WHAT IF? By Kathleen Lawless @kathleenlawless

 

 What if is the basis for pretty much every work of literary fiction.  What if a man-eating shark is prowling the shallow waters of a popular swimming beach?  What if a young Amish boy is the only witness to a murder?  What if a handsome, eligible Duke refuses to marry or sire children to continue the family lineage?  There is even a recent movie with a stylized version of What If as its title.

Mail Order Brides are super popular with readers these days, especially multi-author projects.  Readers enjoy these series because each title contains a familiar, much-loved trope, yet each romance is unique based on the individual author’s voice and plotline. 

A version of What if the Wrong Woman Turns Out to be the Right One for Him? is the tagline for the Mistaken Identity Brides, an exciting series set to launch next month.  How does a groom waiting to pick up his mail-order bride somehow meet and marry a different woman?   The muse had a lot of fun with this premise and I eventually settled on a young, innocent orphan raised in a convent, on her way west to become a nun in A BRIDE FOR RILEY.

She was headed for the convent.  How did she wind up married instead? 

Raised in an orphanage, Lucinda never felt she truly had the calling to be a nun, secretly longing for her own family. Like a miracle, her prayers are answered when confusion at the train station leads her to the marriage altar instead of the convent. 

 Tuesday’s Teaser— from A BRIDE FOR RILEY

          Riley drew the carriage to a stop outside of the train depot in Butte and turned to his two young charges.  “You two stay here.  Kenny you mind your sister, hear?  Vicky, you’re in charge of your brother.” 

          Both children looked up at him with wide blue eyes that reminded him so much of his sister it hurt.  He knew what they were thinking.  Was he really coming back?  Or would he disappear the same way their father had shortly after their mother died? 

          “I won’t be long.  I promise,” he said as he climbed down.  He felt their eyes boring into his back as he strode into the train station.  He didn’t know a hill of beans about raising youngsters, but he’d promised his sister he’d do his best.  Which, to his mind, meant getting them a new mother as soon as possible.

          The train pulled in minutes later and stopped with a belch of coal smoke and the grinding sound of metal wheels on metal tracks.  Shortly after, the doors opened and the porters stepped off first, followed by the passengers. 

          One by one, he searched the face of each woman traveling alone.  There weren’t many.  That had to be her, the plain one standing by herself and looking around all wide-eyed and nervous.  She wasn’t wearing a single fashionable adornment like most of the other women passengers, but beneath her plain brown bonnet he glimpsed an escaped strand of reddish hair. 

          He frowned.  She’d sounded different in her letters, flirty and not the least bit shy.  He approached her slowly, half expecting her to bolt when he said her name.

          “Lucinda?” 

          She started before a look of relief spread over her features and she gave a jerky nod. 

          “I’m Riley.  Let’s go get your things.”

          “This is all I have.”  She indicated the shabby valise at her feet. 

          “That’s all?”  Funny, he’d been expecting his mail-order bride from Boston to arrive with a fashionable East coast wardrobe.

          “I was told I’d be supplied with whatever I needed.”

          “That a fact?”  He pressed his lips together and reached for her valise.  It felt almost empty.  No doubt that old busybody from the matchmaking agency had told her she was marrying a wealthy man.

          “The carriage is this way.”  As they walked out of the station, he wondered how to introduce the children in such a way that his mail order bride didn’t light out of here first thing.  

Pre-order Riley and receive it on your kindle first thing May 28^th.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08YXZY8CQ

  You can check out the entire series here. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08YYZSHYQ

LASSO MY HEART By Kathleen Lawless @kathleenlawless

Lasso is also one of those interesting words that is both a noun, originating from the Castilian word lazo, “noose or snare”, and a verb, where something (livestock, typically) is lassoed.

Even today, the lasso is a basic component in any cowboy’s gear.  I’ve had my hero use one in a contemporary romance, and the bad guy use one in a historical romance.  Which got me wondering about the history of this handy, braided piece of rope, which is typically 60 to 100 feet long and sits coiled on the right-hand side of a cowboy’s saddle, in front of the rider.

In my part of the world, credit for this useful tool goes to the Native American craftsmen, who brought the concept from Mexico where it was further refined in the Cowboy territories of the US.  But North America doesn’t get all for credit.  In Ancient Egypt, in a temple built in 1280 A.D., a relief drawing shows Pharaoh Seti I using a lasso to bring down a bull.  Clearly, the Ancient World used a lasso first.

I am pretty sure I will never look at a length of rope quite the same way.

While he doesn’t use a lasso, Daniel Chambers does manage to steal Rachel’s heart in MAIL ORDER RACHEL, Book 24 of Widows, Brides, and Secret Babies.  This clean and wholesome historical western romance is available for Pre-order now, to receive on your Kindle this Friday.        https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088HFGF49

Excerpt from MAIL ORDER RACHEL  

          Daniel paced the platform impatiently.  The train was late.  It had been several months since he had been introduced by mail to a sweet-sounding girl from Boston who had agreed to become his wife.  Even her name was sweet.  Mary Margaret.  He felt in his heart that any woman with a name like that had to be a Christian.  She was Irish, she had told him, with red hair and freckles.  Her words sounded hesitant, as if fearing he might reject her on that fact alone. 
          He’d heard that the Irish immigrants hadn’t been treated very well back East, and could hardly wait to make up any indignities suffered by his sweet bride.

          Finally, the train pulled into the station and discharged its passengers.  Daniel, who stood taller than most, watched each passenger disembark, but there wasn’t a single redhead in the lot.  His shoulders slumped.  Surely Mary Margaret hadn’t changed her mind? 

          As the platform started to clear, he watched a porter approach a young woman with an infant.  The porter carried an infant’s traveling basket which he dropped at the woman’s feet.  The woman didn’t look happy, and heated words were exchanged.  Daniel felt sorry for the little tyke, for the woman held it on one hip as if it were a bag of flour.  

          The porter left and she turned defiant blue-gray eyes his way.  “You must be Daniel.”

          He swallowed his surprise.  This couldn’t possibly be Mary Margaret, his sweet Irish bride.  “Who are you?” he asked as he took a hesitant step toward her and the infant. 

          Dark hair tumbled about her shoulders and looked as if it hadn’t seen a comb in weeks.  As he reached her side, the baby let out a pitiful cry. 

          “I’m Rachel, Meg—I mean Mary Margaret’s friend.  She sent me in her stead.”

          “I don’t understand,” Daniel said.  “Why would she send you?  And who is this?”

To see all the titles in the best-selling series, click here.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086GGVGP2

Happy Reading!  See you in September! 

Kathleen

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Silver Mining Terms-Part 2

 

Last month I shared some mining terms—some dealing specifically with silver mining, some for precious metals mining in general. I did to to introduced you to my novellas that are part of the new Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs series. Jubilee Springs is a hypothetical silver mining town set high in the mountains of Colorado. You may reach that post by CLICKING HERE.

Here are some more mining terms:

Mill Run - A test of quality of ore after reduction.

Ore - Any natural combination of minerals. Especially one from which a metal or metals can be profitably extracted. Commonly a mixture of one or more of the following: quartz, gold, copper, silver, sulfur, iron, and nickel.

 

Silver ore

Outcrop - That portion of a vein appearing at the surface.

Patch - A small placer claim.

Petering or Peter Out - The ore giving out.

Pocket - A cavity filled with ore, or a rich deposit of precious metal.

Quartz - Metal encased in rock.

 

Silver ore

Reducing - Separating from foreign substances; the reduction of ores consists in extracting from them the metals they contain.

Shaft - A vertical or inclined excavation for purpose of prospecting or working mines.

Slag - The waste left as a residue by the smelting of metallic ore.

Soft Carbonate - Silver-bearing mineral so soft that it can be readily taken out with a pick and shovel. It is usually sand impregnated with mineral, the mineral having been carbonated or oxidized.

Sourdough - A highly experienced miner who has prospected for many years.

Square Set - A set of timbers used for support in underground mining.

Stamp or Stamp Mill - Machines for crushing ores.

Strike - A find; a valuable mineral development made in an unexpected manner.

Stull - Platforms of timbers between levels for strengthening the mine by supporting the walls, and for storing ore and depositing wall rock and waste material.

Stull Timbers - The large timbers placed across the vein or lode from one wall to another, to support the lagging upon which the ore or waste is placed.

 

Stull and Stull Timbers

Sump or Sumph - A pit sunk at the bottom of a mine to collect the water. It can be the bottom of a shaft.

Tailings - Gravel, dirt, and rocks that is left behind after extracting the minerals.

Whim - A winding machine used for hoisting ore out of a shaft.

Whim

 Windlass - A device, smaller than a whim, used to raise ore from a shaft.

Differential Windlass

Winze or Wizen - A shaft sunk from one level to the other.

Here is the book description for my second novella in the Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs series, Cat’s Meow: 

     Catherine “Cat” Everett has lost everything. She finds and adopts an abandoned, half-grown kitten. Unbeknownst to Harold Calloway, the man she has been writing to in Jubilee Springs with the intent of marriage, and enduring the disapproval of the railroads who do not allow pets to travel in the passenger areas, she decides to bring the kitten with her.

     When she arrives in Jubilee Springs, Catherine immediately falls in love with tall, lanky miner, Harold. She wants to marry him, but there is one “meowly” little problem.

    

You may purchase Cat’s Meow from Amazon by CLICKING HERE.

Old West Handcuffs

by Shanna Hatfield

In my new sweet historical western romance releasing next week, I have an easy-going sheriff as the hero.

When I was developing the idea for the story, I decided it would be fun for the one person who drives the sheriff crazy to be a prim and proper woman who arrives in town quite unexpectedly.  Of course, he does his best to antagonize her and she goes out of her way to snub him.

Eventually, he ends up arresting her (twice) and hauls her off to jail. In fact, the cover of the book shows her standing outside the jail with cuffs around the wrists.

Since I couldn't find any models wearing an 1890s outfit with cuffs on their wrist, I ordered a pair of reproduction cuffs and had Captain Cavedweller snap a photo of  them on my wrists.

I am here to tell you from first-hand experience these things are heavy (really heavy), incredibly uncomfortable, and aren't the easiest things to get on or off.

It made me wonder about the history of handcuffs. According to information I found, the first recorded mention of handcuffs was in Virgil's telling of  the myth of Proteus, an ancient Greek shape-shifting god. The son of Apollo discovered the secret to preventing Proteus from shape shifting and escaping was with handcuffs.

The Bronze and Iron ages ushered in the first metal handcuffs, which were “one size fits all” for centuries. The inability to adjust the handcuffs brought with it any number of problems. If a suspect's wrists were too large, the cuffs were painful (and they hurt bad enough when they aren't too small) or wouldn't close. If the suspect's wrists were too small, they could slip right out of them.

In 1862, a man named W.V. Adams patented the first adjustable ratchet design. Orson C. Phelps followed with a patent that improved upon the original ratchet design.

John Tower used their patents to manufacture what were the industry standard from the mid-1800s right up until World War II.  Tower Handcuffs introduced the first double-locking cuff design in 1879.

George Carney invented the first swing cuff handcuffs  in 1912, similar in design to the handcuffs used today.  The revolutionary design made it possible for a law enforcement officer to quickly secure the cuffs with just one hand, vastly improving security and ease of use.

 Corsets and Cuffs releases May 12 and it is currently available for pre-orders.
Here's a little excerpt:

~*~

Her jaw dropped open as she gaped at him. “This is ridiculous. Remove these cuffs and release me, this instant.”

“Not happening, your highness.”  He swung open the door to the jail and escorted her through the office back to the cells. No one else was in the building, something for which Brianna was grateful. Mortified to be manhandled in such a manner on the way to the jail, she certainly didn’t need any spectators to her unexpected imprisonment.

Tully marched her into a cell then removed the cuffs. A smile played around the corners of his mouth as he slammed the door and turned a key in the lock. “You’re under arrest.”

Furious, she spluttered in protest. “For what? I have done nothing more than demand you carry out the responsibilities of the job the good citizens of this town entrusted into your care. You have no right…”

Tully took a step back as she grabbed hold of the cell bars and rattled them. He smirked. “You are under arrest for assaulting an officer of the law.”

Defiant and insulted, she lifted her chin. “You deserved the slap after that impudent comment.”

Tully ignored her and continued. “You’re under arrest for assaulting an officer of the law, being a public nuisance, harassment, and disorderly conduct.”

Incensed, she rattled the bars again. “I did no such thing, and you know it. This is an outrage. You, sir, are a bully and a beast! I demand an immediate release. Wait until your superiors hear about this. I’ll have you removed from your position. In fact, I won’t stop until the governor of this state has you tossed in prison!”

“Good luck with that, sweetheart.” Tully stalked over to the door, leading to the jail’s office, his gaze hard and penetrating. “Your time might be better spent reflecting on how you ended up in here, Miss Smarty Britches.”

~*~

Convinced everyone deserves a happy ending, USA Today best-selling author Shanna Hatfield is out to make it happen, one story at a time. Her sweet historical and contemporary romances combine humor and heart-pumping moments with relatable characters. When this hopeless romantic isn’t writing or indulging in rich, decadent chocolate, Shanna hangs out with her husband, lovingly known as Captain Cavedweller.

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