Murder Mystery/Ghost Story/Time Travel Romance

“As I read Somewhere My Love, I recalled the feelings I experienced the first time I read Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca long ago.  

Using deliciously eerie elements similar to that gothic romance, Beth Trissel has captured the haunting dangers, thrilling suspense and innocent passions that evoke the same tingly anticipation and heartfelt romance I so enjoyed then, and still do now.”

Read and reviewed by:

~ Joysann, Publishers Weekly

It’s been five summers ago since I feverishly wrote my light paranormal romance novel, Somewhere My Love.  The next in my ‘Somewhere series’ will come out later this year as it’s a Christmas theme entitled Somewhere The Bells Ring.

Blurb for Somewhere My Love:

Star-crossed lovers have a rare chance to reclaim the love cruelly denied them in the past, but can they grasp this brief window in time before it is too late?

Newly arrived at Foxleigh, the gracious old Wentworth home in Virginia, British born Julia Morrow is excited at the prospect of a summer working as a guide in the stately house and herb garden. She quickly discovers the historic plantation holds far more. She becomes obsessed with the portrait of handsome Cole Wentworth, killed in a quarrel over the lovely English lady, Julia Maury, two hundred years ago. Then she meets his double, William, the only remaining Wentworth heir.

Somehow, Julia must persuade Will that their fates are entwined with those of Cole Wentworth and Julia Maury, and that the man who killed his ancestor has returned to enact the deadly cycle again, or she will lose him twice. The blade is about to fall~

First Line of the novel: ~His name sent a shiver pulsing through Julia Morrow like a ripple from the past.~

Inspiration for Somewhere My Love

I’ve read that Virginia has more ghost stories than any other state in the Union, not necessarily because we have a more fertile imagination, but sadly because the Old Dominion has seen more bloody battles over the centuries than any other. Think back, Jamestown (1607) was the site of the oldest successful English settlement and its history is a violent one. And on we go to the many heart-rending wars fought with the usurped Indians, a number of them waged on Virginia soil. March on to the Revolution; anyone heard of Yorktown, to name just one famous battle? 

And let’s not forget that horrific most uncivil of wars, much of it fought in, you guessed it, Virginia.

And yet, this multitude of hauntings doesn’t only feature soldiers caught in an endless fray who haven’t gotten word the war’s over, although there are legions of tales that do and entire companies of ghosts said to battle on. Many tales feature the myriad of people, great and small, who dwelt in our richly historic state. The old Virginia homes and plantations have accumulated a wealth of such stories.

Thus, it was while touring some of these English styled manor homes with my dear mother that I conceived the idea for my paranormal romance, Somewhere My Love. 

Added to this meld of vintage Virginia is my own heritage, a vast source of inspiration from my childhood. On my father’s side, I descend from old Southern gentry, now impoverished after the Civil War, Great Depression, and various other misfortunes, including the untimely death of my brilliant grandfather. But the gracious Georgian home his ancestor built (circa 1816) still stands outside the historic town of Staunton, Virginia.  Which, btw, is the oldest town in Augusta County and has some wonderful old buildings.  

As a child, I was ever determined the family home place was haunted and wove stories through my fevered mind, along with my continual search for Narnia which entailed frequent treks into the old wardrobe. 

But I digress. The magnificent ancestral portraits in my family and on display in other Virginia homes held me transfixed, wondering. And it was just such a portrait of a striking dark-haired gentleman who embedded himself in my thoughts. Who was he? Why did he die so young? That other painting of the fair young lady…did she love him?

Often, the guides at these old homes are brimming with tales. But other times we are left to wonder…and ask ourselves are these folk who’ve gone before us truly gone, or do some still have unfinished business in this realm? And what of the young lovers whose time was tragically cut short, do they somehow find a way? Love conquers all, so I answer ‘yes.’

*The old family home place, Chapel Hill, pictured above.

*Somewhere My Love won the 2008 Preditors & Editors Readers Poll for Best Romance Novel and is available in Print and E-book from: my publisher  The Wild Rose Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online booksellers.

*Ghostly image above isn’t from Virginia but Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery in Chicago.

“But he that dares not grasp the thorn Should never crave the rose.”~Anne Bronte

“The rose speaks of love silently, in a language known only to the heart.”

*Roses from my garden

“You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck."  ~Emma Goldman

"To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat."  ~Beverly Nichols

“A single rose can be my garden…a single friend, my world.”

~Leo Buscaglia

“Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.”

 ~Heinrich Heine, The Hartz Journey

“Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk

undisturbed.”

~Walt Whitman

“I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.”

~Claude Monet

“A profusion of pink roses bending ragged in the rain speaks to me of all gentleness and its enduring.”  ~The Collected Later Poems of William Carlos Williams

‘”People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”

~Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat

"The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses."~Hanna Rion

“It’s the longest day of the year, one to bottle and take out when November is come and the day ends at 5:00. I will tip the bottle over and pour liquid sunlight all over the gray autumnal shadows as they seep over the hills and into the meadow…the scents too, new mown hay, lavender,attar of roses, and the gleeful chatter of birds.” ~ Beth Trissel, from my nonfiction book,  Shenandoah Watercolors

*While the light was pure this morning, my talented art major daughter took some pictures of the garden.  This is of our double-flowered apricot hollyhocks.

“This morning glows like a green-gold sun drop and every blade of grass glistens in the light. The newly washed spires of larkspur stand tall to greet the day. Fellows on every side, yellow lilies, bright-eyed pansies, lavender candytuft, crimson yarrow, and white asters all sit up straighter as if answering an unspoken summons and shine. Is it magic or June in the Valley? Is there a difference? ” ~ Shenandoah Watercolors

“Several plants reign supreme because of Elise. ‘Magic flowers,’ yellow evening primrose, have taken over a generous quadrant at the edge of the vegetable garden. She rushes me out at twilight to view the wonder as they pop open, charged with fragrance. Hummingbird moths swoop in like little fairies to feed on the blossoms.

She doesn’t like the bats that also come. I love the nighthawks. Dill is also taking over because black swallowtail butterflies lay their eggs on its leaves and hatch into little caterpillars which she watches closely, puts some into jars and feeds until they make a chrysalis, then one day they emerge with wet crumpled wings and she releases them to the sky. I feel a bit like those uncertain butterflies taking those first tentative flight." ~Shenandoah Watercolors

“The best place to seek God is in a garden.  You can dig for him there.”  ~George Bernard Shaw

"Gardening is about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil, getting dirty without feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and serenity." 
 ~Lindley Karstens, noproblemgarden.com

“Brilliant yellow gold finches streaked across the garden today and landed on the fence beside the hollyhocks. I love these birds, one of my absolute favorites. In midsummer, when the sunflowers bloom, they gather in chattering clusters to feed on the seeds. Their wings flash in the sun as they suspend on flower heads and peck away, and meticulously open each seed. I’ve never heard such euphoric birds, continually exclaiming over their finds. They have a lot to say and do not keep secrets well.

If I were to confide in birds, it would not be them, or to crows, loudly proclaiming the latest gossip. Warblers are fairy creatures, but not silent fairies. Possibly to wolves––no. They howl. Frogs croak and gribbit. Turtles are quiet. Tell all to turtles, then. Box or painted ones. Snappers are treacherous and would as soon bite you as listen.” ~Shenandoah Watercolors

"I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation.  It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green."
  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mosses from and Old Manse

“The larkspur is in full bloom, a sea of blue and pink spires rise above a mass of poppies.  Delphinium is a more glorious shade of blue but I lost so many blooms to gusting winds and winter cold that I finally became discouraged with cultivating those beauties. And so I content myself with larkspur, simpler but a survivor as are so many of the old heirloom flowers. Someday I will be an heirloom. Maybe I already am. But there are not many people in this world like me as there are seedlings of larkspur. ” ~Shenandoah Watercolors

*Note, I recently took the plunge and planted more delphinium seedlings, so we shall see.  One must try and nurture that which we love.

“I’ve enough spare flowers to fill a meadow and make butterflies and bees giddy with delight, but who would tend them? Only the most ‘satisfactory’ plants could compete with the grass and weeds that would choke them out. How do wild flowers survive? Queen Ann’s lace, tiny red poppies, and blue chicory run free along our unruly roadsides. Orange day lilies too, but they are tough with gnarly roots.”~Shenandoah Watercolors 

"It is good to be alone in a garden at dawn or dark so that all its shy presences may haunt you and possess you in a reverie of suspended thought."~James Douglas,Down Shoe Lane

“A sea of herbs and flowers continually change with the season. Some perennials are lost each winter and new ones are planted by Elise and me, others by the birds. I’ve a wild aster that blooms in late spring, covered with small white flowers. It’s very pretty really, although hard to contain. I like white flowers. They glow at dusk while all else fades. ” ~Shenandoah Watercolors

“Earth laughs in flowers.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I’m particularly drawn to the heirloom varieties and the English cottage garden look. Even with these fairly trouble free plants it still takes considerable effort to fight the weeds and curtail the extremely aggressive flowers.

Years ago, I met a gardener who referred to the varieties that take over the garden on their march to the sea as ‘highly successful.’  So are weeds. The beds I tend could never be called orderly and can best be described as a happy confusion of plants. And we’ve nothing to sit on outside, so one simply strolls about and then comes back indoors. And one works one’s tail off.”~ Shenandoah Watercolors

"Gardens are a form of autobiography."  ~Sydney Eddison, Horticulture magazine, August/September 1993

“My job? To tend this bit of earth, but mostly to savor and learn.”~

*Roman chamomile and evening primrose


Shenandoah Watercolors is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble~

~Author/farm wife Beth Trissel shares the joys and challenges of rural life on her family’s small farm located in the scenic Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Journey with her through the seasons on the farm, owned by her family since the 1930's, and savor the richness of her cherished gardens and beloved valley. This journal is a poignant, often humorous, sometimes sad glimpse into a vanishing way of life for anyone who loves or yearns for the country and even those who don't.~

Old Order Mennonites in the Shenandoah Valley

As I work in the garden I often see horse and buggies clipping by on their way to some get together in the Old Order Mennonite community. Many of our neighbors are Old Order Mennonites, gentle, hard-working people, and good friends to us. The sight of a horse and buggy passing our farm, or meeting one, or a stream of buggies, on the back roads (especially thick on Sunday mornings) is a frequent occurrence here. From inside my house, the sound of horses hooves coming and going is as familiar to me as the trill of meadowlarks or mooing cows. We live on a dairy farm, in my husband's family since the 1940's.

I'm especially fond of the children. Little girls and small boys in the hats the men wear peering out from the back window of a buggy is always a delight, as is seeing women and children collected on a wagon on their way to a gathering…or riding old-fashioned bikes, at work on their farms, and sometimes even at play. Long lines of wash flapping in the breeze with pants and dresses in graded sizes from large to tiny is a picturesque addition to the community. Across the meadow and up the hill from our farm is a small Old Order school. Last fall I spotted a line of children holding hands out for a walk along the country road with their teacher(s). Darling. At the end of recess and lunch time, I hear the bell ring to summon the students back indoors. Reminds me of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her ‘Little House‘ books.

The Old Order neighbors on the farm up the road from us have a produce stand with fresh vegetables from their garden for sale. They use the honor system for customers to leave money in the box; the prices are listed on a handmade sign and the produce ready and waiting. If you have a question, likely you can find someone about on the farm or wielding a hoe. Normally I grow my own veges, but if I run low or have a crop failure I know where to go. Their garden is always perfect. They have many children and a great deal more help than I. Sigh.

I much admire The Old Order Mennonite’s unique way of life and very much hope they are able to continue as they are. The economic hardships facing many family farms, including ours, and the growing demands made by a burgeoning federal government with all its rules and regulation imposes yet more stress on a people already struggling to survive. Imagine trying to live like it’s the 1800′s in 2011.

For example, they have no health insurance, but band together and support each other in times of illness and injury. Doctors and hospitals make some concessions in regards to billing Old Orders, but the cost of medical care is still staggering. These people do not, however, want to be forced into a government health plan as this goes against their religion. They have as little as possible to do with government and the secular world in general. I believe their unique way of life must be respected and protected or the day may come when buggies no longer pass our house.~

*Old Order Mennonites are one of the aspects of rural life in the Shenandoah Valley I touched on in my nonfiction book entitled Shenandoah Watercolors.

*Pics of Old Order Mennonites and their farms by my husband and mother. Old Orders do not like to have their pictures taken if their faces are visible so we are careful not to reveal them.

If You Like Native American Historical Romance

(Updated version of this post with new releases at: http://bethtrissel.blogspot.com/2013/10/if-you-like-native-american-historical.html)

I have three published novels in my colonial frontier trilogy. The third, Kira Daughter of the Moon, came out Nov. 2nd 2012. The main characters in these stories are a mix of Native Americans, of course, and English/Scots-Irish with a smidgen of French--my ancestral roots. All three novels are in print and ebook.

Red Bird's Song is doing well at Amazon for Native American Romance, but Through the Fire is lagging behind and I'm not sure why. It's equally an NA story and setting. I've tried to remedy this with appropriate tags at Amazon. Feel free to click on them and 'like' the novel. But I digress. Frequently.

When I wrote Through the Fire I felt as though I'd been through the flames. My hero and heroine certainly had. This adventure romance with a strong The Last of the Mohicans flavor and a mystical weave was born in the fertile ground of my imagination, fed by years of research, and a powerful draw to my English/Scots-Irish roots. My fascination with stirring tales of the colonial frontier and Eastern Woodland Indians is an early and abiding one. My ancestors had family members killed and captured by Native Americans. Some individuals returned with intriguing accounts of their captivity while others disappeared without a trace.

Much of the history and events in Red Bird's Song and Through the Fire were inspired by accounts I uncovered while researching my early American ancestors. My fascination with Colonial America, particularly stirring tales of the frontier and the Shawnee Indians, is an early and abiding one. My forebears had interactions with this tribe, including family members taken captive. I have family ties to Wicomechee, an outstanding Shawnee warrior who really lived and whose story greatly impacted Red Bird's Song. I've included more on Wicomechee at the end of the novel as a bonus for my readers.


Blurb for Red Bird's Song:
Taken captive by a Shawnee war party wasn't how Charity Edmonson hoped to escape an unwanted marriage. Nor did Shawnee warrior Wicomechee expect to find the treasure promised by his grandfather's vision in the unpredictable red-headed girl. George III's English Red-Coats, unprincipled colonial militia, prejudice and jealousy are not the only enemies Charity and Wicomechee will face before they can hope for a peaceful life. The greatest obstacle to happiness is in their own hearts. As they struggle through bleak mountains and cold weather, facing wild nature and wilder men, Wicomechee and Charity must learn to trust each other.~

Blurb for Through the Fire:
At the height of the French and Indian War, a young English widow ventures into the colonial frontier in search of a fresh start. She never expects to find it in the arms of the half-Shawnee, half-French warrior who makes her his prisoner in the raging battle to possess a continent--or to be aided by a mysterious white wolf and a holy man.~
A few comments from Reviewers For Through the Fire:

Ms. Trissel has captured the time period wonderfully.... I felt I was there through her descriptions and settings. An excellent story where there is so much happening.

--Two Lips Review by Shelia (She gave it five lips :)

Through the Fire is full of interesting characters, beautifully described scenery, and vivid action sequences. It is a must read for any fan of historical romance. --Long and Short Reviews by Poinsettia (It won book of the week at LASR)

Among it's awards, Through the Fire came in fourth in the top ten BHB Reader’s Choice Best Books of 2009 and finaled in the 2008 Golden Heart Contest for historical romance.

A Few Reviewer Comments for Red Bird's Song:

I loved the descriptions...I felt I was there...Many mystical episodes are intermingled with the events...The ending is a real surprise, but I will let you have the pleasure of reading it for yourself. 

--Seriously Reviewed

This is a beautifully written story filled with adventure and suspense...This book touched my soul even as it provided a thrilling fictional escape into a period of history I have always found fascinating. --Night Owl Book Review by Laurie-J  (A Night Owl top Pick) For the full review click here~

As for the third novel: Kira, Daughter of the Moon, the sequel to Through the Fire, is set among the clannish Scots-Irish in the Alleghenies on the fringe of a colonial frontier that's rapidly expanding west. The Native Americans in this mystical, adventurous romance are highly essential secondary characters.  Not sure when the story gets listed if that counts as NA or if it will get lost in the vast world of undefined historical romance.

Blurb for Kira, Daughter of the Moon:

Logan McCutcheon returns to colonial Virginia after seven years in the hands of Shawnee Indians. But was he really a captive, as everybody thinks? He looks and fights like a warrior, and seems eager to return to those he calls friends and family.

Kira McClure has waited for Logan all those years, passing herself off as odd to keep suitors at bay––and anyone else from getting too close.  Now that he's back, he seems to be the only person capable of protecting her from the advances of Josiah Campbell and accusations of witchcraft.  And to defend the settlers against a well-organized band of murderous thieves.

***Available in print and various ebook formats from The Wild Rose Press,  Amazon, Barnes & Noble in Nookbook, All Romance eBooks, and other online booksellers.