#.99cent #sale Cj Fosdick's and The Accidental Wife

Cj Fosdick joins me today to talk about THE ACCIDENTAL WIFE, book 1 in her Accidental Series from The Wild Rose Press. Both books in the series are on sale for .99 cents until July 1. Cj tells us about her research as well as five things she thinks we need to know about her books. Take it away Cj!

GHOST BUSTING AT FT. LARAMIE  by Cj Fosdick

Vacations for writers are always rewarding when combined with research. The family vacation in 1977 that ignited my love of the historic west was mapped on poster board that had us following a route from Rochester, Minnesota through several states. Forts and battle sites were dots on our trail, along with wagon ruts, Register Cliff and Chimney Rock, but Ft. Laramie was the starring interest. I didn’t know it then, but the celebrated fort would invade several of my books. Original buildings including the cavalry barracks, Old Bedlam, and the Burt house would become specific sets in my historical fiction and time travel suspense.

 For much of the 19th century, the strategically-located garrison was a fueling station and protectorate for pioneers heading west. By mid century alone, over 50,000 emigrants stopped at the oasis. The railroad began to cork the wagon flow in 1869 but the fort flourished for 20 more years until it closed in 1890.  Our 1977 counterpart of a pioneer conestoga was an orange Volkwagen camper with a tiny fridge and seat cushions that converted to beds for two adults, two young children and a Schnauzer. Armed with cameras, notebooks and tape recorder, I was a kid in a candy store. A writer with a book in gestation.  A gestation that would last decades. (A long story-involving moves, more children, horses, and a manuscript stored in a freezer.)

Burt House, Officers' Quarters, 1954

Hubby and I returned to Ft. Laramie after our nest…and barn emptied in 2014. The Ft. Laramie National Monument had improved greatly between visits. An 1876 bunkroom re-created in the Cavalry Quarters became a key site in Book two, The Accidental Stranger. Was it also coincidental that our tour guide was a distant cousin of one of my neighbors back home?  By this time I was deep into Ft. Laramie history, intrigued by documentation of a young female ghost that appeared at the post every seven years, riding a black horse. The story is included in The Accidental Wife.

I was also corresponding with the great grandson of one of the post commanders and Sandra Lowry, the long-time fort archivist and librarian. I finally met Sandy in person during my second tour, before she took a medical leave that would end sadly. Happily, I had already dedicated The Accidental Wife to her, providing her a bit of immortality with a minor character in both books named Stella Lowry. She was amused by the coincidence since her mother in law’s name was Stella Lowry.

Burt House, Officers' Quarters, 2015

Historic locations always make me feel I am walking lockstep with ghostly figures who lived centuries ago. The “coincidences” associated with Old Ft. Laramie weren’t lost on me. After my stepmom died two years ago, I found old photos of her and my late father taken at Ft. Laramie on their 1954 honeymoon. I recognized one of them was taken in front of the old Burt House where the heroine of my novel series slips back in time at a re-created tea party. My stepmom loved The Accidental Wife, but never mentioned that she had actually been to Ft. Laramie as a new bride. Yet another coincidence…or ghostly sanction to finally give birth to a story that had to be told?

Blurb, THE ACCIDENTAL WIFE:

When Jessica Brewster inherits a mysterious teacup, she finds rubbing it transports her back to 1886, trading places with her look-alike great grandmother—wife to Mitch, her ancestor’s magnetic first husband and mother to his charming young daughter. True love, a gypsy, and her ancestor’s troubled brother amp up the charade she plays until she can find a portal back.  But is her future in the past? Her life hangs in the balance.            

Excerpt:

  In the moonlight, he rose from the Adirondack like an old man and moved toward me, his green eyes fanning me from head to bare feet. He touched my face with both hands, feathering his fingers across my forehead, into the wells of my eyes, over my nose and cheekbones, like a blind man needing to know who stood before him. I tried not to stiffen at his touch, willing myself not to blink, not to release the fresh tears that had begun to pool. He collared my throat with his long fingers and ran a thumb over my lips.

“I want my wife back. Come back to me, Mitawin,” he whispered.

The word on the teacup; the hallmark of my deceit. Our eyes locked, and I felt my throat closing and my knees begin to quiver. For a few seconds his grip tightened around my throat, and I clamped my eyes shut with a fleeting thought. Yes, take my breath...end this tormenting deception. When he suddenly released me, I could see the pain twisting his face. He turned away and rubbed his chin against his shoulder, bracing both arms on a porch railing.

“My shirt looks good on you, Jess,” he said hoarsely. You always did have a thing for my shirts.”

I cleared my throat. “You, can’t sleep out here,” I said after a long silence. “Come to bed.”

His shoulders flinched. “Is that an invitation?” 

“I only mean...you can’t be comfortable sleeping in that chair.”

We both started by the sudden hoot of a nearby owl, and like the volume turned up on ear phones, I was suddenly aware of other night sounds, crickets, wind rustling through the sage, my heart bumping in my chest.   

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JUNE SALE: Both Golden Quill eBooks selling for .99 this month only.                              

Cj Fosdick Buy Links

Amazon   ~   Barnes and Noble  ~   The Wild Rose Press    ~   iBooks                                

Five Things to know about my books:

1. The Accidental Wife and its sequel, The Accidental Stranger are both priced at .99 only till July 1. TAW was a top ten winner in a P & E readers poll for both Best Romance and Best Author in 2015 and a finalist for a Golden Quill for Best First Novel. TAS was also named a finalist for a Golden Quill in the Suspense category and a finalist after being nominated for the 2018 Rone Award in the Time Travel category.

2. The Accidental Wife started as a short story titled The Teacup which won a “Laura Award” from Women Writing the West in 2013. The judge declared it was a story begging to become a novel. Further incentive came from the publisher—who was in the audience. The rest is history-- truly made at the Kansas City Writing Conference !

3. The “Accidental Series” is aptly named for main characters who accidentally become a wife, stranger, heiress, soldier, etc. by either time travel, heredity, or a mysterious error.

4.  The books are multi-genre: Romantic Suspense, and by virtue of time travel and setting, also part historical-contemporary-fantasy-western. Western Ireland shares the setting with Wyoming in Book two. Kirkus Reviews called The Accidental Stranger “a twist on the genre” as the hero bridges time to find the heroine in her era. In TAW, she slipped time to find him.

5. Each book can stand alone, but always with a few commonalities: A redheaded heroine, a green-eyed hero, mistaken identities, a dog or horse (or both) and a recipe made from the era. Recipes and freebies are the occasional bonus to newsletter subscribers.   http://cjfosdick.com/newsletters

Author Bio:

As a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, now living on a country hilltop in Rochester, Minnesota, Cj nourished two major dreams: Riding and Writing. Thirty years training and teaching children to ride her horses satisfied the first—with time squeezed out to write fiction and non-fiction published in magazines, newspapers and anthologies. It was a jump-start to a novel agenda that produced Cj’s first books. The Accidental Wife and The Accidental Stranger became serial award-winners out of the gate. With an empty nest after 4 children and an empty horse barn, Cj lives with her computer wrangler hub, a white schnauzer and a long list of incubating novels and stories that tap into her favorite genres: Romance, Suspense, Historicals and Time Travel. Follow her adventures in a monthly newsletter, facebook, twitter, and cjfosdick.com

Social Media Links:

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Website - https://sites.google.com/site/cjfosdickauthor/