few of my new neighbors told me I didn’t look old enough to live here. (Even though I was.) I got to thinking, but what if someone wasn’t old enough and needed to slip in under the radar? And cat-sitting a cat who hates her was part of the gig? But she got caught? Thus, Cleo’s Web was born.
If You Knew Buy Link: 
White Roses In Winter Buy Link: 
In my latest release romance adventure–Taking A Risk (available at 
My Christmas romance–The Christmas Reunion (available at 
In my Halloween romance suspense–Murder and Treats (available at 
I had a Welsh Terrier called Moxenville Laurence. (We called him Larry.) His pedigree stretched for ages. For those who don’t know, a Welsh terrier is a sort of miniature Airedale crossed with a teddy bear.
When I wrote the first book in my Heroes of Westhorpe Ridge series–Marriage, Mobsters, and the Marine, I needed a reason for the local sheriff to walk on the beach. My solution, give him a dog. It needed to be loyal, intelligent, and well behaved. I plumped for a Border Collie and called him Duffy (after Homer Simpson’s favourite beer).
My paranormal book, Taken as Theirs, made number ten on Amazon. Cue more screams and me jumping around like a loon. It’s a sexy paranormal adventure set in a post-apocalyptic world where werewolves are the dominant species.
Thank so much for inviting me to your blog! I’m so excited to be here to put Tuck, Dr. Quinn Malone’s golden retriever, in the spotlight. Tuck is the cutest character in Perfectly Christmas! He’s a gentle, calm, smart dog and spends his day at the clinic with Quinn putting patients at ease. He’s so adorable (both Quinn and Tuck :D)! The only person who raises an eyebrow at having a dog at the clinic is Dr. Madison Hayes, the new surgeon in town. But she comes around and falls in love when Tuck nudges up to her for a cuddle. The perfect way to anyone’s heart!
1. I hear you have a pet in your debut novel. Tell us about it.
Pets are so amazing. I can’t imagine life without them and so it’s only natural that I would give my novel characters pets as well. My debut novel, Romancing the Royal, is book #3 of a multi-author series that is actually centered around corgis! Each book in the “Celebrity Corgi” series was written by a different author and contains a celebrity who has a spoiled corgi, with the corgi actually having a front and center role in the book. The corgi in my book, Gatsby, belongs to Prince Dorian of Avington. He was modeled slightly after what I’ve read about Queen Elizabeth’s corgis, and he has quite the personality. The books I’m working on now all have dogs in them, too–a Chihuahua in one and a litter of lab puppies in another. Expect to see a variety of pets in all my books.
believe pets make us the best versions of ourselves. They are 100% the definition of unconditional love. I’ve had pets my entire life. Cats when I was younger and dogs now as an adult and, much to my husband’s chagrin (it’s mostly an act though…don’t let him know I’m onto him), will never be without one.