Eve Gaddy: Research Fun

Researching for all the Whiskey River books has been a lot of fun. Trey Kelly's book, One Night With the Cowboy, has been really interesting. I learned about a lot of things I knew nothing, or very little, about.

First, I had to look through pictures of good-looking guys. I found a couple I really liked. (Okay, more than a couple, but what's a girl to do? I had to narrow it down.)

I had two men I couldn't decide between, so I put their pictures on my Facebook author page and asked which one I should pick for my cowboy. It was really close! And they looked alike. Which gave me a brilliant idea for my next book in the series. One of them could be Trey and the other Xander!

Ryan Paevy from General Hospital is the one I decided looked like Trey Kelly. Here's one of my faves.

Here's David Gandy. He's my idea of Xander Blue.

You can see lots of pictures on our Whiskey River website- www.whiskeyrivertexas.net and on several of my Pinterest boards.  www.pinterest.com/EveGaddy . Not only pictures of guys but all sorts of other pictures relating to books. Among things I just like to pin, of course.:)

Another fun thing to research was the horses. You see, Trey is the owner of Kelly's Champs, the champion cutting horses he breeds, trains, and sells. Now the best picture of his first stallion is here:

His real name is Rocky Steeldust, 2007 AQHA smoky grullo Foundation Stallion. His color is called smoky grullo. I confess, I fell in love. I found all sorts of fun pictures of horses. Here's another horse, who I decided is Trey's second stallion:

I couldn't find his real name. I love him too.

I researched pool tables, houses, and lavender. I wanted the flashiest pool table I could find. I think I succeeded, don't you?:) I also had fun looking at houses. It's really fun coming up with a ranch house/mansion. Aside from pictures of lavender I also researched a little about the process of making lavender based products. I am not an expert, alas.

 Photo credit: Leslie Veen / Foter / CC BY-SA

   Photo credit: Martin Pettitt / Foter / CC BY

I researched stables. That was great fun. I found an absolutely perfect one until my friend Kathy Cowan said, "That's not a western barn, it's an English barn." Hmph. Reality intrudes.

I researched all kinds of things, which means I now have lots of beautiful pictures and a lot of information about pool tables, lavender, distilling lavender oil, how one breeds for a smoky grullo . . . You get the idea. The Internet, including Pinterest, of course, is both a blessing and a curse. Pictures really do help me visualize people and things in my books, but sometimes I find I'm looking for pictures when I really need to be writing. Which is what I'm off to do right now. Promise.:)