Ruth Ann Nordin's Monthly Newsletter

Masquerade Bride is Now Available!

This is a standalone book. There is a slight fantasy twist to it, but it’s still primarily a romance set in the Regency Era.

Here is the best description I could come up for it.

(Descriptions aren’t my strength, but here we go):

She longs to be witty and beautiful. Instead, she’s a shy wallflower. Can a bold choice rewrite her story into a romance for the ages?

Miss Marie Kiefer asked her father to arrange a marriage for her, but on the eve of her wedding, she makes a complete embarrassment of herself when she meets her intended. She can’t help but think that if she were charming and witty, she could have her pick of suitors. Then she would be guaranteed a love match. 

In this romance, Marie will get her chance to do just that.

This is a G-rated romance. 

If this sounds like your kind of book, this is where you can find it:

Amazon US – ebook

Amazon UK – ebook

Amazon – audiobook

Audible

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple

Google Play – ebook

Google Play – audiobook

Smashwords

Everand

***

The Preacher’s Wife is Done!

This is Book 2 in the Oregon Series. (Book 1 is The Wilderness Bride.)

The second draft is now complete, and I’ve sent it off to be edited. I thought I gave a release date on this somewhere, but I’m unable to find it. Let’s put it down for the 29th. I’m going to make a note and email it to myself. I’m not at my calendar right now.

I gave this a lot of thought, and I feel led by God to make this one free. I learned something new about God while writing this one. Specifically, I learned how much God wants us to be a part of His family and how He responds when we fail to live up to His holy standard. Growing up, I thought God was ready to strike me down with a thunderbolt whenever I stepped out of line. It took decades as an adult to realize He would rather gather us into His arms and back into fellowship with Him. In writing this book, I have discovered how lovely He really is. Long ago, I heard a preacher say that the Bible is a romance. It is God saving His bride and bringing her home. In writing this book, I now understand what that preacher meant.

I did strive to not get too preachy in the book. I want it to be, first and foremost, a romance for the hero and heroine. The hero is a preacher, however, so the element of Christianity had to come up at certain points along the way. I did put in one spicy scene, and there is some violence in it. I stalled out 3/4 of the way in because I knew I was going to hit some heavy subject matter when it came time to introduce the violence part, so I had to dig up the soundtrack from Inception to push past the block. I had to make the case for Corrine running away from Iowa. I knew going in that it was going to be tough. I’m just glad the music from Inception helped me through it.

I’m over halfway into The Science of Love

This is Book 2 in the Marriage by Chemistry Series. (Book 1 is The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride.)

I am hoping to have this out in August or September. I have hit a pivotal moment in the story where things are going to take a sharp turn. I won’t say what because I don’t want to spoil the book. But now that I’m at this point, I know where I’m headed.

This story is light and fun. It has a little bit of seriousness mixed in, but it’s nothing heavy like The Preacher’s Wife.

I think I’m 1/3 of the way into Love Me, Love Me Not.

I don’t have a cover yet, but this is a Regency romantic comedy that I’m expecting to be a novella. It’s going to be Book 1 in The Marriage Mart Series. I have decided to break off what I typically do with Regencies and go in a fresh, new direction. (Fresh and new to me, at least.) This series is intended to be on the funny and light side, and the most the characters are going to do is kiss.

Love Me, Love Me Not is to address the question of whether love is simple or it’s complicated. The hero and heroine have known each other since childhood. He has held a secret flame for her, but she thinks he’s annoying. How will I convince her otherwise? It’ll be fun to find out. At the moment, they are in London, and she has just officially “come out” in her Season.

I already have ideas for Books 2 and 3. One is where two friends make bets on which of them can create the biggest scandal. The other will feature two friends who try to pair each other up with the ideal match.

I’m really excited about this particular series. It’ll be fun to dive into some outright comedies.

***

I’ll leave that there for now. I hope everyone has a great May! 😀

Masquerade Bride will be out April 24!

I decided to put this up on pre-order, so if you want to, you can get this now. I’m so busy that I forget when an author’s new book is out. I need reminders, or I need a pre-order link. Just in case any of you are the same way, I thought I’d keep up with the pre-orders. And if you would rather wait until it’s out, I’ll post the links next month when I do this newsletter.

Essentially, this book is about a young lady who gets the chance to live an alternate life in her quest to find a love match. It’s cute and lighthearted, and it would have a G rating if we rated books. The most that happens in this book is a kiss. I don’t typically write G-rated romances, but I’m now coming to realize there are some plot ideas that work best under this rating.

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple

Google Play

Smashwords

The Preacher’s Wife is almost done

I am hoping to wrap this one up this month. *fingers crossed* That means I’ll be finishing the first draft. I’ll take a couple of weeks off of this before I make a second draft. After that, I’ll be reaching out to people who help me polish up this book. I like to give people a month to go over the story. That gives us all time to make sure the book is as good as it can get.

I’ll have to update The Wilderness Bride so that it’s back to being Book 1 in the Oregon Series. Give me a month or two on that task. I have other obligations on the table with my family, specifically my special needs’ son. I didn’t realize it was a lot easier when he was in school. Now that he’s an adult and unable to maintain a job, it’s been rough going. That has made it hard to get writing and writing-related tasks done.

I think I’m halfway into The Science of Love

This is Book 2 in the Marriage by Chemistry Series. (Book 1 is The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride.)

I’ve had to do some research on biology since the main characters are looking under microscopes for the cellular structure of cells and such. I learned some of this stuff back in high school. While that part is fine, every time I think about looking under a microscope, I remember that page in my high school textbook that had a picture of a tapeworm in it. Close up, it reminds me of an alien, and thinking of something like that living in a person’s intestine is the thing of nightmares. (And reading “The Parasite Man” in Symphony for Walpurgis: A Collection by Rami Ungar certainly did not help.) I am telling you, that image of the tapeworm still freaks me out to this day. If you’ve never seen the image, consider yourself lucky. Thankfully, very little of this book has to do with cells and microscopes, and I will not insert anything about a tapeworm in it.

Instead, you’ll mostly get a heartwarming romance. Currently, the heroine has slipped the love potion into our hero’s drink, and it’s worked. He is now in love with her. While she is basking in the excitement of it all, she’s also wondering if his love is real and lasting. Hence the plot.

That’s all I have for now. I hope everyone has a great April!

It’s been a long time, but I’m back to doing this newsletter. 🙂

I probably won’t have much to report that’s exciting or new as often has I did way back in the past when I was able to publish six books a year, but I am a firm believer in “a little each day still adds up”. We’ll see how things go.

I’m happy to say that I do finally have a book in edits. That’s actually big news given my snail pace. So…

Masquerade Bride will be out in April!

This is currently in edits.

I decided to make this a standalone.

This turned out to be a very sweet (squeaky clean) romance. There is only one kiss the hero and heroine share. So for those of you who’ve wished I would write a sex free romance, this is for you.

If, however, you’re afraid I’ll stop writing sex scenes, don’t be. 🙂 I personally prefer some steam in romances that I read. I read books without sex, too, but my preference still leans toward spicier romances. Now, for any other genre, I am fine without any sex at all, but the other genres don’t focus on the actual development of the couple who are in love. It’s the center focus that matters to me.

Going back to this particular romance, all that was needed was the kiss. To add to anything else would be to diminish the power of that kiss.

I will go more into the plot and whatnot with this book in my April newsletter. I need something to post about.

The Preacher’s Wife is 3/4 of the way done.

I’m going to end up putting this back into the Oregon Series. I was fiddling around with the idea of making it a standalone, but deep down, I know this book will be stronger as part of a series.

Why was I tempted to make this a standalone? Because I write so slowly these days, and some people won’t read the books until the series is complete. I understand why they want to wait. It keeps everything fresh, and you can quickly read through a series. But it is frustrating to hear that because I can’t write fast. It didn’t bother me when I could publish six books a year. Now that I’m expecting to publish two in 2026, it feels impossible. If I make it to three, I’ll be shocked, but if I do, it’ll be my horror novel under my pen name. I really love the horror novel I’m working on and will keep writing it.

I’ll have to look at not writing in so many series at a time. Making Masquerade Bride a standalone helps. So right now, I have one historical western romance series (Oregon Series), and I have one Regency series (Marriage by Chemistry Series).

The Preacher’s Wife is coming up on the crucial moment where everything changes for the hero and heroine. This is going to be one of those gritty books. I don’t know if any of you have read Brave Beginnings, but it’s going to be similar to that. I need to make the case for the heroine (and her brother and mother) to have fled Iowa to make it all the way to Oregon. I have to make the case for them to have lied to the hero, and, most importantly, I need the hero to understand why the lie was necessary.

This book is similar to His Redeeming Bride in many ways. The amount of Christian input is the same. The topic of forgiveness and redemption are key. I always felt that His Redeeming Bride was about God’s grace in a sinful world. This book has the same theme. That has made this book very rewarding to write, and also difficult. I need to get everything just right so that it remains a story instead of turning into a sermon. I’m sorry, but I can’t watch a lot of Christian movies or read a lot of Christian fiction because they all go into “preachy” territory. Doing that always pulls me out of the story. Fiction is, first and foremost, about the story. When you lose the reader on that point, the rest of it falls apart.

The Science of Love is coming along nicely

This is Book 2 in the Marriage by Chemistry Series.

(The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride is Book 1.)

The heroine has snuck the experimental love potion into the hero’s drink. This is not a comedy, but it’s definitely a more light-hearted kind of story. The heroine is terribly insecure due to her upbringing and the fact that her first husband took one look at her naked and decided to annul that marriage. She’s returned to London in disgrace. Thankfully, the annulment took place in America, so she’s spared any social backlash, at least at the moment. It’s hard to say if the story will take some kind of turn. I’m only 26,000 words in. It’s still early.

This is going to be a steamy romance. It needs to be. The heroine needs to know she’s sexually desirable. That’s very important to her happy ending.

That’s all I have for the romance stuff right now.

I hope everyone has a wonderful March!

It took me an extra day to get everything together, so that’s why this post is a day late.

This time around, I wanted to do something more fun than just giving the description. I made a couple of graphics to sum up the different things you’ll find in The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride. Hopefully, this will be more entertaining. 😀

Graphic 1:

Graphic 2 (this is the one I enjoyed the most):

Graphic 3:

If this sounds interesting to you, you can find the book at these places:

Amazon (ebook)

Amazon (audio – digitally narrated)

Audible (digitally narrated)

Barnes & Noble

Kobo (included in Plus)

Apple

Google Play (ebook)

Google Play (audio – digitally narrated)

Smashwords

Everand

I’m almost done with The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride

This is Book 1 in the Marriage by Chemistry Series.

I am currently on the last chapter of this book. I purposely slowed my writing down so I don’t rush the ending. I want to make sure I get the ending just right. I expect to be done with it in another week or two, and then I’ll have it edited. I am currently expecting this book to be out until about September or October.

A Glimpse at My Publishing Schedule

I’m surprised, to be honest, because I thought I could have The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride out in August back when I was planning out my publishing schedule in January. Back then, I also thought I could easily manage four books out in a year. It might be more like three. I’m not sure at this point. 😦 It sucks to have to work so slow after coming back from burnout, but I keep telling myself that having a good quality book is a lot more important than getting more books out in a year. I have so many ideas, and I wish I could write more.

I’m Halfway into Masquerade Bride

This is Book 1 in the Marriage by Holiday Series.

I was hoping to get Masquerade Bride out in October. It has a Halloween theme to go with it. I am probably halfway into the story. I’m sure I can have the first draft done before October. The problem is that I need time to edit it myself and then send it out to people who help me find stuff that I missed (because I always miss something).

I’ve already decided that I’m going to publish this when it’s ready, so we might have a Halloween-themed story in January. It’s not ideal, but I don’t feel like sitting on this until September/October 2026. I’m not that patient.

I’m Either Close to or at the Halfway Point in The Preacher’s Wife

This is Book 2 in the Oregon Series.

This is a slowburn romance. I’m getting close to 30,000 words, and the couple hasn’t even kissed. They aren’t ready to kiss, even though they are definitely emotionally moving closer toward each other. The pacing is surprisingly smooth considering how little I’m seeing actually happening. The focus has been pretty much more on the hero’s emotional journey. His mother was a prostitute, and his father was one of her customers. He was sent to an orphanage run by a priest in another town. He has no idea who his parents are, and he’s always had this longing to be part of a family, though he doesn’t know how to make that longing transition into the marriage he has with the heroine. Finding that transition has been the focus of this book so far. I have a secondary focus, but that needs to come later.

This book won’t be ready until maybe summer of next year. I can tell there is so much more to do with it, and I want to honor the story by playing it out the way it’s meant to.

I have completed narrating three books for YouTube and Rumble.

About Rumble:

Maybe Rumble has an option to put videos into a playlist like YouTube does, but if it does, I don’t know how to do it. But here is my Rumble channel if you want to go there.

About YouTube:

I do, however, know how to put videos together into a playlist on YouTube. If you start at Chapter 1 of the book, then you should be able to go directly into the following chapters if you have the autoplay feature selected on YouTube.

Eye of the Beholder

Tagalong Bride

Loving Eliza

PLEASE NOTE: These are the PG rated versions of these books. I had to remove the sex scenes in order to comply with the guidelines on these platforms. I don’t want to go through all the work of narrating them only to have them removed because of the spicy content.

The next book starts up on July 2.

The next book I’m putting up is The Hero Least Likely since my sister requested that one. She’s a trucker on the road, and she listens to my books to help pass the time while on the road. 🙂

Regarding BookFunnel:

The assistant I have to help me with BookFunnel is currently booked up, so I have nothing going over there this month. I also don’t have time to deal with that right now. There’s been some medical stuff going on with a my husband and one of my sons. It’s nothing serious, but it has been time consuming. This has required me to spend some time going to the doctor with them to offer moral support.

***

That’s all I have for this month. I hope everyone has a wonderful July!

Welcome to June, everyone! It’s hard to believe we’re coming up to half of 2025 already. I swear, the older I get, the faster time zooms by. Would you believe I published my first ebook on Amazon and Smashwords all the way back in 2009?

I have had the pleasure of getting to know some of you since my early days, and I just want to take a moment to thank you for sticking with me through everything. It’s because of your encouragement that I’m still writing books today. (There was a time when I almost quit because of some negative feedback, and it was only the kind correspondence from you guys that kept me going.)

Alright, with that personal note aside, here is what’s going on in the world of “Ruth the writer”.

The Hero Least Likely will be out June 13!

This is Book 2 in the Love Under Desert Skies Series. (Book 1 is Tagalong Bride.)

Here is the description:

She’s a proper lady. He’s the lawman least likely to succeed. Tossed into the same adventure, can they find everlasting love?

Arizona, 1885. Bernadette Reid longs to be cherished. Delighted to meet a handsome and courageous rancher, the mail-order bride wants nothing more than to marry, settle down, and raise a family. But after her intended ropes her into joining the pursuit of two outlaws, she ends up having to spend time with an inept deputy who has the audacity to think he’s a rival for her affections. 

Zeke Ritter tires of all the snickering he’s endured his entire life. Determined to prove worthy of his badge, the young man joins the hunt for a pair of outlaws—only to be shocked at the beauty of a reluctant posse member. And when her rugged fiancé focuses more on wrangling bandits than her heart, he vows to help her find happiness even if it leaves him shattered. 

Discovering Zeke’s hidden charm, Bernadette struggles with the realization that her brother’s matched her to the wrong husband. And though Zeke knows the woman he craves deserves someone who truly appreciates her, he refuses to steal another’s fiancée. 

Will they defeat their fears and find strength in each other? 

In this book you’ll find a virgin hero and heroine, an underdog hero, one sex scene within marriage, an actual gunfight (which held me up for three whole weeks to get right), comedy, and the Red Ghost itself. (And, just for fun, I scared Lucas with another scorpion. You know, just because it’s fun to mess with your characters once you know their weakness.)

If this sounds like your cup of tea, you can find it at these places:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple

Smashwords

Google Play (ebook)

Google Play (audiobook)

Radish

I’m almost done with The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride

This is the first book in the Marriage by Chemistry Series.

At the moment, I am almost 64,000 words in this book. I have a main portion of the conflict resolved, but I need to do a few more scenes before the book is done. I can’t spoil things at this point, but I’m very happy with the way things have turned out, and it was fun to engage with a different twist on humor than what I typically do. The hero and heroine not knowing the other’s aliases early on in the story did provide some great comedy.

I’m waiting until I finish the first draft before reaching out to my editing team, so I don’t have a release date yet.

I don’t know if this will be ready by Halloween

This is Book 1 in the Marriage by Holiday Series.

I am almost at 20,000 words, but I can see that this is not going to be a novella. Not that I was planning to write a novella when I started this, but the storyline was so simple that I figured it would be on the shorter side. Now that I’m 20,000 words in, I realize I have a lot more to do in order to flesh the story out. This is a really fun story. It’s nice to take on a “fantasy-ish” tale.

I have decided that even if this is not ready by Halloween, I’m going to publish it afterwards. I don’t know how many people will be interested in a post-Halloween “Halloween” story, but it’s too difficult to try to line things up with certain seasonal periods anymore. I used to be able to line a book’s publication date within a certain time period. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that again, but for the time being, I can’t. So I’m just going to publish this book when it’s ready.

This story is still primarily a romance. It just happens to happen in October. I have put in a scene where the characters are making up a story about “Shifty Jack”, which apparently started in Ireland a long time ago, and I am going to feature a masquerade ball. But that’s pretty much it as far as any actual “Halloween” stuff goes. I don’t like to get into occultic stuff. They did actually do fortune telling, etc, in that time period, but I don’t want to go down that path. I would rather keep things light. So I’m limited in what I can do with Halloween in the Regency era. I will be able to play on the holidays of Christmas and Valentine’s more when we get to those books.

Still, the idea of our heroine taking on another life to see if the grass is greener on the other side (in other words, she puts on “another mask”) fits the Halloween season.

The Preacher’s Wife is slow going

This is Book 2 in the Oregon Series. (The Wilderness Bride is Book 1.)

This one comes to me a little at a time. I am struggling with knowing where to go next. I would plot, but every time I plot, the story veers off course, so I’m not going to waste my time. I like how the story has gone so far. This is a slow build, just like The Wilderness Bride was. The hero and heroine start out feeling like strangers, pretty much because they are, for all intents and purposes. But they are currently working on getting to know each other.

We are 20,000 words in, and they are still working on the friendship side of things. They are married at the beginning of the book, though, so the expectation is that they will fall in love. The question is when will they realize it. I see snippets of them starting to, but we aren’t there at the “this is it!” moment yet. I have no idea when that portion will come up.

It’s so weird. I felt that so little happened in The Wilderness Bride, but when I read over it, I never got bored. And I feel like this is the same way for this book. It feels like not much is happening when there really is. I guess the reason for this is that the action is “emotional” rather than “physical”.

That’s all I have for this month.

I would have liked to have gotten more done, but now that we’re in walking season, I’ve had to spend more time working on staying in shape. It took me a long time to get used to walking 3-5 miles at a time, and I don’t want to lose that momentum. I have also been making a lot more meals at home. The weight loss is very slow. I have always been slow in losing weight, so that’s not new, but I’ve been trying to focus more on the “eat better to get healthy” instead of “eat less to lose weight”, if that makes any sense. It’s unbelievable how much time goes into preparing stuff from scratch. I am not a big carb eater, but I do love my protein, veggies, and fruits. So I have a lot of meals that require me to be int he kitchen for a good segment of time on any given day. Add to that the fact that I have my husband and grown sons in the house, and I am pretty much busy. 🙂

This is still in edits.

This is Book 2 in the Love Under Desert Skies Series. (Book 1 is Tagalong Bride.)

Things are going slower than I originally planned. I was hoping to get The Hero Least Likely out this month, but it’s looking like we’re looking at a June release instead. Right now, it’s still with my editing team.

A quick note about YouTube and Rumble:

I am narrating and posting my books, chapter by chapter, on YouTube and Rumble. I am currently working on putting Eye of the Beholder up. (I already finished with Tagalong Bride.) I post a new chapter Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I schedule these chapters in advance so that I don’t get overwhelmed by trying to do too much at once. I’m the kind of person who needs to pace herself. 🙂

The reason I publish more stuff on YouTube is that it’s easier to manage videos there. I have a harder time figuring out Rumble.

If you would like to listen to my books as I post them, here are the links:

YouTube

Rumble

Links to books’ playlists on YouTube:

On YouTube, I also post other videos, mostly to do with writing, publishing, marketing, and books I’m working on so here at the links specifically to the books:

To go directly to the Tagalong Bride playlist, click here.

To go directly to the Eye of the Beholder playlist, click here.

Loving Eliza is not available yet, but that book will start on May 14.

After Loving Eliza, I’ll be putting The Hero Least Likely up.

I am 53,000 words into The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride

This is Book 1 in the Marriage by Chemistry Series.

I still have a way to go before I’m done with this book. The reason writing is so slow for me these days is that I keep on adding to the story. I think I have about 20,000 more words to go before I’m done with this, but we’ll see. I don’t want to rush the book. I’m enjoying it. (I’m enjoying all of these books. It’s so nice that the burnout phase of my life is over.) I want to make this the best story it can be.

At the moment, the hero and heroine both know their secret identities. The heroine isn’t happy with him because in the opening scene, he did reject her play. He’s given her the love potion in an attempt to make amends and have her quickly forget how much he hurt her with that rejection, but the love potion didn’t work. So he’ll have to find another way to work things out.

I have brought in Logan (who was the hero in Ruined by the Earl which was Book 3 in the Marriage by Deceit Series), and it’s been a lot of fun catching up on things with him. I enjoy bringing in past characters if I can squeeze them in.

I’m 13,000 words in Masquerade Bride

This is Book 1 in the Marriage by Holiday Series.

This is my Halloween romance. The heroine is now in her new life as the “popular” girl. This is a lot of fun. She gets to assume a new identity and find out what life is like on the other side of the fence, so to speak.

I had to make a hard decision. This is Book 1 in the Marriage by Holiday Series. The Christmas book (A Wedding Carol) is next, and the Valentine book (It’s a Wonderful Marriage) is after that. But since I am writing so much slower these days, I don’t have the time to work on the Christmas and Valentine books to get the Christmas one out in November/December 2025 and February 2026. So I am pushing the Christmas book to November/December 2026. Hopefully, I can get the Valentine one out in February 2027.

The Preacher’s Wife is 19,000 words along.

This is Book 2 in the Oregon Series.

I can’t write in this every week. I find that I am also having to go back and revising scenes before I can move forward. I know where I am heading, but I’m having trouble figuring out the scenes that will connect where I currently am to where I need to be. So I’m letting my mind rest and think about it.

***

Since I am pushing the Christmas and Valentine stories back, my immediate plans involve working on Book 3 in the Love Under Desert Skies Series when I finish The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride. I also plan on getting to Book 2 in the Marriage by Chemistry Series, but I don’t have a title for it yet.

I hope everyone has a wonderful May!