Sneak Peek: Petticoat Patrol by Susan Horsnell in RAWHIDE 'N ROSES #excerpt

Petticoat Patrol
by Susan Horsnell

Romancing the West's guest today hales from Down Under but writes stories set in the American Old West.  She's a generous person, a friend, and a talented writer.  Thanks for joining us today, Susan Horsnell!  Susan ramrodded the Rawhide 'n Roses anthology, a collection of 2,000-word stories from 15 authors, herself included.  It's a sampler, really--a way to get a taste of new-to-you authors' writings.  You'll read about her writing journey and her stories today.

About Susan
I was a nurse, a career that spanned more than 35 years. During my career I specialised in caring for people with Alzheimer’s type Dementia, an area that fascinates me despite how heartbreaking it can be. My dear father-in-law is unfortunately afflicted with this disease and now resides in a Nursing Home. In the not too distant future I am hoping to pen a novel incorporating some of the stories I have heard from these amazing people. Part of my career was with the blind and I also cared for severely disabled children for a while too.

When I retired four years ago I decided it was time to get the stories out of my head and onto paper. From there I just hoped my stories were interesting and well written enough to attract readers.

I am married to the love of my life, we have two wonderful adult boys, and five amazing grandchildren. We also play substitute Mum and Dad to a beautiful, adopted young lady. We reside in sunny Qld, Australia in the midst of a Blackbutt Forest. We are surrounded by the peace and quiet of Mother Nature and wildlife abounds. It is a dream come true location for us.

Here's a listing of my books:

The Glenmore’s: Revenge
The Glenmore’s: Deputy
The Glenmore’s: Laura
The Glenmore’s: Caught
The Stuck-Up Governess
Blind Acceptance
Blind Achievement
Mail Order Marshall
Mountain Maidens
Colonials and Cowboys
Children’s ABC of Languages
The Mystery Under the House

15 Western Romance Authors wrote a fabulous anthology which came out March 15, 2014, titled...

Rawhide ’n Roses

(A Western Romance Anthology)

Each story in the anthology is a showcase of the author’s individual writing style and will hopefully encourage the reader to purchase full length novels of the authors they like. Every story will have a Western Romance theme but there will be everything from old west romance to time travel and contemporary. 

Something to suit every western reader’s taste. It will also give the reader an opportunity to discover some new authors. 

I am privileged to be associated with the very best of western writers and I know readers are going to be very impressed by the high quality of this work. The anthology came about from a comment I inadvertently made on a Western Romance Writer’s forum. From this comment the idea snowballed and I found myself nominated in charge of pushing the project forward. I cannot believe I am in such esteemed company and I am very grateful for the opportunity to work with such talented authors. 

The authors will be blog hopping to promote this anthology and their own work. I hope readers will keep an eye out on blogs and social media now that the book has been officially released.

The best part? The culmination of this hard work by so many talented people – The Anthology – will be a steal at just $2.99!

Sit back, grab a coffee and enjoy the excerpt from my short story: 

Petticoat Patrol
by Susan Horsnell

“Sissy, for heaven’s sake. Stop that damn wagon!” Lily screeched at the top of her voice. She crouched low over her galloping mare’s neck, reins in one hand and mane grasped in the other. As she drew alongside the wagon, which carried her sisters, she stood up in the stirrups and yelled again. “Stop that wagon now or so help me…”

Melissa, also known as Sissy, pushed her feet down hard to balance as she pulled back hard on the bay gelding’s reins. They all drew to a stop.

Lily lifted the hat from her head and swiped impatiently at the sweat on her brow. It was so hot she thought, if the damn dog was chasing the cat, they’d both be walking. “Why didn’t you stop when I called out?” 

“How am I supposed to hear you with the sound of Buck’s hooves and these two tittering in my ear?” Sissy retorted. 

The ‘two’ she referred to, as she flung her arm in the air, were their sixteen year old twin sisters – Amy and Emily. They had just discovered the appeal of two local boys and had been excitedly chattering.

“Why are you here, anyways? You’re supposed to be helpin’ Ma put a basket of food together. We gotta spend the night out with Pa watchin’ for rustlers and you know we get hungry.” Sissy pouted. She hated it when she thought her big sister was sent to watch over her. At eighteen years old she felt she was more than capable of doing things without being ‘chaperoned’.

“Ma sent me because she forgot a couple of things when she wrote out the list. It’s taken me all this time to catch up with you.”

“What else does she need?” Sissy enquired. 

Lily pulled the list from her pocket and thrust it into her sister’s hand. “I might as well come with you now. It’s only another mile to town and I can help with the supplies.” 

Sissy nodded before slapping the reins to get the big gelding moving. Lily urged her mount forward and they began walking at a leisurely pace. 

They were in sight of town when a loud crack heralded something had gone terribly wrong on the wagon. Sissy brought Buck to a stop and glanced at her older sister in despair. 

As Lily dismounted, the other girls jumped from the wagon. While the older two checked on the suspect wheel, Amy and Emily hovered nervously.

Lily crouched down and shook the wheel. It was looser than a whore in a cathouse. “Almost snapped clean off the axle,” she grumbled as she pushed herself to stand. “Sissy, unhitch Buck and we’ll walk the rest of the way. I’ll drop the horses at the livery and see what I can do about getting it fixed while you pick up the supplies.

Sissy did as requested and the girls began the short trek to town.

Rawhide ’n Roses

(A Western Romance Anthology)

Saddle up your horses and head out to the heart of the Wild West in this collection of short love stories by authors of Western Romance from all over the country and around the world.

Whether your passion is historical or contemporary, there's something inside for everyone.

Alison Bruce

Carol Spradling

Caroline Clemmons

Celia Yeary

Chad Strong

Charlene Raddon

Cheri Kay Clifton

Jacquie Rogers

Lyn Horner

Margaret Tanner

Paty Norman Jager

Peggy L Henderson

Rain Trueax

Simone Beaudelaire

Susan Horsnell

Susan's hangouts
Amazon Author Page
Blog
Twitter

Caroline Clemmons: Camels in the Old West



Caroline Clemmons, author

 Camels in the West
by Caroline Clemmons
Copyright © 2012 Caroline Clemmons

Since I live in, write about, and love Texas, you won’t be surprised to learn that today’s post involves Texas and Southwest history. If you saw the 1976 family comedy “Hawmps!,” then you already know that the U.S. Government experimented with the effectiveness of camels in the desert West. The movie was hilarious, but loosely based on fact.



Jefferson Davis



In 1855, the U.S. Congress, at the urging of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, authorized the importation of camels and dromedaries to be used for military purposes and earmarked thirty thousand dollars for the experiment. Davis, a veteran of the war with Mexico, had seen considerable service in the Desert Southwest. Keenly aware of the role that camels had played over the centuries in the warfare of other nations, he believed that the strange beasts could be put to use in the United States as well.

Major Henry C. Wayne and Lieutenant David D. Porter departed for North Africa, where they were met by a third American, Gwinn Harris Heap, whose father had been the U.S. consul to Tunis for a number of years. They acquired thirty-three camels before departing for home in February 1856. Native camel drivers accompanied the camels and dromedaries.



Camel Headquarters



The ocean voyage from the Mediterranean, through the Strait of Gibraltar, and across the Atlantic was been uneventful considering the fragile cargo. On May 14, 1856, the camels came ashore at Indianola, Texas. Ten acres of land had been set aside for them and a two-hundred-foot-long shed had been built to house them. Major Wayne decided first to acclimate the camels to the intense humidity of the Gulf Coast by letting them rest in a large corral.

Writing to Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, Navy Lieutenant Porter said, “We have lost on the voyage but one of those we purchased…and she died from no want of care, but because she was unable to produce her young one…We still have more than we started with, some young ones having been born on the passage, and are in fine condition. All the other camels I am happy to say have not received a scratch…They are looking a little shabby just now, most of them shedding their hair…but they are fat and in good health.

Three weeks later, the animals began first leg of the trip that would take them to San Antonio, Texas, on to El Paso, Albuquerque, and across the arid Southwest all the way to Fort Tejon, California. The camels performed extremely well. Capable of carrying loads of up to twelve hundred pounds—larger than a horse or mule could carry—the beasts lumbered along at a slow but steady pace.

A monument in Quartzite, Arizona pays tribute to chief camel driver, Hajid Ali, called Hi Jolly. After the camel experiment failed, he used some of the released camels to conduct a freight business. Later he married and worked in Quartzite. The monument is at his last campsite. At his death, he believed small families of camels still roamed in remote areas of the Southwest.

The great camel experiment eventually failed. With the advent of the Civil War, the personnel at Union garrisons in the Southwest scattered before the advancing Confederates. Some of the imported animals were set free and some were kept in captivity. The last known survivor died in a Los Angeles zoo in 1934. However, even today people occasionally tell tales of seeing lone camels in remote corners of the Southwest.

Note: Most of this info was gleaned from an article in his book It Happened in Texas, by James A. Crutchfield, 1996, Two Dot Press, Helena, Montana.

♥ ♥ ♥

Be My Guest
by Caroline Clemmons

only 99 cents!
Amazon ~ Smashwords

Do Westerns (and Other Historicals) Have a Fighting Chance in Today’s Market?

by Cheryl Pierson
Copyright 2011 Cheryl Pierson

It seems that a lot of the people who have written western romance for years, and in fact, have made their name and career in that sub-genre, are now being told they are going to have to write contemporary. At least, by the big New York houses.

I’m seeing this with my own work. I've submitted my latest western historical to a couple of agents recently and both of them told me they were interested in seeing something contemporary rather than a historical. I think that historicals are on the way out completely as far as New York is concerned. I might be out in left field with this, but here's my take on it.

The main obstacle to anything historical is that we don't teach it in our schools any longer. So kids, growing up, have no sense of what came before. They don't learn about history in depth at all, it's just glossed over, and with the watered-down, public educational system’s "no child left behind" program, they don't have to care or study. The academic programs are softened so that no child, despite lack of effort or concern, will have to worry about failure.

When my son was in high school 4 years ago, his history textbook devoted a two-page spread to World War II; a one page (including a picture) write-up of Viet Nam. How can this be? Do we care so little about the causes, repercussions, and influences of the wars our countrymen have died for that we reduce it to a one-page retelling? Shameful.

There’s an old Sioux proverb that says: “A people without history is like wind on the buffalo grass.” I believe that. And there is something within us that needs to know where we came from to give us the strength and determination to get to where we are going. Knowing our history and values of the past instills this within us.

The next dismissal of history is in our entertainment field. If you look at the television programming, it's all police drama, detective and forensic work of some kind, sitcoms or reality tv. There are no historical dramas anymore other than what you see on cable, such as series like The Tudors. Growing up in the 1960’s-1970’s, I was fortunate to have been exposed to all those wonderful old historical series—westerns such as Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Lancer, High Chaparral, Wagon Train, Rawhide, The Virginian…the list goes on and on. Not only were these shows teaching history, geography, and giving us a glimpse of everyday life in those times, they also taught values. There was clearly a “good guy” and a “bad guy.”

We learned about the workings of cattle drives, that lightning could stampede the cattle, that towns were built around railroads, that Matt Dillon always got his man, and he never quit. These westerns provided entertainment, but they gave us so much more. History provides us values of the past to carry forward into the future. There is no other period where this is more evident than the western.

As a society, we are moving away from even concerning ourselves with history in any venue--movies, television…or reading. Sounds bleak, doesn't it? But wait! There’s a light up ahead. With the advent of the smaller publishing houses, and e-publishing, there is a great possibility for the writers and readers of historical fiction! New York might not realize it, but there are some of us out here who still yearn for a good old fashioned piece of historical fiction every once in a while! And thanks to the e-publishers and the smaller presses, we are going to be able to have our cake and eat it, too.

There are a lot of wonderful writers who are being passed over by NY, even people who have big names, who are being told "write contemporary or you're out." Well, those people have a following already. So how could they have that following, writing western historicals, if no one read those? Why are they being told to write contemporary? Because NY sees it as the way the world is turning now, and they are desperate to make every dollar they can make. That leaves the smaller presses and e-publishers to make the money on the historicals that NY doesn't want to publish anymore. These smaller presses are going to build their own following, and the writers they publish will do the same.

Historicals rise and fall in popularity, but “westerns will never die.” I think John Wayne said that, and it's very true. I write a mix, both contemporary and historical. My heart is with the historicals, and I will continue to write them, because I know that there are people out there who read them.

Not everyone who reads a book lives in New York, but it seems that that's what the NY houses cater to. I get really tired of how every show on TV being set in NY or Los Angeles. There are other places in the world! And the same is true of the books we read—they don't all have to take place in those two places. There are tons of other very interesting locations to set a story in, and there are thousands of people who want to read—and relate—to a variety of settings. Exciting things can happen anywhere, any time period, as long as the writer has the imagination to make it realistic.

Society, as a whole, is responsible for the disregard of our rich heritage and past that should be remembered, written and read about, and learned about. I love history, and though I read and write contemporaries too, there is sometimes nothing like picking up a good ol' western and reading it. And that’s why I will continue to write historical westerns. There will always be a readership for them, because of the fulfillment they offer our need for a true hero and heroine, and always, a “happily ever after” ending.

~~~ Where to find Cheryl ~~~
Website * Facebook * Blog
Email Cheryl: fabkat_edit@yahoo.com

Free Book!

To win a pdf copy of Cheryl's Time Plains Drifter, leave a comment!  Drawing will be held 10pm Pacific Time August 6th.  Cheryl will be posting a total of three times this week so comment on all of them for more chances!  Don't forget to leave your email address so we can contact you.