Meet a self taught Doctor and twice widowed mother in

Mary Connealy’s

historical romantic comedy

Fired Up

Bethany House

The Story

Dare Riker is a doctor who saves lives, but someone seems determined to end his. It may have something to do with the traitors he dealt with during the Civil War, or it might be related to the recent incident with Flint Greer and the ranch. Whoever the culprit is, he or she seems really fired up, and Dare can’t let his guard down for a moment, which is a challenge, since right now he’s trying to win the heart of the recently widowed Glynna.

Glynna Greer came west as a mail-order bride and ended up in a bad situation. Now her husband, Flint, is dead, and she’s determined to care for her son and daughter on her own. She wants to believe Dare Riker is as decent as he seems, but she’s terrified to lock herself into another marriage. She plans to support her small family by opening a diner–never mind that cooking is not her greatest talent. The men in Broken Wheel, Texas, are so desperate for home cooking that they seem willing to overlook dried-out beef and blackened biscuits.

Glynna can’t help but notice that danger follows Dare wherever he goes. There’s the avalanche. And then the fire. But things really get out of hand when someone plunges a knife from Glynna’s diner into Dare’s back. Are Flint’s cronies still plotting revenge? Is Glynna’s son engaged in a misguided attempt to protect his mother? Is a shadowy outsider still enraged over past injustices? And can Dare survive long enough to convince Glynna to take another chance on love?

Enjoy meeting Dare & Glynna

Resembles…

Dare, my hero, looks like a young Sam Elliot

Glynna, my heroine, looks like a young, blond, hazel-eyed Janine Turmer

Strengths and weaknesses

Dare is intensely loyal to his friends. Although he is a natural caretaker and doctor, he is grossly undereducated because he left school in fourth grade to work in his father’s wheelwright business. Despite this, he is smart and a learned doctoring thanks to being a medic in the war. And now he is able to read. He is, in his own way, a more advanced doctor than many who went to medical school because of the way he devours medical books and magazines.

He feels terrible guilt for not recognizing the first time he was called to doctor Glynna that her injuries were inflicted by her husband. This guilt, combined with his lack of formal training, makes him believe he himself a fraud for claiming to be a doctor. But he can’t stop himself from helping someone in need.

Glynna was raised the pampered daughter of a wealthy man. When her equally indulged first husband gambled his way through first his father’s, then her father’s money and left them destitute, she was forced to run a household on her own, something for which she was never trained. This resulted in her utter lack of ability to cook.

Her first marriage was arranged and led to disaster and shame and public humiliation and exile and the hanging death of her husband. Her second marriage, as a mail-order bride, led to abuse. Now twice widowed with two children from her first marriage who are emotionally scarred by what they’ve been through, Glynna has to put them first and give them time and safety and hope and pray they (and she) will heal enough to trust again.

Quirk (if any)

Dare is hyperactive. He paces, and even if he’s sitting, he’s tapping his toes or his fingers. He can’t be still. He strokes his moustache when he thinks of something he shouldn’t say. Although, he does shave it off halfway though the book because it scratches Glynna’s face when he kisses her.

Glynna has a powerful fear of rawness. She doesn’t burn the food through neglect. She really thinks it’s best if it is thoroughly cooked, and she’s just always pushing that way too far.

Your inspiration for the character

Honestly, in a lot of ways, it’s me. I’m not hyperactive like Dare in the pacing around, but I twitch. I am always tapping my fingers or toes. If ever there was a hyperactive person who could sit still, it’s me.

And the way Glynna cooks…that is the way I fed my poor husband for the first year of our marriage. Talk about that old joke…treating your husband like a god…offering him burnt offerings three times a day! I was just terrible. I just never quite got that concept of taking a steak up early and trusting it to keep cooking in the center. Oh no, I wanted it brown right to the middle, and THEN I’d take it up. Well, guess what? That equals burnt. And I filled our house with smoke so many times we finally ripped the smoke detector down. It was just too annoying to climb up there and take the battery out all the time.

Background to the story

Fired Up is book #2 in the Trouble In Texas Series. We met Dare and Glynna in Book #1 Swept Away. Glynna was married to Flint Greer, the villain who has killed Luke Stone’s father and stolen the ranch. Luke came to get justice for his father and get his land back with the help from his friends from the Civil War. Part of that ended up including freeing Glynna from her abusive husband. Dare (with help from others) kills Flint. Now Flint needed killing, no doubt about it, and Glynna isn’t going to pretend to be all that sad. Her tears are, let’s face it, tears of gratitude and relief. The man was a brute. But still, shooting a man is a hard way to free his wife up for romance. So things are awkward between Glynna and Dare. Add to that Glynna’s son is fed up with his ma and the way she picks husbands. He’s already wrung a promise out of her to never marry again, and the going is tough for romance.

Thanks Mary!

Relz Reviewz Extras
Character spotlight on Luke & Ruthie (Swept Away)
Character spotlight on Seth & Callie (Over the Edge)
Mary’s Pop Quiz
Get to know Mary Connealy
Reviews of Over the Edge, Doctor in Petticoats and Out of Control
Seekerville
Petticoats & Pistols
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Buy Fired Up from Amazon or Koorong