The Fillies welcome back Miss E.E. Burke to talk about her big Laramie award and other interesting things.
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On Valentine’s Day in 2022, E.E. was featured by the Mark Twain House & Museum in the author spotlight, Romancing Mark Twain. Since then, E.E.’s novel Tom Sawyer Returns won the Laramie Grand Prize for Americana Fiction in the 2021 Chanticleer International Book Awards. This year, the outstanding historical novel has reached the finals for 2022 contests in Romance and Mystery.
Here are excerpts from the interview about her award-winning novel.
Q: Everyone has a story of how they were introduced to Mark Twain. What is yours and why do you adore these characters so much?
E.E. – I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when I was in grade school and high school. (Didn’t we all?) The stories about Tom and Huck’s adventures resonated with me. I didn’t grow up in Missouri, but as I’m thinking back, I can see how the rural area in Florida where I was raised had similarities in its cultural background. The boys reminded me of other boys I knew, and of my “tomboy” self. They became woven into the fabric of my childhood like old friends. Years later, I longed to know what happened to them when they grew up. The author didn’t tell us, although he left a great deal of written literature that provided helpful guidance and cultural perspective. I had to envision the possibilities.
Q: How did you go about imagining these fictional children into fictional adults?
E.E. – It was extremely important to me to honor Twain’s characters as he had created them. Of course, he created them as children. I wanted them to retain their core personalities, the unique aspects of their character that made them so endearing, yet they had to grow up. They had to become men (and women) who lived their own history, with all the painful and beautiful experiences that go along with it, as well as the complications and complexities that make adult life so challenging.
In the original adventures, Becky is a product of her upbringing: a spoiled only child of an influential judge, pampered, the center of attention, the Victorian ideal of girlhood.
I asked myself—what attracted her to Tom in the first place? He’s not exactly the type to be voted as “most likely to succeed.” Her parents wouldn’t have approved of him as a suitor. Becky flouts social strictures when she takes up with the schoolyard scoundrel. This gave me the kernel of an idea. If Becky had to live through the hellish experience of the Civil War in Missouri, if she lost everything, stood to lose even her beloved father, and was forced to depend on herself, she would either collapse or become a stronger person. I voted for her strength.
Tom matures into a surprisingly complex character. He’s a wartime spy who has spent years risking his life for the sake of honor, loyalty, and, frankly, his obsession with being a hero. He is duty-bound and responsible, but deep inside he is also the eternal, willful boy. One who craves attention and affection, much like his creator, Mark Twain (Sam Clemens). Livy (Sam’s wife), had a nickname for him. Youth.
Q: I found the clever ways you entwined elements of the original stories really interesting. How did you come up with all the additional facts about the characters and story?
E.E. – Twain’s original stories essentially served as backstories for the adult characters in my books. Where he didn’t expound (i.e., secondary characters, family relationships, historical events) I came up with what I thought would be a feasible history. I used a variety of sources for this: Mark Twain’s autobiography, historical information, and my imagination.
I wondered, “what if” Twain’s creations were actual people who could be placed in history? I put them in the same general timeframe as the man, Sam Clemens, because he was writing about these characters as contemporaries. His fictionalized settings were based on real places and real events. All this helped me flesh out Twain’s future world.
While these books are rooted in Twain’s original novels, readers can still enjoy them even if they haven’t read the originals or don’t recall them. I just think you might enjoy these novels even more if you revisit Twain’s adventures. 
Missouri, 1864
The country is at war, Missouri languishes under martial law, and a once-peaceful river town throngs with soldiers, spies, and sedition.
Caught in the middle is Becky Thatcher. Once a pampered only child, she has lost nearly everything, including her faith in love. When her father is jailed for treason and their very survival depends on her, the last person she wants to rely on is her faithless first beau, Tom Sawyer, who shows up unconscious at her doorstep after having gone missing for years.
Tom has no problem remembering the mistakes he made concerning Becky, but is she the reason he returned home? Upon awakening without crucial memories, the undercover spy can’t recall his mission and dares not to confide in anyone—not even his childhood sweetheart.
As an assassin closes in and a deadly scheme unfolds, Tom and Becky must work together to solve a mystery before their enemy separates them. Forever.
Inspired by America’s favorite storyteller, bestselling author E.E. Burke brings her vision to two unique historical novels with a colorful cast of characters, both familiar and new, in Tom Sawyer Returns and Taming Huck Finn.
You can purchase Tom Sawyer Returns at the following retailers: books2read.com/NewAdventure1
Today E.E. is giving away a copy of Tom Sawyer Returns to one lucky commenter who answers her question: Have you read Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer? If so, what kind of person did you think Tom would grow up to be?
E.E. Burke is a bestselling author whose lush novels set in the American West transport readers to a thrilling era filled with breathtaking adventure, taut suspense, and undeniable romance. Her books have won critical acclaim in numerous national and regional contests, including the Chanticleer International Book Awards, Readers’ Choice, and Kindle Best Book. Over the years, she’s been a disc jockey, a journalist, and an advertising executive, before finally getting around to living the dream–writing stories readers can get lost in.
Find out more about E.E. and her books or sign up for her exclusive historical newsletter, On the Journey, at her website: http://www.eeburke.com.
Robber’s Cave State Park near Wilburton Oklahoma has the dubious honor of being a favorite hideout for outlaws like Jesse James. This remote place and its rich history made it the perfect setting for my last Steam! Series novel, which features an outlaw, a Pinkerton agent, a deadly mystery, and some fascinating history.
As legend has it, some of the more famous bad guys who hid out in this remote area included Jesse and Frank James, the Youngers, and the Daltons.
E.E. Burke
In my upcoming historical romance, Lawless Hearts, a female Pinkerton detective and an Irish-Cherokee outlaw work together to find a missing agent and become entangled in a net of corruption, crime and murder. It’s a tale of daring deception, pulse-pounding suspense and sizzling romance, in a Western setting that is as authentic as it is wild.
In 1856, a young 20-something woman named Kate Warne answered an advertisement for detectives posted by Allan Pinkerton to fill his fledgling agency. According to Pinkerton’s records, she convinced its progressive founder that women could be “most useful in worming out secrets in many places which would be impossible for a male detective.” Her arguments and determination impressed Pinkerton and he hired her over the objection of his brother Robert, who was also a partner in the business. Thus Warne became the first female private detective in the United States.
In Lawless Hearts, Brigit Stevens is modeled after the young female detectives mentored by Kate Warne. These were women who sought to break out of the Cult of True Womanhood. They defied cultural norms and broke down societal structures. In that sense, they were truly “lawless” in their pursuit of justice.
Thank you for having me back as a guest on Petticoats & Pistols!
The mining town where the Twelve Days of Christmas Mail-Order Brides series is set is a fictional place, but we drew inspiration from the history of Leadville, Colorado. This mountain boomtown located ten thousand feet high in a valley of the Rockies, became famous for its silver mine. But the town actually got its start when gold was discovered there around 1860. The stream gorge, named California Gulch, instantly became the site of a 49er’s style gold rush, with crude dwellings and businesses (supplies, saloons and whorehouses) springing up along the narrow gulch.
By 1877, the silver rush was on! The town’s name came from its lead and silver mining. Later, copper and zinc would be shipped out of the mineral-rich valley.
