Release Day: Ellie's Escape

Release Day: Ellie's Escape

Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered Ellie's Escape. I had fun choosing the settings, developing the characters, and writing the story. Ellie is from my hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, and she travels to Gunnison, Colorado (where my good friend and former boss is from). I enjoyed learning about this beautiful area of our great country. I tried to add unusual twists (she is the victim of a bank robbery, yet her prospective groom is a bank manager) to spice up the book.

In addition to unearthing information about Colorado in general and Gunnison specifically, additional research included banking laws and procedures in 1880s America, train travel and schedules from that period, and social customs. As with all my mail-order bride books, I tried to delve into why women were willing to leave all they knew to travel hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles to marry someone they'd never met. I hope you enjoy this glimpse of American history. Here's the blurb:

She’s running for her life. He needs a trophy wife. They didn’t count on falling in love. 

 

Ellie Wagner is fine being a spinster school teacher. Then she witnesses a bank hold up and can identify the bandits. Fellow robbery victim Milly Crenshaw happens to run the Westward Home & Hearts Matrimonial Agency so she arranges for Ellie to head West as a mail-order bride. But her groom only wants a business arrangement. Can she survive a loveless marriage? 

Banker Julian Sheffield is more comfortable with numbers than with people, but he’s done well for himself. Then the bank president tells him that in order to advance further he must marry in six weeks’ time. The candid, unsophisticated woman sent by the agency is nothing like he expected, but time is running out. When her past comes calling, does he have what it takes to ensure their future?

Purchase Link