The holiday season is fast approaching. And that means no time for reading - right? Wrong!
Trust me, while Christmas holidays may be stressful, some readers long for a break between cookie baking, decorating, wrapping, shopping, or whatever - and a novella or collection of short stories takes the 'cake' if it has a holiday theme. I've written several novellas over the past few Christmases. Bear with me for some shameless promo before I get down to western business.
SANTA PAWS features a dog who wreaks havoc for a divorced mom and her daughter.
"The last thing Lacey Gordon—divorced with a teen daughter and two cats—needs is a rescue dog coming into her life. To top it off, she's rooked into a "Get Under the Mistletoe by Christmas Eve" dating contest. Since Buddy the dog prefers to be the only "new guy" in Lacey's life, will Santa Claws ruin her holiday for good?"
I had fun writing this novella, and the dog on the cover looks just like my own rescue, Benji, now in doggie heaven.
SANTA CLAWS stars Lucifer, a mischievous black cat with an agenda of his own.
Mary Kate Branson will do anything for her brother, who is deployed overseas right after Thanksgiving - including taking in his mischievous cat, Lucifer. She juggles battling job woes at a bakery with dating a hot volunteer firefighter and all the preparations for Christmas ... but Lucifer has his own plans for a holiday bash.
And Lucifer, the black cat on the cover, resembles our own Toby, also in kitty heaven. Sniff. We miss them both! But readers have enjoyed the comedic antics.
Also in the line-up is HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS - all about an animal rescue organization.
Jodie Watson's in the animal rescue business -- with her best friend Phil. Their non-profit organization, Fur and Feathers, is teetering on the brink of disaster, with trouble from the city condemning their rented building. They soon have a worse fight on their hands, though, when donation money goes missing. Will their blossoming romance turn sour? Or can they work some Christmas magic to survive and find a new home for the holidays for their precious rescues?
The adorable wiener dog on the cover resembles Pepper, the dog my family first owned. She bit my older brother, so she ended up with my grandparents. Dang. At least we ended up with a far more lovable (but uglier) mutt.
Dogs and cats aside, I thought - why not write a western AND holiday story this year?
And that's when I learned that Prairie Rose Publications planned a mail order bride anthology revolving around Christmas. Oh boy! I jumped on board. I'd never written a mail order bride story, but hey, one of my favorite TV shows was Here Come the Brides set in Seattle.
While all the girls my age fawned over Bobby Sherman or David Soul, I kind of liked Robert Brown - the oldest brother. And I ended up marrying an older guy, too. Hmm. But I had to come up with an idea that would be believable, since not all mail order bride stories end up 'happily ever after'.
It turned out tougher than I thought. But who doesn't like a little holiday mischief? That's why I chose a theme where my heroine takes a chance for a new life, like in all mail order bride stories, but with a twist. I wouldn't be a mystery writer if I failed to include that in my plot! So here's the anthology for this year - A MAIL ORDER CHRISTMAS BRIDE with my story among seven other talented Prairie Rose authors.
Will it be true love or a HOLIDAY HOAX for these mail-order brides who are traveling together? When they “switch” grooms in Holliday, Nebraska, will things work out for the best, or will they end up ruining their futures?
I'm also hoping to get my own Christmas novella out by December 1st - the sequel to THE KEY TO LOVE, a novella centered around Valentine's Day and the Groundhog Day blizzard of February, 2011.
My characters Jenn and Steve decided they'd waited long enough and started bugging me, so I'm rushing to finish the story and get a new cover. So far, THE KEY TO CHRISTMAS is working out. Let's hope I can get it done - maybe I'll have to avoid all the turkey leftovers, since everyone yearns for a nap after the big dinner.
ENJOY your Thanksgiving, family get togethers, and the busy season of giving. Make sure you have great reads on your Kindle or Nook, and remember, short stories are enjoyable for those "in-between" times when you need a break.
HAPPY READING for the holidays!
Mystery author Meg Mims earned a Spur Award from WWA and also a Laramie award for her western historical mystery series, Double Crossing and Double or Nothing. Meg is also one-half of the writing team of D.E. Ireland for a mystery series featuring Eliza Doolittle & Henry Higgins for Minotaur books. Book 2 just came out, MOVE YOUR BLOOMING CORPSE. Book 1, WOULDN'T IT BE DEADLY, was nominated for a 2015 Agatha Award. Meg lives in Southeastern Michigan. Meg has currently has a Malti-Poo who causes plenty of holiday trouble. Maybe 2016 will feature Dusty on the cover...
LOVE AND MARRIAGE IN THE OLD WEST
June is coming upon us in a few months, along with the season for weddings -- which got me to thinking. Just how common were mail order brides in the Old West?
Think about the issue this way. After the Civil War, widows and young women outnumbered eligible men in the East. And out west, eligible men vastly outnumbered the few women who'd already followed the call of the gold fields.
So yes. The newspapers had a field day with advertisements for brides willing to travel west, the mail thrummed back and forth between eager bachelors and respectable (or not so respectable, depending on the situation) ladies in small towns out east. Like the internet today, both sides often "doctored" descriptions and/or photographs in hopes of snagging a partner. Disappointment often reigned, of course, and at times men waited in vain for a promised bride - who turned in the ticket for money instead of undertaking a journey. Some newspapers printed notices such as these.
And who doesn't love the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? Adam seeks a bride one day in town, snags Millie by pure luck - who envisions a wonderful life with the handsome, sweet talking backwoodsman, but ends up being cook, maid and teacher-of-manners to his six brothers. They soon want their own brides, of course. It's pure fun, and the barn dance is the best part.
In the 1860s, Asa Mercer promised to import women of marriageable age to Seattle - and that history inspired the popular television show, Here Come the Brides (along with the film Seven Brides/Seven Brothers). A set of three brothers bet their tract of timber against the sawmill owner's offer to fund the expenses; the businessman has eyes on that land and timber, of course, while the Bolt brothers have a difficult time convincing the women of Massachusetts to leave home. It's more pure fun, and inspired lots of young girls in their teens to worship at the feet of Bobby Sherman and David Soul. Oh yeah.
Okay, back to the mail order brides issue. Fred Harvey himself played matchmaker, hiring single women "of good character" who could work in his cafes along the railroad. The businessman kept strict standards, however, that the women must work as waitresses for a year; they were chaperoned while men visited in special "courting" parlors, and had to live in special dormitories. Between 4,000 and 5,000 women ended up marrying by first working as Harvey Girls. This also spawned the Judy Garland hit, The Harvey Girls. While the plot seems silly, they did get the uniform right.
Some immigrants also utilized ways of procuring brides, either through letters or matchmakers. Russian men paid fees to obtain potential wives, steeped in tradition from their old homes; Chinese and Japanese did the same, asking their parents to act as brokers to get a bride, sight unseen or via a blurry photograph. Such pressure from parents sent Asian women across the ocean, or else chose to escape starving to death. The recent TV mini-series, Broken Trail, starred Robert Duvall and Thomas Hayden Church and wove a group of Chinese women brought over as brides - or so they believed.
The theme of mail order brides remains popular in novels. Do a search on Amazon or B&N using that keyword, and you can scroll through 100 pages of offerings. One anthology includes our own Western Fictioneers member Cheryl Pierson in Lassoing a Mail Order Bride - published by Prairie Rose Publications - which sounds really interesting. "A woman would have to be loco to become a mail-order bride... wouldn't she? Leaving everything behind and starting fresh in the untamed west is the answer to a prayer for these ladies!" Check it out.
I used the offer of a train ticket, the promise of a wedding, a nice house with husband and family, as a subplot for a minor female character in Double Crossing. Check out my novel if you haven't read my western historical mystery with the "True Grit on a train" major theme.
Mail order brides are not a thing of the past. And the tradition continues, not surprisingly. Where there's a need, there's a way to fill it...
Mystery author Meg Mims earned a Spur Award from WWA and also a Laramie award for her western historical mystery series, Double Crossing and Double or Nothing. Meg is also one-half of the writing team of D.E. Ireland for St. Martin's Minotaur mystery series featuring Eliza Doolittle & Henry Higgins -- lives in Southeastern Michigan with her husband and a sweet Malti-poo. She loves writing novels, novellas and short stories, both contemporary and historical.
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