Free Kindle–The Bearwalker’s Daughter (Native American Warrior #1)

Free in kindle from 7/26 -7/29 at: https://www.amazon.com/Bearwalkers-Daughter-Native-American-Warrior-ebook/dp/B007V6MA22

‘A change was coming as surely as the shifting seasons. Karin McNeal heard the urgent whispers in the wind.’

Historical romance novel, The Bearwalker’s Daughter, is a blend of carefully researched historical fiction interwoven with an intriguing paranormal thread and set among the clannish Scots in the mist-shrouded Alleghenies. The story is similar to others of mine with a western colonial frontier, Native American theme, and features a powerful warrior or two. My passion for the past and some of the accounts I uncovered while exploring my early American Scots-Irish ancestors and the Shawnee Indians is at the heart of my inspiration.

A tragic account is the driving force behind the story, the ill-fated romance of a young 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? I know she was raised by her white family–not what they told her about her mother and warrior father.

Not only did The Bearwalker’s Daughter spring from that sad account, but it also had a profound influence on my historical romance novel Red Bird’s Song. Now that I’ve threaded it through two novels, perhaps I can let go…perhaps….

The history my novels draw from is raw and real, a passionate era where only the strong survive. Superstition ran high among both the Scots and Native Americans, and far more, a vision that transcends what is, to reach what can be. We think we’ve gained much in our modern era, and so we have. But we’ve also lost. In my writing, I try to recapture what should not be forgotten. Remember those who’ve gone before you.

As to bearwalking, this belief/practice predates modern Native Americans to the more ancient people. In essence, a warrior transforms himself into a bear and goes where he wills in that form, a kind of shapeshifting.

Blurb:

Autumn 1784: 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 who longs 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?~

*Cover by my daughter Elise Trissel. She also formatted the novel for print.

***The Bearwalker’s Daughter is a revised version of romance novel Daughter of the Wind Publisher’s Weekly BHB Reader’s Choice Best Books of 2009

“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

For more of my work, visit my Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Beth-Trissel/e/B002BLLAJ6/

Scottish Time Travel Romance Somewhere My Lass a Free Kindle–Beth Trissel

Today, Saturday the 16th through tomorrow Sunday the 17th, Somewhere My Lass is free in kindle at Amazon. This one time only, so hop on over.

Story Description:

Will Mora and Neil be too late to save a love that began centuries before?’‘The MacDonald comes’ warns Mora Campbell when Neil MacKenzie finds the young Scotswoman lying unconscious at the top of his stairs after he discovers his murdered housekeeper slumped at the bottom. Mora’s claim that she’s his fiancé from 1602 and was chased to the future by clan chieftain, Red MacDonald, through ‘the door to nowhere’ seems utter nonsense. Neil thinks she’s addled from the blow to her head until his life spirals into chaos and the avenging Highlander shows up wanting blood. Mora knows the Neil of the future is truly her beloved Niall who disappeared from the past, but he must also remember. And fast.

Although Niall’s kinsmen believe he’s dead, and Mora is now destined to marry his brother, she’s convinced that if she and Neil return to the past, all will be right. The balance of the present and future are in peril if she marries another, and the Neil of the present will cease to exist. The only problem is how to get back to 1602. An ancient relic, the ultimate geek friend, and a little Celtic magic help pave the way back to the enormous challenge that awaits them. If they’re in time.~

Yes, it’s time travel with a twist. Somewhere My Lass is the second book in my Somewhere in Time series. Somewhere My Love is the first. The stories in this series adhere to a theme, not a continuation of the characters themselves. That will change, though, with the upcoming sequel to Somewhere My Lass. This was an intriguing tale to weave and quite an adventure. It’s also one I had no intention of undertaking until the vivid dream that led to the startling intro: the hero, Neil MacKenzie, returns home to find his elderly housekeeper lying murdered at the bottom of the winding staircase and a young woman in full Scottish dress slumped at the top. She, however, isn’t dead.

And that’s all I had to go on at the start of this venture, but was so intrigued I had to learn Neil and Mora’s story and pondered all the clues given in the dream. An old Victorian house, check, I’m very familiar with those; man wearing modern suit, so the story opens in present day, got it, but the young woman came from the past. Scotland’s past. That would take some doing, I concluded, and did my usual obsessive research. I love gleaning more about the past and used an actual feud in 1602 between the MacKenzies and MacDonalds as a jumping off place.

Doors play a big role in my ‘Somewhere in Time’ series. Behind every door lies a secret, an intriguing puzzle to be solved, so these romances are also suspenseful mysteries.

Yes, yes, I’m making strides on the sequel to Somewhere My Lass.

***If you missed it, here’s that Amazon link again.

Is There A Perfect Time? Autumn Jordon with Beth Trissel

I’m happy to have my friend Autumn Jordon here to share how she came to write her new Christmas Romance Novella, PERFECT. Free at Amazon through Christmas Day.

Thanks Beth. My life has been in a funk, to say the least, the last few years. Sometimes, I don’t know which way I’m going and for what reason. I’m sure many of you, if not all, have had times when you’ve felt the same way.

***Amen to that, Autumn. I sure have.

Several months ago, after some heart-wrenching news, I opened my file to continue work on my next romantic suspense—because you need to keep putting one foot in front of the other, you know— and the words simply weren’t there. Tears rolled down my cheeks and my chest was so tight with pain. My fingers were stilled on my keyboard. I just couldn’t bring myself to write and put someone in danger. I needed laughter and love in my life at that moment. So, I did what any sane writer should do. I closed my romantic suspense file and started a new work. It was the best thing I could’ve done.

I found myself submersed in the lives of one down-on-her-luck Charleston, S.C. restaurateur and one yummy maple tree farmer who had one goal.

No. Not to fall in love.

After totally screwing up Thanksgiving, Dylan’s goal is to make Christmas special for his two, small nieces whose parents were deployed overseas and would be absent for the holidays. However, when Darcy Witherspoon arrives in Black Moose, Vermont, his thoughts do turn to the forever kind of love that suddenly seems apparent all around him. My fingers flew across the keyboard, and with my crazy-ass schedule in a little over six weeks I wrote the end to my new holiday novella, PERFECT.

Now, some might question whether writing a contemporary holiday novella, with not a suspenseful word in it, will dilute my brand as a romantic suspense author. BRAND seems to be big a BIG word in the publishing world—a rule of sorts for marketing. To them I say, “I don’t know. I like reading both. Maybe, I’ll bring a non-romantic suspense reader over to the darker side.” And, actually, I think I’m marketing myself—a unique writer with many likes.

All I know is if I hadn’t written PERFECT, I might still be sitting in front of my laptop, getting frustrated, and perhaps depressed because I needed happy, happy and wasn’t listening to my own needs. Instead, I went with my gut, finished a novella that made me chuckle, and while doing so, the oddest thing happened. Near the end of PERFECT my muse turned back to my unfinished romantic suspense.  I’m now ready to dive back into the second of the C.U.F.F series with renewed enthusiasm. I hope to finish the rough draft during the Winter Writing Fest.

I truly believe if you listen and give yourself what you need, in the end you will be a much happier person.

I hope you’ll check out PERECT over the holidays.  It’s available as a free download on Amazon now and through Christmas Day 2012.~

Thanks for sharing that, Autumn. What an inspiring story behind the story, and a much-needed boost for many of us. Definitely me. I agree, go with the muse and don’t worry so much over your ‘brand.’ The one common thread in my writing is history; there may or may not be paranormal, time travel, ghosts…

***To get PERFECT at Amazon Kindle click HERE.

Gardening in August–Or Not–Beth Trissel

“Gardens are a form of autobiography.”~Sydney Eddison

If, by late August, a gardener is wondering how long it will be until frost arrives and tidies up the robust weeds growing in and among everything, or if she/he is thinking of tacking up a sign to declare the grounds a wild game preserve, then that person has lost the battle. Again. And, as usual, I remind myself to look for the beauty amid the tangle. It is there, in the soft pink anemones, bold zinnias and bright orange tithonia, Mexican sunflower, that towers above the black-eyed susans and rose-colored cleome.

Masses of fall asters bloom in shades of lavender and blue and butterflies flutter all over the place––monarchs, swallowtails, orange skippers, and tiny blue hairstreaks. Hummingbirds are darting, and the moths that resemble them. Goldfinches streak from sunflower to sunflower singing in that euphoric chatter finches have. When I was a child a close friend made the observation that our family hummed happily at meal times. Well, so do birds in their way.

The writing spider (see Charlotte’s Web) has woven stories throughout the garden, intelligible only to her and perhaps the fairies. Blue-green dragonflies hover over the pond, ducks bob, and squeaky frogs plop into the water every time we walk past. At night, the peepers sing from the tall grass in the meadow, and the crickets and katydids. Owls hoot and screech, bats zing through the dusk and nighthawks pirouette. Come to think of it, this is a wild life preserve.~

“No two gardens are the same.  No two days are the same in one garden.”  ~Hugh Johnson

***This is an excerpt from my nonfiction book, Shenandoah Watercolors, a 2012 Epic eBook finalist. Free in Amazon Kindle from August 19th — the 23rd.

*Image of our old red barn and abundant sunflowers by daughter Elise

*Our garden with cleome flowers in the foreground taken by Elise

*Butterfly on red Bee Balm taken by Elise

August in the Shenandoah Valley–Country Life–Beth Trissel

Another late summer excerpt from my nonfiction book,  Shenandoah Watercolors, a 2012 Epic eBook finalist. Free in Amazon Kindle from August 19th through the 23rd.

We’ve had many misty starts to the day this August. Haze hugs the pond, parting just enough to reveal the long-legged blue heron fishing for his breakfast. There’s a country saying about the number of foggy mornings in August being an indicator for the amount of snows we’ll have this winter––a heap, at this rate.

Dozens of swallows skim over the pond as the sun sinks below the Alleghenies. If I were standing on a distant ridge, would it sink behind me, or the ridge beyond that one?

The water is calm now but was awash with waves during the storm that hit a short time ago. The grassy hill and maple tree are reflected on the surface, silvery and streaked with rose from the western sky. All is peaceful as a soft twilight settles over the valley. Utterly idyllic, until I pause to consider what all of those swallows are after. There must be clouds of mosquitoes.

Here’s another thought, where do all the birds spend the night? Are the woods up on the hill lined with birds perched wing to wing jostling for space on the branches? I’ll bet they make room for the big red-tailed hawk. He gets the whole tree––as many as he wants. It’s good to be king.

**Image of our pond taken by my mom, Pat Churchman

**Image of Hawk by daughter Elise taken up in the meadow behind our house

August in the Garden–Beth Trissel

I’m sharing an excerpt from my nonfiction book, Shenandoah Watercolors, a 2012 Epic eBook finalist. Free in Amazon Kindle from August 19th through the 23rd.

“It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.”

~Henry David Thoreau

Rain, rain, rain, heavy pewter skies and more rain, days on end. Unusual for high summer in the valley, although sometimes we experience monsoon like spells of weather. But for one long glorious moment this afternoon the billowing tiers of white clouds parted and the sun broke through to reveal blue sky. Wow. It’s still there.

Silky, pink ‘naked ladies’ are abloom in the back garden. Some folks call them Resurrection Lilies. The flowers shoot up from the bare earth long after the robust foliage dies down. Masses of blooms emerged this year and they smell so sweet. Feisty little hummingbirds have discovered the enormous buddleia and all sorts of butterflies flutter over its wine-colored flowers.

I was surprised to find an extremely healthy pokeberry bush thriving among its all-encompassing branches. Actually, I like poke with its deep purple berries, if I don’t think about it being a noxious weed and reseeding everywhere. The juice from these berries was one of the first inks of the New World. They have narcotic properties, as do the roots. Every part of the plant is poisonous except for the tender green shoots that are harvested in the spring.

Even so, the medicinal value of poke was highly valued and used by Indians and colonists alike, but with much care. A little bit of cut up root steeped in several cups of boiling water made a concoction to be sipped sparingly. Poke, more than any other plant, was regarded as having the power to dramatically alter the course of an ailment.

Death is also a dramatic altering and could occur if too much was administered. I suppose the healer then made a mental note to use less next time. If self-medicating, the patient didn’t have to worry about next time.  And if some poor soul was on his (or her) way out to begin with, at least they could comfort themselves with the knowledge that they’d tried their best to save them. Sometimes that’s all we can do, and leave the rest to God.

*Royalty Free Images