Brides of Kentucky

This is a collection of three of my earlier books, Raining Fire, Hogtied and A Place of her own. All set in eastern Kentucky. I remember making the trip up to the Cumberland Gap, then over to the Cumberland Falls and then up to the Lexington area where I visited with an old friend. Paul and I lived in Kentucky for two years while he attended Asbury Seminary. Naturally the place had changed and was more built up.

One of the exciting aspects of the trip was to actually walk on the Wilderness Road used by Daniel Boone. I was fortunate enough to have a park ranger give me a tour when the park was closed down for some renovations. In the first book, Raining Fire, the opening scene takes place at Indian Rock, which I was able to walk up to and see. The ranger told me the legend of how the rock got it's named. You'll have to read the book to find out what happened. hehe

Brides of Kentucky releases in a few days. I hope you enjoy.

Here's a Link to Amazon to order your copy today.
And Here's a Link to Barnes & Noble

Palmetto Leaves by Harriet Beecher Stowe

We all know of Harriet Beacher Stowe from her work of Uncle Tom's Cabin but in 1873 she released another book Palmetto Leaves writing about life in North Florida. It's a great work, I haven't read all of the entries but enough to know she has a real flare for the people and the times she's writing about. I loved having this resource when I was working on my St. Augustine Series. Winning the Captain's Heart, The Innkeeper's Wife and The Shepherd's Betrothed.

Here's a link to Google Books to download or read online. Enjoy!

Popular Names

Hi all,

Here's a great little site I found for popular names during different time periods.

Popular Names

Naming our characters is always a challenge but it is also very important when it comes to historical fiction, imho.

Another tidbit with regard to naming your characters comes from the meaning of the names. I love having fun with those. Also, it's interesting to figure out the back story of how and why your character was given that name by his or her parents. Was it a family name? Was it a combination of two names, reduced, edited to become his or her own unique name. Were there reasons why your character wasn't named after his grandfathers? Was he or she given a name that was never used except when they were in trouble? Explore the possibilities, you'll be surprised just how much you can learn about your character by simply researching his or her names.

Cautionary Tale

Hi all,

This isn't my typical kind of a post. I recently went on a research trip to a famous city and spent many hours in the historical society. The end result was that very few people stayed in the city during the Civil War period I was researching. Here's the kicker it didn't feel right. The information seemed logical but I left frustrated and confused. I've spent several additional hours researching and there were many people living in that city during the war.

Here's where the problem came from. The historical society had no letters, diaries or journals from the women who stayed behind as their husbands, fathers and brothers fought in the War. The society for some unknown reason didn't have any records from the women. The possibility that it was strictly because their aspect was from the female perspective is more than likely the reason for the society not having saved those papers so many years ago. Whereas they had several from soldiers writing home, their diaries, or men who stayed behind in the city. The other problem is that the papers at the time rarely reported social events. And (here's the kicker) I was told that no one stayed in the city. The wives were sent out to the Plantations to run them. The houses in the city were social, summertime events.

Here's what got me confused. I'd read literature in the past that said the contrary. So, were the fictional accounts I read previous wrong? Were there no women in the city during the war?

I continued my research and thankfully I've found that there were in fact women still in the city, that social events did occur, not often but they still did and while the research is very very slow I am making progress.

Why am I sharing this with all of you? Because that is the way of historical research. We need to scratch below the surface, dig deeper until we find the truth. I have a long way to go but I'm still digging up tidbits. When I've verified this information, I'll share some of my findings with all of you.

In the meantime, have a great day and enjoy your research.

St. Augustine, FL

Tomorrow is the release of my newest novel, The Innkeeper's Wife it is the second novel in my historical St. Augustine series. I had a lot of fun working with the 'marriage of convenience' scenario for this book. As with all my books, I try to do something a bit unique and in this case the reasons for the marriage of convenience are not your typical reasons that you find written about today.

While researching for this series I came across a booklet about St. Augustine that was published in 1872. In that publication were the seven images I'm posting below. These images helped me gain persecutive of the feel of St. Augustine back in that time period. They also showed me that some of these very same places haven't changed very much. In fact, they have been repaired and in much better shape than the artist's sketches.

Below the first seven are some photographs from 1875 that also gain some interesting perspective of St. Augustine at the time.

1872

The City Gate in 2007

1872

1875
Fort Marion today it is known as Castillo de San Marcos.

Today the Castillo de San Marcos

The harbor in 1875

In 2006 looking down on the river from the Fort

Another Classic Site in St. Augustine is the oldest school house. Note the chains and anchor to hold down the schoolhouse in case of a storm.