A particularly tragic account is the driving force behind this story, one I discovered while researching my early American ancestors, the ill-fated romance of a captive woman who fell in love with the son of a chief. As the result of a treaty, she was taken from her warrior husband and forced back to her white family where she gave birth to a girl. Then the young woman’s husband did the unthinkable and left the tribe to go live among the whites, but such was their hatred of Indians that before he reached his beloved her brothers killed him. Inconsolable and weak from the birth, she grieved herself to death.
Heart-wrenching, that tale haunts me to this day. And I wondered, was there some way those young lovers could have been spared such anguish, and what happened to their infant daughter when she grew up?
Not only did The Bearwalker's Daughter spring from that sad account, but it also had a profound influence on my historical romance Red Bird's Song. Now that I've threaded it through two novels, perhaps I can let go...Perhaps....
I put my heart into writing The Bearwalker's Daughter, was even more deeply invested in historical romance novel Red Bird's Song, and poured my soul into my historical romance novel Through the Fire. And more recently, my latest release, historical romance novel Kira, Daughter of the Moon. The history these novels draw from is raw, real, drama filled, and pounds with adventure. A passionate era where only the strong survive. Superstition ran high among both the Scots settlers and Native Americans, and far more--vision that transcends what is to reach what can be. We think we have gained much in our modern era, and so we have. But we've also lost. In my writing, I try to recapture what shouldn't be forgotten. Read and judge for yourself.
Blurb for The Bearwalker's Daughter:
Timid by nature—or so she thinks—Karin McNeal hasn’t grasped who she really is or her fierce birthright. A tragic secret from the past haunts the young Scots-Irish woman longing to learn more of her mother's death and the mysterious father no one will name. The elusive voices she hears in the wind hint at the dramatic changes soon to unfold in the mist-shrouded Alleghenies in Autumn, 1784.
Jack McCray, the wounded stranger who staggers through the door on the eve of her twentieth birthday and anniversary of her mother's death, holds the key to unlock the past. Will Karin let this handsome frontiersman lead her to the truth and into his arms, or seek the shelter of her fiercely possessive kinsmen? Is it only her imagination or does someone, or something, wait beyond the brooding ridges—for her?
"Ms. Trissel's alluring style of writing invites the reader into a world of fantasy and makes it so believable it is spellbinding." --Long and Short Reviews
*The Bearwalker's Daughter is available at Amazon for .99
*The Bearwalker's Daughter is a revised version of Daughter of the Wind.
*Cover by my talented daughter Elise Trissel
*Image of old family musket, powder horn, and shot pouch by my mom Pat Churchman
I’m not surprised there’s a basis for the story. Every heart wrenching book has a starting place. And though killing was a common resort long ago, I can’t help but feel compassion for the captive woman. They lived in a difficult time of war, and both she and her husband were weak when the tragedy that ended their romance happened.
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