I am so happy to announce that "Wagons To The Past," my first published novel and my personal best seller, is now available in the AuthorsDen Bookstore. The novel is jam-packed with history and, for anyone with a love of the old west, to quote Semi-Gen.com, "Wagons To The Past" is a "must read." Strangely, though it is billed as a "romance," the majority of "Wagons To The Past" readers have been men. I guess this goes to show that it really is more about the hardships faced by Oregon-bound pioneers than it is about the romance between Luke and Rachel.
"Wagons To The Past" is not your typical time travel novel by any stretch of the imagination. Instead of just one person traveling to a distant time and place, the book depicts the journey of forty-two people--people who were looking for an exciting and rigorous "vacation." Well, they got it. But instead of their tourist train of 25 wagons going only as far as the Rockies in the year 1999, they end up experiencing a real trek west when they join up with an actual 1847 wagon train piloted by none other than Luke Skinner, the most infamous wagon pilot ever to cross The Great Divide.
These reluctant pioneers cross the tricky Platte River, the Rocky Mountains, the Blue Mountains, and the challenging Snake River. They face Cheyenne and Blackfoot Indian attacks, endless deserts, and lakes laden with poisonous alkali. In the end, though, they persevere--they have to if they ever want to find a way home.
I've often been asked where I came up with the idea for the "ghost train" that is the catalyst for the time travel. Truthfully, it was a figment of my imagination. I needed a reason why these forty-two people end up in the past, a freaky, spine-tingling reason, and the idea of a ghostly caravan of pioneers trudging through their camp and disappearing into the night sky was intriguing. You've probably already guessed by now that the "ghost train" is Luke's train--a wagon train of 400 pioneers who died out on the plains in a prairie fire. My time travelers save them the second time around; and the rest, as they say, is history.