Here's the description
Holly Brandt grew up on military forts where her father was an interpreter between the soldiers and the Indians. Her mother, a full-blooded Cheyenne, and Holly’s two sisters died in Kansas before she and her father moved to the Montana Territory. Her father’s death leaves Holly orphaned and homeless until she finds work in a café.
When the café owner decides to sell her business and move away, Nolan invites Holly to travel to Kansas with him.
People don’t always treat Holly with respect because of her mother’s Cheyenne heritage, but Nolan sees her as a kind woman always wanting to help others. His pastor has always told him to respect and honor women as it says in the wedding vows, and Nolan realizes he wants to say the real wedding vows to Holly.
But will their differences, along with the townspeople’s interference, let them have their happily ever after?
Researching the book
Being set in someone else's story line took a lot of research for the setting, and the characters who Debra Holland and other authors had already introduced.
What businesses were in Sweetwater Springs, and who ran them? Age, married, any children?
Was there a church, sheriff, undertaker, a railroad...a stage coach which went through town, and on which day? (The list went on and on with every scene.)
I had the couple travel from MT to KS. How long did it take on a train and on which railroad lines?
Then I researched forts both in the Montana Territory and Kansas because I wanted to work in military history. I tend to work fact into my fiction stories, so it takes more work, but I think my readers enjoy it, and have come to expect it.
I started Nolan's Vow in the Montana Sky Kindle World, but the story went on to
introduce the Grooms with Honor series, the next series after my Brides with Grit series.
What it worth it, working in someone else's "world"?
At first it was hard to think outside my own characters "normal world" but I'm glad I did it. It's always good to learn something new, whether its about life in the 1880s, or working on a new computer program. It's the challenge that keeps us researching and writing.
Thanks for visiting Sweethearts of the West today!
Linda Hubalek
