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Thursday, July 20, 2017

New Release -- Trinity Hill: A Texas Mail Order Bride Trilogy by Celia Yeary -- Giveaway!

 KATHLEEN (Trinity Hill Brides: Book I)
A desperate man...
A woman on the run...
A surprising perfect match...

Kathleen Parker arrives in Trinity Hill, Texas, as a mail-order bride—but the name on the contract is not hers. She has good reason to be on the run, and taking another woman's place and name seems like the perfect plan to start a new life.

Josiah Fremont is desperate for a wife—a woman who will cook, care for his three children, and generally be a helpmate on his newly purchased ranch.

Kathleen and Josiah discover a mutual attraction, but decide to hold off on marriage. Under the name on the contract – Gwendolyn – Kathleen agrees to join Josiah and his family for a few weeks while planning her next move. But staying with him and the children might bring danger into all their lives—and that, she can’t do.

When a man with revenge in his heart and a gun on his hip brings arrives in Trinity Hill, Josiah learns Kathleen's real identity. Can he make the right choice for his children, himself, and the woman who’s found a place in his heart?

LORELEI (Trinity Hill Brides: Book II)
Mail-order bride Lorelei Hastings arrives by train in Trinity Hill, Texas. Instead of being greeted by the darkly handsome, prosperous man she is expecting, a tall, muscular man wearing dusty work clothes claims her.

Daniel Carpenter, the livery owner, explains the banker had ordered two brides to choose between for himself—and he's already made his choice.

Lorelei is the leftover bride—and well, she’s got to marry somebody!

She is furious, but has no recourse except to drive home with the big blond man who speaks very little.

It isn’t long before Daniel’s son, Davy, steals her heart, and then Daniel makes his own claim…but will it come too late? There’s only so much a girl can take before she moves on!

ANNALISA  (Trinity Hill Brides: Book III)
When Annalisa Morriset arrives in Trinity Hill, Texas, she learns the man she’d traveled there to wed does not choose to marry anyone! Bewildered, she answers a summons from Miss Lavinia Westmoreland, who, thinking she knew best, had arranged the marriage. Independent Annalisa gently rebuffs all suggestions from this kind lady and sets out on her own to find a job.

When Annalisa happens upon a strange group—a big man with long hair and an unshaven face, two bedraggled children, and amazingly, an infant cuddled inside the man’s heavy coat—she realizes her decision has been made. In the short span of two days, Annalisa is convinced this mysterious man, David Allen, desperately needs her help with these homeless waifs.

But Annalisa grew up in an orphans’ home, and caring for these children brings back haunting memories she’s tried hard to forget. David has his own demons to battle, believing he has committed a grievous crime.

The two near-strangers face danger, heartache, confusion—and finally, an attraction neither of them understands. But despite everything, they can’t give up on this patchwork family of theirs—it’s all they have, and sometimes, miracles happen in the most unlikely circumstances!

TRINITY HILL : A TEXAS MAIL ORDER BRIDE

Boxed Set

Be sure to leave a comment for a chance to win a free ebook!


        

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

I DARE YOU!

By: Celia Yeary
How many times in your life have you heard this taunt? My family moved about every six months when I was a child. For several years, we were transient, moving from one oil field to the next, living in very odd places. This meant I changed friends and acquaintances with every move. I was always "the new girl," until we finally settled in one town and stayed.

As the new girl, I had to test the waters, so to speak, waiting and wondering if someone would ask me to play. I wasn't a tomboy, really, but I would take a chance here and there to try something new in order to win friends. Often, a girl or boy would "dare" me.

In first grade, no one would seesaw with me, but I stayed close to the seesaws, hoping someone would ask. A boy stepped up and said, "I can walk up one end of the seesaw and all the way down the other side. Want to see?" Of course, I did. I nodded and he demonstrated the daring feat. As he neared the center, he paused, held his arms straight out, and ran down the other side as his weight lowered the seesaw. Then he dared me to try it.
Okay. I slowly walked up one side almost to the center, but my leather-soled white high-tops were slick, causing my feet to slide backwards. I fell forward and my mouth landed on one of the big iron bolts that held the seesaw to the iron rail. The fall split my bottom lip, and I fell off, also scraping my knees because I wore a dress. Now blood poured from my lip and my knees. A teacher came running and took me inside to call my mother. A doctor put stitches in my lip and the flesh below. I still have a scar there.
But I took the dare.

In another town, a neighbor boy dared me to stand on the edge of the cesspool covered with a loose piece of tin. I did, holding my nose from the stench. My mother came slamming out the back door and yelled at me. She called me to the house and told me a story of a little boy falling into a cesspool and drowning. Sure, that scared me silly…but I had taken the dare.

Another boy invited me to his house to play. (I most often played with boys, I guess.) In his room, he told me he had scary comic books in a box under his bed and asked if I wanted to see them. I said, no, I didn't want to read anything scary. But…he dared me. We spent the afternoon reading scary comic books.

As an adult, at age forty, a friend taught me to play golf. She was a firecracker. Often, I'd want to "lay up" when I approached a water hazard, but she'd always say, "I dare you to go for it." Oh, of course, I did. Most often I failed, but at least I tried.

You'd think I learned my lesson over my lifetime of taking dares. But no…I still try new things, sometimes on my own, sometimes at the urging of a friend.

Years ago, my best friend urged me to play hooky and drive to Dallas to see Bruce Springsteen in his "Born in the USA" world tour. I took the dare and we went…and we were the teachers!

In 2004, I had to stay in a recliner much of each day because of a couple of medical problems. Bored to death, I complained I had nothing to do. My husband placed an old used laptop in my lap and said, "Well, write something."

I took the dare and wrote an entire novel, and I'd never written anything in my life. Now, I have a dozen contracts and still writing.

In case you think I'd try anything, don't. I do have limits. I said no when urged to try a cigarette; I said no to boys who wanted to go too far; and I said no climbing the town water tower.

However, taking a chance…or a dare…on something you'd really like to do can be a good thing. Suppose you, as an author, would like to try writing, oh, a space opera romance instead of the sweet girl-next-door romances you prefer, but you don't know where to begin or if you'd be successful. Or perhaps you'd really like to enter one of the most prestigious contests around, but fear a dreadfully low critique.

I believe most authors are risk-takers. Otherwise, we wouldn't send our most beloved manuscripts to strangers, hoping they'll love it. We wouldn't take the chance on a bad review by sending our published novel to the best reviewer we know.

Go ahead. Try something different. I dare you.
~*~*~
I had always written full length novels, but discovered I liked to read the novella length, too. So, I tried my hand at writing this shorter story, and learned I could not only do it, but readers liked them, too.
An Example: from a coming release: A Western Romance Short--titled
Kathleen: Trinity Hill Brides-Book I

Excerpt:
Marianne gasped for breath as she gripped his shoulder.

"Pa. There's a bad man in the house. He has a gun..."

Cynthia interrupted and spoke in her high pitched voice. "And he held me and then he put my dress hem under the legs of the chair and then he wouldn't let me pee-pee, and I had to go ...in...my...drawers."

Marianne took up her story. "...and I poured red ants on him, and Gwendolyn grabbed the gun..."

"All right. Stay with Lucas out here. Lucas? You hear me? Do not let these girls leave this spot."

"Yes, sir."

Marianne jerked on Josiah's pants legs. "But...but Pa, he called Gwendolyn, I think, Kathleen."

Cynthia nodded. "He did. He said Kathleen. Not Gwendolyn."
_________________________________________________________

Celia Yeary-Romance...and a little bit 'o Texas
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/celiayeary
My Blog
Sweethearts of the West-Blog
My Facebook Page 

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Change was Good: Plague and the end of Medieval Europe

This is the last of a six-part series about the Middle Ages with the goal of giving casual readers of medieval romances a better understanding of the time period. Today's topic is the Black Death and end of the Middle Ages.

Previously
In First the Fall, Then the Barbarians, we discussed the macro trends of the early medieval period and how they set the foundation for the Early Middle Ages. We painted kings and knights with a broad brush and learned the benefits of political stability in Huzzah! Knights, Kings and Living the High Life. We looked at war and social change in Ideals of Chivalry and Realities of War and discussed the lives of medieval women in Wives, Mothers, and Nuns. We considered the difference between ‘the church’ and ‘The Church’ in The Desire for God, Power, and Learning.


Some scholars put the beginning of the Renaissance—or the end of the Middle Ages—as early as 1215 with the reign of Frederick II, whose personality and intellectual curiosity heralded the Renaissance. Others put it as late as 1469, the year Lorenzo de Medici began ruling Florence and who could arguably be called the patron of the Italian Renaissance.

If I had to pick a date and defend it for a dissertation, I would argue for 1352, the year after the first wave of the plague burned itself out and the shattered survivors began the painful process of rebuilding their world.

The beginning of the End

Numerically, more died in the Spanish Flu epidemic between 1917-18, but total deaths were 3 percent to 5 percent of the global population.
Yersinia pestis, the bacteria associated with the Great Mortality, touched European shores in 1347, and in the course of five years, killed an estimated 50 million people from the Mediterranean to the North Sea. That’s 60 percent of the European population. In other words, every six out of 10 people living in Europe died; in some places, however, mortality was 80 percent. That would be 30 million to 48 million dead in California and 12,000 to 18,000 where I currently live.

Scholars will argue the exact number, but noodle the idea of at least half (if not more) of the people in your town dying of disease within a month. If you live in a town of 25,000, you will have ~15,000 people die in a few weeks. You have to find those people, bury them, divvy up their goods, and fill their place in the town’s social structure.

The Black death, also called Bubonic Plague because many victims suffered from swollen lymph nodes or buboes in the neck, armpit or groin, is often attributed to infected fleas biting humans after their preferred host, the black rat, died. However, based on the speed, virulence, and rapidity of transmission, many Plague scholars believe there were at least three strains of plague circulating Europe, including a pneumonic strain that appears to have been airborne.

Most scholars believe Yersinia pestis originated in central Asia and spread through China along the main east-west trade routes through commerce and war. It came to Europe in the fall of 1347 on Italian merchant ships fleeing Caffa (sometimes spelled Kaffa). In what might well be the most effective instance of germ warfare ever, when Mongol leader Jeni Beg realized he could not take the city because plague had destroyed his army, he lobbed the plague-riddled corpses over the wall, infecting those within the city (although rats came and went unimpeded by either army, so Jeni Beg can’t take all the credit or the blame). Defenders, fleeing plague, brought the disease to Marselles in the second week of September. By November, it was in Genoa, Venice and Pisa. These cities served as bridgeheads from which the plague conquered all of Europe.

Nothing to do but Wait and Pray

Horrifyingly, people knew it was coming. Stories arrived in a town or city weeks or months in advance of the assault. As people fled cities to avoid the plague (often bringing it with them) they told stories of thousands dead in a few weeks, of people dancing  in the morning, feeling ill in the afternoon, and being dead by evening, and of whole families lost and no one realizing it because their neighbors were dead, as well.

Surviving accounts tell us of mass burials and wild pigs and dogs digging up the shallowly buried corpses and of rivers being consecrated to handle the dead because a city ran out of land and people to bury its dead. One Italian man wrote of burying his wife and five sons with his own hands.

Modern epidemiologists may debate the exact cause of the Plague, but the key point from a societal point-of-view is simply this: all efforts to contain or stop the plague failed.
  • Medicine failed.
  • Human sacrifice failed (i.e. the slaughter of thousands of urban Jews accused of poisoning wells to kill Christians).
  • Prayer failed.


As a result of the horror and the failure of social systems to contain the suffering, the plague altered how people saw themselves and each other, weakened their faith in institutions and God, and bestowed unprecedented opportunities for mobility and prosperity on survivors.

Loss of Faith

As we discussed in an earlier post, the church (local parish priests and monks) and The Church (the institution) were the driving force of medieval society, but when society turned to the church in both forms for comfort, for answers, for intercession, the Church failed. It could neither offer answers nor comfort for the dying. Many churchmen fled their posts in an attempt to save their own lives and those that stayed, usually died.

Then—as now—people searched for reason behind the plague and in the absence of answers, many people believed the plague was divine punishment for sins. When prayers, votive churches, and the various fasts days called for by the Church failed to even slow the plague, people began to question the righteousness of the church and its divine role in society. This change in perception weakened people’s faith in the church, which led directly to the Reformation, as well the Enlightenment, separation of Church and State, the idea of upward mobility and concept of to individual liberty.

It also changed individual lives—often for the better.

Moving on Up

To be honest, if you survived plague, your life was almost immediately materially better off than it had been or would have been if the Black Death hadn’t overrun Europe. That’s harsh, especially to the millions who died horrific deaths, but it’s also true.

Prior to 1347, Europe was over-populated and culturally stagnant. The 12th century intellectual blossoming that led to the High Middle Ages had faded. Social mobility had come to a standstill and Europe struggled to feed itself, which means the majority of the population was malnourished and one bad harvest from starvation.

As Plague wiped out the population, many people found themselves the sole heirs to their extended family. When consolidated, this inheritance was often substantial enough to change the life of the survivor. This wealth included food animals as well as tools (looms, hence the word heirloom) and money. Food was no longer scarce or unaffordable, which means diet and overall health improved, as well.

Our survivors had health and wealth, skills that were in demand, and an understandable skepticism of the church. They could afford to educate their children. They were willing to risk their noble lord’s wrath and move to the city or to another estate where that lord offered a relief of heriot and daily wages, and were no longer content with their place in the Great Chain of Being. They were needed enough by society that they could ignore efforts from the nobility and the church to reinstitute “traditional values,” and efforts to put the lower orders back into their place failed.

Many of the social changes brought by the plague would have happened anyway, but probably not for another century or two. What the plague did was concentrate these changes into a few painful decades.

A New Outbreak

The plague resurfaced in Europe every decade or so until 1666, but we are not free of the bubonic plague. An outbreak occurred in the early 19th century in China and southeast Asia. Much of our medical knowledge of the plague comes from this outbreak.

And in 1994, bubonic and pneumonic plague surfaced in Surat India, killing only 56 people thanks to the quick and efficient response of India's government and modern antibiotics. Of note, however, is how people reacted to this outbreak. As with the 14th century outbreak, Doctors and nurses refused to treat the sick. People fled the city of Surat in packed trains going to New Delhi and other cities. The plague traveled with them. Others blamed local Muslim populations for poisoning the city’s water supply. Sigh.

About 20 people in the U.S. are infected with plague every year and a few die, mostly because the medical community doesn’t recognize symptoms in time.

If you’d like to learn more about the plague, let me know and I can most links and suggestions in the comments. Overall, though, the clearest learning from a study of plague, is simply this: individuals are fragile, but humanity is resilient.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog series of medieval Europe. I have only skimmed the surface of long and complex time period, so please ask questions. However, I am on a plane from Hawaii today, so feel free to discuss among yourselves until I land stateside.


Keena Kincaid writes historical romances in which passion, magic and treachery collide to create unforgettable stories. Her books are available from Prairie Rose Publications and Amazon. For more information on her stories, visit her Amazon page, her website, or Facebook.

Monday, July 17, 2017

Rise and Fall of Sutter's Fort - Part 3





In May, I featured the RISE of Sutter’s Fort and how John Augustus Sutter Sr., a native of Switzerland, received a grant from the Mexican government, after which he began to build what he hoped to be how own little empire, New Helvetica. To read that post, please CLICK HERE. In June, I shared about the FALL of Sutter’s Fort brought on by one momentous event that proved to be a catalyst for bringing California into the Union as a state, but was disastrous as far as Sutter’s plans for his land. To read that post, please CLICK HERE.

 
1867 photo of what was left of Sutter's Fort

When gold was discovered in the nearby foothills by James Marshall, local merchant Sam Brannan rushed to open a store near the Sacramento River to take advantage of the convenient waterfront location. What was then called Sutter’s Embarcadero was soon known as the City of Sacramento. The city rapidly grew into a trading center for miners outfitting themselves for the gold fields.

Sutter's Fort Plaque, ctsy Ian Howard

As word quickly spread, some 80,000 miners flooded the area, extending up and down the length of the Sacramento Valley, and overrunning Sutter’s domain. Sutter’s employees also joined the Gold Rush and he was unable to protect his property.



As almost everything Sutter had worked for was destroyed, John deeded everything that was left to his son, John Augustus Sutter Jr., in order not to lose it. The younger Sutter saw the commercial possibilities of the land and promptly made plans for building a new city he named Sacramento, after the Sacramento River.



The elder Sutter deeply resented this because he had wanted the city to be named Sutterville and be built near his New Helvetia domain.



Ironically, although James Marshall discovered gold on land where John Sutter was building a sawmill to provide lumber for his dream of an empire, neither man ever profited from the discovery that should have made them independently wealthy. Though Marshall tried to secure his own claims in the gold fields, he was unsuccessful. The sawmill where the gold was found also failed, as every able-bodied man took off in search of gold. 


By 1852 John Sutter was bankrupt and his land was filled with squatters. After Sutter sold the property to his son, John Augustus Sutter Jr., he and his wife moved back to Lititz, Pennsylvania. From there, he continued to fight the U.S. Government for compensation for his losses for fifteen years. He died without successfully winning his appeal to Congress.


In the meantime, his elder son, John Augustus Sutter Jr., who had stayed behind in California, prospered.



Most of the buildings that had belonged to Sutter were dismantled by squatters. Only one of the buildings survived. It was the original fort, the same building in which Sutter and Marshall met to discuss the discovery of gold.



This building with walls 2.5 feet (0.76 m) thick and 15 to 18 feet (5.5 m) high managed to survive the destruction of vandals, but since the fort was largely deserted by the 1850s it fell into disrepair.


In 1891, the Native Sons of the Golden West, who sought to safeguard many of the landmarks of California's pioneer days, purchased and rehabilitated Sutter's Fort when the City of Sacramento sought to demolish it. Repair efforts were completed in 1893 and the fort was given by the Native Sons of the Golden West to the State of California. In 1947, the fort was transferred to the authority of California State Parks.


The adobe structure has been restored to its original condition and is now administered by California Department of Parks and Recreation. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961.
 



It is because of that preservation and restoration effort this fort is available as an example of the early history of California. It is frequented by school tours.


In fact, my first recollection of touring Sutter’s Fort was when I joined one of my children’s fourth or fifth grade classes (don’t remember exactly what grade goes there for field trips each year) on the two hour bus trip (which seems like a lot longer than two hours when you are traveling on a school bus with a class of vocal, excited children) up to the fort. 



I found it fascinating. I think the impressions that stuck with me were (1) the walls were quite thick, and (2) people sure lived in small quarters back then. However, I am grateful that although this fort was a loss and a symbol of bankruptcy for John A. Sutter Sr., it is a wealth of California history for us today.



Sources:

Wikipedia

Kathy Weiser/Legends of America, updated May, 2017.

http://oldsacramento.com/about/history

Zina Abbott is the pen name used by Robyn Echols for her historical western romances. Five of her books in the Eastern Sierra Brides 1884 series, , Big Meadows Valentine, A Resurrected Heart, Her Independent Spirit, Haunted by Love  and Bridgeport Holiday Brides, have been published by Prairie Rose Publications and are available. A sixth full-size novel, Luck Joy Bride, is in the works.
 

Thursday, July 13, 2017

New Release -- A RESTLESS KNIGHT by Deborah Macgillivray -- Giveaway!

Dragons of Challon Book 1


Had the music stopped, or had she just ceased to hear it?  All she could do was stare into the dragon green eyes.  Drown in them.  This man was her destiny.  Nothing else mattered.  He removed the netting from her grasp and then dropped it.

Shaking, Challon took her face in both hands.  The hunger in his eyes rippled, tangible.  So strong, it nearly robbed her of breath.  With a need, tempered with reverence, he took her mouth with his.  Lightly at first.  Then deeper, more desperate, more demanding.  The primitive male desire to mate unleashed.  Beneath it all was his need for her—in ways she knew he did not begin to understand.

She smiled.  He would.

Lost in the power, Tamlyn was not aware of the hundreds of other people around them or their celebrating.  To her, the world stood still, narrowed, until there was nothing but the star-filled night.


 And Challon.

EXCERPT:

     “My lady! My lady!”
     The shrill cry rent the stillness of the remote Highland glen. Startled, scores of ravens took wing, blotting out the sky. Their cacophony echoed the call…my lady, my lady. For a peculiar instant, the world held its breath as the heavens were turned black.
     Tamlyn MacShane paused from picking the first violets of spring. Straightening from the stooped-over position, she arched her shoulders to relieve the crick in her back. Loch winds were lifting, sweeping up the steep incline. They swirled about her with ghostly, playful hands, tugging wisps of her honey-colored hair from the simple braid hanging down her back. Whilst the heavy mass had nary a curl, ’twas imbued with a will all its own.
     Brushing stray strands from her face, her eyes followed the spiraling path of the noisy blackbirds.
     An ill omen, The Kenning whispered to her mind.
     A frisson of disquiet snaked up her spine. Her fey gift to sense things, and the strange behavior of the birds, summoned fragments of the lingering nightmare that had awakened her this morn. Vague, just at the edge of her thoughts...something about screaming ravens and a coming storm. She shivered.
     “‘Blackbirds fleeing before noontide sun, fate changes before the day be done.’” She repeated the augury in a hushed tone.
     When the lad topped the crest of the tòrr, he screamed once more, “My lady! He comes!”

Be sure and leave a comment for a chance to win a free ebook.

          

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Writing western historical romances and Homemade Ice Cream Hand-Me-Down Family recipe by Kaye Spencer


Writers are sometimes asked why they 'write what they write'. Those of you reading this article who are readers rather than writers, have you considered why you're drawn to a particular genre over all others?

Over the years, I've encountered variations of these questions in author interviews. From a writing perspective, I have three general points for why I tend to write historicals and particularly stories set in the American Old West.



Reason 1—Research
Every historical I write allows me to follow rabbits down research rabbit holes. I've discovered the most intriguing and amazing tidbits of history in my historical research Wonderland. Researching is my ‘happy place’. It’s important to me to have the details in my stories as historically accurate as possible. I’m not perfect in this endeavor, nor am I a ‘professional’ researcher, but I conscientiously work at achieving accuracy, so it’s my hope that upon the rare occasion my history is off, readers will forgive the faux pas.

Reason 2—Living vicariously in the past
While I’m writing a story set in the past, I get to travel to a different place and time and live in someone else's shoes, so-to-speak. I’m like Anthony Marston in Quigley Down Under: “…Some men [women] are born in the wrong century.” All my life I’ve felt out-of-place living in our ‘modern’ world. So when I transport myself to the time in which my characters are living, I’m in another one of my ‘happy places’.

Reason 3—Challenge of overcoming inconveniences
I like writing stories that lack modern day conveniences. Without the amenities we’re accustomed to nowadays, there are so many juicy complications for the characters to face, deal with, and overcome that otherwise could be written away with a call on the cell phone or by hopping an airplane.

I get a little giddy imagining the possibilities, such as...

*Communication: When the hero and heroine have to depend upon letter writing and telegraph messages, both of which were slow (relatively speaking) and could more easily be intercepted or even lost, the villain has the opportunity to weasel his way into the heroine’s life and console her. Perhaps the heroine thinks the hero jilted her at the altar when he doesn’t show up for their wedding when actually the villain intercepted the telegram, which explains the legitimate reason for the hero’s delay. (whew! Wordy sentences.)

*Transportation: Transportation wasn’t necessarily convenient or terribly comfortable. Horseback riding was functional, but for long periods of time over great distances is exhausting and full of plot-enhancing dangers and challenges. Stagecoach travel was cramped, dirty/dusty, really hot/really cold, and could be dangerous. It lacked privacy that women need. Obtaining a decent meal could be an on-going problem. Generally, stage travel was a grueling test of endurance. Traveling by train was limited to where the tracks were laid, and it shared many of the same drawbacks as stage travel, plus the additional discomfort of soot and cinders coming into the passenger cars. After all, the heroine might be kidnapped by a drop-dead handsome train robber or (egads!) find herself stranded on the Texas prairie with nothing but a scoundrel of a gambler as her companion along with the one surviving horse from the stagecoach team after the Comanche attack…

*Contraception: Without our modern-day contraceptives, the possibility of pregnancy looms in historical stories as an ever-present consequence of a romantic dalliance. This is a great plot device for building the sexual tension between the hero and heroine. Fear of out-of-wedlock pregnancy and the real threat of dying in childbirth both add another layer of anxiety to the romantic relationship that isn’t as much of an issue in contemporary stories.

*Medicine: Sophisticated antibiotics as we know them were virtually nonexistent back in the ‘olden days’, which makes the recovery difficult and, sometimes, the character’s very survival tenuous given the physical torture/wounds/injuries we, as authors, inflict upon them. Lack of pain killers and antibiotics makes the situation all that more dire for the hero when the lady doctor extracts the arrow from his thigh.

*And many, many more reasons, but that's enough for now. :-)
























Lassoing a Mail-Order Bride anthology and A Permanent Woman are available on Amazon for Kindle and KindleUnlimited. The anthology is available in print.

Here is the ice cream recipe referenced in the story (click recipe image to enlarge/download).

To bring us around to the question I posed at the beginning of this article...

Why are you drawn to a particular reading and/or writing genre over all others?

Until next time,

Kaye Spencer

Writing through history one romance upon a time

Website/Blog- http://www.kayespencer.com
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