Hello Reader Friend!

I’m so excited to share Healing the Mountain Man’s Heart with you and your book club!

When I was brainstorming ideas for my new series, I knew I wanted the stories to be set on a ranch amidst the breathtaking beauty of the Montana mountains. But I wanted something a little more unusual than that. I know, what could be more special than a ranch in the Rockies?

So I brought the conundrum to some writer friends and asked for help brainstorming. There’s nothing quite so fascinating as a group of writers in full brainstorming mode. Since the series is set during the mining boom in Montana, we discussed the idea of some kind of mine on the ranch, but not gold or silver. Or even copper. The remarkable Sarah Erredge (who writes as S.E. Warren) suggested Sapphires.

That thought immediately grabbed hold of me (especially since the Sapphire is the birthstone for my month of September). But I’d never heard of Sapphires being discovered in Montana. That seemed impossible… Right?

Until some quick research showed there are three well-known pockets of sapphires in the state! Rock Creek is one of those locations, and is positioned perfectly for where I wanted to set my story—west of Helena and about a half day’s ride from the Mullan Road.

The timing of sapphire discoveries in the state is perfect for my series as well. Early prospectors searching for gold in the gravel of the Missouri River repeatedly discarded the annoying blue pebbles that continually clogged their sluices without much thought to what they may be. It wasn’t discovered that these “pebbles” were sapphires until 1895 when a man named Ed Coulter forwarded samples of these stones to Tiffany & Co. When Tiffany purchased the lot for $3,750 (approximately $110,300 as of 2018) and declared that the stones were “sapphires of unusual quality,” a small-scale sapphire rush began.

This rush is exactly what the Coulter brothers in the Brothers of Sapphire Ranch series are trying to avoid. That’s why they keep the sapphire mine on their property secret during this first book in the series, Healing the Mountain Man’s Heart.

I pray you love book 1 in this new series and fall as deeply in love with this ranch in the Rockies as I have, especially with the Brothers of Sapphire Ranch. 

I pray you and your book club enjoy Healing the Mountain Man’s Heart! If you’d like me to join one of your discussion sessions through video or phone, I’d be honored. Just send me a note through the Contact Page. I can’t wait to meet you!

Hugs and blessings!

Misty M. Beller

(Colossians 1:9-11)