The Harvey Girls
If you’re a fan of American historical romances, you’ve read your share of stories about women headed west on wagon trains. However, most women on the wagon trains were married, at least when… Continue reading
Tag Archive: history
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Angel On The Battlefield
As I was researching The Forgotten Debutante, my last book in the Cotillion Ball Series, I learned of the National Reburial Initiative, which took place after the Civil War finished. Most Americans are… Continue reading
Timber Trade Along the Ottawa
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the fur trade played a large part in the economic development of North America. Popular imagination about the era is riddled with images related to that trade:… Continue reading
The National Road & The True Gateway to the West
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Steubenville, OH and how it was, according to present day Steubenville residents, the real gateway to the west, long before St. Louis adopted the title. I… Continue reading
Question Everything
There are moments, stunning in their clarity, when awareness of one’s own ignorance rises to the surface. A favorite book reminded me forcefully of that this week while researching a new novel. The… Continue reading
Maps, Markers, and Meandering: Place Matters
When we moved to the urban wilds of Eastern Pennsylvania, it took some adjustment, but mostly that went smoothly. I’ve been here almost three years and have become comfortable. Besides the joy of… Continue reading
The Seraglio, World of Women
Sometimes research for a novel takes a fiction writer in unexpected directions. When a complicated plot point led me to place a character in the Ottoman Seraglio as a teacher I had to… Continue reading
Fueling the Imagination
If you look up “fantasy world” in Wikipedia you will find a long list of entirely invented universes ranging from Atlantis to ZanZarah and sorted into categories by format: book, movie, video game.… Continue reading
National First Ladies’ Library, Canton, OH
One of the great things about moving back to the state of your birth after many years of absence is discovering new and interesting tidbits that you never knew about when you were… Continue reading
Seduced by the Story
A man who is interested in what makes people tick doesn’t write history. He writes novels .. . A man who understands about people hasn’t any yen to write history. Josephine Tey, The… Continue reading