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When a single dad and his son’s teacher clash, sparks fly and it’s not only because his son is neglecting his chores to read.

A Family With the Cowboy
The Westons of Montana Book 1
by Elsa Winckler
Genre: Contemporary Small-Town Romance

Widowed rancher Hayden Weston knows what it means to be responsible for his siblings, his eight-year-old son, and the running of the huge family cattle ranch. Some even call him a stern and grumpy taskmaster and they’re not exactly wrong. So when Hayden discovers his son reading a storybook instead of doing chores, he calls on Luke’s teacher to talk about priorities.
School teacher Laura Anderson is new to Marietta, Montana, and has never—until now—been reprimanded for encouraging a child to read. It doesn’t help that sweet Luke’s father is the handsome cowboy with the amber eyes that she met in Grey’s Saloon, or that she’s wildly attracted to him.
Sparks keep flying as their paths keep crossing, but Hayden is determined not to give in to his incomprehensible need to have, hold, and protect Laura from any type of harm. He’s the one who’ll hurt her if he lets her stray too close. He’s not ready to admit his feelings or commit to sharing his life with her.
Even if love comes tumbling in.

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I have been reading love stories for as long as I can remember and when I ‘met’ the classic authors like Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Henry James The Brontë sisters, etc. during my Honours studies, I was hooked for life. I married my college boyfriend and soul mate and after 47 years, 3 interesting and wonderful children and 4 beautiful grandchildren, he still makes me weak in the knees. We are fortunate to live in the picturesque little seaside village of Betty’s Bay, South Africa with the ocean a block away and a beautiful mountain right behind us. And although life so far has not always been an easy ride, it has always been an exciting and interesting one! I like the heroines in my stories to be beautiful, feisty, independent and headstrong. And the heroes must be strong but possess a generous amount of sensitivity. They are of course, also gorgeous! My stories typically incorporate the family background of the characters to better understand where they come from and who they are when we meet them in the story.

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What are your top 10 favorite books/authors?
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
North and South – Mrs. Gaskell
Emma – Jane Austen
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Portrait of a lady – Henry James
Midnight at the blackbird café – Heather Webber
Covenant of Water – Abraham Verghese
Where the crawdads sing – Delia Owen
The Little Paris bookshop – Nina George
A year in Provence – Peter Mayle

What book do you think everyone should read?
Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I’m doing a slow read over on Substack with Simon Haisell and love every moment of it. What has struck me throughout the book is that people haven’t really changed or evolved. It’s a great book and one of those everyone should read at least once in their lives.

How long have you been writing?
Since 2008

Do the characters all come to you at the same time or do some of them come to you as you write?
I’m not much of a plotter, but I do like to think about my characters before I start writing – where do they come from? What are their quirks and flaws, their childhood wounds and how can they grow in the course of the story. What I’ve found though, is that no matter how much you plan, like someone you meet for the first time, it takes time to get to know your characters and sometimes they are not the person you thought they should be!

What kind of research do you do before you begin writing a book?
Doing research about a topic or setting is one of the best parts of writing for me. For this particular series, I read a lot about Montana ranching, about grazing, about cattle and about horses. I also had a wonderful time researching animal whisperers and empaths. 

Do you see writing as a career?
Oh, yes. I only started writing after I’ve retired. Our three kids are grown-up and living their own lives, the dogs we had, died, so now I only have my husband to keep happy!

What do you think about the current publishing market?
It has changed very quickly over the past decade, I think. Publishing your own book wasn’t even a possibility a few decades ago, now it seems more and more authors prefer to do it on their own. And of course, social media has probably changed the way of advertising for ever.

Do you read yourself and if so what is your favorite genre?
Reading has always been my escape from the real world. I’ve read hundreds and thousands of romances but I also love cosy mysteries (Agatha Christie was a favorite while growing up) suspense, but nothing too vivid, please  And I love the classics. Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Mrs. Gaskell, Henry James, Virginia Wolf, George Eliot, to name a few. This year I’m doing a slow reading of Tolstoy’s War and Peace with Simon Haisell over at Substack and I’m really enjoying it.

Do you prefer to write in silence or with noise? Why?
I can shut out background noise when I’m writing. I love music and sometimes have a song that inspires a story, but I don’t listen to music while I’m writing. If I’m really into the story, I don’t hear anything else but in the planning stages I prefer silence.

Do you write one book at a time or do you have several going at a time?
I write one book at a time. When writing a series, like The Westons of Montana, I do think about the other stories and take notes that I’ll need for the rest of the series but I only concentrate on one story at a time.