COCOA POWDER & CHOCOLATE CAKE

When researching for my latest work in progress, I started wondering if my 1870s heroine would bake a chocolate cake for that church social she was planning to attend. Since cocoa manufacturing was being done in the American colonies by 1765 in Dorchester, Massachusetts, she just might have.

Cocoa is the chocolate powder made by pressing most of the cocoa butter from ground and roasted beans, leaving behind powder and cocoa butter. In 1847, Fry and Sons, an English company, combined cocoa butter with chocolate liquor and sugar to produce what we know today as chocolate.

In 1876, Daniel Peter of Switzerland added dried milk to make milk chocolate. Milton Hershey, after seeing the German’s chocolate processing machinery at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, started his own chocolate company. And the rest is history.

Book review: Innocent Minds by CA Asbrey

Blurb:

After suffering a horrific loss, Nat and Abi must try to piece their lives together, build a future, and repair the past. But before they can figure out their own complicated relationship, they must unite to help Jake find his children—no easy task, since their mother has disappeared, and they’ve been left with a priest who is bent on giving them away!

In a maelstrom of grief, anger, and legal complications, one of Abi’s friends, Dr. Vida Cadwallader, also a female Pinkerton, steps up to help. As Vida tries to help The Innocents make sense of what’s happening, she soon becomes embroiled in mysterious happenings within the brutal insane asylum where she consults part-time. When one of her colleagues is murdered, Vida quickly becomes a suspect.

With no time to lose, Vida, Abi, Jake, and Nat band together to free one of the asylum’s unwilling patients who may hold the key to all their unanswered questions—if she only lives long enough to survive the escape. Now, with an unknown murderer on the loose as well, time is running short for them to find the children, solve the crime, and spirit the patient away to safety. Can they keep their necks out of the noose and buy enough time to solve the mystery shrouding their lives? Can anyone make sense of this world of shadows, darkness, and madness?

My review:

I'm going to preface this with a warning:  I'm an empathetic reader.  And when I find myself connected to a story and invested in characters as I have with Abi, Nat, and Jake, I have a challenge on my hands to process all my emotions I feel with the story along with all the characters' emotions.

So when I tell you I had to (ahem) gently and purposely put my kindle down and walk away from this story for a bit, you know something dug deep.  It's a mark of a skilled author to not only deliver those responses, but make it so as soon as I sorted through the myriad of emotions, I was ready and even a bit anxious (both with anticipation and trepidation) to see what happened next.

That being said, with this 5th installment of The Innocents series, we're treated to a journey of restoring family and healing which soothed some hurts, along with a new mystery that not only gave me ghostbumps several times, but threw some curve balls that I never picked up on.  There's also another twist in here that once you get over the shock of it, it actually makes the story all the better.  But you really gotta take a breather there too and logic it out, if you're anything like me.

Innocent Minds delivers a story filled with passion, vengeance, heartbreak, and healing.  The mystery feels a bit low-key compared to the other stories, but I believe that's due to the depth of the emotional journey the characters face at this time in their lives and how it all fits together.   The whodonit is still just as twisted and intricate as I've come to expect.

As always, when I come to the end of a new Innocents book, the anticipation for the next book is strong!  One more to go, and I know the journey will be worth it all.

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Under a Western Sky boxed set and The Comanchero's Bride by Kaye Spencer set #westernromance #PrairieRosePubs #boxedset #amreading

My novel, The Comanchero's Bride, is in the company of five other outstanding western romance novels in the Prairie Rose Publications’ boxed set, Under a Western Sky. Six great novels in one tidy package. How wonderful is that?

A little about The Comanchero's Bride...

The country music artist, Marty Robbins, has been an influence in my writing since...well, since forever, it seems. Themes and snippets from his gunfighter ballads and songs of the Old West show up in my stories as my little way to pay homage to a man I greatly admire.

His ballad, Meet Me Tonight in Laredo, is the inspiration for The Comanchero's Bride. I expanded upon the 'forbidden love' between the woman (Elizabeth Bradford White) and the former Comanchero (Mingo Valderas), and added the woman's spurned and revenge-seeking suitor (a well-connected politician).

Meet Me Tonight in Laredo on YouTube

Here is an excerpt from The Comanchero's Bride.

At the livery, Mingo remained in the shadows where he could see both ways along the street. Opening the wagon doors just wide enough to allow him to pass through, he eased his way inside. Speaking in a low soothing tone to his horses, he packed and saddled them under the moonlight coming in from two windows. Opening half the double doors, he led the two riding horses out the back, tied them to a corral rail, and returned for the packhorse.

He no more than reached the packhorse when a cold voice in the shadows stopped him in his tracks.

“Don’t turn around, Valderas.”

Mingo froze. A few more steps and he would have been on the off side of the packhorse, but where he was, he had no protection.

“I’ve got a good bead right between your shoulders. I know about your fast draw and the price on your head. I’ve also heard stories about your throwing knives, so keep your hands where I can see them.”

“You know me. But who are you? What do you want?” Mingo didn’t care. He knew the challenge from the shadows was a bounty hunter. He needed the man to talk so he could pinpoint his location.

“I came out of El Paso. A man named Jack added to the price on your head—dead or alive—and some politician is offering a pretty penny on top of that to bring in the woman you have with you. He wants her alive.”

From the sound of the man’s voice, he hadn’t moved and was off to his right. Mingo fought the urge to whirl and fire, but shooting blindly was not his way. He wouldn’t risk wild shot that could injure a horse, and gunfire would bring others into the fray. Shadows were both his enemy and ally, depending upon how he used it.

“The way’s clear behind you, so back towards the open wagon door, and keep your hands away from your body. When I heard the talk of a Mexican man traveling with a white woman, and they were staying at the hotel, I fig-ured I’d hit pay dirt. I was just supposed to worry you into making a wrong move. Never thought I’d be the one to catch you.

“I’m taking the woman to El Paso. You, I’m locking up in the back room of the saloon for safe keeping…unless you give me an excuse to kill you right now, which I’ve a yearning to do. I can’t miss at this range. It wouldn’t do my reputation any damage to be the man who took down Mingo Valderas.”

Now, he knew who he was up against. Earl Johns was vicious and a killer, a back-shooting coward. Mingo inched backward, buying thinking time.

“Where’s the woman, Valderas?”

“There is no wom—”

“She’s too close for your comfort.” Elizabeth’s voice cut through the night. The sound of a shotgun hammer pulling back was an angry, lethal sound that made the hairs on Mingo’s arms prickle.

Under a Western Sky is available on Amazon.com
$0.99 digital
Read for free with KindleUnlimited

Purchase Link:

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Until next time,

Kaye Spencer

 

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The Hollow Earth Craze

The Hollow Earth Craze and the Search for the Mole People

By C. A. Asbrey

John Cleves Symmes Jr

The 19th century was a time marked by many strange fads and crazes, enabled by the newly emerging world of media, and by the increased speed of travel allowing ideas, movements, and groups, to propagate their ideas across the country like never before. One such man was a former American army officer, called John Cleves Symmes Jr. He was not actually the son  of the famous Revolutionary War hero. He had been named for his uncle, but added the 'junior' himself, claiming it helped to differentiate him from his relative, despite that being being extremely unlikely given that his uncle had been born in 1742, and was thirty eight years older. Symmes tried to become a trader, after leaving military service, but failed. He then moved on to promoting a personal obsession; The Hollow Earth Theory. 

On April 10th, 1818, Symmes issued a proclamation in a document he called Circular No.1 in which he declared, "I declare the earth is hollow, and habitable within; containing a number of solid concentrick spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the poles 12 or 16 degrees; I pledge my life in support of this truth, and am ready to explore the hollow, if the world will support and aid me in the undertaking." — John Cleves Symmes Jr., Symmes' Circular No. 1 

Symmes sent this document to "each notable foreign government, reigning prince, legislature, city, college, and philosophical societies, throughout the union, and to individual members of our National Legislature, as far as the five hundred copies would go." Symmes' son Americus wrote of the reaction to Circular No. 1 in 1878, "[i]ts reception by the public can easily be imagined; it was overwhelmed with ridicule as the production of a distempered imagination, or the result of partial insanity. It was for many years a fruitful source of jest with the newspapers." 

This did not deter Symmes. He mounted a campaign of circulars, newspaper letters, and lectures aimed at defending and promoting his hypothesis of a Hollow Earth—and to build support for a polar expedition to vindicate his theory. And it found traction in the most unusual, and powerful quarters.

The theory was originally more complex, consisting of a set of five concentric spheres nestled inside one another like Russian dolls, accessed by the poles.  His contention was that the centrifugal force of the earth's rotation would flatten the poles, and lead to a vast opening to the earth's core. The inner worlds were supposed to rotate at different rates and on different axis, and be lighted by the sunlight reflected by through next sphere down from the earth's fiery core. The instability of the magnetic north in the arctic was posited as evidence of an opening between our outer sphere, and the next layer down. By the time he embarked on his tour of the east coast, the theory had evolved to just one hollow sphere, possibly due to many ideas being publicly debunked. 

The idea was far from novel. It had first been proposed by Britain's second Astronomer Royal, the English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist, Edmund Halley, in the 18th century. Some say that Symmes learned of the theory from the puritan preacher, Cotton Mather's book, The Christian Philosopher, A Popular Survey of Science as Natural Theology. Symmes also exchanged a series of letters and accusations and counter-claims with Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, who had published a similar theory in 1824. Nevertheless, it was Symmes who is most associated with the theory as he courted the most publicity, and had the idea entertained in the highest circles. 

John Quincy Adams

Symmes embarked on the lecture circuit, pleading for funding to an expedition to the poles to find the subterranean entrance to the underworld. He believed the underworld to be populated with 'mole people', and he saw a lucrative future in establishing trade with them. The lecture tour was accompanied by visual aids, not the least of which was a wooden globe with the polar sections removed to reveal the inner spheres. This model is now in the collection of Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. He was not a good speaker, with a flat, thin and nasal voice, but his ideas soon caught on in some quarters, while being soundly ridiculed in others. It is fair to remember that so much of the world was still unexplored at this time, and that science was largely unknown outside of a select few. Many people were illiterate, and those who weren't were often only educated to the very basic level required of whatever role a person's birthright had mapped out for them. Even very famous and rich men often had what we would consider to be an inadequate education today, concentrating on history and ancient languages, more than the new discoveries and sciences.

John Quincy Adams was a devotee of Symmes' theory, even campaigning on promises to fund an expedition during his election campaign. After Adams' election the proposal was voted upon by the US House of Representatives, and was defeated 56 to 46, meaning that roughly 44% of congressmen were willing to spend taxpayers' money searching for mole people.

The idea didn't die at that stage though, with Adams vowing to bring it back by asking congress to reconsider. It took until 1828, and the election of Andrew Jackson, to finally kill the idea forever. Jackson was totally convinced of the futility of the expedition, not because of the science, but because he believed the world was flat.

     

Excerpt

A wobble on the mattress jolted Sewell out of the arms of his dream-woman. He grunted and shifted under the covers, moving onto his other side. He suddenly felt a dead weight on top of him, an immobilizing, ponderous pressure which left him paralyzed and unable to move. Sewell gasped, sucking in a breath of a sweet, sickly miasma which filled his lungs as he took short pants of fear. His eyelids opened snapped open as the horror of his immobility climbed. He was pinned beneath his bedclothes, unable to move a limb, except for the feet which flailed and floundered beneath the tangling sheets.

He tried to cry out but found his impotent screams lost in the fabric jamming his mouth. He lay, pinned to the bed, rigid and immobilized as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness and a figure loomed into view. Sewell’s heart stilled at the sight of a hideous crone looming over him, her wild white hair standing straight out from her head in a tangled mass in every direction. Her lips curled back in disdain around a mouth which appeared to be laughing, but not a sound was to be heard. The hag’s eyes were in shadow, lending her the appearance of a screaming skull floating above him. She sat on his chest, rendering him unable to scream, or even move as the smell filled his nostrils. It felt like powerful arms and legs kept him pinned down. What kind of nightmare was this?

The gorgon pressed close, so close he could feel the heat of her breath on his face. All he could do was blink and tremble, too stupefied to move. It seemed like the longest time before the blackness crept in, and his eyelids dropped closed once more. The nightmare didn’t leave, it took him; engulfing him entirely until he felt nothing.

Dawn crept in by inches, the dark transitioning from black to gray, until the low morning sunshine added a warming brightness to the scene. The shadows were as long as the sunbeams were cleansing, chasing down the retreating darkness to a mere frown until the morning smiled on another new day. The sun’s confidence grew, climbing higher in the sky, proud of the majestic light which gave life and succor to the whole planet—well, not all of it. Sewell Josephson never saw another day. That day saw him though, swinging gently by the creaking rope fixed to the newel post at the turn of the staircase on the top landing. The ligature bit into the neck below the engorged face from which a purple tongue protruded from his dead gaping mouth.

The only life in the house stared at the figure with unblinking black eyes and a twitching tail. The cat turned her head at the sound of a key in the back door. A human at last. Maybe the cook would know what do to?

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CYPRESS HILLS and FORT WALSH

CYPRESS HILLS and FORT WALSH 

This is one of my first blogs since coming to Prairie Rose Publications. I apologize for publishing it again as I completely lost track of time. I've made many new on-line friends since September 2018, so I hope this will find some new readers...plus I love to share the beauty of the Cypress Hills and its history.

In an earlier blog I’d mentioned that setting is so important to ground a story. I also feel it’s more important to write about what you love over what you know because your passion will lead you to research the subject further and that passion will show in your story. Well, I know I love the Cypress Hills—a jack pine forest that spans the borders of both provinces. It became Canada’s first inter-provincial park created in Saskatchewan in 1931 and extended into Alberta in 1951. And fortunately for me, I’ve visited the Hills several times over the years. The park is a dark smudge on the south-eastern horizon and is just a 45-minute drive from where I live. The Cypress Hills are steeped in rich and at times turbulent history from the hunting grounds of the Blackfoot, Cree, and Gros Ventres, fur traders, whiskey smugglers, horse thieves and the North-West Mounted Police. The Métis were the first Europeans to settle in the area, many of them being fur traders.

As per the website: The hills are not true mountains but are rather the remnants of erosion of a Tertiary plateau of sediment formed during the initial uplift of the Rocky Mountains. This uplift caused the local portion of the Great Plains – above which the hills now rise – to be elevated, with the result that rivers flowing to the north and south then eroded most of the softer sediments onto the lower part of the plains. Today, the Cypress Hills form a major drainage divide separating rivers draining to the Gulf of Mexico (via the Missouri River) from those draining to Hudson Bay and James Bay via the Nelson River; thus the Cypress Hills form a water divide. There is a ranch northwest of Eastend, Saskatchewan, called Dividing Springs Ranch; the water from this spring goes both south to Gulf of Mexico and north to Hudson Bay.^{[citation needed]}

The Cypress Hills are among the northernmost points that remained above the southwestern margin of the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the most recent glacial period, the Wisconsin glaciation. The Cypress Hills are surrounded by a series of morainal ridges composed of glacial till deposited when a glacier paused during its retreat 15,000 years ago

Back in the late 90’s, when a Garth Brooks song sparked the thought…what if? and a rollicking Ian Tyson song extolled the beauty of a full moon on the prairie, I knew my story had to be a western and since my writing style lent itself to historicals, Beneath A Horse-Thief Moon was born. 

I can’t remember any more at what point I chose the Cypress Hills for my setting. I’d already set one historical in Medicine Hat and two more in Calgary and Edmonton, so ideally this story should be in a different province. I’ve come to the conclusion it had to be Ian’s song that clinched the setting. I hope you’ll visit the link for this song as I’m sure you’ll nod along with me and your toes will tap to the polka beat.

Last summer, when I dusted off my book and finished the edit for Prairie Rose Publications, I needed to revisit the Cypress Hills to double-check my facts and reassure myself that my memory of the area served me well. I had forgotten how far east the forest spans and had to take into consideration the distance a horse and rider could comfortably travel, especially when chasing horse thieves at night by moonlight.

                       Photo by Nicholas Clements Photography

I fell in love with the area all over again. I invited my son, Nick, along because he takes wonderful photographs, which I wanted for the website he created for me (please check them out at www.elizabethclements.com. Fortunately for us, it was a weekday, and we practically had the fort to ourselves, so there was no waiting for “heads” to get out of the way of the camera. I particularly love the close-ups of displays of utensils, or surgical instruments, glimpses of everyday life, neatly polished boots…and the rope beds with a thin mattress and a quilt or buffalo robe for warmth.

Photo by Nicholas Clements Photography

Fort Walsh was established in 1875 when the newly-formed North-West Mounted Police rode down the steep slope and built a fort using the tall jack pines that grew in abundance. The police force was created two years earlier because of growing problems with outlaws, wolfers and illegal whiskey traders selling “firewater” to the Aboriginals. The wolfers were particularly hated because they would kill buffaloes to lure in the wolves, who would eat the carcasses poisoned with strychnine to get their pelts, then would leave the carcasses to rot, which were sometimes eaten by native dogs, resulting in painful deaths. 

                      Photo by Nicholas Clements Photography

The park website tells: Historically the Cypress Hills were a meeting and conflict area for various Native American and First Nations peoples including the Cree, Assiniboine, Atsina, Blackfoot, Saulteaux, Sioux, Crow, and others. During the 19th century Métis settled in the hills, hunting and often wintering there. The Cypress Hills Massacre, a key event in Canadian history leading to the creation of the North-West Mounted Police, occurred in the hills when a group of American wolvers from Montana massacred an Assiniboine encampment. Fort Walsh was established to bring law and order to the Canada–US border region.

All along the southern borderland west from Manitoba, forts were built to bring law and order. As a result, communities sprang up, and even more so in the ‘80’s with the building of the cross-country railroad. With the assurance of free room and meals,  $1.00 per day pay for constables and $.75 for sub-constables, men between the ages of 18 and 40 quickly applied, were trained and outfitted in red serge so as not to be confused with the navy uniforms of American soldiers. The appeal of getting their own piece of land after three years of service was a great incentive for joining the Force.

Whiskey trading had a long history, spanning back to 1821 when the Hudson’s Bay Company discontinued the rum trade because it had such adverse effect on the native population. Even after this decision, whiskey trading flourished along the banks of several rivers, especially the Missouri River and moved into Canadian territory with the shrinking of the Blackfoot Nation in northern  Montana due to the influx of people coming west to live and pursue a livelihood.  

With the arrival of the mounted police in the Cypress Hills in 1875, a new industry was born—supplying cattle and horses to the fort. Initially, supplies and livestock were brought up from Fort Benton, Montana, but before long, enterprising men settled in the Cypress Hills, took up ranching and supplied the fort with horses and cattle. There are ranches in the Hills that are owned by generations of the same family.

                                  Photo by Nicholas Clements Photography

When one travels along the highway leading to the  Hills, one can see western-theme cutouts on the gates leading to these long-time ranches. All kinds of activities are offered in the park, horse-riding, camping, boating and overnight accommodations. Whether it’s a day trip or a vacation,  the Cypress Hills is a beautiful place to enjoy nature and breathe in the amazing scent of pine.
                                                        Photo by Nicholas Clements Photography

www.elizabethclements.com

Link for Diamond Jack’s Angel/Hot Western Nights

 Anthologyhttps://www.amazon.com/Western-Nights-Karen-Michelle-Nutt-ebook/dp/B07T9F21B5/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_img_3?

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.clements.549

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17898781.Elizabeth_Clements

https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Horse-Thief-Moon-Prairie-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B07BHQNBDW/ref=as_li_ss_tl?

https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Fugitive-Moon-Prairie-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B07SZ4LHVS

Beneath A Horse Thief Moon: http://amzn.to/2FVunRW

Beneath A Fugitive Moon: https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Fugitive-Moon-Prairie-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B07SZ4LHVS

POETIC WORDS

Post by Doris McCraw

writing as Angela Raines

Photo property of the author

For this first Sunday in April, and my scheduled post day, I want to talk about poetry. I realize that poetry is not for everyone. Still, April is National Poetry Month and I want to share some poems and the reason I love this writing form. I love Tennyson, Frost, and Ferlinghetti, however, this time around I will be looking at poems that inspire my imagination and touch something within me.

One of the first poems that had an impact on me was ‘The Highwayman’ by Alfred Noyes. From the first stanza, the imagery and cadence captured my young girl's heart. I could see it and became a part of the story. (You can google the poem and find the complete poem)

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,

And the highwayman came riding—

Riding—riding—

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

Photo property of the author

Later I found the work of fellow Illinois resident, who wrote about a town eight-four miles from where I grew up. The stories of the residents of Galesburg, Illinois inspired Edgar Lee Masters to write “Spoon River Anthology” named for the river that ran through the area. It is told via the idea of what would be on the headstones in the graveyard. Each piece tells the life of the resident as you read the secrets and the intertwining of the lives in the town. Three of my favorites are, Lucinda Matlock, Dorcas Gustine, and Mabel Osborne. The last line of Lucinda’s verse is one that has stayed with me since I first read it. (You can download the book from the Gutenburg Foundation Books.)

At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,

And passed to a sweet repose.

What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,

Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?

Degenerate sons and daughters,

Life is too strong for you -

It takes life to love Life.

Although there are many more poets I love, I found Helen Jackson and fell in love with her work. Admittedly I also perform as her and live not far from where she lived here in Colorado. I truly do enjoy most of her poetry, and her poem, ‘Last Words’ brings tears when I read it. At the same time, her poem ‘Two Truths’ is a story I someday want to write.

‘Darling,’ he said,‘I never meant

To hurt you;’ and his eyes were wet.

‘I would not hurt you for the world:

Am I to blame if I forget?’

‘Forgive my selfish tears!’ she cried,

‘Forgive! I knew that it was not

Because you meant to hurt me, sweet-

I knew it was that you forgot!’

But all the same, deep in her heart

Rankles this thought, and rankles yet,-

‘When love is at its best, one loves

So much that he cannot forget.’

Photo property of the author

As I finish up this poetry post for National Poetry Month, I will leave you with the rough draft of a poem I wrote when I visited Helen’s gravesite the other day.

A Visit with Helen

She said,

“I hear the wind

Remembering its feel

Caressing my skin.

The earth heats and cools

Memory seeing

Night and day

Winter and Spring

Roots wind around

The place I stay

Visualizing flowers, trees

Grasses, plants

Words written long ago

Sustaining me

Through eternity.”

Copyright 2020

May you all have a safe, productive April. My thoughts are with you as we navigate this stressful and for some a scary time. For me, the beauty of thoughts, events, and words from the past helps sustain me as I continue this journey of imagination, joy, and creativity. I wish the same for you.

Doris Gardner-McCraw -

Author, Speaker, Historian-specializing in
Colorado and Women's History

Angela Raines - author: Where Love & History Meet

Books: Angela Raines Books

Photo and Poem: Click Here 

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