The Crow and the Blackfoot were two tribes of Montana whose lands overlapped. Both play a significant role in my newest historical western romance book, Promise Trail.

The Crows, sometimes we’re referred to as the “Crow Nation” derived their name from their own native word, Aspalooke, which literally means “children of a long-beaked bird,” but the French translated as “People of The Crow.”

The Blackfoot Tribe, or sometimes “The Blackfoot Confederacy,” traced their lands to around Alberta, Canada, but stretched all the way to the Yellowstone River of Montana. They were united by a common language, and originally carried the name Niitsitapi, literally translated “the original people.”

Although tradition made them enemies, each tribe had many similarities. Both were nomadic hunter-gatherers, lived in teepees, were expert horsemen, and hunted buffalo.

Spirituality was important to both tribes, each embracing a mystical, earth-based religion. Both tribes believed everything in nature—plants, trees, rivers, mountains, and rocks—had a spirit. Crow and Blackfoot men used sacred sweat lodges to breathe in the steam from the sacred rocks, allowing mother earth to draw negative energy and toxins from their bodies and spirits.  The men emerged sweaty and virile, cleansed and rejuvenated.

In their language, (Siouan), The Crow call themselves Absaroka, (opp-sah-loh-kay) children of the large-beaked bird. French traders translated it to (gens du corbeaux in French), people of the crows.

Appearance was important to the Crow. Men never cut their sleek, beautiful hair. It flowed from their broad warrior shoulders past their muscled chests and flat stomachs to their powerful thighs and calves, and down to their feet. Oiled with bear’s grease, their long hair shined like raven feathers. When hunting or fighting, they’d pull the long tresses into a bun.

Crow men took great pride in their dress, wearing opulent sun-bleached buffalo robes which were a brighter white and finer than those of other tribes.

The Crow were generally a friendly people, even towards the white settlers, securing them a sizable reservation in Montana. They’re main food source came in the form of American Bison, which they hunted with impressive efficiency and innovation. They also used the bison skins for clothing in the winter and for their traditional shelters, the tipi and skin lodge.  Their main form of transport came in the horses, which they learned to breed and keep.

Crow women played an important role in society and were well regarded, evidenced by the fact that when a couple married it was always the man who moved into her home and never the other way around.

The Blackfoot were named that by French fur traders who watched them walk through a prairie fire, noticing the black bottoms of their moccasins. The name the Blackfoot called themselves means Lords of the Plains. And their plains, the majestic Blackfoot territory, held more buffalo per square mile than anywhere.

Four northwestern plains tribes made up the Blackfoot Confederacy: the North Piegan, the South Piegan, the Blood, and the Siksika tribes. They shared the same language and culture, had treaties of mutual defense, gathered for ceremonial rituals, and freely intermarried.

These handsome lords of the plains fashioned their flowing hair into three long braids with a topknot or pompadour. The women wore their hair loose or in two long, thick braids.

A war-like people, the Blackfoot granted a great deal of honor and tribal esteem to members who committed brave and heroic deeds. They played a significant role in the Indian wars.

I’d love to hear your insights or comments about the Crow and Blackfoot people. Please feel free to email me at shirleen@shirleendavies.com.

Enjoy your reading. I hope it includes a Cowboy!

Promise Trail, Book Six, Redemption Mountain Historical Western Romance Series

Shirleen Davies

 Bull Mason has built a life far away from his service in the Union Army and the ravages of the Civil War. He’s achieved his dreams—loyal friends, work he enjoys, a home of his own, and a promise from the woman he loves to become his wife.

Lydia Rinehart can’t believe how much her life has changed. Escaping captivity from a Crow village, she finds refuge and a home at the sprawling Redemption’s Edge ranch…and love in the arms of Bull Mason, the ranch foreman. For the first time since her parents’ death, she feels cherished and safe.

In an instant their dreams are crushed…

Bull is resolute in his determination to track down and rescue Lydia’s brother, kidnapped during the celebration of their friend’s wedding. He’s made a promise—one he intends to keep. Picking the best men, they are ready to ride, until he’s given an ultimatum.

Choices can seldom be undone…

As their journey continues, the trackers become the prey, finding their freedom and lives threatened.

And promises broken can rarely be reclaimed…

Can Bull and Lydia trust each other again and find their way to back to the dreams they once shared?

Promise Trail is book six in the Redemption Mountain historical western romance series. It is a full length novel with an HEA and no cliffhanger.

Excerpt:

The first thing Bull noticed was her hair. The glorious, long strawberry blonde locks had been cut away, but he had no time to comment before his head exploded at her ear-piercing scream.

“Lydia, stop. It’s Bull. I’m taking you home.”

Holding both arms above her head to fend him off, she didn’t look up, panic taking control. “I won’t go back. I’ll never go back.”

Ignoring her words, he slipped an arm around her back, attempting to pick her up. Instead, her body jerked, arms flailing as she tried to push him away.

“No, no, no. I don’t want to leave.” Her words cut through him, but didn’t deter Bull’s response.

Capturing her wrists in one hand, he drew them above her head, searching her eyes. The pain, fear, and panic he saw might have deterred a weaker man. That man wasn’t Bull Mason. Behind the anguish and terror, he could still see the love, the Lydia he’d want until the day he died.

Tightening his grip, he leaned closer. “I’m not leaving you here. You can walk or I’ll toss you over my shoulder, but you are coming with me.”

Fear turned to resolve as she glared back at him, her voice rising. “I won’t go back to the ranch or Splendor or anywhere with you.”

“Of course you’re going back.” His grip loosened a little. Big mistake.

Hardening her heart, she said the only thing she hoped would stop him. “I don’t love you anymore.”

She saw pain flicker across his face, her chest constricting at his agonized expression. An instant later, to her dismay, it was replaced by a look of pure determination.

“To hell with this.” His muttered words were followed by him picking her up, flinging her over his shoulder. Exiting the tipi, he felt her hands beat on his back, her feet connecting with his legs. “Stop it, Lydia. We’re going home. You can tell me how much you hate me later.”

Promise Trail Buy Links: 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01K4YWPZY

iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/promise-trail/id1148435499?mt=11

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Shirleen_Davies_Promise_Trail?id=Mx_qDAAAQBAJ

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/promise-trail

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31426670-promise-trail?from_search=true

Amazon Author Page Information and General Bio for Books

Shirleen Davies writes romance—historical, contemporary, and romantic suspense. She grew up in Southern California, attended Oregon State University, and has degrees from San Diego State University and the University of Maryland. During the day she provides consulting services to small and mid-sized businesses. But her real passion is writing emotionally charged stories of flawed people who find redemption through love and acceptance.  She now lives with her husband in a beautiful town in northern Arizona.

Shirleen loves to hear from her readers.

Write to her at:  shirleen@shirleendavies.com

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Part of One Week in Your Arms takes place on a fictional resort on Kauai, the fourth largest of the Hawaiian Islands. Kauai is regarded as the Garden Isle due to its lush emerald landscapes and tropical flowers. Besides the beach, the island offers some great sights, some of which the heroine, Marla, got to see while she was trapped in paradise with ex-lover and billionaire Carson Blackwell. Wouldn’t we all like to be so lucky!

Kilauea Lighthouse is located on the north shore of the island is Kilauea Point where the historic lighthouse and a wildlife refuge are located. The lighthouse stands at the northernmost point of the island. Completed in 1913, the white lighthouse with its red top helped guide both sea and air travel to the islands until 1976. It is now a historic landmark and open for tours. Also, the surrounding area is a wildlife refuge where many of Hawaii’s tropical birds thrive.

Alekoko Fishpond was supposedly built overnight by mythical island elves known as the Menehune. The Menehune were short, only about two feet tall, and stout. They slept in caves during the day and worked in the mountains at night. Master builders, they could create great feats overnight. They loved dancing, singing, and archery. They used magic arrows on an angry person to replace their anger with love.

Old Koloa Town and Koloa Heritage Trail is located where Kauai’s sugar industry was born in the 1800’s. The historic town represents the sugar plantation era and includes old-fashioned storefronts, a general store, and a vintage Texaco gas station. The gateway to the Koloa is called the Tree Tunnel. A stretch of hundred-year-old eucalyptus trees along Maluhia Road welcomes visitors. The Koloa Heritage Trail offers both cultural and geological sites.

 Spouting Horn is a large blowhole on the island’s South Shore. The Spouting Horn releases a huge spray of water during swells when the surf channels into a natural lava tube. The loud hiss and roar of the Spouting Horn is the basis for a local legend. Kaikapu was a large lizard that guarded the coastline, and it would eat anyone who tried to fish or swim along the coast. Liko, a young boy, decided to outwit the lizard. The lizard attacked Liko, who stuck a sharp stick in the lizard’s mouth, then escaped through the lava tube and the blowhole. The lizard chased after the boy and became stuck in the

Famous waterfall on Kauai island taken from the air

lava tube. At the Spouting Horn, you can hear trapped Kaikapu’s roar and see her breath spray from the blowhole.

Jurassic Park Falls is officially called Manawaiopuna Falls, but due to being featured in the movie Jurassic Park, the waterfall earned a new nickname. The Manawaiopuna Falls is a 360-foot high waterfall located in a remote area of the island. Once unknown, it is now one of the most popular tourist attractions on the island.

New Release

My newest book, ONE WEEK IN YOUR ARMS, is mainstream contemporary romance filled with witty, charismatic characters. The fun, fast-paced plot features a secret baby, a billionaire baby daddy hero who needs a pretend girlfriend for a week, and a pretty doctor who is desperate to keep her child a secret. Unfortunately for the intrepid heroine, Marla, she needs money for her community clinic so she has no choice but to spend a week in paradise with the one man who can destroy her life. How can she say no?

ONE WEEK IN YOUR ARMS is the first book in Love Heals All series where romance causes havoc, heartache, and humor for a cast of unsuspecting doctors until they realize love heals all.  Published under the Lyrical Shine imprint of Kensington Books, each book can be read as a stand-alone. They do feature the same location and continuing characters. The next book in the series is EVERYTHING HIS HEART DESIRES, coming in Jan 2017.

Excerpt: 

She picked up the letter opener. Her heart palpitated in sheer terror as she slid the opener under the flap of the envelope. With the envelope open, she peeped inside to see one folded sheet of stationery.

After six years, what could he possibly have to say?

She pictured him, standing beside a black truck in the drive of Royal Oaks, an old estate belonging to his grandmother. She recalled the date. June twenty-eighth. The day they had said goodbye had been a warm, blustery day in Tennessee. A summer storm was heading toward the rolling hills near Nashville.

The wind made a mess of Carson’s unruly dark hair. His dark blue eyes were hidden by a pair of mirrored lens aviators, and his alpha-male physique tested the seams of his polo shirt.

“If I’m ever back in town, I’ll look you up,” he promised as their casual affair came to an inevitable end. For three weeks, they had been together and finally, the time had come for them to go their separate ways. She hadn’t realized it would be so difficult.

“Sure.” She forced a smile of goodwill. After all, they weren’t parting in anger, or in love for that matter. And it was unlikely that she would ever see him again.

“I had a great time,” she confessed boldly. She’d loved every minute of their brief, steamy affair. Talk about a summer break to remember. She grinned.

He gave her cheek a stroke. “You’ll make a great doctor.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “You certainly know all there is to know about male anatomy.”

“Yours, at least.” She laughed. Then she hopped up on her toes and gave him a quick kiss. “Goodbye, Carson Blackwell.”

She stepped away from him. Now was the time to face what was ahead. A grueling three-year residency. There would be no more time for long summer nights, tangled sheets, and sighs against swollen lips. She walked toward her small, sturdy hatchback. Before she opened the driver’s door, she looked up and met his gaze.

“Goodbye,” he called.

At that moment, she’d had an odd sensation in her chest that her life was never going to be the same.

Buy Links:

Amazon   http://amzn.to/1SCo3li

Nook http://bit.ly/1VmaHru

Kobo   http://bit.ly/1Vma8Oe

iBooks http://apple.co/1W6y6l6

I’m celebrating the coming of fall and the release of my first book in my new contemporary romance series by giving away a batch of my Kindle ebooks and a $20 Amazon gift card. You can enter by leaving a comment and email address on this blog and add extra entries by going to my Giveaway post on my blog: http://patricia-preston.blogspot.com/2016/08/celebrating-new-release-monthbatch-of.html  Drawing will be on Sept 30^th. Winner notified via email.

Author Bio

Patricia Preston writes mainstream romances where love matters most. You are her reader if you like fun, passionate, feel good reads. Must haves in her writing cave include sweet tea and music. Besides writing, she loves music, history, taking road trips, and anything containing chocolate. Her dream-come-true would be a townhouse in the French Quarter. She never misses Supernatural or the Walking Dead. She is repped by the Seymour Agency and currently working on a contemporary romance series, Love Heals All, for Lyrical Shine imprint of Kensington Books.

Available titles include Amazon best sellers, “The Yard Sale” and “Laid to Rest,” as well as sexy historical romances: To Save a Lady and Almost an Outlaw. Coming in September is the first book in the Love Heals All series from Kensington Boos, One Week in Your Arms. Also available for pre-order is the second book in the series, Everything His Heart Desires.

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Yesterday I had one of those experiences that make me feel I only open my mouth to insert my foot. My most recently released book, A Daughter’s a Daughter, starts with a bang when my fiftyish heroine loses her job in the Wall Street meltdown. Suddenly she’s forced to confront the emptiness of her life since her husband died and her daughter grew up and became estranged.

It’s an enticing storyline to women in midlife, since so many of us come to a crossroads and don’t immediately know which way we’re going next. This book features a new romance for Pam, my main heroine, a new professional direction in her life, and much personal growth in her family relationships. The story also is told from the point of view of her ambitious young daughter, Linley, a cable television financial reporter who has a hot love affair with her handsome coworker. If that’s not interesting enough, there’s a new neighbor next door to Pam’s mother, Dorothy, out at the beach on Long Island, and he’s using his cute dog to start up a friendship with the redoubtable old lady because he has a secret agenda.

I brought a copy of A Daughter’s a Daughter over to a friend’s house as a gift. Okay so far, but then I goofed. When she asked me what it was about, I felt compelled to mention that the heroine realizes during the course of the story that her previously extremely competent, retired social activist mother has begun to develop dementia. I don’t want to sideswipe anyone who is having a hard time with a family member or friend in a similar situation. So I mentioned the dementia, which is just one of many interesting adult issues in this story, and my friend immediately shut down. I’m pretty sure she’ll never read my book, which is a shame, because my elderly character, Dorothy, is a grand old gal who has led a fascinating life and is still a vivid personality.

Women’s fiction is not just about young people falling in love and marrying the right person for the first time. In the women’s fiction world, both good stuff and bad stuff happens. Yet by the end of the story, the main heroine comes to a position of peace and acceptance about the things she can’t change, and she’s also made great inroads on changing the things she has discovered are within her power to change. Pam, my fiftyish heroine, grows and makes new choices. She faces up to the life situations that previously daunted her. But of course her mom isn’t going to suddenly be cured of dementia. Am I supposed to invent a fake medical breakthrough or pretend old age never happens?

A Daughter’s a Daughter is a story of life renewal for my baby boomer heroine. Through her mother’s memories, it’s my nod to the post-World War II years, to the women who were young wives then and coped with a very different world from the one we have now. And then there’s the annoyingly self-centered young heroine (who isn’t as nasty as the daughter in Mildred Pierce, but she comes close), who finally learns the lesson that she ought to treat others better. This story even has a cute dog, too.

I hope being honest about just one aspect of this big, juicy read has not doomed the copy sitting on my friend’s end table to remain unopened. Enjoy the excerpt below and consider checking out the many pleasures of A Daughter’s a Daughter.

 EXCERPT from A Daughter’s a Daughter:

“I got us a great opportunity. A spot on the Today Show tomorrow morning. They want to interview you about how it feels to have been laid off from Menahl.”

Pam grimaced. Those jackals outside the building this morning had wanted fresh blood, too. “Thousands were let go. Why talk to me?”

“Because I called them and pitched it.” There was great satisfaction in Linley’s tone. Her daughter was triumphant at having arranged an opportunity for Pam to be an object of pity on national television. “You wouldn’t believe how many news agencies are interested,” Linley continued. “The Today Show is the big deal.”

“That’s nice, dear. Couldn’t you do it by yourself?” She’d never been comfortable as the center of attention.

“Of course not. They want the story from the person directly involved. From you.” The impatience was in her daughter’s voice again, the undertone that said Pam knew nothing.

The moment stretched out silently.

“You’ll do it, right?” Linley prodded.

Pam cringed at the idea of exposing herself in public. She’d like to help Linley, of course, but she did not want to be on television. “Why not interview Magda instead? She has a more dramatic story. Magda works with—” she corrected herself, stumbling over her words, “she worked with me. She has a son she’s putting through college. Tuition is due in a month and she has no way of making payments if she doesn’t have a job.”

“The interview is with you and me, not with Magda.”

“I’d rather not be on television,” Pam said.

“Say yes.”

“I’d freeze up.”

“I promised you’d be on. Don’t make me a liar.”

“I hate being the center of attention. I can’t.”

“How can you be so selfish?” Linley wailed. “You’re ruining my day.”

Linley clicked off.

Pam stared at the phone. Linley had hung up on her. Oh, technically, Linley could not hang up a telephone she carried in her pocket, but it was the same thing.  Her daughter had hung up on her.

Useless tears trickled down Pam’s cheeks. Why was she so weak? So afraid of being in the public eye?

She and Linley hardly communicated anymore. Unlike her, Linley was ambitious. Linley’s quick success in her glamour career had reinforced her opinion that she was far superior to her mother. An adolescent attitude that hadn’t changed in a decade.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang again.

“It’s me,” Linley said, her voice hard. “You’ve got to do the Today Show. Otherwise, I’ll lose the spot.”

“I—I…”

“If you don’t do this for me, I’ll never speak to you again.”

Pam gasped.

“I mean it,” Linley said.

“You’ll be interviewed, too?” Pam choked out the question.

“Yes.”

“I won’t have to be alone?”

“Yes,” was the impatient reply. Linley didn’t bother to coax.

Pam knew what hung in the balance. “It will help your career?” she asked, anyway.

“Are you kidding?” Linley named the time and the address. “Be there. Or I’ll never speak to you again. Never.” She clicked off.

Pam hung up the land line and stared into space. Linley had not asked her for anything in years. Now suddenly, she demanded this from her mother.

What if Pam made a fool of herself? Being on live television was exactly the kind of public exposure from which she had always shrunk. What if she started crying? Would Linley feel guilty? Would she care?

No use going there. All Linley thought about was the publicity for herself. Was there a chance that doing this would revive their old mother-daughter closeness? In case there was, Pam would go on the Today Show. But how could she keep from making an utter fool of herself or breaking down?

She picked up the phone again. When Dorothy answered, Pam said, “Mom, I need your help.”

BIO:

Award-winning author Irene Vartanoff combined her love of romances and comic books by working for Harlequin, Bantam, Berkley, and My RomanceStory.com, as well as Marvel Comics and DC Comics. She is the author of six published books so far, including Summer in the City, also women’s fiction. The third book in her Selkirk Family Ranch sweet contemporary romance series is coming out soon as is the third book in her chick lit vibe superhero series, Temporary Superheroine.

A Daughter’s a Daughter is available at Amazon:

eBook

Paperback

Or visit Irene Vartanoff’s Amazon author page.

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