Please welcome today’s guest author Morgan K. Wyatt to the blog. If you’re a fan of western historicals, you’ll want to check out Morgan’s latest novel Rebel Bride. Please do your part to make Morgan’s visit here a pleasant one by leaving your questions and comments for her in the comments section following this post. Morgan will be giving away a $5 Amazon gift card to someone who posts a comment at THIS stop…as well as at each of her other stops. Comment here, then follow the rest of the tour and comment there for your chance to win one or more of the $5 gift cards. You can find the rest of the stops here:
http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2012/12/virtual-excerpt-tour-rebel-bride-by.html
Cover Blurb For Rebel Bride
by Morgan K. Wyatt
Eileen Sewell sparks plenty of gossip by spiteful matrons and their horse-faced daughters that she’d find herself alone due to her picky ways. Of course, she didn’t believe them. Then again, she also didn’t expect to be a mail order bride either. It wasn’t easy snagging a husband who hadn’t heard about her willful nature. Eileen finally gave up hope of finding love, and decided to settle for whatever she’d find out west. If that wasn’t lowering enough, she’d just witnessed the first train robbery. Unfortunately, the outlaws saw her too. Enter Marshal Colt Sheppard, who excels at extracting information from reticent witnesses. His crooked smile and broad shoulders shouldn’t charm her. She’d played this game before, only she never had a worthy adversary. Talk about bad timing.
An Excerpt From Rebel Bride
“Most of the other folks are sleeping. You and me are going for a little walk so we can have some privacy.” He stood and yanked her up by her elbow.
Eileen thought to protest the rough treatment, but decided once more to hold her opinion, even to follow his directions. Prospects didn’t look good, but there had to be some way she could outthink this man. She managed to snag her reticule when he pulled her out of the seat, not knowing what use it might be, it was better than nothing. Her parents did not have any ignorant children. Maybe birthed a few impulsive ones, but not any stupid. Everything seemed to slow down and get small as if she was looking at the wrong end of a telescope. Was this it? She inhaled deeply, trying to savor her last few breaths, but ended up gagging. Talk about animals stinking to high heavens. The railroad car folks would give a wagonload of pigs and wet dogs a run for their money. She wheezed, and John jerked on her arm to get her moving, probably believing her gasping for air was a stalling technique.
They walked slowly down the aisle, gaining an occasional curious look since they hadn’t boarded the train together, but not one man inquired if he could help. Why would people think they were together? She cut her eyes as much as she could toward John Train Robber. She decided to call him such, at least in her mind. He’d failed to introduce himself. His clothes were dusty, sweat-stained, and tattered. One perfectly round tear near his knee resembled a bullet hole. Did these people even think someone of her breeding would accompany a disheveled man?
Oh no, it couldn’t be. Her heart crashed into her chest, her feet stopped. Robber John cursed in her ear and poked her with the cold steel barrel, but she couldn’t move another inch. He knew about Colt and that she talked to him, and he happened to have a bullet hole in his trouser leg, indicating a shootout. The fact he stood beside her instead of Colt didn’t bear thinking about.
About Morgan K. Wyatt
Morgan as a child had to suffer through movies with clueless heroines rescued by smart men. Her mother dutifully read her stories where princesses waited for princes to jumpstart their lives. There were no proactive female role models in the media at that time, with the exception of Wonder Woman. It is for this reason, and that it is fun, Morgan writes about strong women going after what they want.
She has a blog about dating after forty on www.datingafterfortyeight.blogspot.com
Morgan pinches pennies on her blog; www. http://thefrugaldivatellsall.blogspot.com/
She also reviews book for Novelspot and blogs about writing at: www.novelspot.net
You can find Morgan at www.morgankwyatt.com
On Twitter and FaceBook at: morgankwyatt
Hi Morgan, Sorry I got over late today. I enjoy Western historicals, and mail order bride stories are so fun. After reading the details uncovered in your research, though, it doesn’t seem to be quite so much so
The stories reminded me of two old movies I’ve seen (on TV, although I’d loved to find the DVDs). “Westward the Women” and musical, “The Harvey Girls,” with Judy Garland -a much more ‘fun’ one. Good luck with your release!!!
I like strong heroines.
bn100candg(at)hotmail(dot)com
I do love Western Historicals. It’s a genre I should read more of. Such a great title.
marypres(AT)gmail(DOT)com
“her heart crashed” — I enjoy how your writing creates an image.
Morgan,
I’m curious about the idea for Rebel Bride – LOVE the title by the way.
Where’d you get the idea for the story? Did you have to do a lot of research to get the period details right? What part of the story came first for you and how did you go about fleshing out the rest?
Hi Laurie,
Got the name right this time;) Rebel Hearts series is based on the Sewell family. Emily the shy, younger sister; Eilen, the confident belle of the ball, and Townsend, the good natured charmer.
Rebel Bride is based on a remark Townsend makes this Eileen in the first book about what she’d do if she ever ran out of prospects.
I wrote book four first ( Escaping West) and did about two years of research. I can tell you what Civil war era people ate, wore, sang, etc. If there was any doubt about anything, my editor Larriane ruled. The woman knows more about horses and saddles than most jockeys do.
Rebel Hearts is a great name for a series. Sounds like a fun series to write…and with lots of research.
Did you see Lincoln – the movie that’s out currently? I’m just thinking that with all your research and knowledge of the period seeing the movie would be really interesting to you.
Nice excerpt. Don’t think Robber John would shoot Eileen since they are too close to other people, but who knows.
strive4bst(At) yahoo(Dot) com
Hello Jess,
I like to think he wouldn’t either.
Scared or unsure people tend to be more trigger happy. Thanks for commenting.
Indeed they do…and that’s the scary thing.
I loved the blurb and excerpt for Rebel Bride. It’s always fun finding another Western, especially a mail order bride. Love those. Best of luck with it.
I agree with you Callie. Mail order brides are one of my favorites too.
Hi Laurie,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. The mial order bride is a Cinderella story due to a woman so desperate she makes the plunge hoping for someone not too bad, but when she finds a winner everyone is pleased.
It’s funny how the fairytales run through our collective consciousnesses…and how we keep reinventing them in new guises. I think maybe that’s because there are things that are prevalent in fairy tales that make us all feel warm and mushy inside.
When someone who is the underdog wins…
When someone who is desperate comes out a winner…
When love triumphs and someone who is seen by the world as ugly is perceived by that one special person as beautiful…
Those are kind of themes in fairytales that we seem to be as fond of as adults as we were as kids.
It’s interesting to hear that you envisioned this as a bit of a Cinderella story as you were writing it. Did you consciously think about Cinderella and that story while writing Rebel Bride?
Do the other stories in the series have fairytale roots?
Hi Callie,
Thanks for commenting. I did a great deal of research on mail order brides, as I know you did too. It was hard convincing women to leave all they knew for the unknown.
Yes, I can imagine that would be a scary thing. Leave your family, your friends, everything familiar to venture into the west…somewhere you’d never been…to marry someone you’d never met…whose voice you’d never heard…whose picture you’d probably never seen. Seems like it would be a real chancy thing as there were men who were abusive and mean back then, just like there are now.
Hi Callie,
Research is fun, right? I found out that there were never any gunfights in the streets that was all Hollywood.
Thanks for commenting.
Really? No gunfights in the streets? Interesting. I always sort of assumed that those happened as they are so frequent in movies.
Loved the excerpt. This sounds like a story I would really enjoy.
It certainly puts the heroine in danger. I like stories like that where it seems that the heroine is in inescapable danger.
Hi Laurie,
I worked hard to put Eileen on the train when the first actual train robbery took place. I used to live on the street where the Reno Gang hid out after robbing the train. They were a ruthless bunch, I doubt that John stood a chance with them.
Another gang of outlaws tried to rob the train in the same place using their technique. They were so offended they caught the other outlaws and turned them in, but not the money. That went missing.
Hi Mom Jane,
Some stories are easier to write, or are even more fun to write. Rebel Bride was one of them. Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.
Love westerns, Colt and Eileen are very likeable characters. I have added the book to my read list.
Kit3247(at)aol(dot)com
Hi Rita,
Are you active over at Goodreads? I am trying to get my act together over there. Kind friends are instructing me how things are done. Escaping West is a western with gorgeous gambler, Nick Kennedy. He left the farm when his girlfirend threw him over vowing to become a man who’d set women’s hearts aflutter. It should be out at the start of March, I think.
Thanks for commenting.
Very interesting interview! The book sounds great, I’d love to read it.
Hi Wilma,
I hoped you enjoyed the excerpt. I appreciate you commenting.
I have seen a couple of movies and read references to Mail Order Brides. Were they very commonplace? It’s hard to imagine a life like that!
catherinelee100 at gmail dot com
There is a non-fiction book about mail order brides. I heard about it sometime back on another blog and purchased it because it sounded interesting. I haven’t read it yet…but here’s the link if you are interested http://www.amazon.com/Hearts-West-Mail-Order-Frontier-ebook/dp/B001EHDZCS/ref=sr_1_51?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1360706032&sr=1-51&keywords=mail+order+brides
Hi Laurie,
I have that one on my reference shelf. Hearts West is a good resource book.
Hi Catherine,
Glad you asked about mail order brides. I thought it was common before I started researching it. One businessman brought in girls simply to dance with the men. They were called Hurley Burley girls from the way the inept male dancers tossed them around while dancing. The men also proposed too, which meant they had to keep replacing dancers.
There were 700 men to every woman. Any woman who chose to be a mail order bride often divorced her husband when she saw the men she could have had. Saloon girls, cooks, laundresses were often sweet talked into marriage.
Knowing all this, very few women chose to be mail order brides. A few who did were fairly desperate. Usually widows applied to be mail order brides. There’s your mini-lesson.
Hi,
Thanks for hosting me today on your lovely site. I really like the horse and sleigh photo.
Hi Morgan,
Thank you for spending some time with us today. I hope you have a good time here today. I’m fond of horse and sleigh pictures too, mostly because they bring back good childhood memories of snow days when we’d hook up the pony to the sleigh and head for my grandmother’s house.
Here in Iowa it is still cold and wintery. I have been threatening to create a new theme for the blog. One day soon.
Laura,
You had a sleigh. I am so jealous. We had horses and snow, but no sleigh.
We did.
We had a one horse sleigh…red…kind of like the one in the picture. We also sometimes put the saucer sled on the end of a long rope and then pulled it around with the pony. That was fun too. 
Thank you for hosting today.
It’s my pleasure.