Now, more about my new romance and very unique heroine. 

A beautiful Scots-Irish healer in the rugged Alleghenies finds herself accused of witchcraft. With the terror of the French and Indian War fresh in her mind, can Kira love a white warrior?

1765––The recent Indian wars are over (for now) and an uneasy truce in place. Free-spirited Kira is at odds with the superstitious Scots-Irish in the settlement and rumor spreads that she may be a witch. Her imagination runs to fairy rings, the little people, and haints (something that’s there but ain’t). She's happiest out among the trees where she can hide from her painful past and any warriors who might again appear. A gifted healer with a menagerie of wild creatures, she's in the forest releasing a tame crow when her little beagle sounds the alarm. She peers warily from the leaves at the handsome young stranger. His buckskin breechclout and moccasins are more in keeping with a warrior's than any frontiersmen she knows and there's a stealth in his manner that reminds her of the way Indians pass through the trees. Yet he's not a warrior. Unless, he’s a renegade. This is the set up for the story, but there’s a great deal more behind it, and especially, Kira, the most unique heroine I’ve ever written.

Not only does Kira have a tame crow she’s nursed back to health, but a number of wild animals under her care in what she calls her nursery, a protected nook in the woods close to the homestead where she lives with the Houston family who took her in after her parent’s death (relatives of the hero, Logan McCutcheon). Some of her Kira’s babies ride in pockets she’s sewn inside her cloak for that purpose. Her guardian, particularly his wife, aren’t happy about hosting her creatures and banish the talkative crow, the reason she’s in the woods releasing him when she spots the potential threat.

Besides my love of animals, two books influenced this aspect of Kira’s character, one was a children’s book my youngest daughter brought home from the school library in fifth grade. I wish I could recall the title and maybe a helpful reader will because I’d love to locate a copy. I only remember it’s a true story about a family who took in injured and orphaned animals and I was much impressed by their talking crows. The second book, The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow, The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whiteley, is a remarkable journal first written in crayon by an amazing girl, and later laboriously pierced back together after her sister shredded the pages. Sadly, Opal suffered from schizophrenia in an era when little was known about treatment, but her relationship with nature is the most outstanding I’ve ever come across.

When I first wrote Kira, Daughter of the Moon, I simply entitled the novel Kira, because she’s very much her own person. But she evolves into a much stronger young woman as a result of Logan’s return to her life, and that aspect of Kira is influenced by the Native Americans he counts as friends who give her the name, Daughter of the Moon.

***Kira, Daughter of the Moon is available in print and various ebook formats from The Wild Rose Press, from Amazon, Barnes & Noble’s Nookbook, All Romance eBooks, and other online booksellers. Although written to stand alone, Kira, Daughter of the Moon is the sequel to my award-winning historical romance novel Through the Fire. 

The Shenandoah Valley, December 1968

Still muttering, Ella grabbed the mop in the corner and stumped over in faded house shoes and support hose to attack the puddle spreading on the linoleum beyond the small braided rug where Bailey stood.

Part Cherokee, part Negro, and part Bailey wasn’t sure what, maybe past slave owner as some of those men had sired offspring, Ella ruled the kitchen and most of the house. She wouldn’t allow a scrap of a kitten inside let alone a collie, and soft-spoken Aunt Meg deferred to her wishes. However, Ella insisted she knew her place and housed herself, Old John, and Rosa Mae out in the old kitchen behind the house, more of a cottage now, with a big hearth she put to use.

With a decided “Humph,” Ella restored the mop and tugged at the wool wrapping Bailey like a mummy. “Where you been, child? Don’t you go fretting your Aunt now.”

“No. Sorry. Lost track of time.” Easily done here.

Clucking disapproval, Ella helped Bailey struggle out of the too-big coat then hung her wraps from the hooks on one pale yellow wall. “Can’t stand about in them stocking feet. Catch your death.”

Ella snatched pink slippers from an assortment in the cupboard and nudged Bailey’s numb toes into the fuzzy footwear. She then inspected her as she might a stray dog, only a dog wouldn’t get this far.

“That mane of yours could do with taming, like a half wild pony.” She ran her critical gaze over Bailey’s frayed sweater and jeans. “Don’t you got nothing better to wear? Look like a bum coming round the house.” She sniffed. “Smell like one too.”

“It’s incense—”

“I told you not to be burning that stuff. Set the house on fire next thing. And don’t you be thinking ‘bout coloring on them walls.”

A reference to Bailey’s bedroom murals at home. She’d had to begin somewhere with her art. No one accused Michelangelo of coloring on the ceiling.

“You go and git a nice hot bath and find something pretty to put on.”

“Ella—”
She held up a righteous hand with the demeanor of a pastor about to deliver a sermon. “You’ll be glad enough to fix yourself up when you hear who’s coming.”

Bailey considered the muted excitement in Ella’s coffee-colored eyes. “Santa Claus?”

Ella cocked her gray head at a jaunty angle. “Better.”

“Than Santa? Who?”
Ella played her trump card. “Mr. Eric hisself.”

Bailey’s heart lurched. “He’s back on furlough?”

“Nope. Called from the train station to say he’s home for good. Never said nothing before. Wanted to surprise Miss Meg.
He sure did, right enough. She’s bubbling over. Rosa Mae drove her into town to fetch him. What do you think of that, Miss?”

Quite a lot.  Bailey’s mind swirled with images of Eric Burke before he’d joined the Marines and shipped off to Vietnam. Though on the serious side, he was gifted with flashes of wit and a smile that charged his average good looks with masculine glory…
…The news about Eric had made her momentarily forget the figure upstairs. “Which room are you putting him in?”

Ella reached into the cabinet for the shortening. “His own, of course. The white room.”

Old Southern homes had names, as did the rooms. Bailey slept in the yellow room across the far hall from the more austere white room outfitted with Eric’s school pennants, trophies, and other masculine decor. Aunt Meg was on the other side of Bailey in the rose room, its walls papered with flowers. A second hall ran past Bailey and Aunt Meg’s rooms and led to the stairs.

“What about the room at the end of the front hall? The one on the right?” Bailey didn’t know its name.

Ella shook her head. “No one uses that one.”

“That’s what I thought, but…”
Ella shot her a glance over her shoulder. “What?”

“Thought I saw a light on in there a little while ago.”

She frowned. “Can’t. No one’s there.”

Which left Bailey to arrive at the only logical conclusions, either Maple Hill was haunted or she was losing her mind. She wondered if Eric would find her particular brand of insanity charming or downright weird, or whether he’d even notice her at all.~

*Image of the old Virginia family homeplace
*Ella was my dad’s outspoken housekeeper when he was growing up.  She died before my time but I heard enough stories about her to feel like I knew her.

***Somewhere the Bells Ring is available in various ebook formats at The Wild Rose Press,  Amazon Kindle, All Romance Ebooks, Barnes & Noble’s Nookbook & other online booksellers.

I absolutely love 18th and 19th century dance scenes in period movies.  And no one does them better than the British.   So romantic and beautiful, and did I mention romantic?  Some of the best dance scenes are in the various films based on Jane Austen novels, but there are many, many others too.  There’s a delightful one in Miss Potter and Becoming Jane.  The Young Victoria is a visual feast...
I’m drawn to these scenes like a moth to a flame.  Sigh.  Why can’t we still dance like that today?

Naturally, I’ve studied up on these old dances, even consulted an elderly expert at one point who then gave me his large collection of notes and research info.  Entrusted me with this rich legacy which has been invaluable in my writing.  He said no one else had expressed the interest in his research material that I had and he was getting on in years  and wanted to pass it on to someone who would appreciate it.  That would be me.  The best dance scene I ever wrote based on his copious notes hasn’t yet been published.  But it will, eventually.   First, I must finish the book.

Of course, I’ve included various dances in many of my books.   I love the English Country dances, not to neglect the foot stomping jigs and reels that were enormously popular in less formal circles, but I have also included more formal dances.   Back in the day, my home state of Virginia was filled with colonists who were ‘mad about dancing” according to one historian.
He also mentioned that his 19 yr old daughter was the oldest virgin he knew as folks married quite young back then.  Come to think of it, I wed my high school sweetheart at 19.  But I digress.  Frequently.  I flit between subjects like a butterfly.  Can’t blame it on advancing years, though.  I always have.

My light paranormal/historical romance Daughter of the Wind, set among the Scots-Irish in the Alleghenies, opens with a lively dance at the McNeal homestead when the hero arrives, shot, and bangs on the door.   Breaks up that party.

My colonial American romance short A Warrior for Christmas (in The American Rose Christmas Anthology) has a charming dance scene or two that I loved writing.  The frontiersman/former Shawnee captive hero, a rugged young man more comfortable with war dances, attempts the minuet.

The waltz in light paranormal Somewhere My Love is one of my most romantic offerings ever, if I do say so myself.   Actually, that book has two waltz scenes.  And I had a blast writing the amusing and tender dance scene in Somewhere My Lass. I dabbled in dancing when writing my colonial American romance Red Bird’s Song in a most unlikely way considering it’s set in the rugged frontier.  Trust me to work in a dance somewhere.  And it’s Romantic too, most certainly.  All of these scenes are, along with the tension or whatever else is unfolding in the story.  The characters don’t just dance.  Although I happily could.  I didn’t manage to get a dance into Enemy of the King or Through the Fire although I referred to dancing.  They are both such fast-paced adventures, we really didn’t have time to linger over a dance.  Except at the cast party, of course.

Does anyone not love these wonderful old dances from ages past?  And the costumes…I’d love to have a different one for each day of the week (or month) from various eras.  Today I shall be Lady so and so in my voluminous colonial American gown.  Tomorrow, I’ll swirl about in my Regency do, then ride off in my carriage to attend a ball in the Victorian age.  Not to neglect the Edwardian era which had wonderful gowns.  Now and then I’d get down with the Scots and kick up my heels in full clan regalia.

I  suppose all these costumes might appear slightly eccentric to onlookers.  Like I’d care if I had them.  And filigree jewelry.  I’m quite taken with the word filigree, defined as ‘delicate, lacelike ornamental work of intertwined wire of gold, silver…’

And now, I’ll send you off with a dance!  What else?