# Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold, historical romance



## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold is a story of family conflicts set in Colorado in 1885. Anne Wells has embarrassed her rigidly proper family since she was a child with occasional but grievous lapses from ladylike behavior. They blame those lapses for the disgraceful fact that she is a spinster at 28. Cord Bennett, the son of his father's second marriage to a Cheyenne woman, is more than an embarrassment to his well-to-do family of ranchers and lawyers - they are ashamed and afraid of their black sheep. When Anne and Cord are found alone together, her father's fury leads to violence.  Cord's family is more than willing to believe that the fault is his.  Can Anne and Cord use the freedom of being condemned for sins they didn't commit to make a life together? Or will their disapproving, interfering families tear them apart? Kindle Locations: 4,846.

I only uploaded this book to Amazon late last Thursday and didn't expect it to be live over the weekend.  To my surprise and delight, when I went to check the day's sales on my mystery, Eyes was live and a couple of copies had sold.  I don't even know how people found it so quickly, but I'm a very happy camperette at the moment.

Eyes is the book I wrote to win a bet with my sister some years ago.  I did a lot of editing and revising on it before publishing for Kindle, and I still think it's a good story.  Hope some of you will too.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Eyes has been selling at a modest by steady pace since I published it early this month.  And I'm happy about that since I know historical western romances aren't a hot genre these days.  However, I must admit I've been feeling kind of pouty about the fact it had only one review, a very complimentary review, but only one.  Low and behold this evening a second one has shown up!  Short, but kind words and very welcome.


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## dpinmd (Dec 30, 2009)

I really enjoyed _Rottweiler Rescue_, so I already know that I like your writing style (even though this sounds like a completely different kind of story). I need to finish a couple of other books first, but then I'm looking forward to reading this one!


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## DonnaFaz (Dec 5, 2009)

Ellen, I missed this thread when you first posted it. I love the title. I don't normally read historicals, but I'll download a sample and take a look.

Please...if you will...tell me what this means <<Kindle Locations: 4,846>>

Thanks,
~Donna~


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Hey, thanks, ladies.

Donna, the Kindle locations number means that's how long the book is. I saw a reader suggest on one of these forums that Kindle authors give some indication of length of book because so many people are putting really short stuff out there and not bothering to mention it and readers feel cheated when they think they're getting a book and get a short story or novella (it happened to me once so I know the feeling).  Page numbers aren't relevant in a Kindle-only book.  I suppose the other way would be word count, but I'm not sure many people have a sense of how long a book is if you give word count either.  As it happens, Eyes is about 118,000 words, definitely not a short story.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Hi Ellen,

I know you know the drill, but just a reminder:

We invite you to use your book cover as your avatar and have links to your book and website in your signature. Be sure to read the fine print below. Don't forget to bookmark this thread so you can update it. Although self-promotion is limited to the Book Bazaar, most of our authors have found the best way to promote their books is to be as active throughout KindleBoards as time allows. This is your target audience--book lovers with Kindles!

Thanks for being part of KindleBoards! Feel free to PM us if you have any questions.

Betsy & Ann
Book Bazaar Moderators

_The fine print:
Please add to your existing book thread when you have news about your book rather than start a new one, it helps the members who are trying to follow you. You may have a separate thread for each of your books. We recommend you bookmark your post so that you can find it in the future.  You may respond to all posts, but if there have been no member posts, we ask that you wait a week before "bumping" the thread by posting back-to-back posts of your own. And we ask that Amazon reviews not be repeated here as they are easy to find at your book link. Also, full reviews from other sites should not be posted here, but you may post a short blurb and a link to the full review instead. All this, and more, is included in our Forum Decorum. From time to time our site rules may change; be sure to check Forum Decorum (http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,36.0.html) for the current guidelines and rules. _


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

To my delight, sales of Eyes have been picking up for the last couple of weeks.  It has actually outsold my mystery a couple of days and managed a higher Amazon ranking too.  What surprises me is that from reader comments and the way the sales go, I can tell that there are readers who are buying both books, even though they are in such different genres - historical western romance vs. cozy woman sleuth mystery - that I didn't expect them to both appeal to the same people at all.  I always figured I was one of the few in the world....


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## bkworm8it (Nov 17, 2008)

Both looked very interesting, I just went ahead and purchased both. They will be great to read between the very long novels I'm currently reading. And when I mean long, I mean over 11,000 kindle location


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Thanks, bkworm8it. Hope you enjoy them both. Wow! 11,000+ Kindle locations are VERY long novels. I can only think of one fiction title that long on my Kindle.


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## bkworm8it (Nov 17, 2008)

Ohh your missing out. There are several long novels here from other Authors on this board.    I think out of the 5 long ones I have only one came from an author not on kindleboards


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

After a slow start, Eyes is all of a sudden starting to sell very well. Last night, for reasons I won't reveal because it would just give everyone a chance to snicker at me, I was up in the middle of the night - 3 a.m. - and decided to look at Amazon. Eyes had a Kindle ranking of 891! Neither of my books had come close to breaking into the top 1,000 before and I never expected it. It stayed in that rarified air for 4 hours.

I know that the fact that the freebies have been moved out into their own ranking list contributed mightily to this, but I DON'T CARE.  It happened, and I caught it, and it made my day.


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## AnnaM (Jul 15, 2009)

Congratulations! 

EOS/EOG is a great read! 

Ellen, it's time to take your turn at the top of that western list!


Anna


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

AnnaM - Thanks so much. Your success is a great model. Your book is on my Kindle waiting for when I actually sit and read again as opposed to what I'm doing right this minute and have been doing too much of. I guess all the people who say the western historical romance isn't popular and there's no market for them are wrong, aren't they?


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## AnnaM (Jul 15, 2009)

Thanks Ellen. I'm so excited to see your western selling well. I think we get a sales synergy from each other -- I've noticed that indie historical romances tend to move up and down the bestseller lists together, so when one of us is doing well it tends to bring the rest up. Keep pulling the train, sister!

_I guess all the people who say the western historical romance isn't popular and there's no market for them are wrong, aren't they?_

When I queried with _Unbroken Hearts_ back in 2002-3 I was told nobody wanted to read a western historical romance.

Ha!


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## OliverCrommer (May 17, 2010)

Excellent news. How exactly have you been promoting it? Sounds like it's working.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Anna - It's really interesting what you said about historicals affecting each other that way. I noticed that Ruth Ann Nordin's Wrong Husband and my book are side by side on several lists and only thought it was a nice coincidence.

Jason - I've only promoted my books by posting in the Amazon Kindle forums, here, and Mobile Reads. One of the difficult things about that is deciding how and how much because I think if you overdo it, you cause more harm than good. There can be a lot of negative feedback from readers on these forums if you cross the line into what they consider spamming, and I admit I have about half a dozen indie authors on Ignore at Amazon myself because I got sick of seeing their names every day in every thread. My own preference is also for short posts. When I see something promoting a book that's screens long, zap.


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## OliverCrommer (May 17, 2010)

Good points, Ellen. Congrats on your novel.


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## AnnaM (Jul 15, 2009)

_Anna - It's really interesting what you said about historicals affecting each other that way. I noticed that Ruth Ann Nordin's Wrong Husband and my book are side by side on several lists and only thought it was a nice coincidence.
_

We pull each other along when we get on the "also bought" lists on each other's product pages. When someone reads your book (and likes it!) they look for other similar books (same genre), and (hopefully) click on mine. It also happens in reverse. I wish your book would come up higher on my "also bought" lists, because it's a great book and you're indie. I'm hoping it will move up on those lists as more people buy it, and that benefits both of us.

Keep writing! There aren't enough good new books in our category. More would be better because we want to be "sticky". Once a reader gets hooked on the western historicals they look to buy more. Because the mainstream publishers ignored this category for so long there just aren't enough of them. It's not overstocked like the vampire thingy. I believe we are in a good place for future growth.


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## Kathy (Nov 5, 2008)

I love historical romance and have purchased this book. Can't wait to read it.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Kathy - Thanks.  Hope you do enjoy it.

Anna - I see what you mean about the "also bought" lists. Wish I knew how to change them, not because of Eyes but because of my mystery. Its sales have been slower and I feel that what is on its also bought list at the moment is part of the reason. They're all but one older books by the same author. I looked at them myself and didn't much care for them. But it's not as if, even if I knew enough Kindle owners, I can pay them to buy my book along with something I like better until that screen changes. I'm having to hope time will fix it.

Hope you're right that there aren't enough western historicals for the people who want to read them. They're what I like and the only kind of romance I see myself writing.


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## ValeriGail (Jan 21, 2010)

I picked this book up on a recommendation... and I have to say.. WOW!! I loved every minute I was reading it (except when I had to put it down to sleep! lol) I just posted a review on Amazon and wanted to plug it in here for the kindleboard members to see. Basically to bump up your thread so more readers can see this amazing book is there!

I'm glad you decided to win the bet with your sister and write this book, it is truly wonderful.

here's my review

_I read this book in two days, only because I had to put it down the first night around 3 am to get a couple hours sleep. Wish I had started it earlier in the day!  This is by far my favorite genre, Historical Western Romance, but not all westerns fit into my favorite type of book. This one hit it dead center on the head. It was perfect! Enough motion in the side stories to keep you riveted to your seat, enough steam in the bedroom to burn your fingertips with out making you blush (slow till about the middle of the book), and a slow progressing love story that seems to be hard for most authors to get just right. But just right it was.

I loved the development of the main Character, Anne. Despite an emotionally stunted and controlled childhood&#8230; she's spunky and comes into her own with a vengeance. Not one to stand aside any longer (or really ever), she stands up for what is right and fights to protect what is hers. I LOVED that about her character. She did not, or would not, sit on the side lines while others defended her.

Cord, our hero of the story, is remarkable and misunderstood. He's silent and reserved and the whole time you want to scream at him to just open up.. but yet your drawn to his emotional silence just as much as you are to Anne's emotional openness. There are many reasons for his reserved emotional state.. from race in a time of un-acceptance, family misunderstandings and family tragedy. A character with depth beyond most characters, and I found him very intriguing.

The awakening of the two of them is beautiful, along with the awakening of their families. I recommend this book to anyone that loves a good solid historical western romance. 
_


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## JennSpot (Feb 13, 2009)

Ellen~

I like well done historical romances and I *really* enjoyed EOS/EOG. Your characters are very engaging and quickly drew me into the story. I think ValeriGail's review is much more eloquent than I could ever be, so i will just agree with her completely!

As a dressage rider I particularly enjoyed all of the horsey bits and you must be a horsewoman too, to be able to write about them with such understanding and passion.

Keep writing...
Jenn


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

ellenoc said:


> ... Eyes had a Kindle ranking of 891! Neither of my books had come close to breaking into the top 1,000 before and I never expected it. It stayed in that rarified air for 4 hours.
> 
> I know that the fact that the freebies have been moved out into their own ranking list contributed mightily to this, but I DON'T CARE. It happened, and I caught it, and it made my day.


This is so gleefully cheerful, I'm buying your book as soon as I post this!


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

I just  came to this, my own thread, thinking maybe I could find a way to get in touch with ValeriGail to say thank you for your review and am thinking that a message here will do it. Of course I'm grateful to every single person who leaves a review and wish there were ways to thank everyone who takes the time.  However, I have to say, that this is the first time a review made me cry - the good kind of tears.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

JennSpot - Yes, thank you too.  You are right about the horse background.  I bred, raised, trained, and showed Morgan horses for more than 20 years in my younger days.  You can see a couple of my favorite horse photos from those days on my website.

LKRigel - You're making me feel good too.  Gleefully cheerful is a very pretty phrase for the way it makes me feel.  You ladies have pushed Eyes into that rarefied air again today.  Many, many thanks.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

So today Eyes just got the first 3-star review either of my books has ever gotten - at least on Amazon, there's also a 3-star for Eyes on Smashwords. From what I've seen about how any book that only has 4s and 5s is suspect, I suppose it should make me happy. Somehow it's not having that effect, although it's not sending me into a tailspin either.


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## DonnaFaz (Dec 5, 2009)

Hi, Ellen,

Couldn't locate your thread for Rottweiler Rescue, so I'm posting this here. Wanted to let you know that I bought RR and plan to read it as soon as I can. (I must note that I have quite a backlog of TBRs. <g>)

Looking forward to reading your book.

~Donna~


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Hi Everyone - Here I go with that gleefully cheerful thing again. Today Eyes hit #569 on the Paid in Kinde Store list, the highest I've ever seen it. What tickles me more, however, is that it's the #2 Western, which puts it ahead of Lonesome Dove. Yes, I know that Lonesome Dove is an old book and has just been released for Kindle and at a perfectly ridiculous price, but still.... It tickles me no end and I can't stop chuckling to myself over it.

Donna - Thanks. I hope you really enjoy Rottweiler Rescue. It keeps right on corking along too. Even though at the moment all the sales glory belongs to Eyes, Eyes is younger and we know what that means.


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## bkworm8it (Nov 17, 2008)

I really enjoyed this book. I did leave a review on Amazon as well a while back. Kept me up during finals because I wanted to finish reading instead of studying lol!


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Hi Everyone,

I don't know if people visit threads like this once they've read a book, but I hope so because I've had an idea and would like to be able to let readers who enjoyed Eyes know. What happened is that I was organizing and cleaning out some old files on my PC and came across a chapter I edited out of the book before putting it out for Kindle. Not that I thought it was a bad chapter, but the book is long, and I worried about the length of it and was pretty rigorous about anything left in having to be really necessary to the story. This chapter, what I call the Latimer Chapter, is an appealing episode, I think, but didn't reveal anything new or different enough about Anne, Cord or their relationship for the 2,600 words it added.

I don't know if anyone who has read the book and liked it would be interested in downloading this additional chapter (it wouldn't make sense to anyone who has not already read the book), but in case someone might, I've set up a download link on my website and made it available as a prc file, which will work on a Kindle or any other reader of MobiPocket format, and also as a pdf file for Adobe Acrobat.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

Why not put it up on Kindle for .99 as a short story? You could put a link to it at the end of Eyes, and in the description section at Amazon you can explain what it is.

I think ancillary offerings like these are going to become de rigueur.

In fact, Blue Amber, my free prologue to a novel that isn't edited yet, was originally the first two chapters. I decided it was too much back story and excised it from the book. But it's kind of interesting. I made it free on Kindle and used it to practice making covers and formatting. Once I get _Space Junque_ up, I'll flesh out Blue Amber with more of a real story arc and put a price on it -- .99.

Long story short -- put it up for .99 and see what happens.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

LKRigel said:


> Why not put it up on Kindle for .99 as a short story?


It's not a short story. It's a chapter of the book that wouldn't make sense to anyone who hadn't read the rest of the book. And I really don't want to sell it, just to make it available to the people who have read Eyes and loved it enough to tell me about it and say they wish they could spend more time with Cord and Anne Bennett.


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## Steph H (Oct 28, 2008)

Ellen, though I purchased the book back in May, I *finally* got around to reading it this past weekend. I was determined to read at least 2 KB author books and with 100+ of those waiting for me (some are all of a series, for instance), to be fair I decided to do a 'randomizer' kind of thing - pick a random page in the KB Author collection, then pick a random book.  Yours was one of the ones picked! LOL

I really enjoyed the story, it was very well-written and kept me reading straight through, wanting to find out what happened next. So much going on!  I looked down when I got to Chapter 21, saw that I was only about 38% of the way through and thought "oh my goodness, they've already been through so much, what else can she possibly have happen in another 62%?!"  Wow. Just wow. What a wonderful story of love and adversity and family and coming together and prevailing and all of that! I'm glad I came here and caught up on your thread too, so I can go now and catch up with your 'extra missing thought-to-be-lost-forever special new chapter'. 

I hope you'll revisit the families in a future novel, since there are some kids in the family that will be growing up enough to mature and get married soon....and of course all the related family members like Anne and Cord and their kid(s) will have to be included in the story line occasionally.  Oh! Rob needs to find someone too, you could do his story even before the kids' stories....


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Steph H - I'm so glad Eyes won your book lottery, so to speak, and that you took the time to let me know you liked it. You're right - it's a long book at 118,000 words. So far I haven't found any other stories in the Bennett family, but who knows what may crop up in the future. I'm working on another western historical romance right now, but it starts in Texas in 1867. The characters are very different but I hope readers will like them and their story as much.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Hi everyone,

I realize that KB people aren't exactly interested in paperbacks, but I also figure we all have stick-in-the-mud friends. So I'm posting here to say that there is now a paperback version of Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold available on Amazon. It's not yet coming up on a search, but it's linked to the Kindle version, so bringing the Kindle version up allows you to get to the page for the paperback.

Eyes has really struck a chord with a lot of historical romance readers. It now has 23 reviews, 21 five-star, 1 four-star, and 1 three star.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

While it is a very small sale, Amazon now has Eyes priced at $2.39, a 20% discount from the usual price of $2.99. Since Amazon is doing this to match the discounted price of the ebook at Kobo, and Kobo shouldn't be selling the book at all, I cannot say how long this sale price will be in effect. If there are any bargain hunters out there who might be interested in a western historical romance that spent several weeks in the Top 1000 Kindle book rankings last month and popped into that rarefied air again today, now would be a good time to look at this book.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

I have a theory (hope) that all the new K3 people are out there looking for books right about now, and so I also hope that this is a good time to bounce this thread so that it's on the first page of the Bazaar for an hour or two.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Eyes is featured today on Scott Nicholson's Indie Books blog. Scott does a nice job for each author/book with a good-sized image of the cover and nice length of interview.

http://indiebooksblog.blogspot.com/

I also had a happy reader start a thread on Eyes in the Amazon Romance forum that's bubbling along a bit. That is *not *a pro indie bunch over there, so it feels like a real break through.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

When I look at my own last post in this thread it makes me shake my head. Such innocence! What actually happened with the thread in the Romance forum (which I didn't start and never participated in) was that every reader who said she liked _Eyes _was accused of being a shill. The thread got progressively nastier and I got roasted as overpromoting scum.

So I guess if I'm going to be a bear, I might as well be a grizzly and bump this thread and scummily mention _Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold_ - my "controversial" best selling western historical romance.


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## marilyn.k (Oct 30, 2010)

Dear Ellen,

I recently finished Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold and thought it was wonderful. You were my first indie author and the book was rated so highly that I thought, why not give this lady a chance and try her book. From the very first page I was hooked and hated putting it down to sleep. Actually, I just put it down for a moment to "rest my eyes" and awoke the next morning with my kindle is sleep mode. I rated it a 5-star. I am very happy for you that others are discovering your book and enjoying it. The fact that's it's now available in paperback is great news because it will only increase your following and popularity. Good for you. The publishers who say Western Romance is not popular these days are way off the mark IMO. And as for the ole squalling cats on the other forum, ignore them. I read those posts and was appalled. Not only are they full of envy but they are sick, sick, sick. Congratulations on the success of EOS, EOG. I look forward to reading your new book and whatever may follow. And may you continue to float in la-la land for as long as possible and skip happily all the way to the bank.


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## thatlaurie (Sep 21, 2010)

Those loved this book should definitely pick up the extra chapter. Though I understand (I think) why you cut it from the novel, that chapter does add to the story in interesting ways. In particular, it fleshes out the treatment Anne receives from townsfolk and develops Cord's relationship with the horsetrainer/dealer with whom he is friends. I thought it meshed beautifully.

And I, too, cannot wait for the one you have coming out at year's end!

Laurie


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## Travis haselton (Jul 24, 2010)

My wife realy liked this book. She doesn't realy write reviews but she would give it at least four stars.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Hi Everybody,

I was hoping to be able today to start a new thread on my second western historical romance, Sing My Name, but it's still listed as "Publishing" on Amazon and hasn't gone live yet, so I'm going to bump this thread on Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold.

Becoming controversial doesn't seem to have hurt the book. I still hear from lots of readers who like it, and even though it's been out for Kindle since April, an occasional new review pops up pretty regularly.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

I know this time of year a lot of people are looking for Christmas-themed books, and none of mine qualify. However, _Eyes _does cover two Christmases in the lives of Cord and Anne Bennett, and the description of the first one particularly is "Christmasy" enough that I know one person who was inspired to bake cookies after reading it.

So maybe for romance readers who are willing to settle for a couple of holiday scenes instead of a whole book....


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

I'd forgotten how long it's been since I posted to this thread. Since that time my big news has been that my second romance, _Sing My Name_, was rated as a Desert Isle Keeper by All About Romance. What has that got to do with _Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold? Eyes_ continues to hold its own in sales and fans even without that kind of boost.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Wow, it's been a while since I bumped this thread - again. What inspired me today is that sometime in the past few days, _Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold _passed 10,000 sales. Among other things that makes me feel good about my decision to publish it last year, as it's now earned considerably more than 3 times that "average" first time advance that gets bandied about so much.

The other news, a bit dated but news since the last post to this thread, is that _Eyes _received a nice review in early June at Dear Author.


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