New Release -- The Stranger (Friendly Creek Book 3) by Agnes Alexander

 

When Chad Hathaway drifts into Friendly Creek, he’s not sure if this is where he wants to settle down. He’s a stranger, and the scar on his face makes him look foreboding to most. But he’s got some experience as a lawman, and it just happens that Sheriff Buck Beaumont is looking for a deputy. Running into beautiful Lilibeth Messick makes up his mind for him—Friendly Creek might just be the ideal place to make a home.

But when trouble comes calling in the form of Lilibeth’s prostitute mother, Goldie, and her cohort, the sinister Lester Ferguson, the normally peaceful town of Friendly Creek is turned upside down. Two murders occur in rapid succession, and Chad and Buck must work fast to discover the truth, fearing other citizens might also be at risk.

When Lilibeth is suddenly abducted, Chad’s worst fears are realized, and he vows he’ll do everything in his power to find her and bring her home safely. With a killer on the loose in Friendly Creek, Chad sets out to track Lilibeth and her kidnapper, not at all certain he’s looking for one person or two for the many crimes that have been committed.

With a raging fire threatening the area, he desperately searches for Lilibeth—a woman he’s just realized he’s hopelessly in love with. Can he find her in time to save her? And is it possible she might feel the same love for him—a stranger with a scarred face? Only time will tell, and it’s running out fast for THE STRANGER…

EXCERPT:

Goldie disembarked from the train and looked around. How in the world could that stupid girl think this was a good place to decide to settle down with her brother? I should have ignored Fred and got her into the business, then she’d know what a good life is—because this certainly isn’t it. But it wouldn’t have worked. He kept a close eye on what I did. He’d have stopped sending the money for those brats, and I sure didn’t want to give that up. It came in handy when times were slow.

She sighed and looked around. Maybe I got the location wrong. It could have been a different town. A bigger one. Quit trying to make an excuse to leave here, Goldie, she chided herself in her thoughts. No matter what Lester told you, you didn’t make a mistake. This is it. It has to be. Now, suck up and do what you have to do. Find those young’uns, get the money, and if she refuses to go back with you, forget her. But you need to get the boy. He’s still young enough not to fight you when you demanded that he take care of the menial tasks around the brothel. Things like emptying chamber pots or dragging the dirty sheets down to the wash house. Since he’d been gone, the girls had been complaining about having to do it themselves. Besides, Lester said we need him back, and we wouldn’t punish him too harshly for leaving with his sister.

     

What’s the first thing you do every morning? Me? Coffee! Before I can even consider doing anything else, I pour my first cup of steaming, fragrant brew. After nearly 40 years, my husband knows not to talk to me before I’ve had my first cup—I wouldn’t remember what he said anyway.

I started drinking coffee when I was very young. My first memories are sitting down with my Granddaddy Thrailkill and sharing a cup. Of course, mine was a cup of milk with just enough coffee to tint it a bit and his was black as pitch. But that didn’t matter to me: I was drinking coffee.

Coffee has been around a long time. From the legend of the caffeine-hyped goats in Ethopia in the 1400s, to monks drinking the brew to stay awake for evening prayers, to the fashionable of London visiting one of the 300 coffee houses in the mid-17^th century, coffee is a permanent part of all cultures around the world.

Many times through the centuries, governments and clergymen have tried to ban coffee with little success. Mecca, Italy, Constantinople (Istanbul), even Prussia, where Frederick the Great tried to convince the populace that beer was a better choice for breakfast.

The Dutch brought coffee to New Amsterdam (New York) in the 1600s. After the “tea party” held in Boston Harbor, coffee became the American beverage of choice.

Coffee is said to have fueled the American Civil War. Soldiers wrote in their diaries of their need for their morning cup more often than they did rifles, cannons, or bullets. Men ground their own beans and brewed coffee in little pots call muckets. Some carbines even had built-in grinders so the soldier never went without.

There’s even a statue to coffee. At Antietam in September of 1862 19-year-old William McKinley made the most unlikely coffee run ever, dodging through heavy Confederate fire to deliver vats of coffee to the Union troops. No wonder he was elected president thirty-five years later.

Ah, that fabulous brew. Love it or hate it, it’s fully entrenched in our lives and in our kitchens.

Tracy

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FREE BOOK Beneath a Horse-Thief Moon (Prairie Moon Trilogy Book 1) Kindle Edition by Elizabeth Clements

Free Promotion runs Thursday, September 24, 2020, 12:00 AM PDT through Sunday, September 27, 2020, 11:59 PM PDT for this first book in the Prairie Moon Trilogy. 

Amazon shows the second book as the first book. Hopefully we can get that straight before book 3 comes out on October 1st.

FREE

U.S. Marshal Chase Reynolds is on a mission—to track down an escaped train robber, even if it takes him into the wilds of Canada! Hot on the outlaw’s trail, he follows him into the Canadian West—and encounters more than he bargained for when he’s taken prisoner by a beautiful woman.

Sara Cranston is trying to hold on to her ranch that a band of outlaws is determined to steal from her. A woman alone, she’s “easy pickin’s”—and this ruthless crew is after more than the ranch—there’s a legend of buried gold hidden somewhere on her land.

Sara and Chase have a shared past—one that is full of lies and secrets…and love. Seventeen years have gone by, and the passion is still there between them—but will deceit and mistrust keep them from the happiness they both crave?

Chase has a duty to bring in the outlaws, but now he must work fast to do it before they murder the woman he loves. Can he convince her the future is still theirs for the taking if they only survive to enjoy it? Anything can happen BENEATH A HORSE-THIEF MOON…

I loved this heartwarming adventure from talented debut author Elizabeth Clements.

—Jacquie Rogers, author of the Hearts of Owyhee series

EXCERPT

Whistling Blaze over, Chase pulled rawhide strips from his saddlebag and hobbled the outlaw. There wasn't much he could do about the man's wounds except clean them with water from his canteen. Folding his handkerchief over the bloody stumps, he bound them with the man's bandana.

“I'd just as soon see you bleed to death,” Chase muttered to the unconscious man. “One less outlaw. But dead men tell no tales. And I want to hear all about your rustling partners.”

Murmuring to calm the skittish tethered horse, Chase slung the outlaw across the saddle and tied him down with a rope. He did the same with the dead man, although neither was a featherweight. His shoulder throbbed and burned like hell. Blood trickled inside his sleeve.

“Hold it right there,” a familiar voice growled behind him.

Damn, I'm getting old if a woman gets the drop on me twice in one night.

Be sure Amazon shows the price for buy the book as free before clicking to buy it.

    

THE ILLINOIS and MICHIGAN CANAL

I love rabbit trails – research rabbit trails, that is. You know what I mean: you start out searching for train travel in 1856 and end up reading about a canal that connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River.

The Illinois and Michigan Canal (I&M) opened in 1848 and ran 96 miles from the Chicago River to the Illinois River. From there, boat traffic could reach the Mississippi River, opening up trade routes to St. Louis and points west and south. It also made farming in the region profitable by opening up those same routes to the eastern markets.

When French explorers Father Marquette and Louis Joliet, the first known Europeans to travel through the region, Joliet  remarked that with a canal they could remove the need to portage—or carry your boat from waterway to waterway—and the French could create an empire spanning the continent.

The first survey to determine feasibility was done in 1816. Because several slave-holding states had been recently added to the Union, there was interest in granting Illinois statehood, hoping to align it with the free states. The northern border of the state was moved further north, from the southern tip of Lake Michigan to its current location, so the canal system would be all in one state.

Construction began in 1836 and finished in 1848. The canal was 60 feet wide with tow paths on both sides, allowing mules to drag loaded barges along its route. Passengers were also transported through the canal, but that ended in 1853, when the Chicago-Rock Island and Pacific railroad, which was constructed parallel to the canal, opened for service. The canal remained in use until 1933.

The actual origin site of the Illinois and Michigan Canal has been converted into a nature park that integrates history, ecology and art to communicate the Canal's importance in the development of Chicago. Today much of the canal is a long, thin park with canoeing and more than 62 miles of hiking and biking trails, constructed on the old mule tow paths. It also includes museums and historical canal buildings.

In 1900, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal replaced the I&M and reversed the flow of the Chicago River so it no longer flowed into Lake Michigan—but that’s another blog.

Find me on Facebook @ TracyGarrett.author

LET'S GO RIDE A FERRIS WHEEL

I must admit, my very favorite ride at any fair or carnival is the Ferris wheel.  I love being “up” – someday I’ll tell the story of my 2-year-old self climbing to the top of the refrigerator.  I actually took up snow skiing just so I could ride the gondolas and see the view from the top of the mountains.

I adored the giddy feeling of swooping away from the ground, rocking a little with each stop as the cars were loaded, then going around and around…  Just seeing a Ferris wheel now brings back fond memories of our hometown fair and being “stuck” at the top and able to see forever.

The Ferris wheel, named for George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., seems to have its origins in a 17^th century “pleasure wheel,” on which passengers rode in chairs suspended from large wooden rings turned by several strong men.  These wheels or swings were in operation as long ago as 1615 in Constantinople. Pietro Della Valle, a Roman traveller who attended a Ramadan festival in Constantinople, described a Great Wheel which swept him upwards and downwards with some enjoyable speed.

 

A Frenchman, Antonio Manguino, brought the wooden pleasure wheel to America in 1848 to attract visitors to his fair in Walton Spring, Georgia.

In 1892, William Somers installed three fifty-foot wooden wheels at Asbury Park and Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Coney Island, New York. The following year he was granted the first U.S. patent for a "Roundabout." Ferris rode on Somers' wheel in Atlantic City prior to designing his wheel for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. [It should be noted that Ferris’ design was so similar that Somers filed a lawsuit for patent infringement. Ferris and his lawyers successfully argued that the Ferris Wheel and its technology differed greatly from Somers' wheel, and the case was dismissed.]

 

The original “Chicago Ferris Wheel” stood 264 feet high. The wheel on this behemoth rotated on a 71-ton, 45.5-foot axle, with two 16-foot-diameter cast-iron spiders weighing another 26 tons. There were 36 cars, each fitted with 40 revolving chairs and able to accommodate up to 60 people, giving a total capacity of 2,160 at a time (that’s another 2+ tons). The wheel took twenty minutes to complete two revolutions and carried 38,000 passengers daily at 50 cents each.

After the Exposition, the wheel was rebuilt on Chicago's North Side, near Lincoln Park, next to an exclusive neighborhood. It operated there from October, 1895, until 1903, when it was again dismantled and transported by rail to St. Louis for the 1904 World's Fair. The Chicago Ferris Wheel was finally demolished on May 11, 1906.

However, a new wheel has been built at Union Station in St. Louis, changing the skyline and offering a glimpse into the past. It’s 200 feet tall and offers a 20-mile view of the area. Next time you visit, check it out.

So, tell me. What’s your favorite ride at The Fair?