Farm Wife Author Life – A Little Bit of Everything

/ K.R. Brorman / Leave a comment

There’s a rhythm to this life I didn’t plan, but wouldn’t trade.

Part farm.
Part writing desk. Part “What day is it, and why is there a fly in my coffee?” Because you left it there to reheat over and over for 12 hours.

Lately, it feels like everything is happening at once—and somehow, it all fits.

The Writing Life

Secrets & Smoke is officially on submission.

That sentence feels both quiet and enormous. Years in the making, shaped by fire and time and more than a little hesitation—and now it’s out in the world, finding its way.

Book Two is drafted, and revisions are on hold until Book 1 is agented or we pivot. Book Three is… forming. The characters have plenty to say. I just need to type a little faster—or think a little slower.

And then there’s the shifter series. Who what?

The one that’s been waiting patiently, sort of, for nearly a decade, while I figured out who I am as a writer. Turns out, it’s not done with me yet. I’ve started drafting, and it feels a little like coming home to something wilder than I remembered.

This week, I had the idea for a handful of true-crime essays—personal, reflective pieces that have been circling for a while as “should I write a book?”

The Farm Wife Part

Wheat harvest is just around the corner, which means everything speeds up and slows down at the same time.

Meals get simpler. Days get longer. The dust settles into everything—and somehow, it still feels right.

The garden is calling too. Prep season is here, and I’ve got plans that may or may not survive the Texas weather. We’ll see who wins.

And every morning, while I can, I’m out picking dandelion blooms by the quart. Part habit, part peace, part side hustle.

The Side Hustle

The dandelion-infused self-care line(salve, scrub, body butter, lip balm) is still very much a work in progress—but it’s one I love.

There’s something grounding about it. Slow work. Seasonal. Tangible.

A reminder that not everything has to be fast to be meaningful.

The Life Part

We welcomed a new grandson in January.

And truly, that’s the center of everything right now.

There’s something about holding the next generation that shifts your perspective. Slows you down in the best way. Makes all the other pieces feel like they belong to something bigger.

The Community

New Frontiers in Writing Conference in 2025 was a success—and we’re already building toward New Frontiers in Writing Workshop 2026 – you should join us!

I’m again serving as Education Director, and we’ve got a strong lineup coming together for this year’s workshop. It’s the kind of work that fills the well instead of draining it.

I also have a short story included in the 2025 THPW anthology, and I had the honor of writing the introduction for the THPW Route 66 Centennial Anthology.

In October, I’ll be speaking at my first conference with Women Writing the West, which feels equal parts exciting and a little bit surreal.

So, Where Does That Leave Me?

Busy. Grateful. A little dusty.

Writing when I can. Living in between.

Telling stories in one form or another—whether it’s on the page, in the kitchen, or out in the field with a bucket of dandelions and a head full of ideas.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for sitting a spell.

There’s more coming.

There always is.

Coming Soon: Harvest Meals

With wheat harvest right around the corner, I’ll be sharing a short series of harvest meals—the kind that feed a crew, travel well, and don’t fall apart before they make it to the field.

Nothing fancy. Just real food, real life, and maybe a glimpse of how the farm finds its way into the stories.

—KRB

An Open Letter to JD Kirk – For Dialogue That Knows When to laugh…and When Not To

/ K.R. Brorman / Leave a comment

I stayed for the dialogue.

I think my first DCI Logan read came through my Audible subscription—one of those “why not?” clicks—and let’s be honest, who doesn’t love a good Scottish detective? I’m pretty sure Angus King didn’t hurt matters either.

But it was the dialogue that kept me there, binging then auto-buying.

The sharp, laugh-out-loud, did-he-really-just-say-that kind of dialogue that makes the DCI Logan/Bob Hoon series impossible to read quietly in public. The kind that sneaks up on you—one perfectly timed line—and suddenly you’re grinning like an idiot, or wheezing and wiping tears away as you snaugh (snort + laugh) Coke Zero through your nose over a murder investigation.

It’s quick. It’s cutting. It’s human in a way that doesn’t feel written.

The kind of dialogue that can carry a full scene and still slip in something so completely unhinged and perfectly timed, you have to stop and reread it/rewind.

Like Logan, mid-chase, at the climax of A Litter of Bones (check out the full cast recording if you can), giving coordinates for a possible serial killer and casually signing off with something along the lines of,
“We’re the ones with the blue lights going… nee-noo nee-noo.”

It shouldn’t work.
It absolutely does.

And then there’s Hoon—who operates on an entirely different/unhinged moral and conversational plane:
“Did they clone him from one of your less-impressive bowel movements?” (That is mild Hoon! IYKYK)

Which is either the most offensive or most accurate insult I’ve ever read. Possibly both.

And I loved it.
I expected it.
I counted on it.

So, when I downloaded Recall (James McAvoy) and didn’t laugh?

I noticed.

Not because something was missing—but because something had shifted.

The humor wasn’t there to cushion the story. The dialogue didn’t reach for the release valve. It just… held.

And it worked just as well.

Maybe better.

Because what stood out—what really stood out—was that the strength had never been the humor. The strength was always the voice behind it. The rhythm. The restraint. The ability to let characters speak exactly as much as they should… and not a word more.

It’s not easy to write funny dialogue that lands.

It’s even harder to write dialogue that knows when not to.

That trusts the silence.
That lets tension sit in the space between lines.
That allows characters to carry weight without deflecting it.

That’s what Recall showed me.

The humor in Logan. The chaos in the Hoon books. The bite, the banter, the perfectly timed irreverence—it all works because it’s grounded in something deeper. Something controlled.

Something intentional.

You didn’t lose the humor.

You proved you didn’t need it.

And as a reader—and a writer—that’s the part I’m taking with me.

So thank you.

For the lines that made me laugh.
And for the ones that didn’t have to.

—KRB

For more unhinged Hoon quotes, check out this post on The Great British Book Club. Don’t try to drink and read!


Who are some authors/characters who make you literally LOL?

Secrets & Smoke: A Heartfelt Romance Amidst Wildfire Tragedy

/ K.R. Brorman / Leave a comment

How It All Started…

I don’t remember the exact moment this story started.
I just remember the sky turned gray, and everything felt fragile.

In 2017, wildfires tore through the Texas High Plains. I fast-drafted the beginnings of a novel that November but let it mostly sit—out of respect, out of grief, out of that quiet uncertainty that asks, Who am I to tell this story? Years later, another fire swept through that same stretch of land. And the question changed.

Who am I not to?

That’s how Secrets & Smoke was born—a novel about what happens after the fire, after the loss, after the silence. About a cowboy trying to live up to the legacy, a woman running toward a future that scares her, and the secrets that spark when their paths collide.

There’s heat in this story—but it’s the kind that simmers.
There’s suspense—but it arrives with slow reveals and emotional gut punches.
And there’s a romance—but not the tidy kind.

This is love in the middle of rebuilding.
Love that asks hard questions.
Love that doesn’t always know how to ask for what it needs.

It’s the first book in the Chambers County Romance series:

  • Book One: Secrets & Smoke – complete and on submission
  • Book Two – drafted and in revision
  • Book Three – in the works (the characters are more than ready—I just type and think slowly)

If you’ve ever rooted for the quiet one, the messy one, or the kind of love that shows up in small ways before it ever says it out loud, you might feel right at home here.

Thanks for being curious.
Thanks for reading.
And thank you for making space for stories like this.

—KRB

Tohrment: The Quiet Hero of the Black Dagger Brotherhood

/ K.R. Brorman / Leave a comment

An Open Letter to JR Ward

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

I started my reread of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series in anticipation of the Passionflix adaptation—and let’s be honest, the TikTok love fest didn’t hurt. Watching new readers discover this world has been one of the most joyful things I didn’t know I needed. There’s something special about seeing others fall for characters you’ve carried with you for years.

I was late to the series, probably 7-10 yrs behind the rest of the world. From the moment Tohrment stepped onto the page in Dark Lover, I was hooked. Not the loudest. Not the flashiest. But something about him stayed with me—steady, grieving, quietly dangerous in the way still water runs deep.

I speed-read the series just to get to his book. I couldn’t wait to see him finally take center stage.

And then…
Book Ten came. And he didn’t. Not the same way Wrath, Rhage, Zsadist, Butch, Vishous and Phury had done, and let’s not forget the THREE other books that he patiently waited through.

There was so much going on—other threads, other couples, other heartbreaks.
And Tohrment, the one I had chased across ten books, felt like a side story in his own book.

I was disappointed. Not because it wasn’t well written, but because it wasn’t what I’d pictured. Kind of like when the actor cast to play your favorite book boyfriend doesn’t quite live up to the version in your head… # irony I wanted fireworks. I wanted vengeance. I wanted the kind of love that explodes.

But this time around, and I’m only up to book six—older, maybe a little more weathered—I see it.
I see him.

It’s hard to write a main character who doesn’t demand the spotlight. To give us a man who won’t fight for his own happiness, who doesn’t believe he deserves it, who keeps showing up for everyone else instead.

The moment Tohr opens his arms to John Matthew(Lover Enshrined) when he could’ve pulled away, stayed closed off, protected his pain instead of his son? That was it. That’s when I got it! He doesn’t flinch. He just… receives it. Like he always has.

You gave us the slow rebuild of a man who had no reason to hope.

And you didn’t rush it. You didn’t tie it in a bow. You let it hurt, and stall, and stretch until healing showed up looking nothing like he expected.

That takes guts. That takes restraint. That takes the kind of storytelling that sticks.

I didn’t understand him the first time. But I do now.

Thank you for writing him the way you did. For making room on the page for quiet strength, for slow redemption, and for the kind of love that doesn’t chase the spotlight—but still shows up in full.

—

I have more letters to write. Phury’s story surprised me in ways I wasn’t ready for. The V and Butch Bromance and Why People Get It Wrong. And don’t even get me started on the fallen angels. But for now—to Tohr. And to the woman who gave him back to us.

Which Brother or side character surprised you the most? Do you feel differently as you revisit the series?

The Impact of Note-Writing: A Thank-You to Influential Authors

/ K.R. Brorman / Leave a comment

The first note I sent wasn’t meant to be the start of anything. But afterward, I couldn’t stop thinking about how many authors have given me something worth thanking them for. So I’m sharing this one—the note that launched the series—as the very first. To Maria Popova at The Marginalian

Dear Maria,

Sometimes the algorithms get it right. They led me to your piece Walt Whitman on What Makes Life Worth Living, and I’m so glad they did. While I wouldn’t call myself a student of Whitman, I’ve grown to appreciate his reverence for nature and the quiet healing found in simple pleasures—gardening, walking barefoot in the grass, pausing to notice the world.

Visiting your site felt less like scrolling and more like overhearing a conversation I didn’t know I needed—a gentle dialogue about meaning, beauty, and the grace of being alive. I haven’t wanted to sit and binge-read in ages, but I found myself lingering, drawn in by your reflections. I’ve subscribed to your newsletter, made a small donation, and will continue to support your work when I’m able.

Thank you for sharing your gift so generously. The world is better for it.

Warmly,
Kristine Brorman

Have you ever been moved to write to an author or artist?

Writing Thank-You Notes to Influential Writers

/ K.R. Brorman / Leave a comment

This series started this morning, July 3, 2025, with a note.

One of those crack-of-dawn, pre-coffee, heart-full moments where the right words from someone else settled something in me—and I just needed to say thank you. No clue what motivated me to send it. I definitely didn’t expect to keep going. But here I am, launching a new series: Here’s Who I’m Thanking This Week—open letters to the authors, artists, and storytellers whose work has stuck with me.

And truthfully?
It started even earlier.

During the long stretch of uncertainty that was 2020, I began a daily gratitude journal. It wasn’t fancy. Just a few minutes a day. But that habit got me through some rough mornings and heavy seasons. I kept it up for nearly two years—and though I’ve fallen out of the daily rhythm, the mindset never left.

So this series isn’t just about books.
It’s about what those books gave me.

It’s about laughter when I needed lightness.
A well-timed line that hit like truth.
A quiet, steady character who reminded me how strength really looks.

Each letter is different. Some are short and sharp. Others meander through memory. Some celebrate well-known authors, and others spotlight books I picked up on a whim and never quite got over. All of them are love letters—expressions of genuine gratitude for the stories that linger.

They’re not reviews.
They’re not critique.
They’re just… thank-yous. From one writer, one reader, to another.

If you’ve ever finished a book and thought I wish I could hug the person who wrote this, you might find something to love here.

Thanks for reading.
Thanks for being here.
And thanks to the authors who keep showing us what stories can do.

Who would you write a letter to?