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?

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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!

Interview with the Author

1)Which character did you connect to best in this book?

Devon Vargas is smart and compassionate. I love that he is ambitious and eventually turns that ambition over to God. When he does, the direction he thought he should go wasn’t where God called him. It’s something I’ve experienced more than once.

2)Which part of the book was the most difficult to write?

Devon Vargas, son four of five, is the main character in Falling for a Smart Cowboy. There’s a major secret revealed that also impacts his younger brother Drake. So, writing the entire book in a way that Devon knows something that Drake doesn’t and not totally spoiling Drake’s book—yeah, that was a huge challenge. I’m happy with the results for both and I think readers will enjoy it too.

3)What inspired this book?

One challenge in writing large family series is making each main character different. No two siblings are identical. Each has their own personality, strengths, and weaknesses. So, with Falling for a Smart Cowboy and Falling for a Humbug Cowboy, I wanted to shake things up in this large family. Family secrets usually come out in real-life and usually at the most inopportune time. Having experienced one in my teens, I drew on those feelings for writing Devon’s and Drake’s unique perspectives over the same shocking secret.

4)What is your favorite Bible verse or life verse?

My life theme passage is Matthew 6:25-34 where Jesus tells us not to worry but to seek first God’s kingdom. Every time I think I’ve made progress with my worry, I find myself in another situation where I pick up worrying again—without even realizing it! Ugh. Then I release it and ask God to help me to trust him. The beauty is, He is faithful even when I slip back to worried thinking.

5)What are you reading right now?

I’m always reading something. Sometimes multiple books at a time! Right now, I’m reading:

A business book about managing Software Engineering teams (my other job)

A book of cowboy poetry

Falling for a Devoted Cowgirl (my current book in progress)

A contemporary Christian romance novel

A historical Christian romance novel