I’m pleased to announce the “birth” of a new “child” in our family: Horse Thief 1898 is now available on Amazon (complete with a typo I hope will be fixed soon). My nephew Joel Griswell designed the beautiful image for the cover, and other friends and family members have helped in various ways along the way. Thank you to each of you, and to EA Books!
I’ve scheduled the official launch for August 15, to give me breathing room after launching the Karis book in Brazil. Before then, I hope to have at least 50 reviews on Amazon. You can help me!
1. Buy and read the book.
2. Post your review on Amazon before Aug. 15.
3. If you enjoy the story, share it with friends.
The story began on a day in August 2018 when I was staying at Uncle Gerry and Aunt Virginia’s home in Kansas City on a book tour for Karis: All I See Is Grace. On an early morning walk, I stumbled across a historic monument, the New Santa Fe Cemetery. Wandering through the old stones, I saw a grave marked simply, “Horse Thief 1898.” Later that day, driving across Kansas with our cousin Barb Jones through a pounding rainstorm, we entertained ourselves speculating on who the horse thief might have been. The story grew from there. I hope you will enjoy tracking Cally and her little brother Teddy Donnelly and Charlie Malcomson from Ireland to New York and finally, Kansas City.
While the Donnelly family is fictitious, the Malcomson family is still alive and well in Ireland. I was delighted one day to receive out of the blue an email from William Malcomson VI!! Will had somehow discovered HorseThief1898.blog and wrote to tell me the historical information on the site had helped him connect the dots back to his great-great-great-great-grandfather William Malcomson I who is a character in Horse Thief 1898 and even more central to Book 2 of the Cally and Charlie series, Treasure Hunt 1904, which I hope to have out in time for Christmas. Will agreed to let me mention this fun connection on the cover of Horse Thief 1898. He was intrigued to learn that one of my Malcomson characters, Charlie’s brother Thomas, was a student at Oxford, because Will graduated from Oxford a few months ago.
The experience of writing this historical fiction novel has been delightful for me, and I hope you will enjoy it.