Books

THE RUMMAGE SALE NEEDED TRAFFIC CONTROL
Half the town came shopping. The other half came arguing.

The annual Brindle Creek Community-Wide Rummage Sale was supposed to be simple. People would clean out their garages. Neighbors would buy each other’s junk. The Community Hall would raise a little money. Everyone would go home happy.

That plan lasted...

The Timber Festival Lost Containment
Nothing says community spirit like competitive chainsaws.

The annual Timber Festival is supposed to be Brindle Creek’s proudest tradition. Three days of chainsaw carving, lumberjack competitions, giant logging trucks, horse pulling contests, log rolling, axe throwing, hot saw races, and enough community spirit...

Nobody Expected The Pie Auction Riot
Things turned violent shortly after the rhubarb bidding started.
The annual Brindle Creek Pie Auction Fundraiser is supposed to be simple.

• Bake pies.
• Award ribbons.
• Raise money for Community Hall roof repairs.
• Go home happy.

Unfortunately, nobody accounted for ninety-three pie entries, decades of competitive...

MAVIS BACKED INTO THE SHERIFF’S TRAILER
Technically, she warned everyone to move first.

The Brindle Creek Founders Festival was supposed to celebrate local history, community pride, and a weekend of wholesome family entertainment.

Instead, Mavis Tolliver accidentally backed her truck directly into Sheriff Colton Smith’s department trailer in front...

THAT WASN’T THE CORRECT HIGHWAY
Six RVs. One wrong turn. Endless regret.

The plan was simple.
Drive to the Silver Pines RV Rally & Retirement Expo.
Set up camp.
Attend a few seminars.
Maybe win a campground award.
Possibly buy something nobody needed.

Instead, six retirees from Brindle Creek miss one highway exit and accidentally transform...

The Deer Cart Chose Violence

The people of Brindle Creek have a long history of turning ordinary situations into public disasters.
Most of the time, they mean well.
Most of the time, that does not help.

When a routine community project begins with a perfectly harmless deer cart, nobody expects trouble. After all, it is just a simple cart. It has...

THAT BOAT WAS SUPPOSED TO STAY PUT

The fishing trip escaped before the fishermen did.
The plan sounded simple enough.
Spend a peaceful weekend at the lake. Catch a few fish. Tell a few stories. Eat too much food. Pretend everyone still has the energy they had thirty years ago.

Then the boat leaves.
Not with the fishermen.
Not with the supplies.
Not...

Vernon Thought We Meant Full Throttle - Book 2
The Golden Years Gone Wrong Series
by Trudy Myrland

Race day was supposed to bring the town together. Instead, it nearly required official county intervention.

Timberline Speedway has survived dust storms, engine fires, trailer pileups, livestock escapes, generator failures, and one unforgettable...

In the stubborn little mountain town of Brindle Creek, retirement does not mean slowing down. It means having enough free time to accidentally destroy public property while trying to help.

The annual goat auction was supposed to be simple. Sell livestock. Raise money for the community hall roof. Eat pie. Go home with dignity mostly intact.

...

The Shortcut Got Complicated is the explosive final installment in the It Was Supposed To Be Simple comedy series, where confident people continue solving completely different problems the exact same wrong way.

What begins as a simple shortcut quickly transforms into a rolling collapse involving overloaded vehicles, impossible coordination,...

A luxury fifth wheel.
A fishing boat.
Eight adults.
Twelve tackle boxes.
Too many coolers.
Absolutely no organization.

What could possibly go wrong?

Jack Johnson proudly rolls into town with his brand-new 1-Ton Black Ram diesel dually Pick-Up Truck, Pulling a massive luxury fifth wheel that cost more than some houses. Brody Bacon arrives with a...

Book 8 — The Cooler Emptied Before We Started
Series: It Was Supposed To Be Simple
Somewhere between loading the trucks, organizing the food, and arguing over who forgot the mustard, the entire day quietly slipped beyond recovery.

Nobody noticed it immediately. That was the problem.

What was supposed to be a simple lakeside outing turns into a...

Truck & Trailer Flat All At Once
A Laugh-Out-Loud Small Town Disaster Comedy
A flat tire should have taken fifteen minutes.

Maybe twenty if somebody misplaced the lug wrench.

Instead, one low trailer tire beside a rural Idaho road turns into a rolling mechanical disaster involving sinking jacks, shifting weight, missing lug nuts, smoke that...

In The Generator Died Right On Cue, the sixth laugh-out-loud installment in the wildly escalating It Was Supposed To Be Simple comedy series, a routine community event is seconds away from success when someone decides the generator could “run even better” with a few minor adjustments. That decision lasts approximately three minutes before the...

A simple plan.
A wide open space.
A trailer that absolutely refuses to cooperate.

Welcome back to Nothere, Idaho—where confidence shows up early, instructions arrive late, and every solution somehow makes things worse.

All it takes is one routine task: back a trailer into place. It looks easy from a distance. It looks even easier when several people...

They said it would be simple.
Walk the line. Set the posts. Stretch the wire. Done.
That was the plan.

What actually happened was a slow, stubborn unraveling of common sense, where soft ground got ignored, trucks got stuck, a tractor made everything worse, and a perfectly reasonable fence somehow turned into something that looked straight… if you...

Bandit Took the Only Thing That Mattered
BOOK THREE

A purse goes missing at a perfectly normal community picnic.

That should be simple. Ha! It isn’t.

Because the moment Denise’s purse disappears, something far more dangerous takes over—people start trying to help.

At first, it’s manageable. Someone moves something. Someone explains something. Someone...

The Shed Door Trapped Us Outside
A It Was Supposed to Be Simple Novel — Book Two

It worked earlier.
That was all the proof anyone needed.

The shed door had always been a little off, so when it finally closed clean and opened once without sticking, the problem was considered solved. No one measured anything. No one tested it twice. It lined up, it...

Chairs Quit All at Once
It Was Supposed To Be Simple — Book 1
All they had to do… was set up the chairs.

That was the plan. Simple. Straightforward. No moving parts, no complicated steps, no reason for anything to go wrong. A few rows, a quick check, and the town event would be ready to go.

And for a while, it looked like it worked.

The chairs were...

HYDEN VALLEY STILL STANDS
Book Fifteen — The Final Novel in the Hyden Valley Ranch Series

Late spring settles over Hyden Valley Ranch, and the work has already begun. Corn, wheat, alfalfa, and canola are planted. Calving season is underway. The land is moving forward, and so is the family that has always been tied to it.

Luke and Jessica step into...