Horses, pretty ladies, and handsome men in faded denim and boots: the very stuff of romance. Christian western fiction novels have this with all the challenges of making a life in rugged wide open spaces. The strong heroines of today's literature are right at home in the American west.
Adventure is always at hand in the untamed mountains or the endless plains. You can fall off a horse or a cliff, freeze in an unexpected blizzard, get snakebit, lose your ranch to the bank, and, of course, get your heart broken. The Christian framework keeps the action and the complications within acceptable boundaries. This is great in these days when a modern novel can be a lot more graphic than many readers want.
Women like men - a simple fact - and they like horses. This sets the scene. It's not hard to place a woman - young and inexperienced or older and available because of past mistakes or tragedy - in charge of a riding academy specializing in barrel racing and cutting, or trying to save the family ranch in the face of overwhelming odds, or rescuing a horse or two and needing the help of a handsome veterinarian, farrier, or horse breaker. And voila - you can probably think of a thousand complications to these and other scenarios.
One or both of the central figures will have a shrouded past, with mistakes and failures, that contributes to misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and failure to accept the risk of love. This all moves the plot along and keeps readers interested. Although the ending might be predictable, the way there is what makes it fun. Christian belief and principles help everything turn out right.
Furthermore, the Christian framework solves another traditional problem with loving a cowboy. In the standard stories, the strong and silent man might linger for a time, setting female hearts aflutter and arousing hopes in a young girl's heart, but he then rides away - because cowboys need the open range or the open road and can't settle down to a life of domesticity. With a tip of his hat and no backward look, he'll ride off into the Texas sunset, never to be seen again.
A believing cowboy will have the conviction to accept responsibility and settle down with our heroine. She, of course, can and will make up for all the pleasures of the open road. No matter how much we the readers value realistic characters and believable plots, we still want the happy ending.
Many readers love both boy-meets-girl stores and testimonies of how people meet the Lord and come to accept His grace. The faith-based western has both themes to entertain and enchant. Believable characters and realistic story lines are easy to create when the wild, wild west is the backdrop.
The horses, the dust, the rugged country, and the wide blue sky are the touches that make this genre special. Whether the time-frame is the early days on the frontier or life in the twenty-first century, the land is the same. When the author has an intimate knowledge of western life and of the hearts of men and women, the reader is in for a real treat.
Adventure is always at hand in the untamed mountains or the endless plains. You can fall off a horse or a cliff, freeze in an unexpected blizzard, get snakebit, lose your ranch to the bank, and, of course, get your heart broken. The Christian framework keeps the action and the complications within acceptable boundaries. This is great in these days when a modern novel can be a lot more graphic than many readers want.
Women like men - a simple fact - and they like horses. This sets the scene. It's not hard to place a woman - young and inexperienced or older and available because of past mistakes or tragedy - in charge of a riding academy specializing in barrel racing and cutting, or trying to save the family ranch in the face of overwhelming odds, or rescuing a horse or two and needing the help of a handsome veterinarian, farrier, or horse breaker. And voila - you can probably think of a thousand complications to these and other scenarios.
One or both of the central figures will have a shrouded past, with mistakes and failures, that contributes to misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and failure to accept the risk of love. This all moves the plot along and keeps readers interested. Although the ending might be predictable, the way there is what makes it fun. Christian belief and principles help everything turn out right.
Furthermore, the Christian framework solves another traditional problem with loving a cowboy. In the standard stories, the strong and silent man might linger for a time, setting female hearts aflutter and arousing hopes in a young girl's heart, but he then rides away - because cowboys need the open range or the open road and can't settle down to a life of domesticity. With a tip of his hat and no backward look, he'll ride off into the Texas sunset, never to be seen again.
A believing cowboy will have the conviction to accept responsibility and settle down with our heroine. She, of course, can and will make up for all the pleasures of the open road. No matter how much we the readers value realistic characters and believable plots, we still want the happy ending.
Many readers love both boy-meets-girl stores and testimonies of how people meet the Lord and come to accept His grace. The faith-based western has both themes to entertain and enchant. Believable characters and realistic story lines are easy to create when the wild, wild west is the backdrop.
The horses, the dust, the rugged country, and the wide blue sky are the touches that make this genre special. Whether the time-frame is the early days on the frontier or life in the twenty-first century, the land is the same. When the author has an intimate knowledge of western life and of the hearts of men and women, the reader is in for a real treat.