Historical romance

Announcing the Upcoming Release of A Spring at The Greenbrier!

/ sandramervillehart

by Sandra Merville Hart

I’m thrilled to announce that A Spring at The Greenbrier, Book 7 in Romance at the Gilded Age Resorts Series, will release on April 30, 2024!

It was such fun to research this novella set in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, where the historic, breathtakingly beautiful resort is located. It was such a joy to explore the grounds and history of The Greenbrier. Marilla, our heroine, works in the resort’s new Bath Wing in 1914.

She is immediately drawn to Wes, whose youngest sister needs the healing properties of the sulphur springs as her own sister does.

Here’s a bit about the book:

Marilla will sacrifice anything for her family, so when her sister’s doctor suggests daily sulphur spring baths, an amenity her family could never afford, Marilla takes a job at The Greenbrier resort bathhouse in order to give her sister the care she needs.

When her sister befriends another girl staying at the resort with a similar health condition, Marilla finds herself crossing paths with the girl’s handsome, charming, older brother. And despite their growing attraction to each other, courting Wes must remain a dream. After all, resort staff cannot court guests and Marilla will not risk her sister’s health for her own happiness.


Wealthy resort guest, Wes Bakersfield, has dreams for a future and plans to make his family’s business his own. And while he finds himself drawn to Marilla, despite their differing social classes, he can’t help but wonder if she is really interested in him, or in his wealth.


Can the couple find the trust to help their love succeed, or will their differences pull them apart?

Preorder your copy today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, and Books2Read.

Freedom’s Pride by Pegg Thomas

/ sandramervillehart / 1 Comment

Reviewed by Sandra Merville Hart

Path to Freedom, Book 2

When they were both indentured servants, Mark Allen had made a promise to Gwen Morgan to help her find her sister, Faye. Now that he’s free, he begins his search for either sister. He finds the feisty Faye, but she wants no part of reconnecting with Gwen. Yet Mark Allen doesn’t take his promise lightly. He’s in love with Gwen and hopes to marry her…but he must find her first.

Faye actually hadn’t ended up as an indentured servant. Instead, she’d become the ward of a Quaker family. She wants only to find a rich husband so that she’ll not have to work. Gwen’s existence is a secret from her Quaker family and she’s determined to keep it that way.

My attention was captured from the beginning. Likeable, realistic characters are all on their own emotional journey as well as a physical one. The heroine frustrated me at times and had me siding with the hero. The orphan boy who immediately joins Mark Allen stole my heart.  

I enjoyed this poignant story that held many surprising twists. This is the second book in the series and I recommend reading them in order.  

This book was a page-turner for me!

Recommended for readers of inspirational historical romances!

I was given a copy of the book by the author. A positive review was not required. The opinions expressed are my own.

Amazon

Shadows of Swanford Abbey by Julie Klassen

/ sandramervillehart

Reviewed by Sandra Merville Hart

Rebecca Lane, a lady’s maid, returns to Swanford after a year’s absence in response to a letter from her brother’s housekeeper. She discovers the situation is dire indeed. John has finished writing a book somehow in between bouts of drinking and he implores Rebecca to deliver it to the very author whole stole his first novel with a request he recommend it to his publisher. She agrees reluctantly.

Sir Frederick is pleased that Rebecca, his childhood friend, is a guest at Swanford Abbey, the same hotel where he and his brother are staying. The widower feels that he’s too old for her, though he wishes it weren’t true.

Rebecca fears the haunted abbey, especially after she spots a ghostly nun, but there is more afoot at the historic abbey turned hotel than meets the eye.

Well-written! Believable characters dealing with difficult circumstances held my attention from the beginning.

This book is a page turner! Not only is there a romance that seems ill-fated from the start, there is also a mystery that readers will try to solve.

Recommended for readers who enjoy historical romances and suspense novels.

Christianbook.com

Five & Dime Christmas

/ sandramervillehart

Reviewed by Sandra Merville Hart

In the 1880s, the Woolworth’s Five and Dime department store has a home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. This nostalgic place is the setting for four historical novellas in the Five & Dime Christmas collection.

I enjoyed this collection! Of course, I had my favorites yet each story took me back in time. I thank the authors for the historical glimpses into this store. Likeable characters drew me into their heartache and struggles. I love reading Christmas books during the holiday!

There wasn’t a lunch counter in the 1880s, as the authors mentioned in their notes, yet this feature greatly added to the atmosphere of the stories.

In A Merry Little Christmas by Susanne Dietze, Hattie, a store clerk, discovers that her favorite customer inadvertently threatens her struggling brother’s job.

In A Home for Christmas by Patty Smith Hall, Essie, a socialite working as a store clerk, is intrigued by a pastor who has taken six homeless young boys into his home.

Alone this year, Lizzie’s job is her sole support in The Light of Christmas by Christina Lorenzen. Can she save her home on her salary? The new bookkeeper wonders how to help.

Lunch with Maggie by Cynthia Hickey finds Maggie, who works the lunch counter, making a friendship with a widower and his young daughter, regulars at her counter. Maggie, who’d been jilted on her wedding day, refuses to trust another man with her heart.

An enjoyable, nostalgic Christmas collection!

Christianbook.com

Season of My Enemy by Naomi Musch

/ sandramervillehart

Reviewed by Sandra Merville Hart

Heroines of WWII series

Fannie O’Brien doesn’t want German prisoners of war helping with the work of her family’s Wisconsin farm. Because of her father’s recent death and her two older brothers off fighting the war in Europe, she accepts her mother’s decision. Fannie and her younger siblings can’t handle the workload. They’ll lose the crop without help.

German POW Captain Wolfgang Klonginger knows that he and seven others soldiers—most of them his former students—could have done far worse. He’s grateful for a chance to put in long days at the farm. As the summer passes, Fannie captures his attention. He admires her work ethic and her compassion.

But one of the soldiers isn’t grateful.

Musch has woven another mesmerizing tale that immersed me into the drama from the beginning. Believable characters tugged at my emotions in this well-written story.

The author dug deeply into the emotions of characters on both sides of the conflict. This page-turner gripped my attention. Well-done!  

This isn’t the first novel I’ve read by this author nor will it be the last. I love her ability to transport readers back in time.

I highly recommend this novel to lovers of WWII novels.

Amazon

The Rancher’s Want Ad Mix-Up by Megan Besing

/ sandramervillehart

Reviewed by Sandra Merville Hart

Della Mae Wagner answers a want ad for a teacher and heads to Missouri, hoping to heal from a broken engagement.

Widower Hank Lamson doesn’t want a teacher for his three young sons, and especially not a wife, as his parents advertised to provide. Women only wanted his money. He was having no part in it.

I enjoyed Della’s interaction with the children, especially the youngest boy. For someone with no teaching experience, she showed lots of wisdom.

The characters were likable. Some scenes and situations dragged a bit. Hank’s parents had corresponded with Della before she came. I was as surprised at their warm welcome at the first meeting as I was at Hank’s continuing unfriendliness, though that was explained. My interest picked up a little later in the story.

I’m happy that Love Inspired Historical Inspirational Romances are being published again!

Amazon

Female Telegraph Operators Create a New Genre

/ sandramervillehart

by Sandra Merville Hart

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!

I enjoyed writing this series. I invite you to read the whole “Second Chances” series beginning with A Not So Convenient Marriage, Book 1, A Not So Persistent Suitor, Book 2, and A Not So Peaceful Journey, Book 3.

Silver Prairies by Pegg Thomas

/ sandramervillehart

Reviewed by Sandra Merville Hart

A More Perfect Union, Book 3

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.

Amazon  

Author Shares Inspiration for A Rebel in My House on 160th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg

/ sandramervillehart

by Sandra Merville Hart

As dusk fell on a fall evening, staring out over the fields crossed by Pickett’s Charge from Cemetery Hill tore at my heart. Grassy fields are now calm, serene—yet the land still tells the story. Something significant happened on the farms outside Gettysburg in 1863.

I contemplated the scene before me as the sun sank beyond the horizon. My imagination soared, sparked by park rangers on various battlefield talks as well as my own research about those who fought there.

Once I discovered the significant events that took place within the borough of Gettysburg and how Confederates occupied the town, I knew I wanted to tell their story in A Rebel in My House.

To my delight, I found Tennessee Regiments, including the Seventh Tennessee, that opened the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1st and ended it on July 3rd at Pickett’s Charge. It seemed fitting to place our hero in a regiment that history deemed so important.

Our heroine is a fictitious Gettysburg seamstress. Actual Gettysburg residents, such as Sallie Myers, are used in very minor roles in the story. The battle, setting, and events are as historically accurate as possible. I studied the history and then dropped my characters in the middle of the action.

To write this story, I had to try to go back in time. I strolled the streets of Gettysburg. I walked the battlefields. I read monument inscriptions, soldier accounts, citizen diaries, and many research books until I felt like I experienced those horrible events in some small way.

Writing this novel changed me.

Research proved that heroes sprang up everywhere, both soldiers and citizens. Tragic events demanded more strength than folks believed they possessed, yet somehow courage rose to face the turmoil. The fear before the battle pushed folks to their limits. Learning their stories inspired me.

Firestorm at Gettysburg quotes Gettysburg resident, Sarah Broadhead, as saying after the battle, “We do not know until tried what we are capable of.”

 My gaze riveted on that “no-man’s land” that became Pickett’s Charge as I stood on Cemetery Hill at dusk. A dozen emotions ripped at my heart.

I left, knowing I had a story to write.

Amazon