Often compared to the novels of James Herriot, ALL GOD'S CREATURES follows the life of a woman veterinarian in modern Tennessee. By veteran romance author and dedicated horsewoman Carolyn McSparren, who also writes the Merry Abbot Carriage Driving Mysteries. Say hello to Maggie McLain, an unlikely Southern debutante in 1960's Memphis. Gawky, restless, smart and opinionated, young Maggie isn't cut out to fill the patent leather pumps of a Southern Belle. When she ditches Cotton Carnival ball to save a drowning pup, Maggie realizes her destiny. Is the land of mint juleps and Elvis ready for a woman veterinarian? Maybe not, but Dr. Maggie McLain sets out to prove otherwise. Over the years, Maggie earns the devotion and respect of crusty farmers, snobby horse breeders and doubtful pet owners throughout western Tennessee. She's an inspiration to up-and-coming women vets, a loving wife to her proud husband, a patient mother to her demanding kids, and above all, a champion to sick and injured animals. When loss and grief knock Maggie off her pedestal, she falls hard. It may take a miracle for her to understand that sometimes even the best doctor must struggle to heal her own heart.
Author
Carolyn McSparren started writing when she was a teenager, and always planned to be a professional writer and a college professor. That is, until she fell madly in love, dropped out of graduate school, and became a wife supporting a burgeoning opera singer husband. That led to a three-month trip to Germany that stretched into five years. She wound up living in Germany, France, Italy, and came home with a different husband and a 14-year-old stepdaughter. The writing got put on the back burner while she produced a daughter of her own and went back to graduate school at the University of Memphis to finish her Master’s degree in English. At that point she discovered that a graduate degree in English wouldn’t buy a cup of coffee in a diner. She became a program coordinator at the executive center of the University of Memphis, where she designed management training, wrote brochures and press releases, designed and laid out brochures, and did everything from pour coffee to transport dignitaries. On the home front, she and her family moved to the country to breed and train hunter-jumper horses. About the time they moved, her daughter decided she preferred a social life to cleaning out the barn and left Carolyn with the whole operation. With 18 horses, a full-time job, a husband and family, four cats, and three dogs, there wasn’t much time left for writing. Finally, Martha Shields, who is now a Silhouette author, dragged Carolyn to the meeting of the River City Romance Writers, and thence into a critique group. Suddenly the time seemed right to get on with what she’d longed to do all her life. That fall, Carolyn won a Maggie Award for an unpublished manuscript (which has still not been published, by the way), and three years later she took early retirement from the university to write full-time. By that time, only three horses remained—none of which Carolyn had ridden for much too long. The day that Harlequin called with an offer to buy The Only Child, the editor said, "We want the book but... " Guess which were the only words Carolyn heard? She didn’t even tell her best friend about the offer for three weeks. Now, with seven Harlequin Superromances under her belt, and another couple in the works, she’s finally living in what southerners call "hog heaven." She rides horses, writes books, works with the local chapter of RWA and with Sisters in Crime, is a member of Mystery Writers of America, and just so that she’ll stay balanced, is a member of the Delta Dressage Association—the local horse training group. She loves speaking to aspiring writers and adores book signings. Finally, years after she first wanted to be a writer, she’s managed to achieve her goal. Now, if she can just manage to stay on her horse, everything should be great.
