Books
A New Western Series
The Gantlet
No excuse is good enough for the vague note Donovan O’Creigh leaves the woman he had planned to marry. But fearful of his father’s retribution for blatant disobedience, he needs to leave town and fast. He is lucky his best friend has one spot left on the Bostonian team in a wagered race to the California goldfields.
No one considers how dangerous the trip will be and who will survive to capitalize on the wager. Their fate decided by the flip of a coin, Donovan’s team uses the intercontinental river system to speed them to the continent’s center before venturing off across the vast and dangerous wilderness of the American West. On the way, Donovan hopes Lillia Soilleux loves him enough to protect him and do as his note asked.
Set squarely in the gold rush frenzy of 1849, The Gantlet is a story of personal discovery, tragedy and triumph woven through actual events and historical figures. Success in the California gold fields was not guaranteed and neither was surviving the arduous trip, no matter what the route. Peril existed around every corner. Even if one arrived on California’s golden shores, personal character and grit were the only things one could count on
Kismet
Why didn’t Donovan O’Creigh just ask her to go with him? Unsure if she’s more exasperated by being left at the alter or abandoned to certain spinsterhood in Boston’s rigid society, Lillia Soilleux has to decide if she buckles under or breaks free. Regardless, nothing steels her determination more than being underestimated. When her adventurer uncle arrives for the wedding, he unknowingly provides her with the opportunity she needs to test her conviction to Donovan.
They sail around Cape Horn on a ship filled with a cargo that allows only one stop along the way. Thrown together with strangers for five straight months in a confined space makes for boredom and tension between the passengers. It is here that Lillia discovers her true essence and is confronted by surprising, and dangerous, choices.
Kismet is a story about a young woman’s journey toward self-discovery at a time when women didn’t have many opportunities beyond marriage and childbearing. What if a woman wanted more? Risk-taking men found freedom and opportunity by rushing to the California goldfields. Why not women? Only those women with courage, foresight and someone to believe in them stood a chance at seeing California’s golden light.