GOING FOR THE GOLD by Marisa Masterson

Gold in the Dakotas! Treasure in the Black Hills! In 1874, a gold rush started. This time, different from the rush to California in 1849, a train was available to take would-be miners across country. Still, the tracks didn't take a man all the way.

Freighting in Buffalo Country

Enter C. W. Drake, a man who recognized an opportunity.

A waiting stage

During the winter of 1876, Drake founded a stage line from Kearney, Nebraska to the Black Hills. Along with his partner, Downing, they received the contract to carry mail from Kearney to Deadwood. The previous summer, they laid out the route and established supply areas along the way, gaining. This let the people they dealt who know the two meant business.


So, in 1877, Kearney was considered the spot to leave the train if you wanted to go to the Black Hills. With four days of almost continual travel, the stage could cover the 330 miles to Deadwood. Quite a feat at that time!

Deadwood, SD, 1877

Too bad, after all that planning, that it was only popular for the one season. By 1878, Sidney was believed to be the best spot for travel from the train to the Black Hills. Poor Drake and Downing.
My next super-secret project is set in Kearney in the summer of 1877, during the exciting time of growth in the town. Stay tuned for more details next month...

For more information on the stage out of Kearney, check out https://history.nebraska.gov/publications/kearney-and-black-hills-stage.

Available for pre-order now at https://www.amazon.com/Teachers-Star-Belles-Wyoming-Book-ebook/dp/B0845TVC4T.

Rustlers and a forced engagement. A treasure map and a missing child. How much can a lady stand?

Forced into the role of a U. S. marshal, Delia Perkins keeps that a secret and goes on with her life as a teacher in the small town of Belle. After all, she's only a courrier, waiting for someone to contact her. So why does she not trust the man who claims to be her contact? Instead, she's drawn to the man she's sure is a part of a gang of rustlers. Will any of this change when someone threatens to reveal her background?

Roland Anderson juggles training both his horses and his daughter. The bad thing is that the horses are better behaved than his little girl. He has a job to do and now he's sure the new teacher knows his true identity. Will she give him away before he can find and arrest the leader of the gang of thieves? Getting close to the gorgeous teacher to find out doesn't seem like a hardship to this widower. Keeping his mind--and hands--off of her is becoming more difficult each day.

When the two are forced into an engagement, will Roland be able to catch the thieves without losing the girl? This is one Valentine's Day that neither Delia nor Roland will soon forget.

Graphology--Victorian Entertainment or Analytical Science?

For my latest novella, Perfectly Mismatched, Book 1 of Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs, I started out to research parlor games from the 1870s-1880s to discover an activity the mail-order brides and prospective grooms could participate in. Like we in contemporary times might play the game where a name is pinned to your back, and you have to guess who it is.

What I learned is that graphology, or the analysis of handwriting, was quite the rage during Victorian times. As was phrenology, which is the interpretation of the bumps on a person’s head, and was used in psychiatry.  Many claim both to be only pseudo-science--but much of that was discovered long after the times when people enjoyed the practices as entertainment.

Graphology consists of a system of comparative analysis made on specific letters: a, e, g, I, m, o, p, t, w, and s. A person writes the two words: ‘two magpies’, and the “expert” pulls from the writer’s handwriting style differences in temperament such as: being shy or gregarious, being sedate or physically active, if the person is an attention-seeker, fears success, have an upbeat or downbeat personality, generous or stingy, etc.

As I read about the study, I envisioned how a person could use a newly acquired skill like this to set herself apart as a matchmaker, hoping to give herself an edge over the competition. Mail-order bride agencies and newsletters were used on a regular basis as a way to entice women to relocate to the western part of American. In my story, the matchmaker who has been hired to provide brides for bachelor miners in a Colorado town feels she has a way to pre-determine which men and which women might be good matches based on similarities she sees in their handwriting. But as with all stories, everything doesn’t go as planned.

Tagline: Running from the past to a new home and name, she runs into a man who follows the rules to the letter.

Buy link:  Amazon;  free in Kindle Unlimited

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts about if handwriting can reveal personality traits. One commenter’s name will be chosen on Sunday, June 25^th at 3PM, to win an electronic copy of any backlist title.