Research

I may write romance, but I don't romanticize history! Well, not too much anyway (my heroes and heroines possess all their teeth, so there is that). I swoon over research: historically accurate slang, the asking price for a team of mules, and how long it took to travel 280 miles by train during the American Civil War are my nerdy bliss. If you admit to a similar dorky fascination with the preceding, then this page is for you!

The Pretenders

The Gangs of Chicago by Herbert Ashbury

This is by the same author who wrote The Gangs of New York, which ultimately became a film by Martin Scorsese. Hello, Hollywood? Want to make a movie of my book? The Gangs of Chicago provided me with the gritty minutiae to recreate the squalid world in which Shane and Ivy grow up. Yes, Ramrod Hall was a real bordello, and unfortunately Madame Hawkins was real, too. Her propensity for whipping the prostitutes under her employ wasn’t fiction. Shinbone Alley and Hairtrigger Block were actual neighborhoods, and trust me when I say you wouldn’t have wanted to grow up there. I pulled from a lot of sources to research the Great Fire of 1871, but this book provided some of the most disturbing descriptions of looting and indiscriminate trampling. The Chicago of today, though admittedly violent, has nothing on the cruelty and brutality of its 19th century past.

Mesa Verde National Park

The ruins of the ancient civilization where Shane and Ivy take refuge after being robbed is a real place. There’s over 800 distinct cliff dwellings that comprise Mesa Verde National Park, but Shane and Ivy stay in what is now called The Cliff Palace. Although the native populations were familiar with the abandoned ruins, they avoided them, and it wasn’t until 1888 before two local cowboys officially discovered the ruins while searching for stray cows. Almost twenty years of archaeological looting passed unchecked before Mesa Verde National Park was created in 1906.

Colorado by Jon Klusmire

This is a travel book that takes the reader across the four corners of the state. This book dabbles in a little bit of everything and gave me a starting point for research into early Colorado frontier towns, the history of mining in the San Juan Mountains, and of course, the ruins of Mesa Verde. I plucked the scandal involving Horace Tabor and his marriage to Baby Doe McCourt from here, which Ivy dramatically recaps to silver magnate Tiberius Mercer when she bumps into him on the streets of Denver. Full of lovely maps, flora and fauna, and old black and white photos of precarious toll stations in the mountains that will test your vertigo and fear of heights, this book will make you want to visit Colorado if you haven’t already done so.

St. Elmo, Colorado

St. Elmo, Colorado was a real place and still is, at least in its second life as a ghost town. Due to Colorado’s mining past, the state is littered with dozens of boom-and-bust frontier towns abandoned to the elements. Some are little more than a line of weaving fence that no longer hem in anything, and a few leaning shacks. Not so with St. Elmo. It’s one of the most intact ghost towns in America. If you visit the town’s website, it’s easy to imagine Shane and Ivy walking down Main Street. It’s even easier to imagine Marshal Palmer sitting in his chair in front of the jailhouse, which still exists today.

The City and the Saloon by Thomas J. Noel

Time travel is real, but it’s descriptions of electromagnetic annunciators, cherrywood tables, and burned roast beef that take us there. It’s the little details that recreate the past. I want to know colors, smells, textures. I want to be as faithful as one can possibly be while performing this little magic trick called writing. With every sound and sight that is revealed, the curtain is peeled back a little more, and then suddenly we’re there. I visited the Palace Theatre, the Inter-Ocean Hotel, and Tabor Grand Opera House simply by opening this little gem of a book. 19th century Denver was exciting, opulent, and new, and Thomas J. Noel’s descriptions was like taking a tour of that long ago place and time.

The Cover: A Rundown

Our hero and heroine are represented here in all their fine attire while posing as Douglas and Abigail Westmoreland at the Tabor Grand Opera House. Note the lovely dress with the asymmetrical bodice and itchy armpit ruffle that causes Ivy to sneak in a scratch behind a potted plant while bemoaning women’s fashions. I feel your pain, Ivy.

A Sampling of Slang

It’s a terrible gaffe to have your characters using jargon and expressions that haven’t been invented yet. I’m mad for etymology, which is the study of words and their origins. After all, you can’t have your heroine complaining about the hero giving her the cold shoulder if your book takes place prior to 1816, which is when this expression was popularized. Hey, I warned you I was a research nerd! Below is a sampling of some authentic slang found in The Pretenders.

Chump
Sweeten the kitty
Hunky-dory
Racket
Hanky-panky

Breckenridge, Colorado

Shane and Ivy finally find their paradise in Breckenridge, Colorado. Today, this alpine mountain town situated in the Blue River Valley is a picturesque skiing village. If you go exploring a few miles beyond the town limits, I’m sure there’s a cedar gate sign at the end of a lane somewhere still leading to a horse ranch otherwise known as Home, sweet home.

Watermark

Galena, Illinois

Named after the lead ore that put this river town on the map, Galena was once the most prolific port between St. Paul and St. Louis. Founded in 1826, this is where Malcolm’s flatboat crew stops to take on a shipment of lead and to wet their whistles at one of the local taverns. Today, it’s a quaint tourist destination, and the commercial district is predominantly authentic 19th century architecture. The nearby river bluffs give breathtaking views of bald eagles and river traffic, and if you glance out of the corner of your eye, you might still see the ghost of a flatboat or two floating along with the current.

Steamboat Times

I mined several sources in order to find out what life would have been like living on the Mississippi River. One of my favorite and undeniably one of the most bountiful resources I came across was a website called, “Steamboat Times, A Pictorial History of the Mississippi Steamboating Era. I don’t believe the site has been updated for several years, but the site itself is still alive and well in that eternal ether called the internet. Keelboats, flatboats, rafts, and steamboats are depicted in daguerreotypes, drawings, watercolors, and blueprints that set a girl’s nerdy heart all aflutter.

Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild by Lee Sandlin

Mr. Sandlin’s book is an enormously enjoyable historical chronicle and was the backbone for the research required to write Watermark. His descriptions of the river are exquisite; colors and smells leap off the pages. He describes a way of life both charming and dangerous, picturesque and violent. River towns are described in all their squalid glory, and it’s mesmerizing. Wicked River touches on, but is not limited to: Yellow Fever epidemics; upriver and downriver navigation; pirates, notably the Crow’s Nest pirates; gamblers; slave insurrections; voodoo; Mark Twain; transients; steamboats; drunkenness; camp meetings; the infamous Missouri earthquakes of the early 19th century; helicoidal flow; fancy girls; minstrel shows; and descriptions of the Mississippi River Valley landscape that read like the most divine poetry.

The Army Corp Of Engineers Mississippi River Navigation Charts

The Mississippi River of today is by no means the same river that Juno and Malcolm navigate in 1828. Watermark takes place long before the lock and dam system that our modern world has put into effect to avert flooding and erosion. As such, the essence of the river itself has changed from what it was during my hero and heroine’s trip downriver to New Orleans. Still, I tapped into this resource to estimate an approximation of distance per hour and water flow. It was exhausting and tedious and I loved every minute of it. Calculating how long it took Malcolm’s flatboat to float from Point A to Point B while also accounting for horseshoe turns and windspeed was ridiculously fun.

The Cover: A Rundown

The panoramic scene at the bottom of the cover represents the Mississippi River. The peeling paint background in the upper and lower sections is a pretty wood grain that represents the finish on an old boat. In actuality, I took a picture of the wood siding on an abandoned train depot in Colfax, Illinois, and used it as my inspiration. Shout out to Colfax! Since I write historical romance, I like the idea of the hero and heroine’s images to coincide with whatever methods were available to capture their image at the time the book takes place. Watermark takes place in 1828, and so I thought a painting of my couple would be fitting, but I didn’t want bold, bright colors. I wanted their image to look slightly distressed, much as if it had been painted nearly two hundred years ago. The scene depicted, for those who have read the book, is after Malcolm rescues Juno from the river following the steamboat explosion, and Juno is overcome by her love for him. She boldly hugs him, and he’s a bit flummoxed by it, but ultimately, it’s the beginning of his realization that he loves her, too.

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis began as a fur trading post founded by French explorers, but by the time Juno makes her corn dodgers on the flatboat while being tormented by the world’s worst brass band, it’s one of the busiest waterfront districts along the Mississippi River.

The Original Blue Back Speller by Noah Webster

The small primer that Malcolm gifts Juno is indeed an actual 19th century textbook. I purchased it myself in order to get a feel for the lessons in pronunciation and to envision the full scope of Juno’s challenges in overcoming her illiteracy. The version I have was printed in 2002, but it’s an unabridged reprint of the 1824 edition. According to the publisher’s note, many of the nation’s Founding Fathers used the Blue Back Speller—as Noah Webster’s The American Spelling Book or A Grammatical Institute of the English Language was commonly called—to teach their children and grandchildren to read, beginning with its first publication in 1783. The reader only ever sees Juno advance through lesson twelve (helped along by Malcolm’s very creative tutelage), but it’s inferred in the epilogue that she continues her studies and becomes well-educated, which is hardly surprising considering the sheer number of tutorials covered in her beloved primer. The Blue Back Speller is packed full of simple and complex pronunciation tables, but also fables like The Cat and the Rat and The Fox and the Bramble, facts such as the inhabitants of the United States (beginning in 1790 and ending in 1820 in my edition), the names of rivers, lakes, and cities, and the crowning glory, a piece called “Domestic Economy, or the History of Thrifty and Unthrifty.” That last one is not a page turner.

The Sultana Tragedy by Jerry O. Potter

I did my research for the chapter where the steamboat explodes and ultimately sinks by reading the fantastic nonfiction book, The Sultana Tragedy: America’s Greatest Maritime Disaster by Jerry O. Potter. Now, if you’re like me, you probably immediately equate the luxury liner Titanic as the most recognizable and thereby the deadliest maritime disaster, but you’d be wrong. Over 1800 men died on the Sultana—nearly 300 more than did die on the Titanic. The Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River in April 1865, and hardly anyone but the most scholarly of history buffs knows anything about it. And why is that? Because it happened in the same month as the end of the American Civil War and President Lincoln’s assassination. Sadly, it got lost in the headlines. The fear that was retold by the Sultana survivors helped me imagine what it might be like for Juno in a similar situation. Although she wasn’t on the steamboat that explodes in Watermark, she’s close enough to get thrown into the Mississippi from the percussion blast. To be swept along downriver while watching the steamboat break apart and burn had to have been terrifying, but even worse, I would imagine, would be fighting for your life as panicked survivors tried climbing on top of you. Juno experiences something similar, but thankfully our hero saves her in time, as all good book boyfriends do. Huzzah!

Clingstone

North Across the River: A Civil War Trail of Tears by Ruth Beaumont Cook

I am constantly astounded by history’s blunders. I discovered the source material by happenstance many years ago in an Alabama bookstore. I was browsing the American history section and read the spine of an unassuming volume entitled North Across the River by Ruth Beaumont Cook. It chronicled the ordeals of Georgia millworkers imprisoned during the American Civil War. I read the description on the back and immediately realized the potential was there for an interesting novel. Over the next couple of years, I piecemealed my own research with what I had learned from Ms. Cook’s history book and came up with the first draft of Clingstone. American history is riddled with conflicting testimonies and poor record-keeping, and so I dedicated a couple of more years to editing, a second draft, more research, copy-editing, and eventually a final draft. History truly is stranger than fiction, and I consider myself fortunate that I stumbled across that unassuming paperback in that Alabama bookstore all those years ago, because you can’t find much evidence of this historical travesty elsewhere. You can google the events that took place in Clingstone and practically hear crickets. We have a way of whitewashing history to cover up the less savory bits, and I imagine Somebody Important realized not long after these events took place that it didn’t paint the government in a very favorable light [Cue rug and the sweeping of events under it].

How to Survive on Land and Sea by Frank C. Craighead Jr. and John J. Craighead

Poor Mae and Creighton. I wrote my heroine and hero into extreme situations of physical endurance, and at one point even subjected them to eating grubs in order to survive. So where did I find all that gag-worthy information about human survival and what people can and can’t ingest into their fragile human bodies? I suppose such facts can be googled easily enough, but there’s nothing quite like cracking open a nice little book like How to Survive on Land and Sea to fully realize the arduous logistics involved in basic human survival.
This handy little book gives general guidelines about myriad survival concerns, including but not limited to: fire-making, methods of catching fish, edible plants, using celestial bodies to orient one’s direction, water procurement, and so on. Creighton’s knowledge of fashioning fishing hooks out of thorns and roasting cattail roots were happily reaped from these pages during one of my nerdy research harvests. Now, if only Titanic’s ill-fated Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater had information like that which is found in How to Survive on Land and Sea. They would’ve known it was hopeless to climb on that silly stateroom door, and they would’ve huddled instead. It cuts heat loss in half, folks!

Rural Georgia Vernacular Circa 1865

I developed my characters’ vernacular by examining 19th century dictionaries, correspondence, and Civil War diaries. Some phrases were quaint, others imaginative, and still others downright odd. Any chance these will ever catch on again? An example from the book is followed up by a real-world attempt to reinvigorate the modern lexicon with a bit of charm.

Bully for you- congratulations; good job

The limpid expression in his eyes abruptly vanished as he quickly seized the garment. He smiled broadly and actually had the boldness to wink at her. Clearly she’d been duped. “Bully for you,” she grumbled.
“The kale I was going to eat for dinner has surpassed its expiration date. Luckily, I have an emergency package of breaded mozzarella cheese sticks in the freezer. Bully for me!”

Acknowledge the corn-to admit to or acknowledge a wrongdoing

“Sorry, lady—sorry I didn’t break your cussed leg, that is! I seed you throw that there rock. Time to ’fess up an’ acknowledge the corn, as my mama used to say.”
“I cheated on my diet yesterday and ate a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Karamel Sutra. I humbly acknowledge the corn, but I’m not responsible for the missing pint of Boom Chocolatta.”

Honey-fuggle-to deceive or mislead

“He’s still mighty furious with the way Mr. Roché an’ Mr. Adams honey-fuggled ’im. I hear he took a few of the bosses off somewheres for interrogation. Fact is, I seed ’im take John Brown an’ Jason Wood, an’ they was a-howlin’ and a-pleadin’ for their lives! Downright awkward if you ask me, seein’ grown men bawl an’ whatnot.”
“My cable provider really honey-fuggled me when they quoted my monthly bill.”

Lickety split- very fast

“Here’s my guess, / Don’t have a fit; / I think he ran home, / Lickety split!”
“Yesterday, I had to buy four new tires for my car. Just like that, my paycheck was gone, lickety split!”

The Cover: A Rundown

The panoramic scene at the bottom of the cover is of Mae’s flower floating in Vickery’s Creek, and a length of fabric is superimposed to represent her and Creighton’s livelihood working in the textile mill. In Clingstone, which occurs during the American Civil War, photography was at its height of popularity, and so I simulated a framed portrait of my hero and heroine for the cover design. I purposefully created scratches, water spots, and dark areas to promote that vintage look.