I grew up on a steady diet of syndicated Westerns, with a lot of John Wayne movies thrown in for good measure. Sunday nights were for *Lassie*. I blame those things for my love of the wide open spaces in the West, cowboys, and collies. When I'm not writing about the strong women who loved those cowboys and the cowboys brave enough to love those strong women, I'm showing my collies.
For the spice rating in my books--if green bell peppers are the mildest, followed by cayenne or jalapeno (mid range spicey) with ghost peppers being the spiciest--my books range from bell pepper to jalapeno. The bell peppers have "clean" in the subtitle, so there is no confusion.