October Surprise by Eileen Charbonneau

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Greetings, dear readers!

My October surprise is a sneak peek at my November 2021 release, Ursula's Inheritance. The third book in my American Civil War Brides series, it was a surprise to me, too! After publishing Book 2, Mercies of the Fallen, I thought I was finished with Ursula's story. But readers thought otherwise! 

Mercies took place between the Battles of Antietam and Gettysburg. It ended just after the infamous New York City draft riots of July 1863. Readers wanted to know what happened next in the lives of Ursula and her Union officer Captain Rowan Buckley. Does he survive the war? Can she come out of hiding and clear her name? Will their young marriage born of desperate circumstances become a lasting union of souls? And what about the secrets still between them?

Did you know that this is how Louisa May Alcott's Little Women got written too? The first volume (1868) was a great success. But readers were eager for more. Alcott quickly completed a second volume in 1869. The two volumes were issued in 1880 as a single novel that has become our cherished classic. 

I hope you'll enjoy what happens next in the story...The opening is from Rowan's viewpoint, and I hope you'll learn what a great dad he is becoming....

Chapter One, Ursula's Inheritance  

April 1864, Gramercy Park, Manhattan

Even with the one eye the war had left him, Rowan Buckley knew the wee one pilfering from the garden was a girl, despite her trousers. He frowned at the canvas bag at her feet.

“So it is not a squirrel with an interest in our angelica, then?” he asked quietly.

The urchin turned, startled eyes narrowing. “Better me than an Irish thug!” she spat out. 

The girl took advantage of his hesitation and his limited depth perception. She grabbed the sack and raced toward the iron garden gate. But after three hard years of soldiering, there was nothing wrong with Rowan’s reflexes. He caught up, took her wrist, and, when she resisted, her waist. She had a waist. So she was a little older than her small size had first impressed upon him.

“Please let me go, sir,” an even smaller voice came out of her.

“Am I ‘sir’ then, now that you’re caught?”

“You are a black Irish scoundrel to hold me against my will!”

She kicked him. Hard enough to throw off his stance. He maintained his temper and light grip as he steered her toward the tradesman’s door of Ursula’s house.

“You’ve nothing to fear from me, lass.” He sent her through the entrance with a nudge at her back. “Now hush up your caterwauling, the baby’s asleep.”

Jonathan was stretched out at the hearth, his stockinged foot rocking the cradle. His eyebrow arched.

“Company? The kettle’s on, my fine fellow.”

“Your fellow is a girl, and there’s nothing fine about her,” Rowan corrected, lifting the cap off his captive’s head. Fair-haired braids descended. “May I present our angelica and camomile thief?”

Jonathan smiled. “Ah. Mystery solved.”

The girl’s eyes fired. “I planted that garden!”

“Did you?” Jonathan asked in his most charming southern tone. “Fetch the young horticulturist a chair, brother.”

“She kicks,” Rowan warned.

The girl’s light brown eyes narrowed as she looked from one to the other. “You’re not brothers.”

“And you neglected to pay for your trousers,” Rowan observed, yanking off and reading the dry goods store tag. “The proprietor might want a word with you about that.”

“The proprietor is my father. His name is Selby, see?”

A rustling of nightclothes and Ursula stood in the back doorway.  “Mr. Thomas Selby?”

Rowan saw something familiar in the girl’s trapped look, the tears stubbornly held back. 

“You are so confusing! All of you!” she shouted, loud enough to startle wee Henry to wailing. 

“Aw, there now then, fledgling,” Rowan soothed, lifting the baby from cradle and into his arms. “You’ve had enough of the lot of us, have you?”

Ursula kept her eyes fixed on the girl.

“What is your name?”

“Penina.”

She glanced in the sack, “Thank you, Penina. A little camomile is exactly what we need for our Henry’s teething gums. Take the rest home. Will you not join us for breakfast first?”

Rowan sighed. His wife had found another stray. He rubbed his sore shin, then fetched the frying pan. This little one might enjoy some of his oatcakes, he supposed.

Treasure Hunting

 

Available at www.bookswelove.net

          

  Can you believe it’s September already? While our world isn’t exactly all roses at the moment, let me take you back in time to September 5, 1856. On that day near Parkville, Kansas, 150 people lost all their possessions as they were tossed into the river when the Steamboat Arabia, on which they traveled, hit a tree limb and sank within minutes. (And you thought you were having a bad day.) Note that at this time there was no travel insurance, either for the people or for the 200 tons of cargo the Arabia transported. Although no lives were lost, possessions and cargo sank beneath the river and would not be rediscovered for another 130 years.

Over the years since 1856, many people have searched for the Arabia as there was a reported large quantity of whiskey on board which would fetch quite a sum at market. When it was finally discovered and unearthed in 1988 in a Kansas cornfield there was no whiskey, but there was a treasure-trove of pre Civil War goods heading for the wilderness around Omaha, NE. The first intent by the salvagers was to sell the treasure but they decided to restore and preserve, thus we now have a wonderful working museum down at River Market in Kansas City.  It’s not your traditional treasure of gold and silver but rather a time capsule of the 1850s. I was amazed at the amount and diversity of goods aboard the steamboat.

Everything from buttons and shoes to construction tools and preserved pickles are artfully displayed in the museum. On any given day, visitors can watch preservationists diligently working on other uncovered items that tell a story not readily available in our history books.

            Even though the Arabia museum is a work in progress and the restoration of artifacts continues, Dave Hawley (one of the original treasure hunters) has continued searching for other steamboats. The Missouri River has an estimated 300-400 sunken riverboats, many of which are now deep beneath farm fields as the river has changed course over the years. In 2016 he finally located the Malta, a steamboat sunk in 1841, loaded with Indian trading supplies for the American Fur Company.

 Aboard the side-wheeler steamer was cargo for Peter Sarpy, Papin & Robidoux and other Chouteau trading posts and merchants along the Missouri River. Once metal detectors hit a strong signal they drilled for a core sample which resulted in finding 150 gold buttons, fabric, well-preserved ceramics and a large iron hook. But as of today, the Malta is still 37 feet underground as the cost of excavation is around $3 million. You can find out more at Malta | The Arabia Steamboat Museum | Kansas City (1856.com).

            From the time the Arabia museum opened, I have been an avid visitor anytime I’m in town. The evolving displays fascinate me; the history of the river and steamboats lure me into a past which I know was much harsher than how I romanticize it. Yet that is what fiction writing is about – taking a real event and spinning a tale of romance and intrigue. I love entwining the past with the present and especially like having the museum at my fingertips for research. I invite you to come aboard the Arabia with me on her last fateful journey by getting a copy of “Hold On To the Past” (available at www.bookswelove.net.).

Sunken steamboats on the river or storm-wrecked sailing vessels on the ocean – these are the settings for legends, tall tales and great historical novels.

 

Barb Baldwin

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

https://bookswelove.net/baldwin-barbara/

 

A Miserly Fellow by Katherine Pym

Buy Here

~*~*~*~
 

London Bridge in its hay-day

Precarious location
but folks could fish from the lower level

This is a notorious story of early London, humorous if not a little sad. I used a portion of this in my novel Highwayman which produced a snicker or two from my readers.

IN the 12th century, John Overs rented ferries that traversed the River Thames. He was as stingy as they came, except he allowed his daughter a fine education which must have drawn heavy coins from his purse. 

 John rivaled the richest Alderman of London/Southwark when it came to his income, yet what he wore and where he lived were deemed quite miserable. He refused to provide a dowry for his daughter when she came of age, even as a handsome fellow wooed her and was successful in gaining her adoration. All this took place behind John Overs’ back. 

 

Southwark Side of London Bridge

 He constructed a unique way to save money, even as his daughter balked at the plan. But being a good daughter, she went along with it.

John Overs’ unique plan devised his own death. He reckoned his servants would fast for 24 hours and pray over him during this time, thus saving food and ale in his larder. 

Unexpectedly, his servants raided his stores and struck up the lute. They partied, gobbled up his food, all the while sang and danced. Only a servant girl—here’s where the story gets muddled. Some say a maid, others a young man—stood near the body, watching for a specter to rise, which she would tend to with an iron wrought skillet. 

More of London Bridge in its prime

John Overs listened to this until he was rigid with anger. “Stirring and struggling in his sheet, like a ghost with a candle in each hand, he rose up to berate them for their boldness, but when the maid saw this, she thought the devil rose in her master’s likeness.” She took the skillet in hand—here’s another anomaly. The below source states a young man grabbed hole of an oar, but why would John Overs have an oar in his bedroom?—and bashed poor John Overs over the head, “actually struck out his brains.”

John Overs fell back onto the bed, dead as a knob, his face showing surprise at the outcome of his own parsimonious.

“The estate then became that of his daughter, and her lover, on hearing of this, hastened up from the country, but on hurrying to lay his hands on the fortune, rode too speedily; his horse stumbled, and he broke his neck on the highway.”

Downtrodden by two successive deaths Mary Overs handed over a goodly sum of money to have her father interred in a nearby church, but being excommunicated from the church for his extortion and usury, the Abbot did not allow this. His body was dug up and flung onto an ass, which “proceeded with a gentle and solemn pace through Kent street and along the highway to the small pond once called Thomas-a-Waterings, at that time the common place of execution, and shook the Ferryman’s body off, directly under the gibbet, where it was put into the ground without any kind of ceremony.”

Mary Overs could not overcome these troubles and went into a nunnery, donating a majority of her father’s wealth to build a church, St. Mary Overy’s. Shortly after this, she died and was buried in the church her father’s penury produced.

 

The end.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

Many thanks to: The Gruesome History of Old London Bridge by Geoffrey Abbot. Eric Dobby Publishing Ltd, 2008, Kent, UK.

Seven Aprils - My Favorite New BWL Release by Eileen O'Finlan

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Click here for Eileen O'Finlan's website

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American women serving on the front lines in wartime is not as new as one might think. Remember Molly Pitcher (most likely Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley) who took over for her husband when he fell at the Battle of Monmouth.  Or what about Deborah Sampson, the young farmwoman who disguised herself as a man and joined the Continental Army to fight in the American Revolution.  An article on the American Battlefield Trust website entitled “Female Soldiers in the Civil War” claims a conservative estimate of between 400 and 750 disguised female soldiers fighting on both sides.  A few also served as spies.  According to the article women had a variety of reasons for taking on the hardships of camp life and risking injury or death including patriotism, the desire to remain with loved ones, a sense of adventure, and the promise of a reliable income.

Eileen Charbonneau’s new release, Seven Aprils, draws the reader into the life of one young woman who disguises herself as a man to serve in the Union’s newly formed medical unit for reasons quite different and even more compelling than those listed above.  To save her own life, Tess becomes Tom Boyde, assistant to Dr. Ryder Cole, and later takes on a third role as Diana, Dr. Cole’s prostitute lover.  How she manages to keep all her personas separate, adroitly recover and tend to the wounded even in the midst of frontline battle, and just as skillfully satisfy Dr. Cole’s lust for her makes for an adventurous, addictive tale.

Charbonneau’s adept handling of the changes from Tess to Tom to Diana never leave the reader confused.  The story, thoroughly engaging and totally believable, is filled with heart stopping adventure and smokin' hot romance. If you’re looking for a fresh take on a Civil War novel, Seven Aprils more that fits the bill!

In this excerpt from Seven Aprils Tess, who has become Tom, now becomes Diana:

    Tess turned. Madame Lanier stood in one of the room’s three doorways. Dress and hoops gone, she was still imposing in her silk dressing down. Tess felt more trapped inside her uniform than when the boys first teased her for not joining them at the swimming hole.

    “Would you loosen my corset strings, love?”

     Tess swallowed. “Sure.”

     Madame Lanier’s dressing gown sang as it slid off her shoulders and to the ground. Tess released the back tie that held in the cinch at Madame Lanier’s waist. She watched the ties slip through their grommets as she waited the space of a few of the woman’s deep breaths. “Is that all right?”

    “Perfect.”

    Tess secured the ties in the new position.,”

    “You have done that many times before, cheri," Madame Lanier said. “Now. Would you not like to do the same?”

    “Ma’am?”

    “Shed your uniform for one night? Remember who you are underneath those handsome shades of blue?” The woman eased Tess down before the dressing table with a gentle press at her shoulders. “They suit you, the blues. Did you wear the color in your other life?”

    Tess took in a careful breath. “Wore mostly homespun, back then. Browns from walnut casings, yellows from onion skins. A little green cloth from sage.” She was babbling. The truth, of course, and in detail. “I do admire the shade of blue. Made a mix of milk and blue pokeberry for my sleeping place in the loft once. Never got to paint it, though.”

    “Why not?”

    “My pa said I was putting on airs. Said plain board’s good enough for the menfolk of the family, and it was good enough…for—for…”

    “For you?”

    “Yes, Ma’am, for me.”

    What was she doing, talking like a magpie to this woman, and almost giving herself clean away besides? She heard Ryder Cole’s laugh from the room beside Madame Lanier’s. Her head hurt. If they discovered her a woman, would the army think he knew all along? Would they blame him?

    “You are a chemist, Private Boyde, with the making of your paints! Perhaps you’d like to investigate my beauty concoctions?” Madame Lanier gave out a short, throaty laugh. “Purely in the interest of scientific study, of course?”

    “I’d like that fine, Ma’am,” Tess said, turning her attention to the lace-covered table.

    “Good. Sit.”

    She reached over Tess’s shoulder and picked up a brush with an ivory handle as fine as those on Doctor Cole’s French-made surgical instruments. “We will do only what you like tonight, I promise.”

    “Thank you,” Tess whispered, hearing the relieved crack in her voice’s low tone.

    “Your hair has a lovely natural curl. May I?”

    “Uh… all right.”

    The hostess began her task. Tess tried to lose herself in the cut glass bottles leaking their scents, but the deep massage of her scalp was too wonderful not to revel in. Her mother had brushed her hair like this, so long ago. She closed her eyes, remembering.

    “You have never seen yourself as beautiful, have you?”

    Her eyes opened. Tess stared at the reflection of a stranger. Slicked down, always-pulled-behind-the-ears strands were now soft waves framing a round, flushed face, a nose off-kilter since Laban let the handle on the pump up too fast when she was eight and broke it.

    “Beautiful?” Her laugh sounded like dry leaves before a storm. “What would the point of that be, Ma’am?”

    Madame Lanier’s brows slanted in amusement. “Well, it’s been the point of my own existence for as long as I remember.”

    “Oh. ‘Course. Beg pardon, Ma’am.”

    The light, throaty laugh came again. It was true. This woman was not going to force her to do anything. She was not full of meanness like the few predatory men that Ryder, Joe and Davy shielded her from at camp. Maybe Ryder was right, maybe everything would be all right if she could just relax in this strange, gaudy place.

    Madame Lanier laid down her brush. She swiped three fingers full of a substance that looked like butter from the lilac-scented jewel bottle. She brought it to Tess’s temple and began kneading it in, counterbalancing the throbbing there.

    “Better?” she whispered.

    “Yes.”

    The skilled hands anchored her jaw now, and continued the gentle massage of her cheekbone, sliding across the bridge of her imperfect nose. The massage continued around her ear, down her throat. Is this how Madame Lanier started with the men? Those jealous men who were angry at the lady’s choice of partner-of-the-evening? It’s a wonder this woman didn’t live in a castle with those men at her feet, Tess thought.

    “Can you see it yet?” Madame Lanier asked softly.

    Tess stared at their reflections. “See, Ma’am?”

    She kissed Tess’s cheek. “That every woman with the fire of purpose is beautiful.”

    “Woman?”

    “And I see your purpose as well as I see the affection you carry for your captain.” She frowned. “As if you haven’t got enough burdens, my darling girl.”

    Suddenly, the weight of the day crashed down, turning the bottles blurry as Tess struggled to take in gulps of air. The woman’s long, strong fingers unbuttoned, then lifted off coat, vest and blouse until she found Tess’s own corset: plain boned muslin, tied towards a different purpose. She loosened the strings.

    “Breathe easy now. I will not add to your burdens. You’re safe here. You’ll always be safe here, do you understand?”

    Tess looked up at the woman’s reflection. “Will I?” she whispered

    “Yes. Now, let’s get that uniform tucked away for a few hours, shall we? Then how about a few of my night-off girls and I help you into some silks and finery?”

    Soon Tess had what she’d always wanted, though she’d never known it before that moment—seven sisters dousing her in lilac water, powdering her shoulders, pulling her waist tight under corset ties. They graced her neck with amethysts, found ear bobs, painted her lips and cheeks. She shyly pulled her braid from its secret pocket for them to marvel at. Then they combed her shorn hair back and pinned the cascading fall to it, even planting silk flowers where they attached it.

   As her transformation continued, they told her about picnics along the Potomac on their days off, and going to the theater where goddesses on a gold chariot were pulled by a great mechanical lion with real smoke coming out of his nostrils. Encouraged, Tess told them about her mountains back home, and how cool they kept the evening breezes even at this summer time of year, and the white birch trees with mushrooms growing in their shade—mushrooms big enough to fry up like a steak.

    When the girl in the cinnamon colored dressing gown asked about Ryder and his scar, Tess even told them about the first time she’d laid eyes on her captain, his doomed horse and the panther. When she got to the panther’s death throes, the girl let out a shriek, followed by mad giggles from others to hush up.

    The door to the adjoining room swung open.

    Tess felt Madame Lanier’s hand take her shoulder in an iron grip. She looked up into the mirror and caught sight of Ryder Cole standing in the door frame. His eyes darted around for an instant, then landed square on her face.

    “Diana?”

    It was her turn to shriek.

The Ultimate Challenge...by Sheila Claydon

One of the important characters in my book Remembering Rose is an elderly woman, a grandmother, who uses a wheelchair and who is on the downward journey towards dementia. She has chosen to spend her final days in a care home despite having a large and loving family.

...so in the end she went into a nursing home. For the first week we thought she'd be heartbroken and we all felt guilty, but she took to it like a duck to water. Within days she seemed to have forgotten she had ever lived anywhere else, and Hester, who has always been the bossy one, set up a family visiting rota, so that rarely a day goes by without one or other of us calling in to see her.  She likes that, mainly because we take her chocolate biscuits and wine. Even at ninety-four years old she is still partial to a glass of chardonnay at six o'clock.

Not everything about this old lady is a figment of my imagination. A ninety-three year old friend, who has recently died, checked herself into a care home when she no longer felt able to manage alone. She had daughters who loved her and would have cared for her to the end but she wouldn't let them. She had no intention of being a burden to anyone, least of all herself. Instead she downsized her life but not the way she lived it. She still socialised, still went on holiday, still went to church and to Bible class, and still poured herself and anyone who happened to be visiting a glass of wine to the very end. She was also slim and elegant with immaculate hair and nails despite being registered blind. She loved company, especially dogs, who she favoured over her human visitors, and was the best listener I've ever met. She was totally my heroine for many years and if I am lucky enough to live to her great age I want to be just like her.

Nor is she the only one. I have another friend who is almost ninety. She is very deaf, is in constant pain, and can only walk with the aid of a frame or a stick because her body has become twisted and lop-sided with age, but none of this stops her from being a demon Bridge player, a welcoming and gracious hostess to any and all visitors, and a wonderful raconteur. She still manages her own home too, although with increasing difficulty, because she values her independence above almost everything else. Although she has lived a very interesting and eventful life, to the unknowing onlooker she is a tiny bird of a woman, overtaken by old age and fragility. Only when they notice the subtly coloured and carefully curled hair, the plucked eyebrows and the lipstick do they realise she was once something far more, and still is if they would only take the time to listen.

To quote the great Bette Davis, old age is no place for cissies, and it's true. Age brings aches and pains, chronic illness, the loss of loved ones, and being sidelined by the young. However, she also said, 'The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this he's dead.' And that is what my dear friends have done. They have accepted the challenges of old age, which in their case includes illness, frailty and widowhood, and decided that life is not only still worth living but is worth cherishing as well.

In old age not everyone is lucky enough to have sufficient money to be comfortable or the mental capacity to face life head on, and even for those who can it is still the ultimate challenge. There is no one stronger than a very old person who has seen it all, however, and their resilience is something to aspire to. The grandmother in Remembering Rose, although a very different character to my friends, has something to offer the heroine that nobody else can and she doesn't care who she has to inconvenience to do it.

We live in an era that considers youth and beauty two of its most valued commodities. It's a time where the younger generation knows little and understands less about the way life was in the recent past let alone almost one hundred years ago. Such ignorance is an incalculable loss. Listening to very old people is a history lesson in itself, and watching them face the challenges of their ageing bodies  and minds with stoicism and wisdom is a lesson worth learning because one day it will be us.

Never ignore an old person because hidden in their silences and half forgotten memories is a rich history, and if you listen to them you will be able to see the years fall away as they remember what the world was like when they were young.

http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/claydon-sheila-romance/

Sheila Claydon on facebook

Finding History In Canada by Victoria Chatham

NOW AVAILABLE!

In school, history was never my favorite subject. I couldn’t remember dates.1066 and 1492 are ingrained in me, but don’t ask me about the succession of kings or when the Industrial or French Revolutions began.

It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties that I read Jean Plaidy’s The Sun in Splendour. What a difference that made. I could see the characters in history, the people behind the words on the page. I scrambled to read all I could, both fact and fiction, about the Plantagenets, the Tudors and the War of the Roses. My history teacher would have been proud of me.

Today I write historical romance set in my favorite eras, the Regency and the Edwardian, but I still read historical novels from any period. History comes alive for me between the covers of a good book but I do understand that it is subjective.

What happened yesterday, a minute or an hour ago becomes history and we all have our own. My history is growing up in Clifton, a suburb of Bristol, England. Today it’s known not only for its Regency era architecture but also the palatial homes built by the merchant venturers of Bristol, a society of businessmen formed in 1552.

When I immigrated to Canada in 1990, I frequently had people tell me ‘you won’t like it here, we’re not old enough’, or ‘Canada has no history’.

I will admit my ignorance at that time. After all, what did I know about Canada other than it’s a very big country, the Mounties always get their man (or woman) and it’s cold in winter. After nearly twenty-five years I am happy to beg to differ with those early and misleading statements. Well, maybe not quite so happy about the cold.

While Canada may not have 8th-century churches and medieval castles, it has its own history. I’ve been lucky to see some of it first hand; black and ochre pictographs on cliff and canyon walls, dinosaur remains, glacial erratics and First Nations teepee rings, hunting grounds and totem poles. I’ve visited restored forts and trading posts and learned that the Hudson’s Bay Company, incorporated by Royal Charter in 1670, extended every bit as far and wide as did the East India Company, established earlier in 1600 also by Royal Charter.

I’ve had a trail guide point to a stretch of prairie and tell me to close my eyes and picture it not green but brown, a veritable tsunami of thousands of snorting, bawling buffalo. He also told me about the African-American cowboy, John Ware. Renowned for his ability to ride and train horses, Ware was also known for his strength and work ethic. He drove cattle from Texas to Montana and then, in 1882, further north into what is now Alberta where he and his wife settled.

I’ve visited forgotten mining towns to wonderful little back-road museums and loved those magical Heritage Minutes, those sixty-second vignettes illustrating important moments in Canadian history. Who knew that in 1789 Britain and Spain nearly came to blows after disputing their settlements in Nootka Sound? Or that one thousand years ago the Vikings settled L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland and Labrador? Or that in 1857 Queen Victoria chose Ottowa (formerly known as Bytown) as the capital of the Province of Canada?

And then I discovered Canadian authors. Having been brought up on Shakespeare, Austen, and Dickens, these new-to-me authors were like a breath of fresh air. Starting with Pierre Berton, I devoured Klondike Fever, The Last Spike, and The Great Lakes. I read Margaret Attwood, loved Margaret Laurence’s characters Hagar Shipley (The Stone Angel) and Morag Gunn (The Diviners). I learned about life on the prairies from W.O. Mitchell and at a book-fair picked up The Whiteoaks of Jalna by Mazo de la Roche. It, and other titles in the series, gave as a good a picture of life in Ontario from the 1850’s to the 1970’s as did any of R.F. Delderfield’s books of life in England for much of the same era. And then a helpful librarian recommended I read Alice Munro.

Jesse Kornbluth, writing in the Huffington Post in October 2013 says of Munro, ‘The lives of little people. We see them on the street, and, if we are curious, we wonder about their lives. Alice Munro does our homework for us -- she inhabits those lives. Her judgments are sure. And tough. And also... human.’ That humanity is what gets to me with every Munro story I have read and re-read.

Canada’s history is as rich and varied as anywhere else in the world and I had only scratched the surface of it when I began writing my Canadian Historical Bride book, Brides of Banff Springs. I delved into the history of 1930's Banff as I used it and the Banff Springs Hotel as my setting. The librarian at the Banff Public Library not only allowed me to use her surname for my heroine, Tilly, but also suggested reading materials. So much so that I went home with two bags of books.

Early summer was spent reading and researching. I had no clear idea of what I wanted, only that if I had a good understanding of what went on in and around the town of Banff at that time, some of it would gel enough for me to pick the right information and events to flow together into a story. I tried to include some of the social problems of the times without dwelling on them too much, but the primary focus of the book is the bride, so I had to work in the romance. By the middle of the book, Tilly and her sweetheart Ryan, had become real, living breathing characters and I couldn't wait to get them married off. 

I now have my first print copies of  Brides of Banff Springs and can honestly say I am absolutely thrilled. Cover designer Michelle Lee did a marvelous job of blending the bride's image with that of the Banff Springs Hotel. I am now looking forward to reading all of the books in this series and learning more about the country I call home, cold weather and all.

http://bookswelove.net/authors/chatham-victoria/

www.facebook.com/AuthorVictoriaChatham

http://victoriachatham.blogspot.ca. 

The True Meaning of Halloween, Charlie Brown by Stuart R. West

So many things frighten me. The odd thing is I love being scared. Just not by heights, serial killers, dirty bombs, nuclear fear, bio-chemical warfare, Trump, and shoe-shopping with my wife.

Maybe that’s why I adore dumb horror films. I know they’re not real, a vicarious and silly joy-ride. One I can easily recover from.

My wife doesn’t feel the same way. Recently, I somewhat hoodwinked her into watching The Babadook, a terrific Australian horror flick. I proclaimed it an art film to entice her into viewing with me. Not entirely a lie. Still, she hasn’t forgiven me.  (Hey, part of the fun of horror films is watching them with someone else, a communal experience. I love to hear people shriek in theaters...for all the right reasons, of course.).

Halloween is near. Spookiest time of the year. My daughter always says it’s her favorite holiday (a girl after my own heart). But, why? Where did Halloween spring from with its ghoulish visual aids and strange customs? 

As always, my faithful research assistant, Ms. Google, held the answers. 

(Read the following with Vincent Price's voice in your head; of course, for those spooky-challenged among you, you can always opt out for Morgan Freeman): Halloween was initially created to honor the dead. Somewhat like Memorial Day, only more morbid. Blame the Gaels for their ancient festival, Samhain, the origin of Halloween. The Irish would set out food and drink, offerings to the Gods for good health and livestock. Cheapskates would go door-to-door in costume looking for food. Back then, singing or poetry was recited for the food. No tricks. Not a bad gig.

Soon, pranking spread, instigated by the cheeky British. Call it door-to-door blackmail. “Gimme candy or I’ll do something rather naughty.” 

Christianity tried to adopt the holiday, turn it into a day of prayer for the deceased. I think they’re still trying to work the kinks out. 

To me, Halloween represents the time to embrace the spooky. Love it. The crisp falling orange leaves of Autumn fill me full of melancholy, a remembrance of my childhood and the horror films I used to seek out (which was quite hard to do when you only had three—sometimes four—fuzzy channels). Have you seen the Val Lewton produced films from the ‘40’s? Scary, yet subtle and artistic. A nice starter kit. Move on to the classic “The Haunting” from the ‘60’s (and, PLEASE, don’t even get me going on the modern remake). From there, the sky’s the limit. I broke my daughter in on “Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein” and Twilight Zone DVD’s. She hasn’t looked back yet.

So. Put out the kids. Tuck the cat in bed. Turn out the light. Fire up the chimney. Cuddle next to a loved one and get scared. Have fun with it.

In my book, Ghosts of Gannaway, I try to cover all spooky bases without being gross (the anti-scary). Kinda based on a true story, the book details the history of a small mining town in the ‘30’s. There are ghosts, murders, an evil mining magnate, claustrophobia, bad juju, nightmares, romance (gotta have romance), shadows, bigotry, pollution, photographs that move, a funny native-American, secrets, mystery, cancer, things that go bump in the night and the fear of being buried alive. Everything that scares me wrapped up in one book.

Click here for spooky Halloween thrills!

Happy Halloween! Boo!