Little Libraries across Canada

Happy July, this summer is flying by really fast!

I spent most of July on the road, traveling across the western part of Canada, the trip was about 10,000 kms by the time we got back home to our slice of heaven in the central western part of Ontario. It was just the DH and I this time, our kids stayed home with one of their aunts and our dog.

Since COVID, I have been amassing a lot of author copies and I was running out of room. I don’t plan on doing any signings this year, so I had to do something and I thought about the Free Little Libraries that were scattered all over the old city I used to live. I knew they were in other places, so I found a free app called Little Free Library.

I got the brilliant idea to drop off author copies as I make my way across across to Alberta and then do a reading of A Reunion, A Wedding, A Family in Jasper where it’s set. My videos and reading are on Tik Tok under Amy Ruttan (I refer to myself as a reluctant farmer!).

I signed the books ahead of time and marked them with a Canadian author sticker. I took my debut book from 2013 Safe in His Hands and dropped it by the closest Little Library to our farm in Seaforth, Ontario.

---

The next Little Library came at 8 in the morning after an eight hour drive. Yep, an eight hour drive, we left shortly after midnight, to get around Lake Superior from our house, it takes about 17 hours.

The Little Library I stopped in was in Bruce Mines, Ontario and after my visit there I woke up the next day in Thunder Bay to discover I had made their news! They were thankful for the book and encouraging others to donate to their Little Library.

---

The next day, we left Thunder Bay and were heading for Saskatoon Saskatchewan. Another 17 hour day. It takes two days to drive out of my province! First I stopped in Kenora, Ontario and dropped a book at Little Library outside a woman’s shelter. It was packed full and well used!

We had to cross Manitoba and most of Saskatchewan to get to Saskatoon. I had never been to Saskatoon, but it’s very bizarre to be watching for a city on a flat prairie horizon and not see it until you go down into a river valley. Saskatoon is beautiful and I found a gorgeous little library in a tree lined neighborhood know as Caswell Hill.

---

---

It’s not far to Alberta and we had a couple days to ourselves and headed to Drumheller, which is the badlands in southern, Alberta. Drumheller had an amazing Little Library with Moby Dick and Lord of the Rings quotes painted on it. After Drumheller we made our way to Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump and I left a couple more books in towns like High River (where they film the TV show Heartland) and an author friend Taryn Leigh Taylor left copies in her home town and a town near her.

After some days with my other sister in law at her ranch. We went into Jasper, Alberta the setting for A Reunion, A Wedding, A Family and I did a reading at Medicine Lake. Forest Fires have devastated the area. The last time I was there, Medicine Lake was lush with trees…now, just the ghostly remnants of them remain. It is a natural cycle to a forest though. And even though it had changed, I was still privileged to see elk, big horn sheep, wolf, black bear and my first time seeing a Grizzly Mama and her 3 cubs!

---

Medicine Lake!

The nearest little library to Jasper, is Hinton, Alberta. And the caretaker there originally is from the town where I currently live. So that was a small world experience. I left a copy of A Reunion, A Wedding, A Family there.

After our time in Alberta, we made our way to Winnipeg on a day that Canada had a nation wide cell phone outage on the network I used. It also knocked out all Interac purchases. I was very glad we had our credit cards and cash. I was also glad our GPS in our Jeep was still functioning or we would’ve never made our way from Alberta, through Saskatchewan to Winnipeg, Manitoba.

I got to meet an author friend Elle Rush for lunch and visit the monument of Louis Riel. My ancestors were Metis, which is a mix of European settlers and Indigenous. Metis people are an Indigenous nation and have their own culture. Louis Riel is a founding father who fought for the rights of Metis, he was an elected politician and led resistance movements before he was hanged for treason.

---

---

As someone of Metis background, this has been a life long dream to visit his monument. My father, had to hide who he was for many years, to avoid residential school. For him and me, it’s been hard to try and process our loss of identity. Also to find ancestors, but I have been finding more and more names. Women, who were indigenous, often lost their identity when they married a white man.

I left a book in Winnipeg and we made our way back to Ontario and stopped in Thunder Bay. I am really getting to know Thunder Bay. My daughter goes to school there, so I make the drive often.

Thunder Bay is the lake head of Lake Superior. The last place Terry Fox stopped after his Miracle Run for Cancer because his cancer had returned and he collapsed, but one of the Little Libraries surprised me! It was on Ruttan street. Ruttan is my maiden name, so I looked up the history and discovered that Ruttan’s helped with the development of Port Arthur and Thunder Bay.

So of course I had to leave a book there!

---

---

And that was just a part of our trip. I dropped books off in Sault and Sudbury on the way home. I have way more pictures and a lot more special memories, but it was so good to get back to the kids.

I took a whole box of books and left them all on my journey.

If you happen to stumble on a Little Library I encourage you to donate or even just take a book too. Spread Literacy and help communities. I learned so much from this experience and fell in love with my country all over again.

It’s why I continue to write books set in the place I love the most. Canada.

Here’s a slideshow of some more pics along the way!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Welcome Autumn!

In my part of the world, it’s the first day of fall. And fall is my most favourite time of the year. Yes, I’m a pumpkin spice nut. I love everything to do with pumpkins, leaves and of course Halloween.

Halloween is my jam!

Little Boo is hanging out in my office on my word count tracker.

And this is my first year celebrating in the new house. There are going to be more leaves to rake and the colours started changing out here earlier. There’s a crispness in the air that I couldn’t always pick up in the city.

I grew that pumpkin. This is just the start of autumn decorations!

I’ve also been told that I can leave my decorations out and put them out earlier without worry of them being destroyed, which happened a lot in the city.

However, I probably won’t get trick or treaters. Which has me sad. It’s the one thing I’ll miss.

I’m also learning about harvest time and other farming things…though I have to admit not very well. I made my first venture into our properties original barn. All the years I was married to my DH and coming to visit his parents, I had never been in it.

Me on the tractor. Finally!

Of course, while I should’ve been directing traffic to get my brother in law bins up into the barn, I was dancing to the Footloose soundtrack and picturing a dance in that barn. I must’ve done a good job, because my DH let me drive the tractor.

We’re settling into the family farm that’s been in my hubby’s family for a very long time. I love my new office, my proper office.

In the barn!

I’m feeling the Footloose vibe!

Bin moving. I was distracted by Footloose dancing.

And with Autumn also comes my thirtieth book with Harlequin. It’s hard to believe. It felt like yesterday that I was celebrating my 25th! I’m super excited about Falling for His Runaway Nurse.

Could a runaway bride…
…be the one to tempt him?
Brooding Thatcher Bell enjoys the anonymity of life as a cruise ship doctor. But when beautiful Lacey Greenwood storms into his life—wearing a wedding dress!—to take up the vacant post as nurse, he’s shocked by their instant chemistry. Lacey is obviously escaping something, and Thatcher recognizes some of the pain she’s hiding behind her dazzling smile. But as they set sail, there’s no way of running from their real and ever-growing feelings!

What do you love the most about this change of seasons, wherever you might be?

Deadlines, Renovations, Birthdays and Online Schooling…Oh my.

I think I’ve overloaded my plate recently.

I’m on deadline for my 31st book which is due on the 30th of this month. I’m right in the midst of renovations for our big move to my late in laws place in the country, not to mention minor renovations happening here so we can list our city home.

Here are some pics of our renovations at the new place. I was very pleased to find that under all that 70’s shag was pristine hardwood flooring from the centre old farm house.

What will be my new office. I wrote my 30th book Falling for the Runaway Nurse here while my husband renovated!

View from my new office window. Lots of space to think.

JACKPOT! Hardwood flooring under the shag! This was my husband’s childhood room and it will be my eldest son’s room

Sunsets on our new property. I can get used to this.

My eldest had wisdom tooth surgery, my province went into another lockdown because COVID numbers are out of control, kids are back on online schooling and I have two courses on the go.

One course was by accident though, there was a typo and I thought it was supposed to start in May. Whoops.

I get my vaccine on Thursday and this month not only did I turn 43, but I had a new book release with Twin Surprise for the Baby Doctor

Dig if you will this birthday cake my husband got me.

Purple Rain!

Facebook memories are a great thing because it reminded me last year I was on deadline for A Reunion, A Wedding, A Family.

And I inadvertently wore the same shirt on the same day!

Me in 2020

So I’ve come full circle.

Me in 2021.

I’ll keep this post short, because I don’t think I have much brain power left.

Just one night…
…double the consequences!
Dr. Adeline Turner is horrified when Dr. Elias Garcia arrives as the chief rival for her dream fellowship. She could really do without their instant—and inconvenient—mutual attraction! Burned before, Adeline never mixes business with pleasure. Until Elias has Adeline breaking all her rules. But when she finds out that she’s pregnant with twins, they’re suddenly forced to rethink their dreams—together!

Origin Story–AKA Amy in a nutshell

When I was asked to write an origin story, I was sure how to tackle it. I don’t feel like my life is exciting. I hear other stories about how authors were inspired to write that sound so much more exciting than my…I just always knew.

I can say that story telling did run in my family, though I never got to hear my paternal grandfather’s stories, but he was a frontier man. Born in 1885 (yes, 1885 for context he was 61 when my father was born), he left home at the age of twelve to work on building the rail roads across Canada and most importantly, to the north.

He was there when the famous Group of Seven artist Tom Thompson was murdered. Tom was a friend of his, they both had trap lines through Algonquin.

And he helped lay the foundation of the Polar Bear Express railroad that runs from Cochrane Ontario to Moosenee, Ontario. My father said his father was a story teller.

So this is my grandpa. The only picture I’ve ever seen of him.

My Dad said that one of his biggest regrets was not having a tape recorder to record his father’s stories. And he said that for as long as I could remember and from that moment I could remember, I always had stories in my head.

My grandfather died 11 years before I was born, yet I feel this sense of kinship with that story teller and when my father had to downsize to move in with my brother he bequeathed me the most precious gift of all…his father’s Underwood that travelled the north with him.

The thing is made of iron, so I don’t know how he carried this on his back all through the woods of northern Ontario.

I grew up not knowing much about my paternal family and I think that sparked some interest in story telling. I wanted to know more. My Input and Learner are in my top 10 Clifton Strengths for those who follow Strengths of Writers.

There was a missing piece.

And that piece was an identity that had to be hidden. My Metis heritage and as I grew more into my story telling and writing, I wanted to write more about families like my father. About characters who looked like my Dad. My Dad who had to hide who he was, who didn’t get to learn much about his heritage out loud or learn his language. My Dad played an important part in my desire to write. Although he doesn’t think so.

My Dad always jokes that it would take him months to write a page, so even though he wasn’t a natural story teller like his father, he gave me something else. He gave me the love of reading.

My Dad, my Mom and I was in the pram under the netting. Summer ’78.

Every night he read to me and I grew up surrounded by books. Mostly books written by Robert A. Heinlein and Asimov, or nonfiction books about Midway and Harley Davidsons, but my Dad gave me this great gift in loving stories.

And when I was eight, I read Anne of Green Gables and had a realization that L.M Montgomery was a real person and that you could have a job as a writer. He told me that. He told me all those authors I loved, the authors he loved were real people.

It was from that moment on I knew what I wanted to do.

I was going to be a writer.

It was the dream. Always.

I spent a few years getting sidetracked by guidance counsellors or teachers who thought it was a silly career aspiration to have, yet the stories kept coming out of me. I made up ridiculous stories about my friend groups in high schools that were passed between my besties.

The stories never stopped.

I got married, had my daughter. Stories were always there and I would jot down stuff when she napped, but I was afraid of failure. Afraid of losing. What if I didn’t have what it took?

And then came my second kid.

Who almost died.

And as I sat by his bedside, hoping for a miracle…I wrote. Only this time, I was going to take a chance. I would face rejection, because staring at my baby and realizing he may not live, like was too short to not LIVE. To not take chances.

A year later, when he was one, I sold to Ellora’s Cave.

I had done it. I was a story teller.

In 2013 I sold my first book to Harlequin, also a dream as it was my Mom and Nanny’s favourite things to read. I’m thankful my Mom got to read my first books, but my Nanny never did. Cancer took them both too soon.

And my Dad reads them. He’s so proud. And now my books are displayed on the shelve next to Heinlein. Although, we both write COMPLETELY different stuff.

It’s been a rough few years for me, so much loss, my diagnosis of autism and coming to learn how to navigate the world, but the stories don’t stop. They sometimes pause, but they keep coming, because I was always meant to do this.

So that’s me. Grand daughter of a frontier’s man, who is still learning her Metis heritage and still learning how to navigate my autism diagnosis, while mothering a son on the spectrum. We’re both very similar, so honestly when my diagnosis came down it wasn’t a shock.

I don’t think I could ever stop writing.

And I wouldn’t want it any other way. xo

Life is not boring!

You get a post from me twice this week! 😉 Although, it’s my pleasure and so easy to share the new Medical Romance releases.  I love doing that, my wallet does not…

So a lot of stuff has been happening to me since I last blogged and it’s been a bit of a struggle. I will admit, I’ve been struggling the last little while. It’s been a rough couple of years, but I’m still here and life certainly isn’t boring. It’s been rough, but I’m hanging in there.

I went to back to back conferences end of July and early August. RWA Nationals in NYC where I got to hang out with fellow medical authors Louisa George, Robin Gianna, Amy Andrews, Susan Carlisle, Scarlet Wilson, Janice Lynn and Denise Chavers!

It was my first time meeting Amy Andrews. We’ve talked online for years and I got to hang out with her, which is amazing. I also got to meet some of my favourite Harlequin authors including Reese Ryan who said “Damn, girl you ARE tall!” and Joss Wood who is an absolute hoot!

I also got to meet Becca Syme, who is an amazing speaker and knows me so well. I took her Write Better Faster Course on advice from a friend just after Mom passed. It was mind blowing and then I took her Strengths for Writers, again AH-MAZING. So when I went to her RWA session, I thought yeah she won’t know me. She did. She knew who I was and I got a hug, which made me cry…she’s been there through my whole journey of realigning myself.

I know I’m forgetting people, but all in all Nationals was amazing!

Two days after Nationals it was on to Ottawa for Romancing the Capital, which I’ve gone to for the last five years.

Some of my favourite RTC authors! Eve Vaughn, Desiree Holt, Susan Hayes, Becca Jameson.

It’s on hiatus next year, as am I, because one thing I’ve learned in the last year since my mother passed is to take a break and I was facing burn out, big time!

The problem was, I got a call the morning I was leaving Ottawa that my father in law passed away unexpectedly. Ottawa is 6 hours from where I live and then where my father in law was, was another 2 hrs.

Since 2018, it’s been a steady stream of losses for my family. It’s been constant and on top of that I got a new editor, then that editor left and I got ANOTHER new editor.

I was staring down book #25 and thinking I can’t write this. This is a milestone book and how can I write this??

I worked for ever word and turned in a draft 10,000 words short. It was also the first book I was working on with my new editor. The first round of revisions were tough, but she knew what I was going through and she gave me such support about being able to write at all! I did the revisions and then within a day (man she’s a speedy reader!), second set with two deadlines. I opted for the earlier one, though I told her I was worried I wouldn’t make it because of my daughter’s 16th birthday and Ontario University Fair in Toronto (yes, my daughter has started looking at universities eek!).

But I got the revisions in and I’m happy to say that Book #25 Baby Bombshell for the Doctor Prince was accepted today.

AND I’m sharing my cover for my January 2020 release. that’s part of a duet with Susan Carlisle. Pregnant with the Paramedic’s Baby will be out in the new year (It’s book #24).

So, I guess the point of this rambling post is to not give up. Life doesn’t make it easy sometimes, but even if you feel like you’re struggling, that you’re failing, keep going! And know that I’m rooting for you! ❤

 

Happy April!

I was going to say something witty about the fact April showers bring May flowers, but it’s April 7th and there’s snow on the ground where I live. Boo!

I love April, even though it’s usually a rainy month. April is my birthday month. It means, ice cream cake! WOOT!

Although, since starting Weight Watchers in January I might opt for some frozen yogurt. *little woot*

April is also a very busy month for me. Ever since I sold to Harlequin, I always seem to have a deadline around or right before my birthday. I’m not complaining, because I love the work. And honestly, I never really noticed before until my husband started building my office in the basement.

See, I had this great office in the spare bedroom in the basement, but then my daughter became a teenager and wanted her own space (and bathroom), so I gave up that room so she could get away from her brothers. The boys each had their own room upstairs and I worked in the living room, with stuff scattered in boxes in the unfinished part of the basement.

Then, my boys missed being together. So they took their bunk beds and moved back into a room together. I took the other upstairs room. I loved it. I loved having that office again where I could close a door and work. I wrote One Night in New York and my Sealed with a Valentine’s Kiss duet in that room.

Ahh. It was heaven. That lasted about a year. Then, the fighting and bickering started as they got older.

I went back to my boxes in the basement and have been working in the living room. I escape to hotel rooms near my deadline to work, because it’s hard once the kids come home to write in the living room. Since I dropped Diet Coke for good, I can’t pull all nighters and with working out …I don’t want too. I’m tired.

My husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I said a small room where I can shut you all out. I love my family, but for my sanity and career, I need a door between us.

So, he went to work. Everything is done (as of writing this blog post) but the door.

The first thing up was my new wardrobe. It’s massive and I was finally able to take all the copious author copies from 14 books (currently out) and store them somewhere safe. This picture isn’t even the foreign translations. I keep one copy of foreign translation books and I’m shipping out a bunch to different libraries.

14 books released so far, 3 books per shelves. All the hard covers are on the bottom. It’s a lot of books!

Then after the walls were up I got bookshelves! They’re pretty bare, but it’s a work in progress. Nice to have all my books together. Something to look at.

The table I work at is one my Mom made when she was moving into her first apartment, or rather she was going to move into her first apartment alone and then met my Dad. LOL

Yep, that’s a Mountie Bear and the painting is one I did.

I can’t wait to finish unpacking, but I’m headed to Toronto this weekend for an all day workshop with the Toronto Romance Writers. Since it starts bright and early Saturday, I’m spending the night in my old hometown by myself in a hotel room to write.

And I’m taking the train. I love taking the train, especially business class because I can work on the train. It’s a 3 hr train ride (roughly) to downtown T.O.

It’s only one night away, since I’m catching the late night train back to London, Ontario Saturday night, but I’m planning on enjoying the silence and cranking up the word count.

Maybe, just maybe there will be door to my office on my return.

Oh and in March, I had 2 releases! Check them out.

His Pregnant Royal Bride (Royal Spring Babies Book 1)

Pregnant with the prince’s baby

Nurse Shay Labadie’s one exquisite night of passion with Dr. Dante Affini was meant to be a beautiful memory. But now Shay’s expecting…and Dante is expecting her to take his hand in marriage!

Dante’s proposal is shocking enough, but then he drops an even bigger bombshell—he’s not just a doctor, he’s a prince! Now to win his child and the woman he loves, Dante will have to prove he can master his most important role yet—as the husband Shay deserves…

The Omega Team: Biochemical Reaction

An attraction like no other…

Former Navy Seal Jack Crane walked away after a chemical attack wiped out his platoon and scarred him, forcing him out of the military–the hardest thing he ever had to do…Until Omega Team contacted him to protect an undercover agent at a secret lab.

Lisa Morgan had nothing to lose when she took on the assignment to uncover Bio-Tek’s dark secrets concerning the deadly chemical agent that killed her brother and cost her the only man she ever loved a decade ago when he walked away.

When the man hired to protect her turns out to be Jack, she’s forced to trust with her life the man she couldn’t trust with her heart, and make sure the antidote for that terrible chemical gets into the right hands before it’s too late.

 

You can find out more about Amy here:

Website: www.amyruttan.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmyRuttanAuthor?ref=hl

TWITTER: http://www.twitter.com/ruttanamy

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/amyruttan/

Newsletter: http://www.amyruttan.com/contact.html#newsletter