Guest Blog: Linda Shenton Matchett and Ivy's Inheritance *Book Prize to Random Commenter **WINNER: Joannie Sico

Dear Readers,

I hope you had a lovely Easter and a great week! This week, we're joined by an author who has been with us before, but she's bringing us a brand new book. The cover is beautiful and Linda's discussion of research is fascinating.

Introduce yourself—name, where you’re from, and something people notice when they meet you.

I’m Linda Shenton Matchett and originally from Baltimore, Maryland. However, thanks to my dad’s job with IBM (International Business Machines but for employees I’ve Been Moved) we moved often while I was growing up. In fact, I attended three high schools! After living in the Washington, DC area after getting married, my husband and I moved to New Hampshire to purchase and run a bed and breakfast. We did that for twelve years, then closed the inn and went back to corporate jobs. Most people comment on the fact that I quickly set them at ease and draw them out.

Tell us about your book—title and back cover blurb?

Ivy’s Inheritance:

Has she fled one untrustworthy man only to be stuck with another?

Ivy Cregg’s father is a gambler, but this time he’s gone too far. He loses his mining fortune and her along with it in a high-stakes poker game. Unwilling to go along with the deal, she hides out with a friend who tells her about Ms. Crenshaw, owner of the Westward Home & Hearts Mail-Order Bride Agency who is in town. The prospective groom is a wealthy man which seems like an answer to prayer until Ivy discovers he made his fortune in mining. Is he as untrustworthy as her father?

After emigrating to America to fight for the Union during their Civil War, Slade Pendleton moved West while working on the railroad, then headed to the plains of Nebraska to seek his fortune. He was one of the lucky ones and now has everything he could ever want. Except a wife. With the few women in the town already married, he sends for a mail-order bride. The woman arrives carrying the telegram that explains her need to flee, but now that she’s safe, she seems to have no interest in going through with the ceremony. Should he send her packing or try to convince her to stay?

Share one thing that you found difficult or challenging about writing this book.

Research can be challenging for authors, especially the further you go back in time. I wanted to dig into the reasons and real stories of the mail-order brides of the Old West. Why did they leave everything they knew to marry a stranger? To travel hundreds or thousands of miles to a place they’d never been. What sort of desperation led to that decision?

I found lots of newspaper ads for brides and grooms and articles of wedding announcements, but only a few small pieces about afterwards, especially if the situation turned out badly such as the time one bride-to-be was held up on her way to the groom and when she arrived, discovered that he was one of the bandits. The 1800s was a time when women had very little voice. They weren’t investigative journalists; instead, being relegated to writing about food, fashion, and furniture or “fluff pieces.” I read several “scholarly” articles that explored mail-order brides, but most addressed the social implications rather than the personal aspect, however, a common theme was that most women became mail-order brides out of desperation, that in normal circumstances, women wouldn’t choose this option.

I then went about brainstorming “dire straits,” and came up with the idea that Ivy’s father lost her in a poker bet, and she would be forced to marry a despicable and much older man. She decides if she’s going to marry, it will be on her own terms. However, as someone city born and bred used to servants, she’s a fish out of water on the prairie in Lincoln, Nebraska

But who should she marry? Another fish out of water!

During my research for another book, I discovered that many non-Americans came to the US during the Civil War to fight on one side or the other of the conflict. According to the National Civil War Museum, about twenty-five percent who served in the Union Army and Navy were foreign born. About five percent of the Confederate Army’s soldiers were foreign born. One especially helpful resource was Harold Holzer’s book Brought Forth on this Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration. Personal recollections are included which helped me build my character, Londoner Slade Pendleton. Even after many years in America, he is sometimes out of his element.

Two fish, one pond: lots of opportunities for misunderstandings.

Ask the blog reader a quirky question or two?

Foreign soldiers during the American Civil War

Question for readers: What would make you leave everything you own to travel hundreds (or thousands) of miles to marry someone you never met?

Share your social media and buy links!

Ivy’s Inheritance Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3Ca3xI6 

Social Media Links:

Website/Blog: http://www.LindaShentonMatchett.com

Facebook Reader’s Page: www.facebook.com/groups/lindashentonmatchettsreadersgroup/

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/lindasmatchett

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lindamatchett

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/linda-shenton-matchett

Photo Credits:

Soldiers: By Internet Archive Book Images - https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14760448774/Source book page: https://archive.org/stream/photographichist02mill/photographichist02mill#page/n163/mode/1up, No restrictions.

Colonel Emil Frey, 82nd Illinois Infantry Regiment: By Unknown author - Emil Spiess: Illustrierte Geschichte der Schweiz, Bd. 3. Zürich 1961., Public Domain.