It’s 1873 and the story of Evan and Inga Jacobson and their growing family of five sons continues on the Minnesota prairie. Candace Simar has created such life-like characters that you are totally invested in their success or failure as they strive to tame the wilderness and create a home in the face of bank […]
Pomme De Terre by Candace Simar
Pomme De Terre is book two in the Abercrombie Trail series by Candace Simar about the 1862 Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. Simar writes this book from three points of view: Gust Gustofson, his wife Serena, and Drumbeater, nephew of Crooked Lightning who is Evan Jacobson’s life-and-death friend. Through these three narratives, the clash of cultures […]
Revolutionary War and Memorial Day
There was “badness of weather” in March 1775 when sixteen-year-old Nicholas Gulick mustered in with the New Jersey Militia for the first time. He was a private, two months away from his seventeenth birthday. Every able-bodied man between the ages of 16 and 50 was expected to serve, and by October of that year, it […]
Longing for Spring
Growing up in Iowa, I remember more than one Easter where the frigid temperature forced me to wear my winter coat, covering my beautiful new Easter dress mother had fashioned at the sewing machine. I protested all the way to church, to no avail. Last week it snowed across the upper Midwest. The snow spared […]
It’s here!
“Throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover.” These are the opening words of Marcello’s Promise. It’s release date is here–December 18th– and I’m excited to share this adventure with you. Below are the ladies from “Writing in the Spirit” at Rolling Hills […]
Remember Thanksgiving
A shared meal, and its importance, appears numerous times in Marcello’s Promise. It’s fun to write about food and see if I can make my own mouth water in the process. A steaming platter of roast beef swimming in juices, bread warm from the oven with a golden crust, slathered with butter. Italians are great […]
J. C. Penney: Frontier Store to Retailing Empire
Do you think J. C. Penney’s parents had any idea how prophetic their name was for their son, James Cash Penney? It appears to be a family name passed from father to son, as the retailing entrepreneur was J. C. Penney II who in turn gave the name to his own son, J. C. Penney […]
Women on the March: Kansas Coalfields Strike 1921
Did you know women played a significant role in the Kansas coalfield strike of 1921? Coal mining was a major industry in southeast Kansas in the late nineteenth century. The area became known as the “Little Balkans” from the influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe, France, Sweden, Britain, Italy, and Germany who settled there to […]
Settling the West: Union Pacific Coal Company and Cumberland, Wyoming
Does this look like a place where dreams come true? Hardly! Yet, this is what greeted Luisa and son Tony when they arrived from Italy to the place Marcello had carved out a life for them—Cumberland, Wyoming, the setting for my historical fiction novel, Marcello’s Promise, (Five Star Cengage, December 2019). As happy as Luisa […]