TEXAS TRUE--The Cameron Sisters: Book II

Location, location, location. When I write novels set in Texas, whether they are Western Historical or Contemporary, I use a mix of real locations with a few I created. Even with the invented places, I set them in areas that are quite real.

TEXAS TRUE

 TEXAS TRUE allows the youngest Cameron sister, True Lee, to tell her story. She had graduated from an Eastern boarding school and moved in with her older sister, Jo King. Jo had her turn in a story (Texas Promise), so she had ridden off into the sunset with her man and left True alone in Austin.

AUSTIN, TEXAS
EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Austin, Texas, 1900, the state capital, located on the Colorado River and Interstate Highway 35 in Central Texas, situated on the eastern edge of the Hill Country and the Edwards Plateau. The photo is actually a few years later than the time of this story, but you can get an idea of how Congress Avenue looked, with the state capitol on a rise at the end of the long street. The dress shop which Jo owns—and True now runs alone—is on this street in the novel.

DRISKILL HOTEL
TURN OF THE CENTURY

 The Driskill Hotel, a posh establishment then and even today, is used in the story. When True meets Sam Deleon, he wants to impress her, so he takes her to dinner in the dining room there—a very expensive affair. The hotel's 60 rooms included 12 corner rooms with attached baths, an almost unheard-of feature in any hotel of the region at that time.

EARLY OIL DERRICK

After True marries Sam, she finds herself alone once again when he returns to the oilfield.

OIL CAMP FAMILY TENT
(The old ones weren't quite this nice!)

She asks her friend, Adam Carter, to help her move out of Austin to the oilfield camp where wives and children live—a couple of miles from the oil wells. The camp consists of two facing rows of platform tents. This photo gives us a vague idea of such a tent. True learns the word "hardship" for the first time in her life. But during the hot summer she lives there, she grows up, into a determined young wife.

Later in the story, Sam finally takes over the family ranch in South Texas. The ranch home is a huge hacienda (estate) and casa (home.)

A SOUTH TEXAS/SPANISH HACIENDA

There, the story plays out. What happens at the ranch? Why does Sam need to reclaim his inheritance from his younger brother? What part does True play in the process? How and why did Sam deceive her in the beginning? Does Sam make atonement for his sins? Is True generous and loving enough to give their marriage a chance?

Read: TEXAS TRUE

BLURB:

At a Governor's Ball in Austin, Texas, True Lee Cameron meets suave Sam Deleon. Before the night is out, she transforms from the coddled and protected younger sister to a woman in love. Reality crashes down when she accidentally learns he has deceived her. Daring to disobey him, she follows Sam to the oilfields and determines to live wherever he does. Has she made a mistake? Will she give up and return home where she can make her own rules?

When Sam Deleon meets the gorgeous young woman his mother has chosen for him, he fears falling in love, because he knows nothing about love. In order to carry out his mother’s plan, he marries True and moves her to his mother's home, intending to visit enough to set the plan in motion. When True fails to obey him, he faces the possibility of losing her, thereby losing his inheritance and the family property.

Sam and True attempt a reconciliation and compromise. Together, they now face a nemesis, someone who determines to thwart every action they take, endangering not only their lives, but also those whom they love.

BUY LINKS: eBook

http://stores.desertbreezepublishing.com/-strse-156/Celia-Yeary-Cameron-Sisters/Detail.bok

http://www.amazon.com/Cameron-Sisters-Book-Two-ebook/dp/B004UM92O4/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1301749418&sr=1-2-fkmr0

Celia Yeary-Romance...and a little bit 'o Texas  
http://www.celiayeary.blogspot.com http://www.celiayeary.com

http://sweetheartsofthewest.blogspot.com 

Special Guest TANYA HANSON



TANYA HANSON

Greetings "Sweethearts of the West" and Friends—I have the pleasure of introducing a very talented Western Historical author, Tanya Hanson. She lives on Central California’s coast with her firefighter husband. She gives of her precious time making friends with the horses at the California Coastal Horse Rescue 

   www.calcoastalhorserescue.com         

       

where she volunteers cleaning stalls. She says her two grown-up kids are the best thing she’s ever done, and she’s the besotted gramma of a four-year old little boy. Tanya's career as a high school English teacher helped her hone her writing skills; pioneer ancestors, college days in Nebraska and Colorado, and childhood TV Westerns led her to find a home writing stores set in the West, both historical and contemporary inspirational.

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Welcome, Tanya! We've been looking forward to your visit. Besides cleaning out horse stalls and playing grandmother, what else are you involved in? I know it's something to do with writing.

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Absolutely. Last fall, the release of Redeeming Daisy, my second inspirational contemporary novella in the Hearts Crossing Ranch series, came right on the boot heels of my western historical Marrying Mattie. Since both heroes, some 130 years apart, are horse doctors, I reckoned I’d look into veterinary history a bit.

Okay. Long ago, the caretakers of the horses of the ancient Roman army were called “veterinarii”. The term itself derives from the Latin root for “beast of burden.” The first veterinary school was founded in Lyon, France, in 1762.
But in colonial America, words like “veterinarian,” horse doctor, or even “animal doctor” weren’t part of the vocabulary. For the colonists, animal disease was surrounded by mystery, superstition and ignorance—pretty much the same as for human ailments. Simple cures were largely unknown, because even  physicians had little information on bacteria and anatomy.  Often a sick horse was tended by a herdsman or farrier (blacksmith) with roots, herbs, and often witchcraft.  The prevailing and unfortunate creed was—the more it hurt, the better it must heal.

By the early 1800’s, professional veterinarians, most of them graduates of the  London Veterinary College founded in 1791, began migrating to America’s cities. Without suitable veterinary schools here, young men apprenticed with these professionals and went on to become animal doctors. There were also medical doctors who used their knowledge of humans to treat animals, and other doctors who served both “man and beast.”

TANYA WILL GIVE AWAY AN ELECTRONIC COPY OF THIS BOOK

On the frontier, most animal doctors were self-taught, like Call Hackett in Marrying Mattie. He has studied science at university level and reads treatises by such as William Youatt extensively. He performs necropsies when he can in a small lab he has set up in a shed on his land.

Back in the 1800’s, books and pamphlets on horse medicine helped spread knowledge. The first surgical anesthesia upon a horse was performed in London in 1847 and helped advance animal surgery in America.



ANTIQUE HORSE GAG

 Prior, surgical techniques were rarely attempted on horses: forcible restraint and terrible anguish were just not pleasant for anybody, especially the animal.

DR. A.J. CHANDLER

Fun Fact: Dr. A.J. Chandler, a veterinarian who graduated with honors from Montreal Veterinary College at McGill University, left a successful practice in Detroit to come to Arizona in 1887 to set health standards for the growing cattle industry.

Fun Fact: Dr. Mignon Nicholson, Class of 1903 at McKillip Veterinary College in Chicago, is the first known female veterinarian.  Because of their smaller size, though, women were not usually accepted as large animal doctors.
One Important Final Fun Fact: Dr. M. Phyllis Lose, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School in 1957, is credited as the first female “horse doctor.”

Readers, you can purchase Marrying Mattie at:

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/marrying-mattie-paperback-p-4204.html 

You can Purchase Redeeming Daisy at:

http://www.whiterosepublishing.com/Redeeming-Daisy 

And you can find Tanya at:

www.tanyahanson.com   and www.petticoatsandpistols.com 

Blurb and Excerpt from  Marrying Mattie, second in the Paradise Brides series.

Blurb: Call Hackett knows everything abour horseflesh and nothing about women, yet he's managed to snare beautiful Mattie Carter's heart.  With their wedding coming up and him nervous and inexperienced, his beautiful bride manages to ease his worries in just the right way.

Mattie Carter, betrayed by her wealthy husband back home, seeks a new life with the handsome horse doctor she's promised to wed. But  her ex  halts their vows, claiming to the whole church she's still his wife. Can she regain Call's trust? And can the two of them find out the truth? 

     Excerpt: 

     Her voice had grown deeply serious, too serious, and her  glorious eyes clouded over.

     Not sure what to say, he fiddled with the cushions. The high-backed bench wasn’t the most comfortable thing, but piled with pillows, it served well enough. Soon as he could afford it, he’d order her something soft and upholstered.

     Call couldn’t wait to get close to her, to let her warmth and scent cover him. Kiss her. He’d done that plenty of times and his technique seemed to please her. Maybe the rest of it would go all right. But right now, she seemed stiff, not quite welcoming, and his heart began to thump with dread.

     “What’s wrong, Mattie?” He had to know.

     Her forehead crinkled even more. “What’s wrong?  We’re meant to be together, Caldwell Hackett. I wore this dress tonight to remind you of that day we met. I knew from that moment on my heart was yours. My soul, too.”

     Despite the sticky summer evening, she wore the exquisite dark green velvet gown he’d remember until the end of his days. A pretty sheen of moisture glazed her upper lip and made it more kissable.

     He shrugged against the hard back. “I knew it, too.”

    “Then what’s changed? Something’s different these last few days.” Mattie’s voice trembled. “Caldwell, are you having second thoughts?” She grasped both his hands, tight, and her despair broke his heart.

     “Oh, no. No, my dearest darlin.’” He draw her close like he’d never let her go. Even through her thick velvet, her breasts merged with his chest, and his manhood raged. His stomach churned the same time as his heart pumped wildly. His bridal night couldn’t come soon enough yet he wanted it to hold off. What if he ruined everything?

     She pulled back from him a little. Seeing her eyes misting, Call took a deep breath. To ease her fears, he needed to let it out now. But he had to look away for her troubled gaze.

     “I want tomorrow night to be perfect,” he said, low. “But I fear I’ll disappoint you.”

     “Disappoint me?  We discussed this, love. I don’t want a fancy hotel room. I want our wedding night to be right here. In our very own house.”

     He fidgeted against her, but it had nothing to do with the hard wooden bench. “Mattie, I’ve never…I’ve never had a woman. It’ll be my first time.”

     For a while she was quiet, dead quiet, then she smiled. “Is that all? Sweetheart, it’ll be my first time, too.”  

     “What?”

     She cuddled closer than ever “With you.”

*****Remember, Tanya will give away an electronic copy of Marry Mattie to one lucky reader!

Celia Yeary-Romance...and a little bit 'o Texas  
http://www.celiayeary.com