Day 3 of The Release Gathering for A Quaker Christmas - Meet co author Rachael Phillips!

DAY 3 of a Release Gathering for "A Quaker Christmas" is a special blog from coauthor Rachael Phillips. She is also giving away TWO books (see below)! Comment on the post and leave your e-mail address to enter. This door prize ends September 28th at 11 PM est. Don't forget the ongoing grand prize for the gift card - you get another entry if you Facebook or Tweet this with others and "3" entries if you buy the book! Again if you are having trouble with blogger, visit my reader's page (see the widget on the right) and enter the discussion list to leave a comment or you may e-mail me your comment and I will post it (it's good as an entry to the giveaway for that day). E-mail comment, proof of sharing and /or purchase to blissful63(at)gmail(dot)com.

Here is Rachael -

My novella revolves around a nineteenth-century Quaker girl who loves God and her family. So why, last November, did I find myself climbing around a pirate cave on the Illinois shore of the Ohio River?

Like twenty-year-olds of any era, my 1825 heroine Keturah craves adventure. She sneaks a radical red shawl from a barrel of clothes sent by her non-Quaker aunt and wears it whenever free from her mother’s watchful eye. Charlie, the handsome, magnetic son of a deceased river pirate, has begun attending the local Friends’ Meeting. He promises her a forbidden ride on a steamboat—and a love and freedom she has never experienced.

I went to Cave-in-Rock State Park in Illinois to explore the cavern where Keturah and Charlie awaited the steamboat. I did my research on a beautiful fall day, but the few other tourists left, leaving me to imagine alone. A team of horses and a wagon could easily pull into the wide entrance of this cave, so it was not nearly as dark as when my heroine entered it at night. Of course, she’d heard rumors of river pirates using it as a tavern to entice weary flatboat travelers to dock and sample their peculiar form of hospitality, but all that had taken place a generation earlier—the late 1700s and the first decade of the 1800s.

As I sat, solitary in the shadowy inner chamber, the sun glistened on the sky-blue Ohio outside, and red maples sang gentle autumn songs. But the lichen-scabbed limestone walls whispered dark stories of whole families who disappeared through this cave’s mouth, seemingly absorbed into its ridged, starved-rib walls.

That moment, I really, really wished my big, strong husband had accompanied me!

Sometimes a writer finds herself doing things she never imagined in order to make her book the best it can be. If you’re a writer, what surprises have you encountered on your writing journey?

If you’re a reader, what do you think of Keturah’s relationship with Charlie?  

 

**Rachael is giving away TWO books today only! Leave your answer to her question and your e-mail address for the drawing.  






(UPDATE) Congratulations to Caroline who won Rachael's books!