19th Century Novels

Dime Novels – The birth of the paperback

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Dime Novel - MalaeskaRight around the start of the Civil War, Erastus and Irwin Beadle published a new series of cheap paperbacks entitled Beadle’s Dime Novels. Thanks to increased literacy rates among the American people during this time, and the inexpensive price (yes, they truly did cost a dime), these thin, paper-bound books met with huge success. The debut novel – Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter, by Ann Stephens (a woman – hooray!) sold more than 65,000 copies within the first few months of its publication. Those are the kind of numbers even today’s authors would get excited about – believe me! The book released on June 9, 1860 and was basically a reprint of a serialized story that had appeared in the Ladies’ Companion magazine back in 1839.

Dime novels varied in size and thickness, but the tended to be about 100 pages in length, about the equivalent to today’s novella. At first, dime novel covers had no cover art beyond the fancy title script. But it didn’t take long for the Beadles to move to illustrated covers, better designed to grab a browsing customer’s attention.

If you saw a homicidal squaw about to tomahawk a frontiersman, wouldn’t that grab your attention?  The next one is slightly less blatant with the rifleman helping a young woman escape danger, but there is certainly still an element of adventure and the breathless question of “What will happen next?”

Dime novels were famous for lurid, often melodramatic tales of the frontier. Heroes were larger than life and typically had exaggerated strength and skill. Not that the readers cared. The more jaw-dropping the story, the more fun it was to read. Hence the birth of genre paperback fiction.

In my latest release, A Worthy Pursuit, I have a lot of fun playing with these dime novel ideals. Young Lily is an avid, and rather bloodthirsty, fan of dime novels – her favorites being the tales of Dead-Eye Dan and his winsome companion Hammer Rockwell, who just happens to bear a striking similarity to Stone Hammond, our hero.

Here’s a sneak peak from one of the scenes where Stone and Lily are reading dime novels together:

Taking Dead-Eye Dan in hand, Stone fanned the pages to a random spot in the middle. “‘Dan dove behind a fallen tree as a hailstorm of bullets rained down around him. The Gatling Gang had come by their moniker honestly, laying down rapid fire that mimicked the output of the famed war gun. Unruffled by the deadly flurry, however, Dan flipped onto his back behind the log and reloaded his Henry repeater with methodical precision. The six-gun at his hip sported full chambers. The knife on his belt was razor-sharp and ready for action.'” Stone’s voice trailed off, cueing Lily.

She grinned, taking up the challenge like a seasoned gamester.

“‘Bullets blasted shards of bark all around Dan, but he just brushed the pieces off his chest with a flick of his wrist. Billy’s gang couldn’t aim worth a hill of beans. That’s why they always sprayed so much lead. It was the only way they ever hit anything. Too often, innocent civilians. Dan scowled, his jaw tightening as he rolled onto his side to steal a peek over the top of the log. One against seven were lousy odds, but Billy Cavanaugh and his crew were vermin that needed e-rad-i-cation.'” She stumbled slightly over the large word, but it didn’t stop her. She passed right over it and forged ahead. “‘He’d just wait for them to reload, then take them out one by one.'”

Stone closed the book and set it in his lap. “You do know this story is hugely exaggerated, right?” He tossed the dime novel to Lily and winked at her. “There were only five men in the Gatling Gang, not seven. And Daniel Barrett didn’t bring them all in on his own. He had help.”

A Worthy Pursuit
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Lily’s blue eyes glimmered as she rose up on her knees, bringing her face level with his. “Do you mean to tell me that you know Dead-Eye Dan?”

Stone blew a self-deprecating breath out of the side of his mouth. “Know him? Shoot. He and I were partners back in the day. ‘Course no one actually calls him Dead-Eye Dan. He’s a rancher now, foreman at a place called Hawk’s Haven up north a piece. Gave up chasin’ criminals in order to chase cows. He is a crack shot, though. Saved my sorry hide more than once.” He nudged Lily with his shoulder, nearly toppling her back onto the cushions. “‘Course I saved his hide a time or two, myself.”

“Wait a minute.” Lily drew in a breath so large, he expected her head to start swelling. “You’re . . . You’re . . . Hammer Rockwell. The man who shows up in the nick of time and takes the Gatling Gang by surprise by climbing down the box canyon wall with his knife clenched in his teeth!”

Hammer Rockwell? Knife in his teeth? “Of all the ridiculous, made-up, nonsense,” Stone sputtered. “I’ll have you know, all my knives were safely stowed in their sheaths when I made that climb.”

  • Do you like your fictional heroes larger than life? Or do you prefer more realistic story lines?

THE GRATTAN MASSACRE & Book Giveaway

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juhlarik-HR-3Hey everyone! Thanks so much for having me over today! As I write stories, I love being able to weave historical events and figures into my fiction. In my first novella, Sioux Summer, published in The Oregon Trail Romance Collection, I was able to do just that. The Grattan Massacre was the conflict that spawned the First Sioux War, and it plays a part in my story.

In August, 1854, near Fort Laramie, Nebraska Territory (present day Wyoming), one lonely cow wandered away from a group of Mormon emigrants traveling the Oregon Trail. The bovine ambled into an encampment of Lakota Sioux containing roughly 4800 men, women, and children and was killed by a visiting Miniconjou warrior named High Forehead.

Young Bull
Photo credit: Andreas Krappweis.

The cow’s owner who had tracked it down, became fearful at the sight of the Indian encampment, so he went to Fort Laramie and explained the situation to Lt. Hugh Fleming. Fleming approached the Sioux chief, Conquering Bear, to negotiate a solution. The chief offered a horse from his own herd or a cow from the tribe’s herd, but the Mormon man demanded $25 cash. When terms couldn’t be reached, Fleming demanded the arrest of High Forehead. Conquering Bear wouldn’t agree since he had no authority over the Miniconjou tribe, so their negotiations ended in stalemate.

Second Lieutenant John Grattan, a new West Point graduate, took matters into his own hands. With little respect for the Sioux, he, an armed detachment of thirty soldiers, and an interpreter (look into interpret io to know more about their services)went searching for a fight. They marched into the Sioux encampment, intent on arresting High Forehead. The interpreter, who was drunk at the time, taunted the Sioux warriors, promising that the soldiers would kill them. Grattan demanded High Forehead’s surrender. When he refused, Grattan approached Conquering Bear. The chief once more offered a horse in exchange for the dead cow, but Grattan would accept only the arrest of High Forehead. Again, the negotiations ended in stalemate.

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Government Archives

What Grattan didn’t know was that the Sioux warriors had flanked the detachment during the negotiations. As he returned to his horse, one soldier became so nervous he fired a shot, and the bullet struck and killed the Sioux chief. With bows and arrows, the Sioux killed Grattan and eleven others. The remaining men retreated to a rocky outcropping nearby, but the warriors, led by rising war chief Red Cloud, pursued and killed them all.

For days, the Sioux raided nearby settlers, trading posts, and Fort Laramie. Finally, the Indians abandoned the area for their respective hunting grounds, and in so doing, broke the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie. When a burial party went into the encampment, the thirty soldiers’ bodies were found mutilated almost beyond recognition.

Photo credit:Phil Konstantin.
Photo credit:Phil Konstantin.

 

News of the Grattan Massacre reached the War Department, and a plan for retaliation was formed. On September 3, 1855, a 700-soldier force led by Colonel William Harney descended on an encampment of 250 Brulé Sioux along Ash Creek. The soldiers killed more than one hundred Sioux men, women, and children and took roughly seventy prisoners. So began a long history of attacks and retaliations that continued for many years. And…the Battle of Ash Creek is directly linked to one of the most famous cases of retaliation in all of Indian war history. One of the young boys who witnessed the massacre at Ash Creek grew into the great Sioux warrior, Crazy Horse, who fought and killed Custer twenty-one years later at the Little Big Horn.

 

I hope you’ll be interested to see how The Grattan Massacre fits into my story, Sioux Summer.

You can find The Oregon Trail Romance Collection at bookstores everywhere, or purchase from Amazon. And to one lucky reader, I’ll be giving away an autographed copy. Leave a comment below to enter the drawing.

 

Oregon Trail Collection
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The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving

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You might think that we owe the celebration of Thanksgiving solely to the pilgrims, but in reality we have Sarah Josepha Hale to thank for it.
Sarah was a prolific author, editor, poet and mother of five.  Her second book of poetry Poems for Our ChilHaledren, published in 1830, included Mary Had a Little Lamb. Controversy still exists as to whether she actually wrote the well-known ditty, but she claimed that she did and it was based on her experiences as a teacher.
In 1837 she became the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book and remained so for forty years until she was ninety. Through her magazine, she set the tone for fashion, reading and cooking. She supported many women’s endeavors including Elizabeth Blackwell’s bid to become a doctor. She also helped raise funds to preserve Mount Vernon.
After reading about the pilgrim’s feast she became captivated by the idea of creating a national Thanksgiving holiday. Two hundred years after the pilgrim’s arrival Thanksgiving had been mostly forgotten. Sarah decided to change that.
So began what would turn out to be a thirty-eight year letter writing campaign. Four U.S. Presidents from Zachary Taylor to James Buchanan turned her idea down.
But Sarah never gave up, not even when the country was at war. At the age of seventy-four she wrote to President Lincoln urging him to make Thanksgiving an annual national holiday. She told him in her letter that a holiday wouldn’t stop the war but it would bring the country together. Abraham Lincoln agreed and in 1863 declared Thanksgiving a national holiday.
So as we enjoy our turkey and pumpkin pie, let’s make a toast to Sarah Josepha Hale, the woman who saved Thanksgiving.

 

 Coming December 1st

Many things are worth dying for but modesty isn’t one of them-Petticoat Detective

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A Filly Friend

Most Asked Questions About the Old West

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I picked up an interesting book at a swap meet titled 1001 Most-asked Questions About the American West by Harry E. Chrisman. The book is out of print but there are a few left on Amazon.   I bet you didn’t know there were that many questions to ask about cowboys.  Here are some samples from the book:

Did Indians have any special word to describe the covered wagons they saw on the plains?

They called them “teepees on wheels.”

howdySo many western people say “howdy” when they meet you on the street. Where did the term originate?

Howdy is short for “How-do-you-do?” You don’t have to tell the inquirer how you feel, for he doesn’t care anyway! A cowboy once advised a friend never to say “Howdy” to a talkative, glib Easterner whom they both knew. “Why not?” the second cowboy asked. “Because he’ll tell you,” came the answer.

Is there any record of a woman riding in a cattle stampede?

Old cowboy Anderson from Sequin, Texas told of seeing a lady ride side-saddle being swept into a longhorn stampede. He wrote: “Seeing the cattle gaining, that woman swung herself astride and pulled off a race that beat anything I ever saw.” This is what they called riding “clothespin” style.

Was marijuana used to any extent in the settlement of the Old West?

Marijuana was not used as a drug. However one Western expert has noted that even Bibles and wagon covers were often made from the Devil’s weed, in addition to some of the clothing the pioneers wore and the hemp rope they used.

What was a “pitcher and catcher hotel” in the early West?sign

It has nothing to do with baseball. A pitcher was what they called the washbowl, and the catcher (or thundermug) was the chamber pot. Margaret here: Whoever thought up the name thundermug must have had a real problem.

What was the usual bounty offered for an outlaw when the posters read, “Wanted, dead or alive.”

$500 would bring a man in dead or alive. That was a lot of money back in the 1870-80s.

What did the term “grubline gossip” mean?

Cowboys laid off during the winter months would ride from ranch to ranch looking for odd jobs. In exchange for free food they reported whatever news they heard on their travels and this was called grubline gossip.

What were the worst factors pioneers had to contend with?

Blizzards, Indians, fleas, snakes, cholera, small pox, diphtheria, lice, bedbugs, prairie fire, falls into deep wells, accidents from livestock, cyclones, runaway horses, stampedes, heat sunstroke, silence of the plains and loneliness. Many women thought the latter two the worst.

 

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What would have been the worst

factor for you?

Petticoat Detective

Working undercover is no job for a lady, but one thing is certain;

Come hell or high water, Jennifer Layne always gets her man!

Available for preorder in print, eBook or MP3 CD

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My Ancestors!

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Ancestor LOGOSince this is a special week on our ancestors, I want to let you know about some of my family members, who I share with sister Filly, Linda Brody.

Although the Texas Panhandle was founded in 1875 when the town of Mobeetie was settled, Kasota Spring, Texas, didn’t come along until 2008.  Yes, 2008!  But in our minds, it was established in 1890 when our anthology Give Me a Cowboy, written by Linda and me, along with two other Amarillo authors, DeWanna Pace and Jodi Thomas, came to fruition. It is the second of the six anthologies written for Kensington by the four of us.

Since we decided to write all of our stories over the 4th of July rodeo weekend in 1890, we had some logistics to work out.  It also gave us the opportunity for Linda and me to write our stories with a heroine mother and daughter team, who were founders of Kasota Springs and lived on the same ranch. The name came from one of Tempest’s five deceased husbands who won the ranch in a poker game with four jacks … thus the Jacks Bluff Ranch.  The two women were as different as night and day.  The feisty, fun loving; yet, prime and proper Tempest LeDoux had one issue after another with her confident, sassy daughter Alaine Claire LeDoux, who would prefer to wear boots and shoot like Annie Oakley.

Linda Pix for Kasota Springs Family

I don’t know about you, but I think the picture I posted is definitely Tempest LeDoux and her daughter, Alaine.  The second picture (of the couple) I totally believe is Teg Tegler, the ranch foreman of The Jacks Bluff and Edwinna Dewey, who is Tempest’s aunt. They came up to Linda and me at the Cowboy Symposium a few years ago and I couldn’t believe how much they reminded me of the way I imagined Teg and Edwinna.  They asked that their book be autographed to the two characters.

Edwinna Dewey and Teg Tegler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last of the anthologies A Texas Christmas took place over several snowy days in Kasota Springs.  That’s where you’ll meet a lot of our characters who reappear five or six generations later in my contemporary romances.  There’s Randall Humphrey who is the blacksmith and made the belfry for the new church bell that Tess Whitgrove and Sloan Sullivan have brought to town. The town gossip, Edwinna Dewey reappears. This anthology has been released for the last two holiday seasons, so we’re hoping it’ll be released again this year.

The Jacks Bluff and Edwinna appear in my first small town contemporary The Troubled Texan where hunky sheriff Donovan “Deuce” Cowan almost arrests Rainey Michaels before he realizes they went to school together in Denton, Texas. She’s an LA ADA and is on the run from a murderer she prosecuted…a lunatic who promised to kill her. Deuce has to protect Rainey, although he knows she has lots of secrets. Small-town Texas isn’t big enough for both of them…or is it just right? You will also meet Sylvie Dewey who works for Rainey. Sylvie has a mysterious back story with a lot of hidden family secrets. She’s always let men use her and in her own book (planned to be book 4) things do not change in that regard.

Now for the fun, the second Kasota Spring Romance Into the Texas Night is full of fifth and six generation of the founders.  Avery Danielle Humphrey is the daughter of Mayor Humphrey and her mother is a Sullivan.  Deuce Cowan and his deputies from The Troubled Texan remain an important part of this story, but there are new deputies coming to town.  You will get to know Mesa LeDoux and her grandmother Johnson from the Jacks Bluff.  Granny is getting older and has to cut back on being a full time rough stock contractor. Mesa’s interest has turned to horse rescue. Deuce talks Brody VanZant, an undercover deputy, to come out of hiding and work for Bonita County full time.  He agrees and not to soon either. Danielle’s father pressures her to move back to Kasota Springs after her partner is killed while on duty and she can’t get over it.  The problem, she isn’t sure she can come back to the only job she knows … being a lawman, which she tries to keep a secret!

Kasota Springs, in many ways, hasn’t changed an iota since our first anthology in 1887 but it’s more modernized but is based around the same founding families with some new characters showing up.

I had my choice of two of my own family stories, but thought I’d bring you all up to date with what’s been going on in Kasota Springs over the last century and a quarter.  My stories were dull and I would have had to make up parts…most parts.  My maternal grandmother Womack was raised on a southern plantation in Louisiana and married my grandfather Johnson who came from a large family, including a grandmother who was a Blackfoot Princess. He worked building the railroad. We didn’t ask personal questions when they were alive, but I’m wondering how they got together.  I know the plantation is true and the town “Womack, Louisiana” is still on the map.  But one day, I’m writing their stories the way I wish they had gotten together.  Do you have any family stories you don’t know enough about but wish you did?

To two lucky readers, I’ll give away an autographed copy

Of your choice of an eBook or trade back of

The Troubled Texan

“Promise Me Texas” from Jodi Thomas

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Jodi in the Garden Headshot GoodI’ve always wanted to write a story about a person who made a decision to change her life in the blink of an eye, because sometimes I think that is what writers do.

In PROMISE ME TEXAS, I found a plot that I loved about taking a chance in life.

Beth McMurray thought she was rushing to meet the perfect man to marry, but after listening to him talk about her while she sat in the back of a train, she knows he’s not right for her.  When the train wrecks, Beth claims who she thinks is an outlaw planning to rob the train as her fiancé.  Deciding a stranger is better than who she had planned to marry.

One decision made on that stormy night changes the course of her life and takes her on a wild adventure through Texas and through love with a man well worth the loving.

Once, when I first started writing, I had to make a decision that would change my life.  I came to a fork in the road of my career and I had to choose.  I could take nine months off and finish my PhD in counseling at TWU. If I kept teaching, I could write at night and be lucky to finish one book a year.  Or I could take a chance on being able to make a living writing.

We decided to take a chance and I never once looked back.  I quit teaching, dropped out of grad school, drew 17 years of retirement out and set up an office in a room the size of a small walk-in closet.

We almost starved that first year.  Little money came in, but I worked and studied writing.  It didn’t come easy or fast but by the second year I was on my way.

My husband always said, ‘If this writing doesn’t work out you can always go back to teaching.’  The writing worked out. 39 books, 12 novellas, 4 RITAS, and all the bestseller lists.

Sometimes, when I take a chance, I have to ask myself what will happen if I don’t try—the answer is usually nothing. Then, I always add, ‘what could happen if I do try.’

The teacher in me didn’t die.  I agreed to be Writer in Residence twelve years ago and work with new writers.  In June, 2014, I’ll be teaching a new class at the WTAMU Writing Academy for one week.  WORLD BUILDING.  With two series, both on the NY Times I think I’m ready to help others build a world that will hold several books.

On Nov 5, 2014, my newest historical PROMISE ME TEXAS will hit the stands.  I think everyone will love my Beth with her adventurous spirit and my Andrew with his open heart.  You’ll also find yourself laughing as my hero, a struggling writer, fights to be the man she wants him to be.

I’d love to hear from you about a time you’ve had a change of heart at the last minute and where that journey led you.

Blessings to you all,

Jodi Thomas

To celebrate the release of “Promise Me Texas” I will give away a copy to two people who comment on my blog!  Good luck! 

Promise Me Texas

 

 

Carol Cox: Trouble in Store

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While doing research for my latest novel, Trouble in Store, I realized I needed to learn more about Native American cliff dwellings. As enjoyable as it is to study about historic sites in books and online, it’s even more fun to visit them in person. Fortunately, a number of protected sites are within easy reach here in northern Arizona.

One of those is found at beautiful Walnut Canyon, a short drive east of Flagstaff. This site captured my imagination the first time I saw it at age nine, and over the years I’ve become more fascinated with each visit.

Inhabited by the Sinagua people some 900 years ago, the homes in Walnut Canyon were constructed within the limestone ledges in the canyon walls.

The ruins can be reached by way of a steep trail hugging the cliff walls. And that’s one of the things I love most about Walnut Canyon. Visitors don’t have to experience this glimpse into the past at arm’s length. Instead, they’re able to walk in the steps of those who came before, peer into the soot-stained rooms and touch the walls erected so long ago.

Hiking along the narrow path, I tried to envision myself living there centuries ago and wondering about the challenges a mother would have faced in that setting. Can you imagine what it would be like to keep track of a brood of young children, with no baby gates, no fenced lawn to keep them corralled? Or when your “front yard” was only a few feet wide . . . and one false step would lead straight down to the bottom of the rocky canyon?

I’m glad to be a mother in this century. Parenting has never been a simple task, but I’ll take most modern problems over the ones those ancient moms faced any day!

About 50 miles farther south is Montezuma Castle National Monument, located near Camp Verde.

Like the dwellings in Walnut Canyon, Montezuma Castle isn’t what most of us picture when we think of a Native American encampment. Instead of lodges or tepees clustered in a village, this centuries-old, high-rise apartment is nestled into the side of a towering limestone cliff. Try to imagine the logistics of something as simple as making a daily trek to gather food or get water!

These rooms didn’t boast a lot of closet space, so some of the residents’ food and other supplies were kept in storage caves at the bottom of the cliff wall—sort of a “downstairs pantry” concept.

While staring from the abandoned dwellings above to the caves below, I felt a tingle. Suddenly, I could see a similar cliff dwelling as part of the area surrounding my fictional town of Cedar Ridge. That mental image inspired the background for several pivotal scenes in the book.

That’s one of the things I love most about research—you just never know when some tidbit of information will prove to be the very thing that sparks an idea that breathes life into a scene!

Many thanks to Karen Witemeyer for inviting me to spend time with you today! I’ll be giving away a copy of Trouble in Store, so be sure to leave a comment in order to be included in the drawing.

 

I look forward to hearing from you! Visit me at authorcarolcox.com


Carolyn Brown: Billion Dollar Cowboy

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Howdy, all y’all!

I’m so glad to stop by here, prop up my red cowboy boots and visit with the fillies about Billion Dollar Cowboy, the debut book in my new series, Cowboys & Brides.

Someone asked me recently how I came to write about four very rich cowboys and that started me thinking about why I came to write about four sassy ladies who lassoed those cowboys.

It all started with the cowboys, Colton (Billion Dollar Cowboy), Lucas (The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby), Greg (The Cowboy’s Mail Order Bride) and Mason (How to Marry a Cowboy). They popped into my mind and at first I told them that I couldn’t write about rich cowboys because I didn’t know or understand the ways of the rich folks in this world.

But they insisted and we negotiated the terms. I’d turn the air conditioning down low (look at that sexy cowboy on the front of the book, fillies!) and write their stories but I got to pick the leading ladies and they had to stick around and tell me exactly how the story went.

We shook on it and Colton pulled up a chair around since I was writing about him first.

Four very sassy ladies had been talking to me for a while about writing their stories and I brought them front and center and we had a long conversation. Not a one of them were interested in a rich cowboy, no matter how sexy, smooth talkin’ or good at two-steppin’ they were. But I could see some real possibilities so I introduced Colton to Laura Baker, and oh, my but the sparks flew from day one. Both of them were wary as two old tom cats on the back yard fence. Neither trusted the other as far as they could throw a ton of bricks. And we were off on a real ride tellin’ the story that come out of putting them together.

Laura had grown up on a ranch without much in the way of affection from her great-aunt who had taken Laura and her sister, Janet, in to keep them out of the system. She liked ranching but had no intentions of making it her life’s work and it damn sure wasn’t her dream. However, Janet had an addiction to gambling. She’d gotten in way over her head with the last betting spree and she was back to begging Laura to get her out of trouble. The only way Laura can manage to help her sister is to work for their distant cousin, Andy, at some rich cowboy’s ranch in Ambrose, Texas, wherever to hell that is.

She wasn’t any too happy with me there at the first. She didn’t trust Colton and he couldn’t believe any woman on the face of the great green earth wouldn’t give two hoots if he was rich or not. Things didn’t get much better when poor old Colton found himself drugged after a night in a local honky tonk. It was only by the quick thinking of the ranch foreman that he awoke in his bed the next morning and not with a wedding ring on his finger after those two women had put something in his drink.

Laura is determined not to stay one minute more than it takes to earn the money to keep Janet from being maimed or killed by loan shark. She sure isn’t interested in playing along with the ruse that she was Colton’s girlfriend, especially when it turned into an engagement complete with a diamond half the size of a hockey rink. But since it involved enough money to get Janet out of gambling debt she went along with the crazy idea. And since his grandmother, the ranch foreman and even the sixteen year old foster child, Roxie, has set the wheels in motion with their tricks, there doesn’t seem to be much choice in the matter. Before long, they trusted each other to the point of waking me up in the middle of the night to tell me how to write the next scene.

And that’s when I knew I’d made the right decision in putting Laura on that particular ranch and not Natalie, or Rachel or even Emily who were waiting in the wings to see what would happen when Billion Dollar Cowboy was all finished. After Laura’s experiences I wasn’t sure that they wouldn’t all light a shuck and hide the mesquite trees but when I started The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby, Natalie was right there ready to take on the job.

What do you think it would take to make a cowboy with more than a billion dollars trust a woman? What would it take for a woman to believe a rich cowboy who could have anyone or anything that he wanted?

 

BILLION DOLLAR COWBOY BY CAROLYN BROWN – IN STORES JUNE 2013

Colton Nelson was 28 when he won the Texas Lottery and went from ranch hand to ranch owner overnight. When people started lining up wanting some of his millions, he hired a friend, Andy Joe, to handle his affairs and find him a bride and buy her, no matter what the cost.

Laura Baker and her sister, Emily, had been raised in foster homes. Though she was the younger of the two, Laura was always bailing Emily out of trouble. So when Andy Joe slid into her booth at a diner one night and made a proposition to Laura, it seemed the perfect solution…until Laura met Colton and realized she didn’t give a damn about his money and that her love was not for sale.

* * * *

Carolyn Brown is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with more than 60 books published. Born in Texas and raised in southern Oklahoma, Carolyn and her husband now make their home in the town of Davis, Oklahoma. Carolyn’s first women’s fiction novel, The Blue Ribbon Jalapeño Society Jubilee is now available, and you can look for her next cowboy romance, Cowboy Seeks Bride in August 2013! For more information, please visit: www.carolynlbrown.com.

 

To purchase Billion Dollar Cowboy:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Books-a-Million

IndieBound

Chapters/Indigo

Discover a New Love

Sourcebooks

 

Carolyn is giving away a copy of BILLION DOLLAR COWBOY to one lucky commenter!

Paty Jager: Shanghaied

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My current release is called Western Duets-Volume One in the novella are two historical western romances. One, the longest, has the subject of shanghaiing. This is a subject that has always intrigued me since watching episodes of Bonanza and the Big Valley that had characters being Shanghaied.

I thought it was only done on the Barbary Coast. Until I started doing my research and discovered the most notorious shanghai city was in my own state.

Portland, Oregon was the longest running and most notorious for shanghaiing than anywhere else on the West Coast.

The unsuspecting farm boy, logger, or out-of-towner who was lured to the dock by the saloons, gambling dens, and bawdy houses could wake up indentured to a ship headed to China (where the name shanghaied came from) or ports around the world.

Crimps were men who owned boarding houses that would give sailors a place to eat and sleep when they ran out of money and were waiting for a job. Some men planned to go back on ships, while others had dreams better paying, less harmful work.  While staying at the boarding houses they ran up tabs.  The crimp (the Dutch word krimp means a holding tank or pen for live fish), would use this tab against them. When a captain of ship came around he would pay the crimp the man’s tab and extra to put the man on his ship. The man had to work to pay the tab he now owed the captain. Once he worked to pay off what the captain paid for him then he would online pokies draw wages at the lowest pay scale. It would be quite likely, the captain would pay them much less than they were owed. Since many of the men who ended up as sailors had little learning and couldn’t keep track of what they owed or was owed them.

Many captains would find a crimp and pay them for ten men. If the crimp didn”t have ten men in his house, he would go out and either get able-bodied males drunk and passed out or knock them out in alleys and haul them to the ships and dump them.

A crimp could receive a bonus of $30 – $90 for supplying strong men to the ships. This was called “blood money”. In some instances blood money could go as high as $120. When the price was this high the boarding house operators would work together to “gather sailors.”

Shanghaiing had the crimps prowling the streets looking for strangers to knock out and dress up as sailors and dump on ships for money. Many were naive young men who were befriended then drugged. The prostitutes even got in on shanghaiing. They pulled in young, strong men to their “crib” and while “servicing” the man would knock them out with chloroform.

Shanghaiing had lessened in San Francisco by the mid 1890″s but picked up in Portland at that time. There were even international incidents with the governments of France and Great Britain.

 

Western Duets- Volume One

Western Duets is a novella with two historical western romance short stories.

Shanghaied Heart
Tossed together in the underbelly of a ship, strangers Finn Callaghan and Prudence Hawthorne must learn to trust one another in order to escape, but their freedom may be short lived once Finn discovers Prudence”s brother wants her dead.

Last Stand for Love
U.S. Marshal Chas Brown agreed to be Sarah”s proxy husband in order for her to keep her dead husband”s ranch. Little did Chas know, he’d lose his heart in the process.

Available at:   Windtree Press       Kindle            Nook

One lucky commenter will receive an ebook copy of Western Duets.

 

Award winning author Paty Jager is a member of national and local writing organizations. She not only writes the western lifestyle she lives it. With sixteen novels and several short stories published, she continues to have characters cavorting in her head.

You can learn more about Paty at her blog; www.patyjager.blogspot.com  her website; http://www.patyjager.net or on Facebook; http://www.facebook.com/#!/paty.jager , Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1005334.Paty_Jager  and twitter;  @patyjag.

©2013 Paty Jager

Birthday Bash! Today through June 30th the first book of my spirit trilogy, Spirit of the Mountain, a paranormal historical romance set among the Wallowa band of Nez Perce is available in ebook for $.99.  It”s my birthday gift to readers. Enjoy!
Wild Rose Press
Kindle
Nook

Darlene Franklin: Angels in Disguise

by

 

 

Rosie Carson sat in the circle of chairs gathered for the Young People’s Society of the New Testament Church of San Antonio. She loved the Lord and she loved the Bible, even though she found it a little confusing at times. But if she heard more people read the exciting stories with such droning voices, she’d fall asleep.

By the time Rosie caught up with the teacher in the second chapter of Acts, he was droning on about “tongues of fire” resting on the disciples. She screwed her mouth, trying to imagine a tongue made out of fire. Where did it rest on the head? Did it come out of their mouths?

There was a mention of the Holy Ghost . . . Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. She’d like to hear more about that. The teacher continued read as if he was reciting multiplication tables. His voice didn’t convey any of the excitement Rosie felt when she read the accounts of the early Christians.

Some of the witnesses said, “These men are full of new wine.” A picture formed in her mind of church members so excited about the Lord that they were accused of being drunk. She giggled at the image of people with fire sprouting out of their mouths, like circus entertainers, talking in languages half the congregation didn’t understand, staggering about the stage, hollering “praise Jesus!” She laughed out loud.

The leader stared at her, directing the attention of everyone in the group to her unfortunate outburst. “Miss Carson, would you care to tell us what you find so very amusing?

Rosie gulped. Didn’t these people realize how blessed they were, that they had they read the Bible so often that it rolled over them like wagon wheels, running through the same ruts?

“I’d like to hear what Rosie thinks about the day the church was born.” Macy Braum, a pleasant contrast to her stuffed shirt of a brother, gave Rosie the courage to speak.

“It’s the place where it says people were mocking the disciples and all, saying they were drunk. Here God was doing something amazing and wonderful and all they saw was drunks.”

“Yeah, Braxton, maybe we should hold the next service at the saloon down the street.” A young man Rosie didn’t recognize said.

Laughter followed, although Rosie didn’t think it was such a bad idea. Didn’t Jesus eat with publicans and sinners and even ladies of the night? They were the people who knew they needed a Savior, not people who had grown up without ever wondering where their next meal was coming from.

“At least they took a risk in sharing their faith.” A deep voice from the back of the room said.

Turning, Rosie registered his blond good looks while feeling a bone-deep fear of the authority shouting from every inch of his frame.

 

Award-winning author and speaker Darlene Franklin lives in Oklahoma near her son’s family.

Darlene loves music, needlework, reading, and reality TV. She has published several titles with Barbour Publishing, including her two latest releases, A Bride’s Rogue in Roma, Texas, and Merry Christmas, With Love, in Postmark: Christmas. She has also written two books in the Texas Trails series with RiverNorth Fiction, Lone Star Trail and A Ranger’s Trail. She’s a member of Oklahoma City Christian Fiction Writers.

You can find Darlene online at http://darlenefranklinwrites.blogspot.com/, http://mydailynibble.blogspot.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/darlene.franklin.3

Darlene’s 5 Questions a Day: (http://www.facebook.com/groups/542991419047696/?bookmark_t=group) Darlene answers the first five questions related to the writing life posed on any given day. Group members are also welcome to contribute.

Darlene is giving away a copy of Texas Brides to one lucky commenter today!

 

Petticoats & Pistols