My Story Inspiration for Choosing Bravery

By Jacqui Nelson

What inspires a Western Historical Romance Adventure story? History and love combined with adventure is my favorite mix, but I also adore iconic or intriguing settings. And the story I'm sharing with you today takes place on—and inside—a mountain.

Last month I shared my Story Inspiration pages (the page I've included in the back of all of my books) for Between Heaven & Hell and Following Faith. Today I'm sharing the Story Inspiration page for the story that follows chronologically...

CHOOSING BRAVERY 

Story Inspiration page ~ from the back of the book

While writing Following Faith and watching six-year-old Élodie Rousseau become such a fundamental part (even while mostly off-screen), I knew my next story had to be her grown-up adventure. I also knew she needed a larger-than-life man to match her big personality. 

A decade or more before, I’d met someone with the surname Bravery and tucked it away for future use. The right story hero never appeared to claim the name. After writing Following Faith and watching The Revenant, I knew Élodie’s match would be a legendary almost mythical mountain man. A man who’d been brought low by a bear, but could be lifted high by Élodie and her mountain home. A man named Bravery. 

When my research led me to Oregon’s Cascade Volcanic Arc, Newberry Volcano, and lava tubes, I knew the majority of their story would be underground—a challenging place to describe. When travel isn’t an option, a writer relies on pictures. I created a Pinterest board to help me visualize the story. For links to Choosing Bravery’s picture board and boards created for my other stories, visit my website JacquiNelson.com.

CHOOSING BRAVERY

The Cascade Mountains, Oregon – 1868

When legends collide, will the sparks ignite their love or drive them apart?

After her parents vanished in the wilderness, Élodie Rousseau found a home with an Osage warrior and a logging camp schoolmistress who joined forces to return Élodie’s beloved spirit horse. With them as her teachers, she became the legendary mountain guide, Yellow Feather. She knows everything about surviving and thriving in the wild, but something is missing.

Legendary Far North fugitive tracker, Lachlan Bravery, is tortured by his failure to find the one person who mattered most—the mentor who taught him everything he once held sacred. Driven to repay a dead man, his hunt for a notorious band of outlaws brings him to Élodie’s mountain where they must join forces on a final quest deep inside a cave with the power to destroy not only their unexpected love but their lives.

Brave the wild. Bury the past. Choose your destiny.

Click here to read an excerpt on my website.

THE LONESOME HEARTS SERIES 

Choosing Bravery is book 3 in my Lonesome Hearts series, which follows the frontiersmen and women who meet on the Oregon Trail and afterward. Each story includes one or more of the characters from the other books but is also a standalone read.

Click here to see a summary of all of my books on one page.

Hope you enjoyed my writing inspiration and that you have a fun Friday full of...flowers! ❤️💐

~ * ~

Download my FREE STORY Rescuing Raven

Join me on 

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Pinterest, my Website,
my Cowboy Kisses page 

Follow me on 

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Read my Wild Women of the West blog posts 

My Story Inspiration for Following Faith

By Jacqui Nelson

What's the inspiration for my stories? History, loss, hope, adventure, love, and quite often horses. 

Last month I shared my Story Inspiration page (a page that I've included in the back of all of my books) for my first book, Between Heaven & Hell. Today I'm sharing the Story Inspiration page for the sequel to that story...

FOLLOWING FAITH 

Story Inspiration page ~ from the back of the book

Following Faith came to life after I was asked to write a short story for the historical romance anthology Journey of the Heart featuring forms of Old West transportation.

I’d always planned to give Hannah’s brother, Eagle Feather (first seen in Between Heaven & Hell) his own story. Oregon became the setting since that was where Hannah had settled, and I wanted his path to reconnect with Hannah’s. 

Next came the decision of what transportation to use. Train, boat, stagecoach, wagon, or just plain old horseback—which I never find plain when every horse is unique. A childhood memory of a very unique horse and a much-loved book sprang to mind. 

San Domingo, the Medicine Hat Stallion first published in 1972 by Marguerite Henry (with illustrations by Robert Lougheed) was re-published as Peter Lundy and the Medicine Hat Stallion in 1972 (when it became a TV movie). Set in Pony Express-era Wyoming, the story’s core is the bond between a boy and a pinto horse with a very specific and rare color pattern—a mostly white body, neck, and head with a darker color that covers the top of the horse’s head and ears like a bonnet or a hat. 

Native legend said such a horse held the medicine to protect its rider from harm. The horse was greatly coveted and often stolen by those who wished to safeguard their—or a loved one’s—life.

FOLLOWING FAITH

Oregon Territory 1852

Can a single day together on horseback 
change your life forever?

Labeled a harlot and expelled from a remote logging camp and her only employment teaching children, Faith Featherby embarks on a journey to return a stolen spirit horse to the little girl whose photograph she found hidden in the horse’s riding blanket. 

Orphaned young and stifled by a lifelong shyness, Faith has only her education as a schoolmistress and her memories of her mother’s stories. She’s not an experienced rider, but a Medicine Hat horse—alleged to have the sacred power to protect its rider—might be her best hope for surviving the wilderness... until an Osage warrior rides out of the mist. 

Scarred by a brutal past, the warrior challenges Faith to follow a new path where belief in yourself and your partner, be they horse or man, can lead to a triumph of the heart.

Follow a path. Find a partner. Fight for a future together.

Click here to read an excerpt on my website.

~ * ~

THE LONESOME HEARTS SERIES 

Following Faith is book 2 in my Lonesome Hearts series, which follows the frontiersmen and women who meet on the Oregon Trail and afterward. Each story includes one or more of the characters from the other books but is also a standalone read.

Click here to see a summary of all of my books on one page.

Hope you enjoyed my writing inspiration and that you have a fun Friday full of your favorite things ❤️

~ * ~

Download my FREE STORY Rescuing Raven

Join me on 

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Pinterest, my Website,
my Cowboy Kisses page 

Follow me on 

Amazon, BookBub, Goodreads 

Read my Wild Women of the West blog posts 

My Story Inspiration for Between Heaven & Hell

By Jacqui Nelson

I've included a Story Inspiration page in the back of each of my books, but today I thought...why not share them everywhere and start with Cowboy Kisses? And why not start with my first book as well? 

So here we go! 

 

BETWEEN HEAVEN & HELL 

Story Inspiration page ~ from the back of the book

Between Heaven & Hell was the first novel I wrote (and the second I published), so you can imagine how honored I was when it won both the 2010 Romance Writers of America® Golden Heart® for Historical Romance and the 2014 Laramie® for Western Romance Drama.

The inspiration for Hannah and Paden’s story came from many directions. First was the astounding idea of traveling 2,170 miles (3,490 km) on foot, wagon, or horseback but also leaving behind everything you knew—family, friends, the familiarity of home, the disappointments of the past. All for the hope of a better future. Few people crossed the trail more than once as Paden did. From the 1830s the Oregon Trail and its many offshoots were used by over 400,000 travelers. To put that into perspective, America’s population was 23 million in 1850, the year of my story.

Attack by anyone including Native Americans (whose land was being taken and abused) was my initial worry for my travelers. It was an eye-opener to learn that disease posed the most danger. Cholera killed 3% of all travelers in the epidemic years from 1849 to 1855. Other common causes of death included hypothermia, drowning in river crossings, being run over by wagons, and accidental shootings.

So how to protect yourself? From the early days, Native tribes believed tattoos held protective powers. Symbols were tribe and individual specific because if everyone’s life story is unique, then a tattoo (and its guardian spirit) should be unique as well.

BETWEEN HEAVEN & HELL 

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas – 1850

Hannah knows one thing the moment she enters Fort Leavenworth—she’s arrived in Hell. But inside the fort is the means to a new life, a position as a scout on a wagon train bound for the Western Territories. All Hannah has to do is convince the wagon master, Paden Callahan, she’s the right person for the job.

After his wife was murdered by the Comanche, Paden let his work as a Texas Ranger consume him. Now he wants nothing more than to forget his past and disappear into the West. Unfortunately, the one man he can’t refuse has asked him to guide a wagon train full of tenderfoots across thousands of miles of Indian land. But Paden’s greatest challenge turns out to be Hannah, a woman his heart won’t allow him to ignore even though she’s been raised by an enemy he hates.

On a trail full of danger, will he guide her to heaven or hell?

Click here to read an excerpt on my website.

~ * ~

THE LONESOME HEARTS SERIES 

Between Heaven & Hell is book 1 in my Lonesome Hearts series, which follows the frontiersmen and women who meet on the Oregon Trail and afterward. Each story includes one or more of the characters from the other books but is also a standalone read.

Click here to see a summary of all of my books on one page.

Hope you enjoyed my writing inspiration and that you all have a very happy Friday! 

~ * ~

Download my FREE STORY Rescuing Raven

Join me on 

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Pinterest, my Website,
my Cowboy Kisses page 

Follow me on 

Amazon, BookBub, Goodreads 

Read my Wild Women of the West blog posts 

Welcome to the Zoo

A new western television series starring Pierce Bronson aired in April. The kiddo wanted to watch the 2-hour premiere, so I watched with him, and lost interest after the 1^st hour. I didn’t like the characters and I especially didn’t like the blood, guts and gore. But within that 1^st hour, a line struck me as odd. Brosnan’s character goes back and forth from 80-year old Eli to teen Eli kidnapped by a native tribe. The kidnapping scene begins with Eli and his brother and sister helping their mother set the table for dinner. They live out in the middle of nowhere, and as all siblings do, the three were bantering harmlessly when the brother asks Eli if he was raised in a zoo. I’ve heard the expressions born or raised in a barn, but never a zoo, which got me to thinking. Did the United States even have a zoo in 1849? If so, where? And how would a child living in the vast western part of the U.S. learn of such an establishment?

Grey Wolf

The Philadelphia Zoo was the first zoo in the United States. Situated along the western bank of the Schuylkill River and chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, opening day was July 1, 1874, delayed from March 1859 due to the start of the Civil War. The cost to see the 1,000 animals on display was 25 cents. The zoo was enclosed by a stone wall. Animals were housed behind picket fences, to include buffalo, deer, wolves, foxes, bears, monkeys, reptiles and an Indian elephant. Birds were another attraction, as were goat cart rides. A carriage house to stable horses bringing visitors to the grounds sat near the entrance. Briefly, the zoo was home to animals brought over on safari for the Smithsonian Museum, which had not yet built the National Zoo. The zoo itself, the façade columns of the original stone walls, wrought iron fence entryway and the carriage house are still in existence today.  

Grizzly Bear

The oldest zoo west of the Mississippi River is the Oregon Zoo. The Oregon Zoo is in Portland and was founded in 1888 with two bears owned by Richard Knight. Originally from England, Knight was a seaman turned pharmacist. He opened his pharmacy along the Williamette River and began collecting animals from his sailor friends, to include parakeets, monkeys and other small animals. He kept those animals in the back of his drug store and staked two bears in the vacant lot next to him. When the care and feeding of the animals became too much, Knight tried to sell the bears to the city. City officials wouldn’t buy them. Instead, they gave Knight two circus cages and let him display the brown bear and the grizzly bear in City Park, now Washington Park. Knight still had to take care of the bears, and five months later, he offered to donate the bears to the city. City council accepted this offer, to include the cages, and this became the official start to the Oregon Zoo, with Charles Myers as the first zookeeper. Today the zoo is owned by the Regional Metro government.

The Philadelphia Zoo and the Oregon Zoo were founded many years after Brosnan’s character was kidnapped by Native Americans. To answer my question of how he would’ve known about a zoo, I dug further and found teachers back in that timeframe were required to pass a lengthy exam before they were allowed to teach. They had to be knowledgeable in a variety of subjects, to include history. And the history of the zoo is lengthy, dating back to 2400 B.C. when Shulgi ruled Ur, in what is present day South-East Iraq. Though not a zoo of modern standards, Shulgi is the first person known to house a collection of animals. The first zoo by modern standards was established by Queen Hatshepsut in 1500 B.C in Egypt. The queen collected animals from all parts of Africa. Later, Chinese Emperor Wen Wang built his own zoo to highlight his wealth and power. Wang’s zoo was named Garden of Intelligence, occupied 1,500 acres, and included animals from all over his empire. After him, Vienna Emperor Franz Josef built a zoo for his wife in 1752. This is oldest zoo in existence today and was originally built as an imperial menagerie.      

The world’s first scientific zoo is the London Zoo. Opened on April 27, 1858, animals from the Tower of London’s menagerie were transferred there in 1832. King John kept an assortment of animals, to include elephants, tigers and kangaroos, at the Tower for entertainment and curiosity. Later, the animals were used in deadly games of sport. A wider variety of animals were housed in later years, but after incidents where some got free and attacked people, the menagerie closed and the Duke of Wellington ordered the animals be taken to London Zoo.
   

My best guess at answering my own question is that Eli, and children of that era, learned about the zoo during a history lesson.