The Element of Love–Engineering before it was a thing

by

When you talk about engineers in the 1870s. People think of the guys that drive trains.

My heroine, Laura Stiles isn’t that kind of engineer.

She’s a chemical engineer before such a term was invented.

Engineer means, at its most basic…applied science. You take what exists in the scientific world and apply it to daily life.

Mechanical engineers make machines work.

Civil engineers figure out how to turn steel and lumber into bridges and roads and trestles, how to make buildings that won’t collapse.

And Chemical Engineers…in a time when the periodic table was about five years old and still changing…learned to turn the insanely volatile nitroglycerin into dynamite. They did other stuff, too. But Alfred Nobel had invented dynamite in 1867 so it’s about five years old. Dynamite began being manufactured in America in 1867 and the factory in San Francisco had already exploded once.

Remember this was the SAFE version of nitro!

So my heroine, Laura is the one who knows explosives. In fact, when she and her sisters run from their abusive step-father, and they can’t take anything but the most basic necessities along, Laura sneaks a few chemicals into her satchel…including dynamite.

It was so fun and interesting researching this book. 1870 was the heart of the industrial revolution. It was one year after the Transcontinental Railroad. It was a time of huge progress, inventions, an exciting age. And I tried to just plunk my three heroines down right in the heart of it.

Make them part of it. Then let the fun begin!

The Element of Love

In bookstores now.

She mixed danger, desperation, and deception together. Love was not the expected outcome.

With their sharp engineering minds, Laura Stiles and her two sisters have been able to deal with their mother’s unfortunate choice in husband until they discovered his plans to marry each of them off to his lecherous friends. Now they must run away–far and fast–to find better matches to legally claim their portion of their father’s lumber dynasty and seize control from their stepfather.

During their escape, Laura befriends a mission group heading to serve the poor in California. She quickly volunteers herself and her sisters to join their efforts. Despite the settlement being in miserable condition, the sisters are excited by the opportunity to put their skills to good use. Laura also sees potential in Caleb, the mission’s parson, to help with gaining her inheritance. But when secrets buried in Caleb’s past and in the land around them come to light, it’ll take all the smarts the sisters have to keep trouble at bay.

 

32 thoughts on “The Element of Love–Engineering before it was a thing”

  8. Hi Mary – well I bet this is another adventurous tale to tell. You are so good at that! Congrats on release day.

  10. Hi Mary, always nice to hear from you and especially when you have a new series. Did you have to do a lot of research on the engineering end? Was it a learning curve, or are you one of those rare writers that is good at science too?
    Your friend Kaybee

  15. Congratulations. This looks like such a fun book. I live with an electrical/computer engineer. Their brains work differently My husband and son did Civil War reenacting. There was actually a group that were called engineers. They were the ones that built temporary bridges etc.

  16. So nice to see women depicted with the scientific abilities that they have always had. They seldom got recognized or were given credit for the work they did or the discoveries they made. It will be enjoyable following these three capable young women to their HEAs.

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