Rose, Christmas Quilt Brides releases today

Setting: Butte City, Montana Territory 1879 

Spinster Rose MacEwen is the shy daughter in the large family of a prominent banker. All her life, her stutter has kept her from experiencing a normal social life like her sisters have. Although she’s the oldest daughter, Rose rarely talks with anyone outside her large family. Her mother believes no man will ever want her because a woman who can’t act serve as hostess won’t aid a husband’s career. Rather than argue, she keeps her thoughts bottled up inside. For years, she has sat at her grandmother’s side and learned the art of quilting. Rose pours her emotions into making quilts that she donates for charitable causes. But what she yearns for is the chance to converse with others in the community about what’s in her heart. 

Blacksmith Berrin Harimann is most at ease in his world of heat and toil. No one bothers him while he’s wresting useful objects from blocks of metal. Those who come to his dark shop don’t linger after transacting their business. A disfiguring injury five years earlier robbed him of his fiancée. Rather than make excuses for a family who couldn’t look him in the eye, he moved west and set up shop in the Silver Bow Creek Valley. The pain from his burn scar now resides in his lonely heart and festers because of what’s missing from his life. 

When the pulley on her quilt frame breaks, Rose ventures outside the family mansion in search of a blacksmith. Berrin looks up from his forge and sees an elegant lady in his shop doorway. Their gazes meet, and she steps into his world, bringing light. They connect instantly, and their fate seems set. But what chance does this pair have when everyone tells them they are not suited? Can their budding love withstand the expectations of her family and society’s standards? 

Amazon link Also in Kindle Unlimited

I really liked using the same setting as last year's novella in this series, Holle. Butte City has a rich history in German culture, and I was glad to put my research to use again. Plus characters from the first story make cameo appearances, which I hope is as fun for readers as it was for me to write.

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Carousels…A Childhood Delight

 Remember that day when you had your first ride on a carousel or merry-go-round? Maybe it was summer with a warm breeze teasing your hair as you watch the magical, colorful creatures spin by as you waited your turn. Then your mom or dad helped you choose which animal to ride. I always chose a white horse with a thick, unruly mane. I made sure to check if a name was painted on the strap across the animal’s chest. (In retrospect, I have to wonder what the strap was for because it’s not part of the saddle. But back to the memory…) For the duration of the ride (maybe two minutes), I imagined galloping across open fields on the back of this huge animal to the accompaniment of lilting music. My favorite was located in Tilden Park in Berkeley, California.

The carousel you probably envisioned in the above scenario is a mid-19th century invention. But the history actually dates back to an activity knights engaged in about the time of the Crusades. They rode horses in a circle and tossed balls back and forth. The game required both skill and horsemanship and helped trained the knights for doing a task with their hands while guiding the horse with their legs.

Grand Palace in Brussels mid-1500s-wikicommons

In the 17th century, soldiers used swords to spear suspended metal rings and rip the string from its mooring. In some countries, the ring tilt replaced jousting. At celebrations, knights and noblemen rode in formation around a courtyard; sometimes, they stabbed at images of their enemies with swords. The most famous was held in 1662 by King Louis XIV at Tuleiries Palace to celebrate the birth of his heir.

Tulieries Palace-wikicommons

During the 18th century, a carousel was invented that could be transported from fair to fair in a wagon. Carved animals were suspended by chains from the top of a central pole. An animal walked a circle, making the whole structure turn and the rider “flew” outward from the pole by centrifugal force.

By the mid-1900s, the platform carousel was invented where animals on poles were attached to a flat circle that rotated under animal power. Steam engine power was introduced in 1861, and by the early 1870s, an inventor named Savage devised a way for cranks to be added below the platform. The first moving ride contained boats and they moved as if on waves. Savage used the same mechanism on the poled animals so they moved up and down at the same time the whole structure circled. Interesting fact: carousels in UK turn clockwise and animals race to the left but those in US and Europe turn counterclockwise and animals face right.

By the early 1870s, several locations in New York state contained stationary platform carousels enjoyed by many in good weather. European immigrants brought the love of carousels to America, and soon individual cities developed a style.  At Coney Island, saddles were elaborate and contained faux jewel. Philadelphia carousels featured more realistic saddles. A carousel at a county fair usually featured unsaddled horses. When music was added to the ride, many times the song was “Sobre Las Olas” translated to “Over the Waves” written by Juventino Rosas, a Mexican composer. (researched for Cherishing Caitlyn)

Coney Island Carousel-1875-wikicommons

In my upcoming release, the hero, Davet, carves carousel horses for his family’s business. The idea for a hero with this profession came when I included a visit to Coney Island in a story I wrote years ago. I love how research for one story feeds another. That’s why learning isn’t confined to school and we should always search out new information.

BLURB: A Woodcarver for Willa, Mail-Order Papa multi-author series

For the past six months, Willa Grantham has worked hard to maintain the livery stable that thrived under her late husband’s care. Although she’s not looking for a second love, she’s exhausted and lonely and knows life has more to offer. Her sister, Larina, is in the same situation, so the widows place a dual ad in three Eastern newspapers for a husband and hope for the best.

Woodcarver Davet Sauville refuses to endure another cold, damp winter that endangers his asthmatic son’s health. His late wife knew how to minister to the attacks, but Davet feels inadequate. Although unorthodox, he responds to an ad for a mail-order groom because of the widow’s mountainous location. Will a second-chance love spark when these two lonely people find themselves under the same roof?

Amazon Preorder link - releases September 4

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Do you have a favorite carousel? Where was/is it located?

Laramie…A Widely Popular Name

 

My recent release, Eveleen, is set in Laramie City, Wyoming, in the town’s early days. The word ‘city’ was added because so many other places (mountain range, peak, river, plains, Army fort, county, city) held that name and references to the town needed to be distinguished. The name derives from a French-Canadian trapper, Jacques LaRamie, who disappeared in a mountain range in the area in the 1820s. Hence, the name. Features named after LaRamie are only second to those named after Jim Bridger.

Laramie Peak courtesy Wikipedia

Grenville Dodge served as the chief engineer for the Transcontinental Railroad and was responsible for the initial layout of Cheyenne (1867), Laramie City, Rawlins Springs, Julesburg, and Dale City (all in 1868). A tent city sprang up on the Laramie Plains in early 1868 along the Overland Stage Route, in anticipation of the railroad coming through. Not far away to the south stood Fort Sanders. As was typical, supplies arrived at pre-determined spots, followed within a few days by the arrival of the crews building the tracks. Along with the crews came saloon owners and the ladies of the night who set up their tents, often for as short as a week before moving on. Mr. Dodge labeled the rag-tag settlements as Hell on Wheels* because no law enforcement was present in these gatherings of several hundred people.

from Carbon County Museum website

Possible because of the protected location of the high-plains town being surrounded by mountain ranges, Laramie City dug in roots and remained after the railroad builders moved west in May 1968. The first train arrived on May 4, and by May 10 when regular service was established, permanent buildings were already being built. Lawless and dangerous at first, the town struggled to find an adequate sheriff. The first mayor quit after six weeks because the other council members didn’t support him. The first marshal, “Big” Steve Long, also owned a saloon, Bucket of Blood. With his two half-brothers, he used harsh tactics to force people off their land, often through the challenge of a gunfight. By October, he’d killed 13 men.

My first story in the Rescue Me Mail Order Brides, Treise, featured an honorable lawman who took the job in 1869. I like to think the town was better for Paxon’s presence. In Eveleen, the hero is a dairy farmer, who I see as a settler of the Wild West.

*an acclaimed TV series of this name ran for five seasons starting in 2011

BLURB

Eveleen Murphy works as a maid in the house of a Philadelphia lawyer. Amiable and fun-loving, she is a favorite in the household. But when her employer’s younger brother moves in, she is confronted at every turn by his unwanted romantic advances. When her cousin’s in danger, she takes in Treise. The women make a plan to answer ads for mail-order brides in the small city. But when jewelry goes missing and Eveleen is blamed, she has to go on the run. With only one letter from a potential husband in hand, Eveleen sets out for Wyoming Territory.

Dairy farmer Bjorn Omdahl has been content to work the family dairy farm with his younger brother. Knowing after his twin’s marriage, Einar will move to his wife’s farm, Bjorn places an ad for a mail-order bride, hoping for an experienced farm woman. The first woman to reply is from the city, and he doubts the wisdom of his communication. When he’d faced with the woman’s arrival at his farm, he has to decide to move her into his home or fund her ticket home. With such a tenuous start, what hope does this relationship have?

Amazon

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A Brief History of Lighthouses

 

Structures have been needed along coastlines to warn sailors for as long as people have put vessels into oceans, seas, and bays. The first lighthouse is thought to be The Lighthouse at Alexandria (Egypt) built in 256 BCE was believed to be about 330 feet tall, making it one of the seven wonders of the world at the time. Multiple earthquakes between 950 and 1323 CE tumbled the structure to ruins.

In the Unites States, lighthouses were first governed by the Lighthouse Establishment created in 1791 as part of the Treasury Department. Complaints from owners in the shipping industry prompted the 1852 creation of The US Lighthouse Board, a quasi-military organization that focused on modernizing the structures and equipment. Construction of many of the coastal lighthouse was completed by the U.S. Corps of Engineers. Their expertise was needed to determine which type of structure worked best for the designated location. After 1865, all lighthouses had Fresnel lenses (named after the developer French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel). The special design of the lens (flatter and with more angles) captures and beams more of the light from a single source. 

1-Fresnel lens; 2-convex lens from Wikipedia

Men recruited into the lighthouse service had to meet specific physical requirements and were responsible for detailed recordkeeping and maintenance to keep the equipment functional. Most lighthouses sit on bluffs or beaches overlooking an ocean where the light at the top of a tower shining at night marks the coastline to prevent ships from running aground. Some towers are built from a ground base (with attached house), and other rise from the second floor of a base structure where the lightkeeper lives. Because the structures also serve as daymarks for ships to chart their progression along a route, neighboring lighthouses have different overall designs or different patterns are painted on the towers. Due to remote lighthouse locations, lightkeepers often had to be self-sufficient by maintaining a vegetable garden and raising chickens and a cow. Supplies and mail were delivered by a light tender (person on a small boat) on a regular basis.

I’ve always found lighthouses fascinating, and I just released my second novella in the “Keepers of the Light” series titled Between Two Beaus.

When Gala’s decision to act as a fake fiancée threatens the balance among the trio of friends, she is torn between Hal, who has suddenly shown interest, and fulfilling her promise to Bork.

Amazon or free in Kindle Unlimited

If you want to learn more lighthouse facts, join the series Facebook page here.

Why We Bless Those Who Sneeze

 As often happens when I’m writing a new story, I clicked to a search engine to look up ONE simple fact and then get intrigued and keep clicking.

In writing Between Two Beaus, my October release in the "Keepers of the Light" series, I wanted to know what someone of Swedish and of Finnish heritage would say when another person sneezed. So, here’s your brief lesson on why we bless sneezers.

from webcomics.net

In pre Christian population, people believed their souls lived in their breath and a violent sneeze could temporarily expel your soul from your body. If your soul is gone, then the devil can sneak in and you might need an exorcism to get it out. So the God Bless You was a protection for you during that perilous time.

Sneezes were thought to be an interference by evil spirits and so a blessing of some type of spoken to invoke good spirits. Another theory is that people thought your heart stopped momentarily with the sneeze and hearing someone wish you well would start it again. Yet another theory is that the practice originated during the time of the plague when people blessed those who sneezed as a way to keep the disease from infecting them. The idea being to wish those affected good health.

No matter the belief, here are a few ways to respond to a sneeze.

Most of us know Geshunheit, which is German for health.

People in Spanish countries say salud for health for the first sneeze then dinero (money) for the second and amor (love) for the third.

Dutch is gezondheid for health for the first sneeze only.

French is â tes souhaits for to your wishes.

Finnish is terveydeski or for health.

Say prosit  when someone sneezes in Sweden (the first time only) Added detail: Swedish folklore dictates that each time you say tack (thank you) in response to prosit, a gnome will die. The word is the same in Danish and Norwegian.

In Russia people say будьте здоровы for “be healthy”. 

In Yiddish the response is tsu gesunt.

After the first, the saying in Turkish is çok yaşa or“live long” and for the second sneeze, the response is sağlıklı yaşa meaning “live healthy”. But more than a simple “thank you”, the sneezer’s response to the first blessing is, “And I hope you will live to see it.”

Tagline for Between Two Beaus releasing October 13^th.

When Gala’s decision to act as a fake fiancée threatens the balance among the trio of friends, she is torn between Hal, who has suddenly shown interest, and fulfilling her promise to Bork.

The "Keepers of the Light" authors are hosting a Summer Fun and Games Facebook party on September 25 & 26 from 8AM-5PM PDT to highlight the upcoming releases. My time slot is 11AM to 2PM on 9/26. A $50 Amazon gift card will be awarded at the completion of the party on the Amazon series readers page. The first 8 titles in the series are on sale 9/25-9/26 for only 99 cents. Find them on the series page.

Setting A Story in My Own “Backyard”

When I started plotting my latest historical novella, A Bride for Cody, I realized that I hadn’t used my home state of California for a long time. One of my critique partners used to own a commercial apple orchard, and she published a book of recipes related to those years and her experiences as a grower. Those two elements came together, and I made my hero an apple grower. I had hoped to use the actual town where my friend’s orchard is located, but the apply industry in that town happened almost two decades later.

So I invented a town called Acorn Valley (because the native Serrano and Cahuilla tribes collected acorns here) but overlaid it in the valley where the real town of Oak Glen is. Evidence of metates (holes in rocks where the native women ground the nuts) exists in nearby streambeds and the foothills of the Little San Bernardino Mountains. The year that worked for my Civil War veterans (both characters) was 1869, which was earlier than the real town of Redlands was established. But a settlement called Lugonia did exist around a Spanish land grant that Mormons had occupied for a decade before being called back to Utah, proving the land could be valuable farm land. The area was not well-developed, but a short-line stagecoach service existed.


Once I discovered transportation was in service, I knew I could create a realistic story for that year. My writing time was compressed due to successive deadlines. The factor that helped me create the mail-order bride story between individuals wounded by their experiences in war time was the fact that I have driven those hills of my fake town and valley. Years ago, I visited the town of Oak Glen in apple-picking season and have seen what those apple trees look like. My hope is that if any southern California resident reads my story, that person will see I have accurately depicted the region. Now, as I drive in my county, I'm on the lookout for other likely locations.

Blurb for A Bride for Cody, Proxy Brides series #42:


Veteran Cody Sheffield went from surviving the Civil War ended to spending years building the Transcontinental Railroad. Finally, he finds solace on an uncle’s apple farm in southern California. A change in family circumstances demands he seek a bride.


Nurse Riona Gilbride pitched in to do her part when the war came to her hometown of Harpers Ferry. Years later, she’s still tending others when she realizes the time has come to care for herself, and she answers an ad in a matchmaking newsletter.


Expectations and temperaments clash. Soon, both Cody and Riona wonder if their decision to marry without meeting beforehand is a huge mistake.


FREE in Kindle Unlimited

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Quiltmaking as a Necessity

Not every quilt made by our foremothers was a piece of beauty. Some were utilitarian and so necessary to ward off the cold in log cabins or sod houses or clapboard houses with no insulation in the walls. Often, they were constructed of the scraps left from when dresses or shirts were cut from whole cloth or the salvageable parts of ripped or worn clothing. Many quilts were of uneven fabric weights and the corners of the squares didn’t exactly match, but on a cold night, any cover was welcomed.

Some women (apologies to anyone whose male ancestor was a quilter) enjoyed a higher standard of living and purchased yard goods for the express purpose of designing and sewing a quilt. Those are the items that have most often been passed down within families or which have survived more than a hundred years and are curated in a museum. Women used quilts as an outlet for their creativity—inventing patterns around sights or events important to their lives. Patterns are named Rocky Road to California, Flying Geese, Tumbling Blocks, Mariner’s Compass, and Pinwheel.

In my latest release, Freedom’s Path, I included a plot thread of how quilts were used on The Underground Railroad. Although a federal law existed that forbade people from aiding an escaped slave, many people disagreed with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1852. Not much could be done if a slave was apprehended because the bounty hunters wanted their fee, as did the crooked judges. But abolitionist women set out quilts either on a fence or hung them on a clothesline to be a signal to escaping slaves as to which path was the safest and/or if the way was clear for them to proceed farther along the route. After reading Hidden in Plain View about these efforts, I couldn’t wait to include this fact in a story.

Abolitionist Sidonie Demers must keep her efforts secret in her work as a mail at the Deerbourne Inn. Corporal Colin Crawford searches for abolitionist activity while posing as a salesman. What will happen when their secret identities are revealed?

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How Much Social Commentary Should Historical Romances Include?

Most people pick up a fiction book to be entertained and escape into another world for a few hours. They want to think of the problems wrestled with by others. Even if the reader isn’t looking to specifically learn anything new, the author can use the vehicle of the novel to provide information that leads the reader to further reflection on a topic. Of course, the details have to be subtle, or the author risks the reader setting aside the book due to a lecturing tone. Novels written about events in the current times cannot escape containing bits of social commentary, because the author sets obstacles familiar to contemporary readers before his or her characters and guides them through the problem-solving process.  

Historical authors may have the same goal but have to research what situations were ongoing in the time period being written about. Culture clashes have existed since the first peoples moved out from their secular group to explore what was beyond that next hill or across the nearby stream and encountered those from another area. In the settling of the American West, one of the biggest clashes came over grazing rights and, by default, water rights. Although the grazing lands were public, because sheep eat the grass down almost to dirt level, insufficient forage was left behind after a herd moved through an area. This issue put the cattle ranchers and sheep herders on opposing sides, and often violence resulted. Over the fifty-year period starting in 1870, 120 armed engagements occurred resulting in the deaths of 54 men and between 50,000 and 100,000 sheep.

Even within the cattle industry, different views about who had rights to the public grazing lands existed. The conflict between free grazers and a powerful rancher was depicted in the 2004 movie, Open Range, starring Kevin Costner, Annette Benning, and Robert Duvall.

I used this well-known animosity between cattlemen and sheepherders for building a recent story set in 1887 Aspen. Similarly, other writers have used the theme of Romeo and Juliet or the feud of the Hatfield and McCoys as the spine of their stories. Another goal in my story planning was to relay that those with opposing habits might also possess unique skills that could prove helpful if a person looked past the prejudice.

As with many of my stories, I also included a comedic layer to counter-balance the serious elements. In this case, dogs served that role, and I contrasted the highly trained shepherding dogs owned by the heroine with the rambunctious dogs owned by the hero.

Is learning about social attitudes of past times one of the reasons you read historical romances? (an electronic copy of my Christmas set novella goes to a random pick of one of the people leaving a comment)

BLURB for Silent Signals:

After losing half his herd in the Great Blizzard of 1886, rancher Konrad Werner needs to safeguard his cattle. Tomboy Anora Huxley trains the Australian Shepherds and Kelpies that run the family’s sheep herd. Although cattlemen and shepherds are at odds, the pair discovers common interests. A threat is overheard, and Konrad rides out to Anora’s ranch to protect her. The tense situation reveals their true feelings. Will Anora be swayed by family loyalty, or will she listen to her heart that responds to Konrad’s silent signals?

~~~~~

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