Living in a Make Believe World by Roseanne Dowell

I live in a make believe world. Okay, not literally, but vicariously through my characters.  I decide where they live, name their towns, or sometimes I let them live in a real city/town.  I prefer small towns, maybe because I’ve always wanted to live in one. I especially like towns with Victorian houses and apparently so do my characters, because I use them a lot.  I often say I must have lived during the Victorian era, probably as a mean old nanny. I’m sure I wasn’t the lady of the house, and by house I mean mansion. Queen Anne Victorian homes are my favorite. I love the round turrets, all the gingerbread, and wrap around porches. It was always my dream to buy one and restore it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be and I’m past the point of wanting one now.

Back to my make believe world. I’d like to say I choose my characters, but truthfully, they choose me.  Although I do get to name them, but if they don’t like the name, well believe me, they misbehave until I change it. And, yes, that’s happened several times. Just because I like a name doesn’t mean they do. The last time it happened it wasn’t even a main character. She was only in the story for a short time, but boy was she stubborn. She refused to talk to me and anything I wrote was garbage, better known as dreck in the writing world.

As I’ve said previously, I write many different of genres, from Women’s Fiction to Romance to Mystery and even Paranormal. Most of my books are a combination of romance and another genre. As a reader, I’ve always favored mystery and romance, so it only made sense to combine them.  Mine would be classified as cozy mysteries. I also love ghost stories – not evil mean ghosts though. One such story is Shadows in the Attic and another Time to Love Again. I’ve always been fascinated by ESP, hence my story Entangled Minds – previously published as Connection of the Minds.

My character’s ages range from their mid-twenties to middle age and into their seventies. Yes, seniors need love, too. Geriatric Rebels is a favorite.  It’s fun working with different characters, and I especially like when they add a bit of humor. I really form an attachment to them. Once a character chooses me, I make a character worksheet. I need to know everything about them, not just what they look like.

I love creating them, picking their careers, anything from housewife, authors, teachers, floral designers and interior designers. Sometimes their careers play a part in the story, sometimes not. The character in my work in progress (WIP in the writer’s world) is a former teacher. It’s not a big part of the story, but it’s something I needed to know. She’s a real character in the true sense of the word. She came into being in a previous story, All in the Family. It started out with her having a small part, but Aunt Beatrice Lulu (ABLL) grew into a big part of the story. Once I finished that book, she popped up again and demanded her own book. Problem is, she takes fits and goes into hiding every so often, which is where she is at present. Sometimes she pops up for days of writing. Other times, I get a paragraph or two. I’ve never had a character do that before.

Oh, I’ve had writer’s block a time or two, but once I’m over it the writing flows. Not so with ABLL.

  It’s also fun describing my characters, their hair and eye color, height, even their weight. I usually know the beginning and end of  my stories. What happens in the middle is as much a surprise to me as it is to my readers. ABLL is full of surprises. What that woman doesn’t get into. So even though she goes into hiding, it’s generally worth it when she reappears. I’m not sure where she came from, but I’m sure enjoying working with her. Okay, I’ll be honest, a little bit of her is me, a little bit my sisters, and even my mother. She’s a combination of all the people I love and it’s so much fun living in her make believe world.

Monday Was Wash Day by Roseanne Dowell

      Dedicated to my mom who taught me more than how to do laundry. This was my second published work, published in Good Old Days Magazine in May 2004. 

      Bright and early every Monday, Mom and I went to the basement. As I stood by her side she taught me the proper way to sort clothes- whites, towels, colors, work pants and jeans. We pulled the old wringer washer from the corner  to the stationary tubs. She filled it with scalding hot water and turned the machine on to start it agitating. After she added whatever soap was on sale at the time, she always added a bar of Fels Naphtha that she

let me grate on an old grater. The long curls of soap slid off the grater into the water. I loved

watching the scorching water swallow them up as it agitated into suds.

Once the soap dissolved, we put the white clothes in first. Mom pushed them into the water with her wash stick, an old broom handle, being careful not to splash herself with the steaming hot water. She closed the lid. While the clothes washed, we strung the clothes line in the basement on cold or rainy days and outside in the warm sunny weather, which was limited in Ohio.

 Back in the fifties, we didn't have a dryer so everything had to be hung. Besides, Mom said there was nothing like the smell of fresh laundered clothes straight off the line in the warm weather. She climbed on a stool made especially for her and pulled that line so tight someone could walk across it and then gave it another yank before securing it with a knot.

Back into the basement, we scrubbed the two stationary tubs, and filled them with water.

Mom added bleach to the first tub and the other held plain rinse water. After the clothes washed for about 15 minutes, Mom used the wash stick and pulled them out of the washer, the water still being too hot to touch. She put them carefully through the wringer. My job was to make sure they didn't wrap around the rollers, which sometimes happened anyway causing it to pop, separating the rollers. We untangled the clothes and she re-tightened the knob. It was always very frustrating when that happened and took valuable time away from a busy day.

We let the clothes soak for a few minutes in the bleach pushing them around with the stick, so we wouldn't slop the bleach water on ourselves. After we rinsed them, we drained the bleach water and added fresh water and rinsed the clothes again, changing the rinse water after every load. We rinsed the clothes thoroughly by lifting them in and out of the water up and down repeatedly. It looked like fun until she let me do it.  I found out how hard it was and how heavy wet clothes were. It was backbreaking work. After the last rinse, Mom sent the clothes through the wringer and I guided them into a basket that sat on a bench next to the washer. The next load to go in was the towels, as most of them were light colors or white. While they were washing, we hung the first load.
I helped by handing my mom clothespins and the clothes, saving her from bending over. She

always tried to make a game of it, singing and teasing to help make it fun. About halfway through she sent me to the garage for the wooden clothes props which we hooked under the line and raised it up, so the clothes didn't hit the ground. No matter how tight Mom pulled that line, the wet clothes made it sag. The clothes props had a groove in them to hold the line so it couldn't fall out as it flapped back and forth in the breeze.

She hung the work pants with pant stretchers in the legs, to keep them taut and made the

crease. As soon as the clothes were dry, we removed them to make room for new ones.  Most days the last load of laundry was on the line by noon. It usually didn't take them long to dry. We snapped them hard when we removed them to get rid of excess wrinkles and folded them immediately, then Mom sorted them onto piles for each of us kids to put away. The clothes that needed ironed were sometimes taken off the line damp or sprinkled with water, rolled into a ball, and stored in a plastic bag. Tuesday was ironing day.

 You can find Roseanne's books at   Books We Love or Amazon 

Food, Family, and Traditions, by Kathy Fischer-Brown

Food is a topic that, for me, needs little excuse. Not simply preparing and consuming food, but the occasions that have food at their center. And there is no better time to discuss the sharing of good food with family and friends than at holiday time.

While attempting to organize my computer this past week, I happened on a slew of videos. Actually they are converted home movies from my late father’s collection of 8 mm film from the late 1930s when my parents started dating to the 1980s when video supplanted celluloid for recording memories. It was a trip down Memory Lane in many ways, filled with a few tears and laughs, and also a time to appreciate where my love of cooking and baking came from.

There were my grandparents looking young, slim and hardly gray-haired. I quickly did the math and realized I was watching images that were 70 years old or more, which meant that my grandparents were a good 25 years younger than I am today. Back in those days my parents, a few lifelong friends, along with cousins, aunts and uncles all converged on my grandparents’ large Bronx apartment. Invariably, there were scenes of overflowing tables, smiling faces, the special cake…and the women all in full aprons.

My gram was renowned as a good cook. Her brisket was legendary. It was always a treat to arrive at their place greeted by the warm aroma of chicken soup and even warmer feelings of having the family assemble for an event of sorts. My mom and aunt would always lend a hand and we kids would amuse ourselves until time came to dig in at the table.

Over the years, after my family moved from The Bronx to Long Island, our house or the cousins’ alternated at being the epicenter of our culinary gatherings. My mom was a great cook, often replicating in her own kitchen what she’d learned from her mother. She didn’t “experiment” much back then, but after we moved to Connecticut, her talent for throwing sumptuous dinner parties took hold. My sisters and I would help out in the spacious kitchen, mostly chopping this or peeling that, but as we were then in our teens and tweens, food preparation was not at the top of our priority list.

By the time my parents retired to Florida, my mother’s skills had blossomed into the awesome category. Long before that, when I was a new bride and my husband and I moved away for a while to teach at a college in Indiana, I often asked my mom how she made certain dishes. She sent me recipes, some in her impeccable script, others typed on office memo sheets, which I still have tucked away into my first and still favorite cookbook. 

Over the years, as distance separated me from sisters and cousins, and the older generation passed on, cooking became a passion, a way to maintain a hold on the past and a link between those of us who remain. We no longer spend our holidays, birthdays, and other celebratory occasions in those large joyful gatherings of my childhood. We have scattered over distances that make such get-togethers impossible. My two kids are grown, and there’s a grandson, and my sisters have their own families. But when we do get together for whatever reason, the highlight of the visit invariably involves the preparation of an incredible meal, riffing on an old favorite or discovering something new.

The only things missing are those cool aprons.

~*~

Kathy Fischer-Brown writes historical novels for Books We Love, Ltd. To find out more about Kathy and her books, please visit at: www.kfischer-brown.com

Happy Birthday by Roseanne Dowell

Today is my 2nd child's birthday. Forty-nine years ago today at 2:16 PM I gave birth to another beautiful baby girl. Funny how we never forget the births of our children. I can remember everyone down to the minute.
I was a bit anxious about giving birth. After all it was only 9 days until Christmas and I was already ten days late.  I didn't want a Christmas baby, nor did I want to be 19 days late, I'm sure everyone who has had a child can relate to that last month of pregnancy.
Back then they let you go late- ten days, fifteen days, didn't matter. My sister was almost a whole month late. But I digress.
I had a doctor's appointment on the afternoon of the 14th of December,  and hoped he'd  get the ball rolling so to speak.  After examining me, he said I was dilated and it could be any time, but if I wanted I could take a combination of orange juice, castor oil and baking soda. Never having experienced this or knowing anyone who did, I went to the store and purchased the items, came home and mixed them together. I proceeded to drink them. It only took a second or two for them to come up on me and I barely made it to the bathroom to rid myself of this awful concoction. Not one I'd recommend to anyone, by the way. Even thinking about it turns my stomach. I couldn't drink orange juice for years after that.
Okay so that didn't work.  My older sister who lived next door, and her fourth child just a month before, was all for giving advice to help me go into labor.
On December 15th, her first suggestion was to stand next to a chair and do knee bends - ten of them I believe. Rest, do ten more. After about twenty minutes of that, I asked for some other idea. Funny as it sounds now, she recommended my husband drive very fast over railroad tracks. Okay, that wasn't going to happen. I wasn't about to wreck our car just to go into labor. Besides, I doubted that would work either
So she came up with a plan, go to the hospital and tell them I was in labor. The worst they'd do is send me home. Okay, I admit, by this time I was desperate so that evening my husband took me to the hospital. As luck would have it, I was experiencing labor pains - even though I didn't feel them. Few and far between, but they didn't send me home. Since I'd slept through my older daughter's labor, it didn't surprise me that I wasn't feeling them. However, I didn't deliver that night.
My husband went home and the next afternoon around two o'clock the doctor came in and broke my water. I heard him telling my husband he stripped my membranes. Did my husband ask what that meant? Heck no.
At any rate, after checking me again, the doctor said it would be a while and left. No more had he walked out of the room, I looked at the nurse and said, "my baby's coming."
 She said, "no the doctor said it would be a while."

 I shook my head and said, "NO, my baby's coming now."
I think more to appease me than anything, she checked me and yelled, "Someone stop the doctor. Her baby's coming."
Things happened pretty quickly after that. They moved me into delivery, the anesthesiologist and doctor arrived pretty much the same time and put me out. Yes, this was back in the day they put you

to sleep to deliver
Next thing I woke up with them showing me my beautiful baby girl. I took one look at her and asked if they were sure that was my baby.
Of course they panicked and quickly looked at my wrist band and her bracelet and assured me it was my baby. I said okay and cuddled her close to me. After my first little girl being born pretty  with just a little fuzz of blond hair, I didn't expect a baby with dark hair, let alone enough to make a curl on top of her head.
So Happy Birthday to one of my beautiful daughters, Kimberly Anne (Dowell) Dibble. I hope you have a fantastic day.

Find all of  Roseanne's books at Amazon or Books We Love

Research or Over-Research – Where Does a Writer Draw the Line?

Every writer knows even when writing a nonfiction novel: making it up requires research.

Like storytelling, the mind of the writer to research never stops. Isaac Asimov once said he was writing every minute he was in the shower; in the shower, he was only thinking about his writing. In the same way, research for my novels has become a part of me.

Romantic Suspense requires its writers to be reliable witnesses. Contemporary Romance requires its writers to pay special attention to details which enhance the emotional connection. Biting humor/chick lit requires the writers to take contemporary events and spin them off kilter.  While young adult/tween fiction requires a lighter touch-- with a connection to the teachable psyche and the future of humanity.

Most writers try to strike a happy medium when conducting research, leaving enough wiggle room with reality to spin a good yarn. Yet research has a cumulative effect. Once you start, you don’t stop.

You can already where I fall on the research graph: once I start, it’s difficult, if not impossible, for me to stop conducting my research.

So, here are few of my research questions (Gumbo Ya Ya: for women who like romance Cajun & men Hot & Spicy):  can a true gypsy (real medium/fortuneteller type) foretell her own future? What does a television producer do during the course of her day—when she’s key suspect in a murder investigation? What does it feel like to be on a pirate ship during the 1600s? Does time travel hurt? Bachelor Auction--what goes on during a Bachelor Auction? How does one concoct an accidental love potion? And, lastly, from my next “Fun and Sassy Fantasy” series: do gargoyles really know how to fly?

Remember research is not story. Trivial facts gathered from a variety of experiences can change the course of a future narrative.

Growing up in a career naval family gave me an almost inherent knowledge of the sea and maritime history. While residing in San Diego, California I visited the “Star of India” (16^th century sailing vessel) moored at the harbor. My husband, being from Louisiana, made Cajun country and New Orleans frequent vacation destinations, and gave me ‘instant atmosphere’ for my setting. While I reside within driving distance of Hollywood, Universal Studios in the like, aside from a short internship in theater makeup technique, I am not a ‘go-to-person’ in all things Hollywood.

What am I to do?

I went to a local Starbucks, ordered a tall Pikes blend (1 Equal, nonfat milk), selected a table by the window and plopped down my iPad, pulled a chair near my table and conducted a Google search. Alas, Google is not the Oracle of Delphi. My next step was to log on to the local library Web site where I selected related research materials and reserved them for front desk pickup.  This I knew, would not quench my search of knowledge.  

With a heavy sign (knowing what weekday traffic was like) I decided to participate in a SoCal tourist day at Universal Studio (tour and City Walk).  I paid careful attention to all things visible during the freeway drive, my impression of the back lot and studio history.  I also interviewed employees and tour guides, and park visitors. Later, while grabbing a quick snack and the “Hard Rock Café” I spied the red carpet being set-up for a movie premier.  

Yay, pay dirt! 

A few more questions, observations, and a few interesting true stories (no names mentioned) told in passing, and I was good to go.

Will everything I discovered end up in my Anthology?  Most likely not.  Have I completed my research on the above mentioned topics?   Since my husband frequently asks if my office is a satellite branch of the public library, I know if I’m not researching this topic I will find another point of interest.

Reading isn’t a spectator event. 

You experience life.  The more knowledge you have, the better-equipped you are to tackle any challenge you’ll ever face.

No matter know much stress you have at work, in your personal relationships, or daily life, it all just slips away when you lose yourself in a great story.

May your holiday season be filled with joy, peace, and love.

Connie Vines

http://www.novelsbyconnievines.com

http://bookswelove.net/connievines.php

Giving Thanks as an Author - by Vijaya Schartz

Jasmine, the calico who sits on my pages and steps on the keyboard

You could say we authors are not quite like other humans. For many, Thanksgiving is about family, the great stuffing controversy, who's going to win the game, and they are grateful for health, shelter, and company.

Of course I am celebrating with friends (since my family is in France). But unlike most people, we, authors, see the world in terms of stories and characters... and while we strive on human emotions, we often seem aloof, as we take a step back to observe and notice the details of all life surrounding us, true or imagined.

So, let me tell you about an author's thanksgiving.

As an author, I am grateful for the freedom to write the stories in my heart. Despite all the upheavals in this ever-changing industry, I am thankful to have a publisher daring enough to publish what I write, and smart enough to ride the crest of this drastic revolution, constantly exploring new avenues for the benefit of their authors.

I also want to thank my supportive fellow authors, always generous with a kind word. I find your chatter comforting and often enlightening. No matter how much your family loves you, they do not understand the twisted worries and strange concerns we have for our characters.

I am thankful for internet research, providing bountiful fodder to spark my imagination. I should also thank my kindle for holding all my favorite books in one very small package, ready to travel anytime.

I'm thankful for the calico cat snoozing on my lap while I write, or stepping on the keyboard to remind me it's dark out, and way past feeding time.

I am thankful for the joy of a new release, for the first look at that new cover, for the exhilarating smell of fresh ink on paper and the comfortable weight of that book in my hands.

But most of all, I'm thankful for my readers, those who push me to write yet another book in their favorite series, those who stay late at night, turning the pages. They are the ones who perk me up and keep me going whenever I'm down, the ones whose voices urge me on to write. And when they share their love of my books, or tell me they enjoyed the last one, my heart warms up, and I experience this fuzzy comfortable happy feeling only equaled by love.

I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.

Vijaya Schartz
Blasters, Swords, Romance with a Kick
http://www.vijayaschartz.com
http://bookswelove.net/vijayaschartz.php

Trouble Comes in Twos by Roseanne Dowell

Everyone calls me Kate, but my full name is Katherine Wesley. I’ve recently returned to my home town of

Twinsburg, Ohio after five years of living in self-imposed exile. Okay, it wasn’t really exile. I left because my fiancé jilted me two days before our wedding. Can you believe he didn’t even have the guts to tell me in person? Oh no, he left me a note and took off to Las Vegas. 

I left town shortly after, because I couldn’t stand the looks of pity from everyone. I know I wasn’t the first, and I probably wouldn’t be the last, but that doesn’t help when it happens to you. So I fled. I built a new life for myself. I even opened a very successful flower shop in Clyde, Ohio.

But now I’m back and I opened my own florist shop here. Problem is, my ex is back too. Not that I care. I mean seriously, I’m over him.  The fact my heart beat a little faster the first time I ran into him didn’t mean a thing. Heck, it thumped twice as hard when I met my client’s brother. Not that I’m looking for a guy, believe me, I’m not.  I’m happy just the way I am. I don’t have to answer to anyone, and no one has to answer to me. Nope, I’m quite happy, thank you very much

.

Life was fine until I visited my Aunt Kate’s grave, well mostly fine. I mean my ex and Emma’s brother seemed to be vying for my attention. I never had that happen before and, quite honestly, I could live without it. Talk about uncomfortable. But the florist shop was doing well for just having opened. Emma’s wedding helped that. So there I was, minding my own business, going to the cemetery, and that’s when I found a body.

Well let me tell you, life turned upside down, backwards, forwards, and inside out. Between my ex, Emma’s brother and the body, let’s just say things got real complicated.

To make matters worse, the twin sister of the victim showed up in town. If you don’t think that made life real interesting, well think again.

You’ll have to read Trouble Comes in Twos to find out what happened. Released from Books We Love Publishing, it’s available at Amazon

You can find out more about my books at www.roseannedowell.com or check out my blog  at http://roseannedowellauthor.blogspot.com

Excerpt from Trouble Comes in Twos

A shadow passed over the doorway, and Kate realized she wasn’t alone.

Adam stood in the doorway, a cocky grin on his face. “Now that’s settled, how are you, Kate?”

Kate couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t he take a hint? “What do you want, Adam?” She didn’t care if she sounded angry. He deserved angry.

Adam came into the work room and stood in front of her. “You look great.”

Kate looked away. So did he, but darned if she’d tell him. He looked too damn good. What was the saying? Fool her once, shame on him, fool her twice, shame on her. Nope, she didn’t need him or anyone like him.

 “So what do you want? I gave you all the information on Emma. Shouldn’t you be out investigating?” She picked up a flower and set it in a vase. Her heart beat so hard, it surprised her that he didn’t hear it.

“Look, I know you’re still upset about the wedding, but give me a chance to make it up to you. How about dinner tonight?”

“I’m busy.” Still upset? The man had no idea. Like she’d pick up where they left off? Was he kidding.

“Tomorrow then?”

“I’m busy tomorrow, too. Look, Adam, just go, okay. I don’t want to have dinner with you. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever.”

“Come on, babe, don’t be like that.” Adam moved a strand of hair behind her ear. “I don’t blame you for being angry. But damn, it’s been five years.” He ran his finger along her cheek. “The least you could do is give me a chance to explain. Not that I’m sure I could. I’m not sure, even now, why I took off. Cold feet, I guess.”

Kate trembled at his touch. A spark of something familiar tumbled in her stomach. She pushed his hand away. Try as she might, her anger shattered.

“How dare you walk in here like nothing happened? Like we’re going to pick up where we left off?” Kate spoke through clenched teeth. What she really wanted to do was lash out and hurt him the way he hurt her, but a customer might come in and screaming wasn’t going to help anyway.

Adam stared at her, a look of confusion in his dark eyes. He just didn’t get it. He really didn’t see anything wrong with what he did. Took the coward’s way out and left her to deal with canceling all the wedding plans. What a jerk. “Look, just go.” She turned back to her work and picked up a vase to fill her next order.

Adam ran his hand through his dark, wavy hair. Hair she used to love to run her fingers through. She could almost feel the soft, silkiness of even now.

“Give me a break, Kate. Let me make it up to you.”

Part of her wanted to give in, and part of her wanted to throw something at him. Stay strong, get rid of him. No way was she picking up where they left off.

The bell rang again, and before she had a chance to react, Mark stormed in. Kate’s stomach did a flip at the sight of him. What was wrong with her, reacting to these men this way? For five years men had no affect on her. Now in the course of an hour, the two of them managed to get under her skin, causing feelings deep within she hadn’t experienced in years. Feelings she didn’t want to feel.

Mark stared at them for a second. “I don’t know what the two of you have going, but why aren’t you out looking for my sister?”

Kate shuddered at the angry tone of Mark’s voice. “There’s nothing going on between us, Mr. Westfield. I just suggested the very same thing to Detective Shaffer,” she said just as angry. “Now if the two of you will continue this outside, I have work to do.”

“I’ll call you later, Kate.” Adam acted as if everything between them was settled. Par for the course. Wasn’t that always how it was? She got mad, spoke her mind, and that was it. Over and done with.

Nothing changed. Adam went on doing the same things he always did. Didn’t matter if it upset her. Poker every Friday night with his friends, no matter how angry she got. How they had managed to plan the wedding was beyond her.  Not that he did any of the planning. Adam didn’t even want to see the hall or listen to the band. No wonder he didn’t have any qualms about canceling the wedding. He didn’t do any of the work for it. Obviously, he wasn’t ready to get married. So why had he asked her? Asked her, heck, he had insisted. Even when she suggested they wait a year or so. He at least owed her an explanation. But did she really want to hear it?

Winter Fire -- The Story of the Story

Leslie Nielsen as "The Swamp Fox"

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t fascinated by early American history. In fact, when I was ten, I wrote my first novel; it was very loosely based on the “Swamp Fox” TV series (a Disney production 1959-1960), starring Leslie Nielsen as the Revolutionary War hero, Francis Marion. I’d like to think I’ve come a long way since then.

At around this time until I was fourteen or fifteen, our family vacations involved visits to old forts, battlefields and living history sites from Montreal to St. Augustine in Florida. My father was a Civil War buff who owned an extensive collection of books on the subject, but he was eclectic enough to include sites from earlier periods in our itineraries. Strolling  through formal gardens and marveling at sumptuous bed chambers and ballrooms of Tryon Palace in North Carolina or expressing wonder over the three tiny rooms of an 18th century farmer’s house in Connecticut, I was deeply moved by the vibrations set off by the clothes, furniture and personal effects on display. Subsequent trips to Williamsburg, Virginia, and Old Sturbridge in Massachusetts, among others, provided far more insight than any high school history text could on how people in the past lived, worked and died, and with detail that struck all of my sensory nerves.

It was only natural that, when I took up writing seriously, I chose to set my fiction in the period I had come to love—the time encompassing the colonial and Revolutionary War eras in the U.S.

While searching for inspiration back in the days before the Internet, I became intrigued by “captive narratives.” In their time, and for a populace starved for the type of fabulous accounts that scream from today’s tabloids, this was an extremely popular genre depicting stories of white settlers taken in raids by Native Americans. Although all of these tales provided entertaining and informative reads (many supposedly in the teller’s own words), none was more gripping than the tale of Mary Jemison, a teenage girl who was captured by a French and Indian war party and adopted into the Seneca tribe in the area around what is now Syracuse, New York. Even as she mourned her family, Mary lived the rest of her life among the Haudenosaunee, marrying twice and giving birth to a number of children. By the time she was an old woman, Dehgewanus (as she was then called) had all but forgotten her native language and was venerated by her tribe. An equally engrossing tale is told in a more recent book. The Unredeemed Captive, by John Demos (Vintage, 1995), chronicles the efforts of a Massachusetts family in the early 1700’s to regain their daughter following a raid on Deerfield. After years of searching and countless disappointments, the father was horrified to learn that Eunice had married a Mohawk warrior and chose to remain with her captors.

By now, my story had begun to take shape, but I was still in need of a time and setting. Further research led to a campaign of 1779 during the American Revolution, which had as its target Six Nations warriors under Mohawk war chief Joseph Brandt and his Loyalist allies. (An exceptional account of this bloody chapter in American history is told in Allan Eckert’s Wilderness War.) Following a number of murderous attacks on frontier settlements and equally brutal reprisals,

George Washington dispatched Generals John Sullivan and James Clinton and their armies into Iroquois lands essentially to minimize the effectiveness of Brandt’s forces by burning their villages and crops. The resulting devastation on both sides led only to more retaliation. An unexpected by-product of this campaign was the recovery of a number of white captives and their return to “civilization.” Some went happily with the army, while others had to be forcibly removed from the burning remains of their adoptive homes.

This inspired me to ask myself, "What if...?" What if a white woman in like circumstances had been forced against her will to return to what was left of her family? 

I had read of incidents in which this had been the case, and in which these reunions, more often than not, were unpleasant (to put it mildly) for both the former captives and their relations. Many of the redeemed were scorned, shunned, and regarded with suspicion for their strange ways. After years of living among the “savages,” attempts to reintegrate into a society that was now foreign and strange ended in failure for these unfortunate people, who often ran away at first opportunity to rejoin their Indian families. Not all of these tales had a happy ending.

And so, with these accounts as its foundation, Zara Grey’s story took root in my imagination. Caught in a war pitting neighbor against neighbor, son against father, white man against “red man,” a young heiress of Dutch descent becomes both a pawn and a pariah, with murder in the bargain.

Ethan Caine, the male protagonist in this historical romance, has as his backstory a 1763 incident in eastern Pennsylvania during Pontiac’s Rebellion that polarized the region. A group of self-appointed vigilantes, the “Paxton Boys,” fed up by a lack of support by colonial forces, attacked and killed residents of a nearby village of peaceful Susquehannock. While the actual incident was unprovoked, the fictionalized account in my book involves a patchwork of accounts gleaned in my research. Young Ethan is deeply traumatized by these events and the ensuing senseless slaughter. Fifteen years later he is forced to confront his own prejudice and regrets when he rescues a young white woman dressed in clothes of Iroquoian design attempting to cross a half-frozen stream enroute to Iroquois lands.

The resulting novel,Winter Fire, a 1998 Golden Heart finalist, has as its core the inter-cultural conflicts of its time, colored by the perceptions and fears of people in the midst of war.

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