Holiday Time Travel Romance The White Lady (Book 2, Ladies in Time)

The White Lady, (Book 2 the Ladies in Time series), is out on November 11th, and available in pre-order now. The story was inspired by the ghostly white woman lore I'm familiar with from the Shenandoah Valley and surrounding mountains. One such account speaks of a young woman dressed in white observed walking along the riverbank by the children of a valley family. When asked, their father told them she was the spirit of a brokenhearted woman who had died years before, that they would likely see her again, and to leave her alone. They did and kept their distance. 

researching these haunting tales, I discovered this lore is widespread in America and the UK and dates back centuries. It's a paranormal 'thing,' or should I say she is? The white woman is described as a sad solitary figure deep in mourning, having been jilted in love, possibly left at the altar, maybe pregnant. Desperate, she generally kills herself or fades from illness and then lingers as a mournful restless ghost. While creepy, she's not usually vindictive. Usually....

In addition to research into ghostly white woman lore, I had one of my waking visions. I was walking around our meadow with the cows when I saw a young couple in my mind. He was fixated on the beautiful portrait of a mysterious lady while the girl endeavored to get his attention. She called him Ignus--a name I've never heard before--and warned him of the inherent dangers she sensed in this ghostly woman. He wouldn't listen. Guys never do. But there was something exceptional about Ignus, and then there's her best friend Stan...
This paranormal time travel romance takes place in a Victorian house in Staunton, Virginia at Christmas with flashes back to the Civil War and the end of WWI.

Story Blurb: 

Avery Dunham has always been ready to follow her friend, time-traveling wizard, Ignus Burke, on incredible adventures. This time, though, she has serious misgivings. It’s just one week before Christmas, but she cannot get him to change his mind. The usually cool and collected magic-wielding leader is wholly obsessed by the portrait of the White Lady whom he is bent on rescuing.

Almost as soon as they begin their journey, it becomes clear their mission is a trap. Avery was right: this adventure is not going to be like any other.~

Excerpt:

Avery had a few queries on the tip of her tongue, like, “Are you out of your freaking skull?”
If she didn’t ask, Stan probably would. 

They’d graduated from high school this past June and worked part-time ‘nothing’ jobs, taking a break before college while finding their way, as Avery’s mother put it. Mostly, they were drawn to Ignus like moths to a flame, especially Avery. Not that he noticed.

If only he’d look at her the way he did the white lady. More and more, the portrait seemed to dominate his thoughts. How could a petite, okay short, girl in a sparkly pink sweater and unicorn leggings compete with this tantalizing beauty?

Avery wasn’t plain, some even referred to her as cute, but exotic didn’t describe her. Quirky, sure. She wouldn’t term her brown eyes deeply affecting, and her face wouldn’t compel men through centuries to her side. The best she could do was plead with him.

“Ignus, be reasonable. Please.”

No reply. He wore his stubborn look. 

Crossing his arms over a lean chest, he tilted his head to better view the femme fatale on the wall above them. The tousled brown hair covering his ears and forehead needed a trim. In his red Zombie Preparedness hoodie with a white rescue logo, gray dress pants, and white high-topped sneakers, he was the quintessential
nerd. Most importantly, he was a wizard and time traveler with a passion for rescuing lost souls. His fervor for this particular lady was alarming.~

Get The White Lady in kindle at: https://www.amazon.com/White-Lady-Ladies-Time-Book-ebook/dp/B075XBTY1J

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***The Lady in Time stories do not need to be read in order. If you are interested in reading and reviewing this story please contact me: bctrissel@yahoo.com

Anyone Up For Buried Treasure?

To quote Shakespeare, ‘All that glitters Is not gold,’ but SOME of it is.  The lure of buried treasure, an occasional flight of fancy for some and a soul-selling obsession for others, is an ageless fascination.  No soul bartering here, but I’ve done some research for would be treasure hunters and discovered  there are many yet undiscovered troves in America.  Apparently in every state according to the book Buried Treasures You Can Find by Robert F. Marx.  An interesting and informative read, however the font size decreases to minuscule proportions when Mr. Marx reaches the part of the book where he actually lists possible sites, so don’t expect me to recap without a magnifying glass.  Instead I’ll touch on some of his general  guidelines.  I, for one, would be happy to discover even a single gold doubloon , but it would have to wash ashore.  I’m not scuba diving.

Author Robert Marx has been treasure-seeking ever since he quit his newspaper route as a youth and has recovered an astonishing array of lost, hidden, or mislaid treasure both on land and plucked from the depths of the sea. First of all, he says you need a good metal detector and devotes pages to weighing the merits of various kinds.  Agreed, a premier detector would be fun to have, and considering I live in historic Virginia, I might actually find a Civil War button or something from the past which would thrill me.  Bear in mind that I’m easily delighted.  I once unearthed what I thought were shards of old pottery while planting a peach tree that turned out to be the remnants of an antiquated septic system.  Not very exciting.  However, my determination to dig the hole deeper in search of my imagined find got the tree planted in a hurry.  The most I’ve ever unearthed on our farm are old medicine bottles, but I’m fond of old bottles and have a kitchen windowsill filled with them.

The next step Mr. Marx advises after you’ve conducted a thorough study of metal detectors (I haven’t) and made your purchase is to learn how to use it properly and practice, practice.  Yada, yada,  we’re up to page 63 now–this book is for serious seekers–when he describes some of the most famous still to be discovered caches, also discussing WHY people bury treasure.  I assumed because they didn’t want thieves to find it, but there’s more.  In Colonial America banks were rare and often unavailable so most people buried money on their property.  Indians might suddenly attack  or the British were coming, so they prepared for calamities, possibly dying before recovering their money.

During the Civil War people in the South buried their treasures not only to keep them out of enemy hands but to avoid having to donate to the Confederate Treasury for the war effort.  As before, the ‘safest bank’ was a hole in the ground or some other secret location.  Some of the largest undiscovered treasures occurred during the Civil War: Excerpted from the book Civil War Gold & Other Lost Treasures by W. Craig Gaines. ”The really big lost treasure is that of the Confederate Treasury in custody of Jeff Davis upon leaving Richmond, fleeing the Yankee hordes. Portions of it are believed to be in Greene & Morgan Counties of Georgia. The combined hoard is believed to be between $500,000 and $600,000 in gold, the combined values of the Richmond Bank & Confederate Treasury. Most made it to Washington, Georgia, but an untold amount remains unaccounted for.”

On the Western frontier, there were many cutthroats who preyed on hapless pioneers, and Lord knows those gold prospectors were justifiably paranoid.  So they kept their big strikes secret, some taking that knowledge with them to the grave.  And there were the gamblers, soldiers, saloon keepers…who hid their earnings.  Not to mention the stage-coach robbers who hid their  loot while escaping from the posse,  thinking to return for it later. But they didn’t all.   Get the picture?  Untold treasure is still out there–somewhere.

If you’re seeking a specific cache, and there are some famous ones, Mr. Marx says to first be certain it truly exists and isn’t the stuff of legend.  Would you believe some disreputable people will  try to sell you treasure maps that aren’t actually genuine.  *Shakes head.

Mr. Marx suggests seeking documentation recorded as closely to the time of the original event as possible and that old newspapers and books are a valuable resource.  If you’re just searching out potential historic sites, then he suggests ports, river banks, anywhere construction is moving earth, old homes, ghost towns, abandoned trash dumps from bygone days… Mr. Marx has oodles of suggestions and lists them by state.

I’d love a really good metal detector…

The Wealth Behind Native American Historical Romance THROUGH THE FIRE

THROUGH THE FIRE opens in 1758 at the height of the French and Indian War in the Allegheny Mountains in what is now West Virginia, but was western Virginia then.  The state wasn’t divided until the Civil War when West Virginia broke away and joined the union as a separate state.  But that’s another story.  

At the time of THROUGH THE FIRE, the Virginia colonial frontier was vast.   The fort assault in the story is a compilation of assaults I researched with the invaluable aid of a local anthropologist-archeologist who goes on frequent digs to try to discover the sites of these old Virginia forts.

The number of Catawba warriors involved in the novel is a stretch as there were never that many taking part in a pitched battle in Virginia, however the tribe fought for the British during the French and Indian War, and were fierce enemies of the Shawnee.   Plus the Catawba often sent war parties into the Virginia frontier.  The warriors thought nothing of traipsing from their home base in the Carolinas to kick but in Virginia and farther north.  A hardy, resourceful, and tenacious people as were other tribes such as the Shawnee whom I  feature in my work .

In the movie, The Last of the Mohicans, the story supposedly takes place in the colonial frontier in New York State, but was actually filmed in Chimney Rock State Park inNorth Carolina which the producers felt most closely resembled the Adirondack Mountains.    Some of the scenes took place across the valley in what was once known as Carson City and Hickory Nut Flats.   For more on the setting for the movie click here.

A great deal of conflict with Native Americans occurred in the Virginia frontier–more than we know because people were too busy fighting to survive to record it all.   Historian Joseph Waddell says we know only a fraction of the drama that occurred in the Virginia frontier during the Indian Wars.   Historians can only conjecture as to the rest of it all.

One point I disagree with in the film is the implication that the only land available to poor people was somewhere farther north in New York State.  Heck, plenty of Scots-Irish headed back into the Alleghenies to stake out homesteads and erect forts.  Other than this, I felt the film was mostly correct and is one of my all-time favorites.

Back to THROUGH THE FIRE, the opening was inspired by a dream in which I saw the heroine, Rebecca, her sister Kate, the attack on the frontiersmen the women were traveling with, Rebecca’s fall from the horse, Kate’s escape on her mount, and the hero, Shoka’s, arrival on the scene.  All of this made a vivid impression on me.  Also, that Shoka didn’t approve of Rebecca.

Research on top of research, yet more dreams, and inspiration followed to bring this novel to completion, along with the help of historians and the Shawnee themselves.    A letter I came across from Virginia’s Governor Dinwiddie (a prodigious letter writer) asking what happened to the militia he sent out fromFort Loudon in Winchester to a fort in the interior of the Virginia frontier also lent inspiration to the ‘what ifs’ behind the novel.

Yes, this adventure romance has a The Last of the Mohicans flavor, but it was never my intent to reproduce that story, and many elements of Through the Fire are quite different, including its mystical weave.   Research into my colonial American roots were the initial impetus for the leap into writing this and my other American historical romances.

My fascination with stirring tales of the colonial frontier and Eastern Woodland Indians is an early and abiding one.  My English/Scot-Irish ancestors were among the first settlers of the Shenandoah Valley and had family members killed and captured by the Indians.  Some people returned and left intriguing accounts of their captivity, while others disappeared without a trace. On the Houston-Rowland side of the family, I have ties to Governor Sam Houston, President James Madison and Malcolm 1st of Scotland.

Family annals list early names like Beale, Jordan, Madison, and Hite (a German connection I discovered).  A brief account of my grandmother (nine generations removed) Elizabeth Hite, says her sister Eleanor was taken captive and sister Susan killed, though not by which tribe. Their brother Jacob was killed by the Cherokee in South Carolina.

Another ancestor, Mary Moore, is the subject of a book entitled The Captives of Abb’s Valley.  A Moffett forebear captured as a child became a boyhood companion of the revered Shawnee Chief Tecumseh. When young Moffett grew up, he married into the tribe and had a son, the inspiration behind my Native American historical romance novel Red Bird’s Song.  An ancestor on the Churchman side of the family was invited by the Shawnee/Delaware tribes to help negotiate a treaty with the English because he was Quaker and more sympathetic to their plight.

In THROUGH THE FIRE, I invite you to journey back to a dramatic and fascinating time long forgotten by most.

2009 PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY BHB READER’S CHOICE BEST BOOKS

 

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR, A SHAWNEE WARRIOR, AN ENGLISH LADY, BLOOD VENGEANCE, DEADLY PURSUIT, PRIMAL, POWERFUL, PASSIONATE