Love Waits--- sometimes

  

The stories of  the Stevens began on the Oregon Trail with the march west that so many made to find a new life on the West Coast. In the case of the Stevens, it was Oregon and an offer of land, this one the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850. The farm we own in Oregon was part of that claim. It stayed in the same family until we bought it. We're planning it'll long stay in our family too.

When writing a series, many authors do know what is to come. I think I mentioned this before that I did not for this Oregon Historical Series. One book though led to another with romances for the sisters and surprisingly, their mother. I was writing other stories during this time. By the time I got to the youngest of the sisters, Belle, who had been in two books and referenced through letter writing, it was her turn for her romance.

I wrote the first chapter but then felt stymied and put it aside for other projects. Almost a year passed when I finally knew where it would go. In a month, I had it all written, ready for editing.

Belle had long been gone from her family, first with rich friends, who invited her on trips. Then as the Civil War came along, she helped there, learning medical help from Clara Barton (if you don't know who she is, look her up as it's worth your time.)

Then Belle wanted to be in the Pinkertons, who rarely hired single women. With a few lies, she was hired by Alan. When this book began, she is back in Oregon in a pose as a governess to two adorable children with the assignment to find proof of a plot to continue the Southern cause and stop an illicit flow of counterfeit dollars. On a stage heading for Canyon City, with her charges, the book begins. Soon there is a confrontation with the Native Americans, who didn't think kindly of others taking their land.

That attack led to her seeing again her love of 10 years before, who had rejected her advances due to her youth and his own military career, He had been chasing the Indians and then could thwart their attack on the stage.

When he sees Belle again, he can see she didn't want him to speak of her family. The attraction is still there with more violence to come but also a ball organized by the man Belle and her only love, Rand, are mutually but secretly seeking to find evidence of his plots.

Lots goes on, but I thought it'd be fun to share a clip from the book and that ball.   

“Now, don’t forget,” she said before she left him, “the last dance is mine.”

He bowed his head and smiled. He forced himself to look away from her. From then on he forced his concentration on locating and not losing track of Forester. The man seemed to drift from group to group but not long with any. If this gathering had an ulterior purpose, it was more likely establishing him as a power in the community than it was plotting with a subversive group.

He had nearly forgotten the ball would end. Belle would return for that last dance. Then, there she was. “This song was requested for you specifically, Captain Phillips,” she said with a smile as she put her hand out for him.

When he heard it start up, he understood why, Garryowen, the fighting song of many a soldier. Some regarded it as an ending song as well. He swept her into his arms and began the quickstep that was best danced to it. They spun around the dance floor, this time with no chance to talk. He realized as they danced that others had stepped aside. They were in the center of the floor and then they were the only dancers. When the music ended, the others applauded and Belle laughed.

“You look at little stunned, Captain,” she said as the left the floor.

“Custer has claimed that for his Seventh Cavalry.”

“Does that mean no one else may claim it?”

“No, but do you know it’s a drinking song?”

“Actually no... but I did know about Custer. Miles Koegh actually claimed it first.”

“How did you know that?”

She smiled. “Well, don’t tell anyone, but I did happen to have met General Custer once.”

For those who don't know the song, I found a link for it with the images from the movie about the Spanish American War in Cuba: Garryowen 

If you play it, can't you just see a woman in a flowing ball gown,  being spun around the floor by a handsome cavalry officer.

So, the book is called Love Waits, because that is just what happens in this adventurous romance with two warriors. It is wide, and you can find more links in my website, but below is its link to Amazon where you get a free sample, the blurb, and the link to buy it there. 

LOVE WAITS 

 

 

 

Going Home-- Oregon historical romance

 It is interesting, at least to me, what inspires writers, as to their interests for topics, but also what leads readers to the same things. The diversity possible is huge from settings to subjects and characters. When I thought about writing the third in the Oregon series, its timing was part of its appeal, but there had been so many reasons I found fascinating this time in history. At the same time, it is now complicated to cover it in a simple blog. 

Writing a blurb was easier as it goes more to the characters and their issues, but what about the background of the time where these people had
to find their own happily ever after, if they even could, in a turbulent time with the protagonists having their own complexities due to their choices.

Because, in many ways, we live in such a time in 2025, not just in the US but around the world. Writing a book can infuriate as many readers as please them. Study histories of periods a hundred years ago and watch out which books you trust, as histories can be distorted to suit agendas. When writing a book set in such times, it has to be presented as the truth-- but was it?

I began Going Home with needing an interesting hero for the middle Stevens sister. Loraine, who preferred to be called Raine. She had left the family homestead when they got to Oregon. She preferred a life in town and saw the work that interested her as business. She thrived in that environment and even got into stage productions. She felt successful and not in need of a man in her life.

Well, there was one man, Jedediah Hardman, who she called the Laird because of his arrogance and background, with family having left Scotland
due to abuse from the more powerful English. In Georgia they had established a plantation, but not of slaves because of their own heritage of abuse. Their workers were free and paid. Jed had come to Oregon and acquired an Eastern Oregon ranch. He found he woman he wanted to be at his side, but Raine was a city woman and ranch life can be hard and isolating. 

Before they could work out anything, the Civil War erupted. Jed's brothers signed up with the Confederacy, not to defend slavery but to fight for their land. Jed couldn't fight against his own kin; so he traveled back to Georgia and to fight for the South, not a popular view in Abolitionist Oregon (despite its own dark history of racism where in its constitution declared no Black could own land or live in the state and weirdly no Pacific Islander could marry a white). Hypocrisy so often is connected to righteousness.

Going Home begins when the war has ended. Raine is feeling fairly settled into her life, but then Jed returns to Oregon to reclaim, What Is His. 

The complication for me, as a writer of this book, was when this whole issue of North versus South was erupting again, when the book was due to come out, over statues, names of teams, and even forts. Having a hero fighting for the South was not going to be popular, but the plot couldn't change and this demonstrates another kerfuffle for writers when political viewpoints change with right and wrong being strongly disagreed over.

Going Home though stayed as it was written with all the interesting aspects of various cultural differences even within a country. It did not just deal with the black and white issues (important as that was). but also the Chinese and Native American issues. Along with that is life at the edge of wilderness, which eventually the hero and heroine must navigate through if they want a good life together. 

This third book in the Oregon series is wide; but if you want to read a sample, the blurb, or purchase it, it is here on Amazon-- Going Home
 

 

violence

 My country, the United States, has once again had a political assassination, not the first, and although one would wish otherwise, not likely the last. Charley Kirk has been blocked from speaking on campuses. but this time, he was shot dead at an event for speaking his mind and inviting dialogue. He was not advocating violence, but that's what he got.

Although I never subscribed to Kirk, I did listen to him now and then. He was a Christian, lived in Arizona, and believed in Conservative thinking. He expressed more than once that he thought it was valuable for people with differences to be able to express them, without violence. He is a loss of a solid person expressing one side of the divide in our country. 

When people use the word evil to depict someone else's ideology, to me that is scary since a few mentally ill or extremists sometimes take it further. 

I won't say more on this; but this week also, a young woman was stabbed to death on a commuter train by someone mentally ill, who should have been incarcerated for his own benefit and certainly hers. Violence is just too prevalent. There is, by the way, a video showing what happened to the young woman, but a lot of media will not show it as it does not suit their agendas. I watched it though as I can so relate to the horror of what happened to her. Charlie Kirk knew the risk he faced. She did not. 

There was a blog written for this week, but I don't have the spirit to put it out right now. Not like the US has not known violent times, thinking of Martin Luther King Jr. and so many more; but it's still depressing, when leaders are taken out by one person and a bullet. Many people die but when it's a political leader, it's more than the rest of us. It's an attempt to destroy a way of thinking.

Right now, I know it's not healthy, but it's time for wine and sadness. Next week will be the intended blog, about a book, set also in a violent time. What the hell is going on or is there no way past that for human nature??? 

Time to remember some peaceful times-- the John Day River and one of our photos. Fortunately, I've known a lot of those times.

 

 

Where Dreams Go-- and tough choices for writers

 Since I started with the Oregon trail and the Stevens family, I decided to carry on with all four books. I had planned at one time to add to the four with their grown kids. I might still do that, but there is another series, I wanted to add a book to, first. I have though some ideas for how I might carry on the history of Oregon through this family. After all, I am a native born Oregonian, not Indian, but it's a much beloved part of my family for those who are. I am getting distracted. Back to the book that followed Round the Bend.

 

First, I had to make a tough decision as a writer-- to kill off a character I had much liked from Book One. I had a reason for the needed removal. In book One, I had a secondary character (well, a couple of them) that I also liked. One seemed a natural to be a hero of his own book-- Adam O'Brian (even though he seemingly lost out when courting Amy Stevens. He was a scout, a  man who well understood the wilderness and the ability to fight when it was required. 

BUT, who would be his heroine. There were still those single sisters, but they didn't seem right, too easy and no challenge in the relationship. One was actually too young. I could bring in a new character; however I already knew who it should be, but it took something to happen that would make that possible.

Amos and Martha, the parents of Amy, Loraine, and Belle, had a happy marriage. In Oregon, they settled near where Amy and Matt built their cabin and there built their own. Happy, happy, happy. Amos was a good man, strong with a bit of a past of his own. Now though ,he and Martha, who had known each other since their own youth, were content. 

Amos though had to go if I was going to get the plot I wanted. I don't think it's ever easy to kill off a character that the writer likes. I knew just how to do it since that kind of accident had happened, in the community where our Oregon farm sets. 

Amos and Matt had been cutting down a tree, one that split wrong, injured Matt and ended Amos' life.

The book begins after that tragedy, with Martha adjusting to her widowhood, remembering over and over the moment that an injured Matt had come to tell her what happened. She had gotten to Amos as he was dying. He told her to tell... but died before he could finish the sentence. 

Because St. Louis Jones had also settled near the Stevens families, he was a help to Martha, but she was still a young enough woman to be strong and care for her own homestead, even as she grieved the loss of her beloved husband, but found joy where she could especially since Amy was pregnant.

I guess by now, readers likely figured out who Adam's love was. He had stayed away from the families, out of respect for them and especially Amos-- since the woman he dreamed of was married to  a good man, as Adam saw it. It was never Amy but always her mother. And, Amos knew it, respected Adam for his ethics.

Scouting for the military down in the Siskiyous, was when he got the letter telling him that Amos had been killed and Martha was now a widow. He headed north, knowing it might still be a long-shot, since he was ten years younger than her and had little to offer. Still, he had to give it a try, as he had dreamed of her over many a lonely campfire.

Their possible romance was complicated by their differences, her concern how her daughters will see him as her husband-- after all, at one time he had courted Amy. To add to it, Oregon had its own turbulent history. Some of it nothing to be proud of, many wanting it, to be forgotten.

Link is to Amazon to get the free sample, read the blurb, or buy there. It is, however, also wide. 

Where Dreams Go 

There is another link, this one to the trailer I created for the book--  

 

Changing Covers but never titles...anymore lol

 

 Creating titles and covers is one of the complications of bringing out books.

For quite a while, I've had what seemed a rather sweet cover for a book that had become more complex than that. Still, I had liked that cover.

To create the wagon trains, I had gotten permission from Ben Kern to use photos from his modern leading of wagons along the route the pioneers took. I was happy that the couple looked as I had imagined them with images I purchased... except it did look sweet. In the beginning I suppose it was, but as I grew older, I saw things in the story that I hadn't as a youth. Incidentally, Ranch Boss does the titles. 

The book in question is the longest one in my life. As a child, I wrote stories in my imagination when I created paper dolls and they were not like Raggedy Ann. I wanted them to be adults and nude with clothing to suit pioneer eras. When I first found the story of Matt and Amy, it was when I'd go for walks with my younger cousin and we'd take turns with parts of their story as we'd walk. Then she didn't want to carry on the plot, but wanted me to tell their story.

I was so young and, of course, immature, but I carried it on further later, writing their story on an old typewriter. My original title for it was Taopi Tawote. In Lakota,it means wound medicine, which seemed apropos for what the hero had to go through to be the man he wanted and needed to be. The problem was people would expect it to be a Native American book, which it is not. 

The word comes into the book from a secondary (but very important) character, St. Louis Jones. He is the older, wagon master, for one of the last of the really large wagon trains. He had much wisdom based on having lived with the Lakotas, there having a wife and child, both of whom he had lost. 

He becomes a powerful mentor to the hero, Matthew Kane, who needs that support given his family and the abuse, with which he's grown up from a father and older brother. Through it all, he found solace with his love for a neighbor girl in Missouri. When her family was heading to Oregon, Matt decided to put what he had earned into also making the journey. He did not want his own family to come, but couldn't turn them down when they asked. His brother, Morey, didn't want the trip so much as to not lose his opportunities to hurt Matt. Morey is a psychopath, who hides his evil well to gain what he sees as power.

 One thing about this book is it's not sweet. The journey west was tough, full of danger and death. Not so much Native American attacks as illnesses and accidents. 

The farm that we own in Oregon has such a sad story. The man had settled there and told his older brother, sister-in-law and their daughters to join him on his homestead They left Missouri. On the way, the brother was killed in an accident with their wagon. She came on with their daughters, married the brother and they had more children. Sadness and happiness. As it was in the West.

So, Round the Bend tells the story of the journey, the growing, love story of two young people, friends to lovers. In the beginning Amy does not believe she could feel feel passion for Matt. He's her best friend and he's ruining that by trying to change things.

Through their experiences, they find healing physically and emotionally, but underlying that is the story of two families, one with love and generosity, while the other filled with hate and selfishness. Adventure, along with the danger that it rides with it. We've driven part of the trail, and it's hard to imagine what it would have been like with canvas for the only roof, when the weather can turn so violent.

 Link to read free sample, blurb, and buy the book if you wish.

Round the Bend

 

What is a Dark Angel?

 

The blog  title asks a question. What is a dark angel? Well, in this book, it's not a supernatural being, but rather what the heroine has come to call the hero. Dark for what he seems like he might be, dangerous, a life on the edge, but angel for what he looks like and what she believes is under the cover of the dark side.

The story begins in Reno, when a young, wealthy, widow, Katy Brown, has come to help her uncle, while her small daughters are at a summer camp. She can organize his business's books, which appear in disarray. She also wants to clean up the office, as clutter bothers her. When her dark angel comes in, Dill Delaney is not pleased at all to see her there, which adds to her suspicions about Uncle John's business partner or is he?

While Katy has no interest in the Reno night life, it's where Dill lives, in a tiny apartment with his adopted feral cat, McGee. What makes Dill's life
even more dicey is he's been forced into working undercover for the federal government to nail a crime boss. Dill hates every part of what he has to do to accomplish this, but he's trapped in it as a way to protect John O'Brian, who he has come to love. 

Worried about Katy getting caught in what is about to go down, Dill does all he can to get her and Johnny out of Reno. He didn't need the warning of his errant father, Finn Delaney. He knows danger is ahead with no real help from the government.

Thus, begins the book when Dill and Katy come together with a strong attraction, which both know they should ignore. I don't want to tell more about what's coming, which could ruin the suspense, but due to the violence, Dill's near death experience, Katy gets her father's private jet to take them to Portland (along with McGee and Dill's motorcycle), where waits a specialist, her home where Leah and Jesse will soon return.

When Dill finally realizes what's happened to him, it's more than just ending up in Portland. There is a lot involving family (a totally

disapproving mother-in-law), friends, unknown enemies, and some black swans. 

If people love each other, they can overcome so much that will end up making them even closer. I could say would they overcome it, but this is, after all, a romance. It's how it all comes together where the fun of writing and reading Her Dark Angel will be found.

Dill has to fit into a wealthy family, where he has known nothing like it. There is that and a hidden enemy.  Fitting in with the wealthy set is challenging to him as much as the world he's been more used to with danger outside his door.

------ 

Available exclusively at Amazon as this will be the first of my contemporary 7 books in KU, which means for readers having subscribed. You can though read the blurb, free sample, or buy the book also at that link:

Her Dark Angel

Finding your pearl of great value

  

Some might think that the title of this romance came from the Bible. Well, it could be thought that way, but there is way more to the meaning of pearls than from Scripture.

“As a pearl is formed and its layers grow, a rich iridescence begins to glow. The oyster has taken what was at first an irritation and intrusion and uses it to enrich its value. How can you coat or frame the changes in your life to harvest beauty, brilliance, and wisdom?” – Susan C. Young 

. “Life is made up of a few moments all strung together like pearls. Each moment is a pearl, and it is up to us to pick the ones with the highest luster.” – Joyce Hilfer

“Some give up under pressure, while others rise up and undergo life-transforming experiences. Oyster responds beautifully to external pressure, giving birth to a priceless pearl.” – Mukhtar Aziz 

“A pearl is worthless as long as it’s in its shell.” – Native American Proverb 

These quotes, along with many others, especially the one on the Gospels, speak to what a hidden pearl can mean as well as its value. It also is why it was right for a title in this book. People can seem whole and strong and yet have fought against opening up the hidden part inside themselves. Does that fit romances? I think it very much does as the closest relationships make us face ourselves in ways we won't when not faced with challenges.

 So how does that work with this book? By the way, that sculpture is one of mine. 

 When architect/builder S.T. Taggert returns from a morning run, he finds a call waiting from his Navajo mother. She is concerned that his sister, Shonna, is missing. She asks him to find out if she is okay. This represents a part of his mixed heritage, drunken, white father, and a mother who deserted them to return to her land. Reluctantly, he agrees to see what he can find out about his sister.

Going to his office, S.T. finds something else unwanted. A photojournalist, Christine Talbot, is waiting to do photos of hm, for a series of up and coming young men in Oregon. He doesn't like the idea but finally agrees only because she appeals to the respect he has for those who work.

Christine has another shoot for the series lined up in Roseburg of another man who is making a splash, evangelist, Peter Soul, who has a growing group called Servants of Grace. 

Hence the book begins with conflicts and connections. All will come together, along with S.T.'s search for his missing sister, who had been in the Servants of Grace, with her admiration for Peter Soul, who also wants S.T. to design a larger facility for his growing congregation.

Besides the mystery, the romance, the beauty of Oregon, there is more to explore in this story. One, of course, is what is spiritual truth, how does one find it, is it sometimes corrupted, and if so, how to be aware of that corruption, especially when it might be emotionally very pleasing?

Then there is the question of ancestral heritage. Even if we never lived like modern family members, do we still carry in our DNA their truths? How will that impact our lives if we are living in a very different culture? Is, as this hero believes, there  prejudice against those who carry dual heritages?

It's not like the book presents these questions as some kind of class instruction, but more that the questions are entwined in a heated romance between two very different people, but who find out they have more in common than they thought. Romances can be a lot more than just the basic love story at its heart. How and where do people work out the rest of their lives? More critically, in this book, if there is danger out there, how do they survive it?

To read the blurb, free sample, or buy the book:

Hidden Pearl 

 

 

  

Bannister's Way -- contemporary romance

 If you read Desert Inferno, you will know that its hero, Jake Donovan, was sure Rachel O'Brian would fall for the handsome federal agent, sent to help shut down an important, smuggling operation on the border. David Bannister is handsome, blond, smooth, and brave as he tries to protect Jake from an enemy determined to kill him. That effort leads to the federal agent nearly being killed.

Bannister now shows up as a hero in his own book, Bannister's Way, where his assignment, now working for a private detective agency, is to solve a murder in a prestigious liberal arts university, just outside of Portland, Oregon. The local police have found no evidence. An important political man wants this crime solved.

 The book opens when David confronts his ex-wife where he'll be the model for her life drawing class in that university. This has been set up for him by his partner, Richard Vance, as his way to get inside to find evidence of the killer. Karen, who now calls herself Raven, is infuriated as they did not part on good terms. David, wants her back, hence, he has two purposes in taking the assignment and solving the murder is not highest on the list. 

However, he has no idea that a life drawing class involves nudes. He and his partner have enjoyed playing pranks on each other. David does not find this one humorous, but the only way out of doing it would be to give up this long-shot chance to get back with his ex, as well as find the motive of the killer-- a way to solve the crime with no physical evidence left behind. 

As with many books in the contemporary series, Romance with an Edge, a few characters pop up from an earlier book. This book though has many elements in it, all part of how life can be complicated -- to say the least.

Because I had taken art as a minor in college, I was familiar with life drawing classes. I also, have had an interest in art history, for how forgeries complicate that world. Having been a sculptor myself, with a lot of fired clay figures in my life as evidence, writing about a heroine, who did that work, added to the fun (the image alongside here is my digital painting with one of my sculptures being worked on Raven's stand).

Writing about a long-estranged couple, but where the sparks were still there added to this creation, which is fiction as is the fine art college. That house on the river though, that was real as I stayed in one like it when I was a kid and swam in that river. 

I'd mention all the tropes, which they say can attract readers (like friendship between two bros), and there are many, most off the lists, but I think are relevant to how detective work happens, art is created, people are treated or should be, and finally the beauty of that part of Oregon.

Since one reviewer at Amazon didn't care for the title, I should mention here that it fit David, who was known as a headstrong, risk taker--- one of the things Raven had disliked about him was a belief, it all had to be his way. David has emotionally grown since those early years, but his stubborn determination to do what he sees as right is still part of him and again could cost him his life-- hence the title that could not be changed. :) 

Check out the link to the book where you can read a free sample as well as an extended blurb. 

Bannister's Way