My youngest son, now age 35, became an Elvis fan when we visited Graceland when he was ten years old. For years after that, every birthday and Christmas, we made the two plus hour trip to Memphis so he could tour the mansion and go through the exhibits. As he got older, we always included friends so they could explore on their own while we (or usually I) just chilled somewhere.
I became so familiar with Graceland and the plaza (now gone), I began to imagine stories connected with it. My first book was for girls ages eight to 12, a mystery involving their stay with a great-aunt who lived behind the Graceland property. When I wrote this novella, my publisher told me to write a romance involving a female veterinarian who took care of the horses at Graceland. That was the only direction she gave me.
I created a novella involving Kyla Porter, a veterinarian with a secret, and Cole Weathers, the handsome man she encounters on her first official visit to the Graceland stable. I learned about the stable from the woman who at that time managed the stables (she answered my questions via email).
My son and his family live on Mud Island (getting ready to move), so I had to include that beautiful section of Memphis in the story as well as Olive Branch, Mississippi, a town just across the state line where my husband’s cousin and his family lived.
I always like to write what I know, and because these places (as well as Knoxville and the Smoky Mountains) are familiar to me, I included them all in this short novella.
It is free with Kindle Unlimited as an ebook, so if you want to read a clean romance involving all these places, maybe you’d like to download it and give it a try.
By the way, the book begins on April 1 (there is significance to that date), so I guess writing about it now is sort of timely!
Life As I know it 