Thursday, March 10, 2016

Notes from my Kindle World Book #Western #Writerslife

When I was asked to be part of a Kindle Worlds book project, I was honored to be asked then found myself struggling with several aspects of writing in another author's world.

When writing historical western romance books, a lot of my plot and story comes from research. What I learn about an area, how the people lived, and the occupations.  I struggled with writing the book because the originator of the world deals with emotions and characters. She does little in the way of research, making how I approached this book harder for me.

After some back and forth, she told me to go with my research on mining towns and I decided to set my characters in her town as little as I could, that way I could research what I needed and work with the historical information I had.  I used information I'd gathered from my spirit trilogy about how a woman deals with her menstrual cycle. I contacted the Helena, Montana assay office to discover if there would be markings on gold bouillon from their office and discovered the size of the bricks of gold to determine how much could be carried by one man and a horse or mule.



I needed to discover what would bring a woman to a mining town that had only ten women, two of which worked at the saloon. The town was crude and had few amenities. I decided she was coming because her father died without telling her where to find a gold mine he’d talked about in letters. The heroine started taking care of her ailing mother at a young age. After her mother’s death her father left and at the age of seventeen she took care of her three siblings. The letter Isaac sends her about their father’s death is her wings to freedom. She leaves the farm in her brother’s hands and heads to Montana to find the gold mine her father talked about and gain her financial freedom from family and hard work.
Isaac doesn’t want anything to do with her, making for a lot of butting head’s when she arrives in Sweetwater Springs. 

Isaac: Letters of Fate

Historical western filled with steamy romance and the rawness of a growing country.

Alamayda Wagner’s life has left her cynical, but also vigilant, and that’s what propels her to Morgan’s Crossing, Montana in order to uncover the secrets her father took to his grave. She quickly discovers her only hope includes trusting Isaac Corum. That soon proves to be expensive, and not just financially. 

The last thing Isaac Corum needs or wants is a snooty woman telling him he didn’t do enough to save her father, which is what her letter implied. He’d helped the man more than most people would have, and swears he won’t go out of his way like that again. He’ll meet her at the Sweetwater Springs train station, deliver her father’s belongings, and send her back the way she came.

But, dang it all, the woman doesn’t do a single blasted thing she’s told, and Isaac can’t just sit back and let her go traipsing off into the mountains alone…

 
 Reader Review:
Review: Beautiful western romance! 4.5 stars
I really liked Paty Jager's, 2nd story in her Letters of Fate series. She didn't disappoint me with, Montana Sky: Isaac!
Her characters, Isaac and Alamayda, were charming! I like how their relationship evolved! Again, it's well written, and filled with romance, adventure and twists and turns.

2 comments:

Maggie Lynch said...

Really interesting post, both about the relationship of the book to the Kindle World AND your research details. One of the things I've always liked about your books is that you DO research the history. Congrats on this release!

Paty Jager said...

Thanks for stopping by and commenting, Maggie! It was an experience I'm pretty sure I won't do again.