Louella Nelson

Welcome to my website

Here at the website, you will find posts about my work as a professional editor, my speaking and teaching, as well as my writing.

After many years as a best-selling contemporary author, developmental editor,  and writing instructor, it’s a great pleasure to announce the release of my first historical novels.

The series features sweet, sweeping historical romance with high emotion and realistically-rendered settings in 1880s Montana Territory. The Harper Ranch Series is now published by Montana Sky Publishing.

I’m currently working on  Royal Rescue. Here’s a bit about the new Harper Ranch Book Five:

One-liner:

Lord Colrath, second son of a Scottish laird, cannot hide from his shameful past—nor from a love as challenging as his adopted American West.

Description of Royal Rescue:

Feisty Amy Rawlins, sister of the hero from Book One, is up to her elbows in garden dirt when a sophisticated man with a charming Scottish burr crosses the estate lawns to meet her. The polished and passionate Lord Colrath is in San Francisco to escape the wrath and judgment of the Scottish Lord Lion–and to bury the secret shame he carries. Only Amy’s third brother, Teagan, an attorney, knows why Col left his island home.

Through mutual interests in park lands and nature conservation, Amy and Col begin to fall in love. He admires her elegance balanced by an out-spoken precociousness and her empathy for the less fortunate. She admires his protectiveness, his sensitivity and humor, and his Highland brawn.

After they travel to Montana Territory in the spring of 1888 to help the people in Morgan’s Crossing, his past comes raging back to destroy everything he and Amy have built. Secrets sabotage the desires of the present, as Col learns to his horror. Amy, unused to brawling but determined not to lose the man she loves, must invent a way to save Col’s life, in the process putting her own in danger.

Restless Heart is here! Book Four of the Harper Ranch Series

Once adversaries, now forced to be partners to bring back her abducted son…

Near the battlefield of Custer’s last stand, a devoted mother, Margaret,  and a free-spirit federal agent, Taylor, must overcome their months-old animosity and mistrust to find Margaret’s three-year-old boy, who was abducted in the wilds of Montana Territory in 1887.  A bitter scoundrel’s revenge, a second chance at love, and a life-changing decision about the future create a memorable romantic adventure not to be missed.

Redemption Rose, Book Three in the Harper Ranch Series

Susan Harper, a beautiful spinster with a scandalous past, must find the courage to love again.

From the Wild West to the steamy jungles of Panama and across the American Territories, shipping scion Joseph Rawlins courts the eldest Harper sister, Susan, through correspondence. His letters are fascinating, romantic, and above all safe. While she’s drawn to him, Susan fears the discovery of a past scandal will not only hurt him and ruin her, but also damage her sisters’ reputations and jeopardize the political career of Joseph’s father. A rose plant from Joseph’s match-making mother ironically foreshadows Susan’s inner journey to healing. In the striking conclusion, as wedding preparations begin for a sister, Susan confronts the past and finds it’s not just her who hides secrets that could destroy a family.

Rebel Love Song, Book Two in the Harper Ranch Series

What will she do to keep up her secret suffrage writings in the face of government pursuit?

Jessamine Harper, a suffragette like her mother and a ranch hand on the family ranch, scours newspapers (a scandal in itself for a Victorian woman) to find victims of cruelty at the hands of husbands, clergy, politics, and unfair work practices. Taylor Temogen, government land agent for Southern Montana Territory, is committed to stopping Jess’s insurgent writings so women will brave the rigors of homestead life to settle the West. Bethesda Janes, a Jewish goldminer, closet cellist, and gifted artist with iron and steel, who loves Jess but feels unworthy, must forgive the sins of his father to find the courage to claim love. What breaks the threads that bind these three in struggle are decency, courage, and abiding love.

And here’s the book that started the whole series:

Rye’s Reprieve, my first historical novel, Book One of the Harper Ranch Series

A doctor with a secret discovers that truth is the only medicine that will heal the heart

Gifted surgeon Rye Rawlins is trapped by a tragic secret so painful that he denies his profession and buries himself in a gold mine in Montana Territory. But saving people is second nature, whether it’s doctoring a man mauled by a mountain lion or battling a wolf to save a child. Veterinarian and horse rancher Missouri Harper suffers through the worst winter in Montana history to provide for three beautiful sisters and an ailing aunt. Dangerous storms, privation, and wild predators make survival precarious.

Rye comes to Missouri’s aid, putting his life in danger and Missouri in his debt. As they fall in love, his secret and her promise to remain a spinster to protect the land for her family force them to look within to discover the cost of love.

I hope you enjoy the Wild West adventure storylines and find a moment to post a review on Amazon. All the books fall into the category of “sweet” or G-rated historical romance.

See my blog post, “Rye’s Reprieve, featuring a doctor with a secret in 1886 Montana” by clicking on the link or the blog tab above. You can learn more about the research I conducted for the medical and veterinary professions as well as the record bitter winter of 1886-87 in Montana Territory. I also provide a map of the fictional town where the book is set.

About the Author 

My professional life is devoted to writing and mentoring writers. To that end, I conduct lectures, teach seminars and class series, host two year-round critique groups, serve as a developmental editor for Amazon and for several best-selling authors as well as aspiring writers, and I am writing a series of handbooks for writers called BestSeller Secrets for Fiction & Memoir Writers. My fiction has been published by Amazon, Harlequin Books, LNC Books, my own imprint, and now, Montana Sky Publishing. Connect here to see my author page on Amazon.

You can see a similar bio on the About tab:

Best-selling author, writing instructor, and editor Louella Nelson, M.A., recipient of the Distinguished Instructor Award from the University of California, Irvine, offers both fundamental and advanced courses in fiction and creative nonfiction writing. Many of her students and clients are agented, published, award-winners, and best-selling authors who write novels, short stories, memoirs, essays, and nonfiction books. Lou is published in fiction and nonfiction, has conducted successful author promotions, and has been featured on radio and television. A past-president of Orange County romance writers, she holds a master’s in English with an emphasis in nineteenth-century British literature and an undergraduate degree in English and creative writing from Chapman University.

Get in Touch

If you have interest in writing classes, consultations about your project, or developmental editing, send a separate email to lounelson@cox.net or via the Contact Me link at right, indicating your interest in these or other craft how-to writing courses, seminars, consultations, books, or developmental editing services. Email: lounelson@cox.net

Award-winning and USA Today/NY Times best-selling author Debra Holland says, “Wild Montana Sky and its sequels have been #1, #2, and #3 on the Amazon Top 100 Western Romance list. My success is definitely due to Louella Nelson. She is the writing teacher, mentor, and editor extraordinaire!”

“Lou Nelson is absolutely the best writing teacher in our area…. She’s changed my life as well as my writing.” –Deborah Gaal, award-winning agented author of the debut novel The Dream Stitcher.

Louella Nelson
Fostering Your Success as a Writer.

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