Highlighting Historical Romance with Ana Morgan who shares one of her stories set in North American prairie country.
The terms Great Plains and prairie are not synonymous, although the eastern portion of the Great Plains is primarily prairie. The rest is steppe, the two distinguished by types of plant life. Prairies are the great sea of grass–blue stem, buffalo grass, canada rye, oats, fescues and many more. Bison roamed the grasslands that covered what is now the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and large parts of Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota, and other states. They are a classic setting for Western Historical Romance, including Ana’s Prairie Hearts Series.
About the Book: Mary Masters
Committed to a lavish wedding that will end her family’s harassment by scandal-hungry reporters, an heiress with a passion for music is poised to marry a man she doesn’t love.
Hoping to win Mary Masters’ hand despite his second-class status, Robert Eagle, a penniless Lakota lawyer with a summa cum laude degree, agrees to help her self-centered fiancé pass the bar, only to vanish on the eve of the exam.
Convinced her fiancé is behind Robert’s disappearance, Mary assumes a risky disguise and sets off across a half-tamed continent to find him.
If they triumph can over prejudice and betrayal, they just might discover they don’t have to choose between duty and happiness.
Book 2 in the Prairie Hearts Series
Buy Link https://amzn.to/3hZQSIo
Excerpt~
The dinner hour was approaching when a knock sounded on the blue room door.
Certain a maid had been dispatched to remind him of the time, Robert called out, “I’ll be down in a minute.” He turned back to the mirror over the bathroom sink and tried to straighten his tie.
The new, black cloth was stiff and uncooperative. His knot looked amateurish, with uneven ends. He sighed and tugged it open.
His struggle with the tie foreshadowed a bigger problem. He’d promised Mary he’d talk during dinner about his life, but his most vivid memories involved events he wished he could forget. The scritch of Preacher Finster’s scissors shearing his four-year-old head of carefree, shoulder-length hair. His cot in the thin-walled barracks of the Industrial School, hot in summer, freezing in winter. The midnight sobs of other children, longing for mothers whose faces were hard to remember.
Better to invent some happy stories–and remember the details, in case he had to recount those made-up tales another time.
The servant rapped again, louder.
He hurried to the door and opened it.
Mary stood before him, a vision in rose pink.
The bodice of her sleeveless gown accentuated her hourglass curves. Her floor-length, magenta underskirt was draped by an overskirt that gathered at one hip, cascaded to the floor, and ended in a short train. Earbobs glinted through the soft curls framing her oval face. A cameo pendant, dangling on a slender gold chain, nestled in her cleavage.
His memories retreated like a thwarted gang of thieves.
She pointed at his drooping necktie. “Need help?”
“Yes. Do you know how?”
The corners of her lightly-rouged mouth turned up. “I do.”
She stepped close and reached for the dangling ends. An enticing, floral fragrance wafted from her wrists.
He fought the urge to bend down and brush his lips against hers. He longed to feather kisses down her creamy neck until he reached the cameo.
Instead, he stared over the top of her head at the neatly-folded, crocheted, blue blanket on the foot of his bed.
She adjusted the tie over the back of his neck. The slip and slide set his pulse racing. His heart thrummed like a rawhide drum. Blood rushed to his niinag as she crossed and looped the tie strings.
Desperate for a distraction, he moved his hands behind his back and tugged out the cuffs of his sleeves. Curled his toes in his shiny, new shoes. Dug his nails into his palms.
She tightened the knot and leaned back to inspect her handiwork. After a final pat, she said, “You look very handsome.”
“And you,” he said huskily, “are beautiful.”
About the Author
When she was still very small, Ana Morgan had two goals. She wanted to fall deeply in love—and she wanted to know something about everything. Since then, she has waitressed, driven a school bus, run craft service on indie film sets, wandered through European castles, studied the stars, wired a house, milked cows, canned vegetables, created twenty-four Secret Garden soup mixes, and married a Marine.
Ana is still pursuing her quest to learn something about everything, and being an author provides the perfect platform. She’s studied 19th Century riverboats, photography, ski resort management, and ways people suffering from mental illness can be abused. For her next story, Ana is exploring the competitive world of plant breeding. No one has been able to breed a true-blue daylily. Her heroine, Tara Green, is about to.
Ana lives on an organic farm in northern Minnesota with her husband, a small herd of brood cows, geese Jonathan and Gloria, and two cats who think humans exist to let them in and out. Her children and grandchildren live close by, which makes her very happy.
Website http://anamorgan.net/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/authoranamorgan/
Twitter @anamorganana
Bookbub https://bookbub.com/anamorgan19501
Thank you for hosting me today, Carol!