A romance series by Ruth Shukeeper

Beginner Model

Love stories about real people — ordinary adults who find extraordinary heat in honesty, permission, and trust.

Meet the books About Ruth

Letters from Ruth

New books, first chapters, and the occasional note about the real life behind the stories — a few times a year, never more. No noise, and you can leave whenever you like.

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    The Books

    Muddy Ginger — Book One cover: a red-haired woman sitting on a muddy Jeep at sunset
    Book One

    Muddy Ginger

    Beginner Model — Book One

    Mandy said yes.

    And somewhere between a muddy Jeep, long evenings that run past midnight, and a woman who finally stopped apologizing for wanting more, an ordinary marriage turned into something braver.

    Muddy Ginger is the first Beginner Model novel: a love story about real people, written the way real heat actually happens — in conversation first, and everything after.

    Buy on Kindle Read the free first chapter

    Free to read with Kindle Unlimited — new members can try it free for 30 days.

    Shangri-La — Book Two cover: a woman at the edge of a tropical pool at sunset
    Book Two

    Shangri-La

    Beginner Model — Book Two

    The door opens all the way.

    Mandy and Dennis have stopped apologizing for wanting more — and in Shangri-La, the braver version of their life stops being a weekend thing. Old friends open their home, their pool, and their rules; new trust gets tested in the open, where heat is just part of an ordinary evening among people who tell each other the truth.

    This is a love story about real people: a marriage that got stronger by getting honest, and the friends who meet them there.

    Buy on Kindle Read the free first chapter

    Free to read with Kindle Unlimited — new members can try it free for 30 days. New here? Start with Muddy Ginger.

    ANN — Book Three cover: a young woman seen from behind on a modeling stool in an art studio, a young art student drawing her
    Book Three — Coming Soon

    ANN

    Beginner Model — Book Three

    Ann said yes first.

    Butler, Pennsylvania, 1986. A girl from Mars walks into an art department and answers an ad — and meets the boy who will spend thirty years looking at her exactly like that.

    Where the whole series began. Coming soon.

    The Beginner Model novels are best read in order: Muddy Ginger, then Shangri-La.

    About the Author

    Ruth Shukeeper

    Ruth Shukeeper writes love stories about real people — ordinary adults who find extraordinary heat in honesty, permission, and trust. The Beginner Model series follows couples living the braver versions of their own lives.

    Ruth lives in the Southeast, drinks too much coffee, and believes the best fantasies are the ones you could actually live.

    The Road Ahead

    The Beginner Model series is a planned world, not a one-book accident. Book Three is already taking shape: an origin story — how Ann and Greg Betts, the couple at the heart of Shangri-La, became the marriage everyone else measures themselves against. More couples, more decades, the same promise: real people, braver lives.

    Reading along? Join Letters from Ruth — new books and first chapters, a few times a year.