LESS TIME AND MONEY--Why My Mail-Order Brides Travel after 1869 by Marisa Masterson

I like 1870. Or 1871. Maybe 1872. Those years are better for sending a mail-order bride to the West in my novels. Anything after 1869.

But why the cut off of 1869? Something important happened in 1870 to change how a bride could more easily and cheaply travel. The Transcontinental Railroad. It's why I love sending brides out after June of 1869. 

Here's an interesting fact I found--the cost of a train ticket. "In 1870 it took approximately seven days and cost as little as $65 for a ticket on the transcontinental line from New York to San Francisco; $136 for first class in a Pullman sleeping car; $110 for second class; and $65 for a space on a third- or “emigrant”-class bench." (https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/Transcontinental%20Railroad%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf)  

Compare the ticket price to the cost of a six-month trip to the California by wagon. Traveling across the country in a covered wagon is estimated to have cost $1000. That's equal to about $20,000 today. (https://www.history.com/news/transcontinental-railroad-changed-america) It was a dangerous, uncomfortable, and expensive trip for some families. But also gave them hope. They were promised free land if they survived the journey--and most did. 

Sure a mail-order bride had to sit on a wooden bench for ten days to cross the country from the East. That small bit of discomfort paled next to the idea of cross the country as a part of a wagon train spending six months in travel or by stagecoach for twenty-five days. The $65 ticket helped settle the West.

Of course, the railroad didn't reach each small town in the territories. My character Liza still needs to travel by stagecoach to reach her groom. Let me tell you! After a few days in that coach, she's glad she didn't cross the whole country in it!

Twins as different as the sun from the moon. But which woman arrived in Silver Strike, Colorado to marry Adam Collins?

She calls herself Elspeth. How long will Liza be able to keep up the ruse? If she thought her groom would accept her as herself, she would abandon her sister’s plot. No, he wants her twin. Liza desperately wants him to learn to love her before Adam discovers who he really married.

Can liars ever prosper? Will Adam be able to forgive her when he discovers that he mistakenly married the wrong woman?