About the Book

Book: Falling for a Smart Cowboy (Vargas Ranch Book 4)

Author: Karen Baney

Genre: Contemporary Christian Cowboy Romance

Release date: June 25, 2024

She’s on a mission to bring orphaned children hope. He wants off his family’s ranch for good. Will they survive his shocking family secrets?

Devon Vargas longs to be more than just a cowboy. After finishing his teaching degree, he plans to leave his family’s guest ranch for good. Between his growing affection for the new children’s program director and a huge family secret revealed, he second guesses everything about his life.

Raina Crawford lost her parents at a young age. Through the grace of God, she survived life in the foster system. She desperately wants to bring children the life-changing faith that gave her hope. The job at Vargas Ranch was supposed to be a steppingstone. Except she’s losing her heart to the smart, ambitious cowboy bent on leaving his family’s ranch—and her—behind.

Will Raina finally find the family she’s always wanted? Will family secrets unravel his new dreams? Will those same secrets tear them apart?

Click here to get your copy!

About the Author

Karen Baney is passionate about writing stories full of flawed characters. She enjoys weaving together stories of second chances, redemption, and overcoming personal trials. As a transplant to Arizona, she loves researching the state’s history and finding ways to seamlessly incorporate real history and real settings into her novels. In addition to writing and speaking, Karen works as a Software Development Manager for a Christian ministry.

Her faith plays an important role both in her life and in her writing. Karen and her husband, Jim, make their home in Gilbert, Arizona, with their two dogs, Bella and Daisy. Both Jim and Karen are active at Rock Point Church in Queen Creek, Arizona.

More from Karen

Big Family Drama

I love writing big family drama in my novels! It provides such great material for the relationship between characters.

Part of this comes from my family’s drama. My mom was the youngest of eight kids, making my extended family huge. I remember going to the Independence Day family reunions as a kid. It was both fun and a little intimidating. Most of my cousins were adults by the time I was a tweener. So, my siblings and I tended to hangout with my “oops!” cousin since we were only a few years apart.

And boy, did we have drama! There was the aunt who seemed to be offended and left early year. Someone always ended up injured, but only once do I remember an ambulance showing up. There were cliques and turf wars and so much more.

As an adult, though I’ve rarely been able to fly clear across the country to see my extended family, the drama of my husband’s big family serves as inspiration too. He is the oldest of five kids. My first introduction to his large family was at his sister’s wedding. I had no idea what I was getting into. We’d only been dating for about six weeks. Everyone kept pushing me to join the family photos, and I kept trying to gracefully get out of the pictures. I didn’t want him to regret having me in the pictures if we broke up. In the end, my hubby and I outlasted that marriage.

In Falling for a Smart Cowboy, I introduce a new character to the series, Raina Crawford. She was orphaned as a young girl and has longed for a forever family, even into adulthood. Devon Vargas, the fourth out of five sons, learns a family secret that makes him want to avoid his large family. I loved writing this juxtaposition between Raina and Devon over family relationships. It helps each of them see a new perspective. It was also fun writing new friendships for Raina—even if all the friendships tied to Devon’s family. My experience with both my family and being a newbie to my husband’s family provided inspiration for both Raina’s and Devon’s characters.

If you like big family drama, the Vargas Ranch Series provides it in spades. Enjoy!

Author Interview

What is your favorite genre of books? Why?

I’ve been an avid reader of Christian romance most of my life. I used to read mostly historical books because I enjoy learning about history. Then I started picking up more contemporary romances and was blown away by the variety of situations. Now I tend to read more contemporary than historical. Go figure.

How has your life experience helped in your writing journey?

The older I get, the more experiences I have to give me ideas. The challenge is being careful not to make a character more radically mature than is realistic for their age. This is especially difficult writing children’s characters.

Life experience, especially in my spiritual walk, plays a huge role in my novels. Many lessons my characters learn are ones I’ve learned (or am still learning).

How did you approach creating your book’s world, and was it based on real places or entirely imagined?

Vargas Ranch is a fictious place but is loosely based on a few real things.

The towns of Wickenburg and Forepaugh really exist. There is beautiful state trust land to the north of Forepaugh that I thought would be the perfect location for the ranch.

The inspiration behind a modern guest ranch & resort came from researching dude ranches in Arizona. In the Wickenburg area, there are a few. One is advertised as more of a resort-style ranch. So, inspired by them and another family-run operation near Mohave, Arizona, I created the Vargas Guest Ranch & Resort. It provides a blend of western life, small town life, and a great reason for new people to enter their world.

How do you decide on the point of view of your stories?

Most of my books are third person and I focus on the two main characters. Why? Because I think that’s what most readers expect from the genre. In my earliest novels, I included multiple (maybe too many) points of view, as I think many inexperienced writers tend to do. After a few, I learned to step up to the challenge of relating events through the eyes of a limited number of characters.

I have one series, the Colter Sons Series, where I chose first person. I really enjoyed writing it. It forces me as the author to ask questions: what did this character observe, intuit, or experience? I would love to write more stories this way.

I chose third person two main character points of view for the Vargas Ranch Series and will stick with that for now.

Do you have extensive outlines when writing or do you write a book as you go?

Falling for a Smart Cowboy ended up being more of a panster story. I knew a few key plot points, but some of big plot points were totally on the fly. Since the revelation of a huge family secret plays a critical role, I needed to get to know Devon better and not lock in situations that may not have allowed him to grow or forgive like he needed to. There’s one scene where he is in a threatening situation and doesn’t expect the family members who he felt wronged by to come to his aid. They do in unexpected ways providing the perfect catalyst for reconciliation. I never planned it to unfold in the way it did. And I love how it turned out.