Current Day—Ginny discovers a hidden compartment in an old desk soon after her marriage to Scott. The ancient typewriter and some manuscripts inside snagged my interest immediately.
In 1946—A WWII soldier boards in the boarding house where Betsy lives and works. She likes Dale but his family owns a farm. No way is she returning to the farm life that was her childhood. Yet she secretly is attracted to him.
There’s also a Civil War element to this story. That’s not part of the time slip element yet is still a thread in the story.
I enjoyed this time slip story. The author weaves a multi-layered tale that binds the present to the past through a beautiful historic home. Each era holds its own tragedy. Realistic, lovable characters snagged my interest from the first chapter and held on.
Recommended for readers of historical romance, time slip, and nostalgia.
It was fun to invite readers on this book’s journey with an aspiring writer and a female telegraph operator!
To those who lived in the 1880s, venturing into the newly-settled and largely-unsettled West had become much safer—though not without danger—with the system of railroads already in place. I enjoyed taking readers to Chicago, Omaha, Oakland, Ogden, and Sacramento, as well as frontier towns along the journey such as Cheyenne.
Our heroine is a telegraph operator. She temporarily leaves her job to escort a little girl to her ailing mother in San Francisco.
My research about telegraph jobs taught me quite a bit of terminology.
For example, a clatter arises when another operator “calls.” The call begins with something like “B m—X n”, which means the B m is the station receiving the call and X n is the caller.
B m must signal a reply that she’s ready to receive the call.
The Sounder receives sounds of the alphabet in dots and dashes. Some operators sent messages too rapidly to understand. When this occurs, the receiving operating asks for it again with a Break (she opens her “key” to break the circuit) and interrupts with “Please repeat.”
“G.A. the—” means “Go ahead” and “the” was the last word she understood.
Operators end every message with his/her own private “call” as well as the office’s call and “O.K.” at the end of each message.
Wired Love, which was written by telegraph operator Ella Cheever Thayer in 1879, provided many insights about the job’s daily tasks.
One of them was the lack of privacy on the lines. She can hear the messages sent to other wires but only offices on the same wire. In Wired Love, operators heard messages sent to and from twenty offices.
By the way, the public grew so fascinated with the role of women in telegraphy that it became the topic of romance novels and short stories, creating a new genre called “telegraphic romance” in the latter 1800s. That’s a little-known fun fact for you!
Kenna McCrea has been helping her pa raise her siblings since she was twelve. Her family runs a diner in San Antonio and her pa has earned the reputation of being the best cook in the area. Kenna feels like an old maid at twenty and figures it’ll stay that way because her youngest sister is ten.
The War Between the States ended two years ago. Benjamin Warley wants to forget his part in it for circumstances had driven the South Carolinian to fight for both sides. He’s been pretty good at failing…he’s ready to succeed. He’s working on a business venture to move cattle from Texas to Abilene, Kansas, when he meets Kenna, who immediately captures his attention.
The adventure they all make on what was to become the Chisholm Trail takes a dangerous toll on all of them.
The story pulled me in from the first page. Attitudes of the time are portrayed as part of the novel, showing prejudices and how those change.
Realistic characters that readers will care about face danger and hardship. The long, arduous journey they all take together binds them together. Many twists and turns in the story kept me turning pages!
Thomas beautifully portrays how everyone continued to struggle even after the Civil War ended.
A beautifully written fast-paced adventure. Well-done!
Recommended for readers of westerns and historical romance!
I was given a copy of the book by the author. A positive review was not required. The opinions are my own.
I made an ice cream cake last summer using my sister’s suggestions. My grandson has been asking to make one again. This time, we made the cake with a layer of chocolate mousse in the middle.
I made the mousse following the recipe from an earlier blog post the night before. I only needed about ½ the chocolate mousse for my ice cream cake. I froze it in a cake pan lined with parchment paper for easy removal.
Below is the list of ingredients I used for our ice cream cake. Change them for your family’s preferences. 😊
Ingredients
Fudge brownies—make from scratch or use a mix
½ gallon chocolate ice cream
½ gallon cookies and cream ice cream
10-12 Oreo cookies, crushed
Sprinkles
chocolate mousse, prepared the day before and frozen in a lined round cake pan
Use a springform pan to layer this dessert.
Bottom layer—prepare a brownie recipe and cook it in the springform pan. Allow it to cool.
This morning, my granddaughter and I prepared a batch of brownies. About a 1/3 of the dough was baked in a springform pan as the bottom layer for the ice cream cake. The rest was baked in an 8×8 pan to serve as plain brownies.
Allow the brownies to cool.
Second Layer—Take the carton of chocolate ice cream from the freezer and dip about ½ the contents into a bowl. Allow it to soften a couple of minutes. Using a spoon, poke and prod the ice cream until it softens enough to layer it on top of the brownie layer. (The ice cream layer should be about an inch thick or so to allow room for the upper layers.)
Third Layer—Remove the prepared mousse from the freezer and place it on top of the ice cream.
Tip: Freeze the cake before adding the second layer of ice cream.
While the cake is refreezing, crush the Oreo cookies (or whatever cookie you’ve selected) and set them aside. I used a mortar and pestle to crush the cookies but a blender or food processor will work nicely also.
Four Layer—Remove the cake and cookies-and-cream ice cream from the freezer. Sprinkle a layer of crushed cookies over the mousse.
Fifth Layer—Spoon a layer of softened cookies-and-cream ice cream over the crushed cookie layer. Smooth it out.
The children will love adding some sprinkles on top. It will give a festive look to a dessert that certain to be a hit!
Freeze until ready to serve.
This was a little messy with young children but it was worth it. What fun! Their creative side came into play and, well, let’s just say the sprinkles ended up in a heap. I didn’t mind at all.
When it came time to serve the cake, I allowed 30 minutes of thawing time.
Delicious! As if it could be anything else with 2 kinds of ice creams, fudge brownies, Oreos, mousse, and sprinkles!
What a great summertime activity with the kids! Be prepared for a bit of a mess and have fun with it. Creating a cake using flavors your family will love is half the fun.
Suggestions for alternatives: Instead of brownies as a bottom layer, substitute with large chocolate chip cookie layer.
Substitute the crushed Oreos with your favorite cookie.
Sandra Merville Hart 