Yesterday I blogged about my first two books, mysteries targeted to girls ages eight to twelve, and promised to continue my blog theme of the stories behind my other books. I am going in chronological order and will finish on Wednesday. Soon I will share an excerpt from a work in progress that is unlike anything I have ever written.
But now, I’ll talk about what prompted me to write a book for adults set in 1890s Strawberry, Arizona. To do that requires a little personal background, so please bear with me.
My family moved from Tennessee to the Arizona desert when I was only three because of my dad’s respiratory problems. Multiple pneumonia events, that sort of thing. The doctor said get to a dry climate, so we did. I always lived in the southern part of the state, but we traveled all over it.
We returned to Tennessee when I was twelve, but my brother and his family made their permanent home in Arizona. He’s nine years older than I am. In 2013, we visited my niece and her family in Strawberry, Arizona, where their vacation home was located. her husband loves to hunt, and they bought the place for that purpose. While there, we explored the mountainous area, an area populated by elk, mountain lions, bears, and other wildlife.
It was beautiful, primitive, unlike anything I’d experienced. Then, one day, we walked to the historical schoolhouse, the oldest standing schoolhouse in Arizona. I took the photo you see on the cover. The place is incredibly nice for the time it was built. You can search for it online to see pictures of the inside.
The story hit me at once. What if a young woman from Tennessee had to come to the wilderness for some reason? What if she were a city girl who had to learn how to live a more primitive life?
Her name, I knew, had to be Amy, my niece’s name. But she suggested I give it a different spelling, which I did.
Slowly, the story formed. Aimee Winters has lost her mother, and the small cottage that was their home had to be sold for medical and funeral debts. She is shocked to learn that her father, whom she has believed her entire life to be dead, is very much alive and well in the Arizona territory. His offer for her to come live with him while she teaches at the small school seems like the only answer, although she doesn’t intend to make Strawberry her permanent home. Intrigued by the idea of learning the truth of her past and why her father was absent from her life, she finds the courage to make the long train ride from Memphis to live with a man she doesn’t even know.
That’s just the premise of it. Add in a love interest (of course), some scary experiences, conflict with nature and residents, overcoming fears, and making some important life decisions, and you have the story. And, oh, did I mention the missing cattle from area ranches?
This is a work of fiction, but I researched to supplement my experiences there. I purchased a book at the Tim Country Museum in Payson, and many of the happenings in the book are based upon actual experiences of the settlers of the area.
You may envision Arizona as all desert, but you would be wrong. Strawberry is 5,800 feet above sea level, surrounded by pine-covered mountains. It has bitterly cold, snowy winters and mild summers. Fossil Creek Canyon, an important location in the book, is just a short distance away. Strawberry sits on what is called the Mogollon Rim, not far from where author Zane Grey made one of his homes near Payson, a twenty-mile drive away.
The photo below was taken from my niece’s back yard and is the meadow that Aimee viewed regularly in the book.
I hope to write more books set in Arizona some day, and I am contemplating a sequel to this one with a grown-up Leah as the main character. You’ll have to read this book to find out who Leah is! Available on Amazon as an ebook and as a paperback, it might be the perfect Christmas gift for someone who enjoys historical fiction set on the frontier. Maybe that person is you.
Tomorrow I will talk about my novella Can’t Help Falling in Love, so please check back! And, yes, there is a Memphis connection…we’ll leave Arizona and return to Tennessee as I blog about the story behind that story.
Life As I know it 