The Beauty Doctor

 

The Beauty Doctor an Excerpt

Guest Post by Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard

“I was wondering if you’ve ever done a nose reconstruction using a forearm flap. They call it the Italian method.” 

He gave her a puzzled look. “Why are you asking?” 

“Because I met a woman who needs such an operation.” 

“Why? What happened to her?” 

“She’s suffering from syphilis. She hasn’t a penny and—” 

His teacup met the saucer with a clank. “This is not a charity hospital, Abigail.”

“But the poor woman—” 

“Have you lost your senses? I’ve been doing everything possible to build an exclusive beauty practice! You’ve seen the class of people we’re attracting here. Do you think for one minute any respectable woman would want to lie on the same operating table as some lady of the night with a syphilitic nose? I am about to create the most ambitious beauty institute the world has ever seen, and I assure you the sick and indigent will not be among my patients. If that’s the sort of medicine you prefer, then I suggest you join some holy order of sisters and become a missionary.” 

“I merely thought, as a doctor, you’d feel that some small part of your skills might be applied for the benefit of those less fortunate.” 

“If I might nudge your memory, you were the one to object when I fixed the ears of that young street urchin. Certainly, he qualifies as the less fortunate of whom you speak. Look what I did for him! And did I ask for anything in return?” He let out an exasperated sigh. “Listen, my goal is to be recognized as the world’s foremost beauty doctor. Others have different goals that you may consider loftier, and that’s fine. But I’m perfectly satisfied with mine.” 

His words only frustrated her more. “I see little difference between an operation to create beauty and one to restore it.” 

“You may be clever with words, but you’re missing the essence of what beauty surgery is all about. Would anyone look at the result of a nose restoration such as you describe and say, Oh, if only my nose could look like that? No, they would never call a nose like that beautiful.” 

“The important thing is not what others say, but how the patient feels. And I believe that any nose, even an imperfect one, would make the woman in question feel a great deal better about herself.” Impulsively, she seized on something else. “What about the twins? You’re willing to operate on them. Are they the type of clientele you’re hoping to attract to the Institute?” 

“The twins are a unique situation. Obviously, there is much to be gained by operating on them in a public forum. Proving, in the most memorable fashion, the miracles a skilled beauty doctor can achieve. And by the way, for our publicity, the twins are allegedly the secret progeny of foreign royalty. All very hush-hush, of course.” He chuckled, the cleverness of this little intrigue lightening his mood. “As you can see, I intend to compromise none of the Institute’s reputation for exclusivity.” 

He turned back to his reading, signaling the end of their conversation—except for the casual question, “How many patients do we have this afternoon?” 

“None.”

His head popped up from the paper. “None?” 

Abigail took vengeful pleasure in his dismay. “You sound surprised, but you know things have slowed down considerably.” 

“I suppose. So many of the ladies are away for the summer. And I have been preoccupied as well.” He thought for a moment. “All right, why don’t you place another advertisement in the New York Clipper? A few more of those theater types wouldn’t be such a bad thing in a slow season.” 

Abigail rose from her chair. “Yes, sir,” she muttered, shutting the door behind her with a good deal more force than necessary. 

As she made her way down the narrow hall, thoughts of her father flooded her mind. She couldn’t remember him ever refusing to treat a patient, regardless of their circumstances. Abigail had wanted so much to be like him. The urgency of her desire to help Riana proved that at least a part of her still felt the same. But she was not a doctor. She could do nothing on her own. There were people who needed her, yet she had no way of helping them. As for the twins, they would have surgery tomorrow—unless there was someone who could stop it.

Love this excerpt? Read The Beauty Doctor!

A Bone-Chilling Mystery-Suspense-Thriller Set in the Edwardian Era

Finalist, Eric Hoffer Book Award

"Beauty is power," Dr. Rome told her. "And with enough power, one can achieve anything."

Straightening noses, trimming eyelids, lifting jowls . . . In the year 1907, his revolutionary beauty surgery is considered daring, perhaps dangerous. Still, women want what Dr. Rome promises. Neither is his young assistant Abigail Platford immune to Dr. Rome's persuasive charm.

Abigail once dreamed of becoming a doctor, though of a much different sort. That dream ended with her father's tragic death from a medical error for which she holds herself responsible. Dr. Rome, who proudly displays his medical degree from Johns Hopkins, seems to believe in her. If he were willing to act as her mentor, might there still be a chance to realize her dream of someday becoming a doctor serving New York City's poor?

But something feels terribly wrong, as though an insidious evil is closing in. Broken promises, lies, and intrigues abound. The powerful are threatening to destroy the weak, and a doctor's sacred duty hangs in the balance. Abigail no longer knows who to believe; but with Dr. Rome now her mentor and her lover, she desperately wants to trust him.

Even when she discovers that one of their patients has mysteriously disappeared.

From bestselling author Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard, a suspenseful work of historical fiction grounded in the social and moral issues of the Edwardian era in America. Second Edition with Author's Preface.

Get your copy of The Beauty Doctor or read FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

Connect with the author

Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard is the author of bestselling historical novels. Her 2023 release, Sisters of Castle Leod, is an Amazon Kindle #1 Bestseller (Historical Biographical Fiction, Historical Literary Fiction), winner of the 2023 Maxy Award for Historical and Adventure Fiction, and an Editors’ Choice of the Historical Novel Society. Her biographical novel Temptation Rag (2018) was hailed by Publishers Weekly as a “resonant novel . . . about the birth and demise of ragtime . . . in which romance and creative passions abound.” Elizabeth’s 2017 historical mystery-suspense-thriller, The Beauty Doctor, was a finalist for the prestigious Eric Hoffer Book Award. The book’s re-release (Jan. 4, 2024) features a stunning new cover and an Author Preface with insights into social and moral issues of the Edwardian era that frame this shocking fictional story set in the early days of cosmetic surgery. Before becoming a full-time author, Elizabeth was executive editor of an international aesthetic surgery journal, and senior consultant to the National Cosmetic Network in conjunction with Johns Hopkins University’s plastic surgery educational program. Learn more about Elizabeth and her books at www.EHBernard.com. You can also connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon Author Page, Goodreads.

What I'm Reading: The Wharton Plot

Last month, I posted the first book review on my blog and decided to make it a habit. This month, I would like to introduce you to The Wharton Plot, a novel by Mariah Fredericks.

My dear readers might know that I adore Edith Wharton. In fact, when tasked with writing a ghost story, the first thing I did was reread my favorites by Wharton, including Afterward. With the goal of creating a story in a similar style, I wrote Among the Lost set in 1927 Northern Michigan.

The Lindburgh Nanny was my introduction to the writing of Mariah Fredericks, and you can read what I thought about it here. Clearly, I enjoyed it enough to jump at the chance to read an early copy of her newest novel. When I received an email from Minotaur Books asking if I’d like to read The Wharton Plot, I said, “Solving a mystery with Edith Wharton? Yes, please!”

Historical facts not treated as spoilers.

Edith Wharton

Since dear Mrs Wharton did not actually have anything to do with investigating the murder of writer David Graham Phillips, this novel is purely fiction, but it was fun to spend time with one of my favorite classic authors in Gilded Age New York. Historically, the murder required no investigation, because the killer was known straight away. If you don’t know who it was or what happened, I won’t give it away here. Fredericks creates a gap in time between the murder and the discovery of the killer in order to take Mrs Wharton on an adventure.

I’m normally a purist when it comes to historical fiction, but Fredericks adjustments to the facts in this case don’t change much at the core of the story and enable the reader to get a good look at the senseless tragedy through Edith Wharton’s eyes.

When Edith wonders that Phillips was gunned down in broad daylight in the middle of the street, her friend makes some derogatory comments about guns, which I thought might have been an anachronistic attitude. However, when I did a bit of research after finishing the book, I learned that this case did actually spur one of America's early gun control laws. It's always nice to learn something when reading historical fiction!

Just how does a middle-aged author end up obsessed with solving the murder of a fellow author whom she just met and didn’t like? “She was aware that she would rather spend the afternoon with the corpse of a man she detested rather than her living, breathing husband.” The failing relationship of the Whartons and women’s limited options in life – even if you’re a woman with Edith Wharton’s resources – are secondary themes in this book and are well done. I could go on about challenges that women still face in this day of being able and expected to do it all, but I have a book review to write.

David Graham Phillips

Edith is initially not impressed by the victim's sister's theory that he was killed by someone trying to halt the publication of his latest novel. "This was why radicals were so irritating. To persuade themselves of their importance, they insisted the entire world was involved in a vast intrigue to thwart them." She investigates a few theories of her own, and through her actions the reader gets a glimpse at The Four Hundred and their shallow interactions and maneuverings. As Edith looks at them with fresh eyes in her search for a killer, she realizes how much they get away with due to their deep pockets. Could one of them have wanted Phillips dead?

He wrote the sort of stories that made people angry, exposing political payoffs and scandalous social lives. Edith is warned to stop digging, which only makes her more eager to discover the elusive truth. "Do not write this. What words could be more provocative to a writer? What clearer sign that there was a story here to write?"

Edith isn't sure who killed Phillips, but she is sure that it has something to do with his writing. Even when one dismissed suspect claims it's a crazy theory because no one cares about books. "The calm assertion that books did not matter was such heresy to her that she had no idea how to refute it." I couldn't agree more, Edith.

Of course, Mrs Wharton does find her killer in a dramatic ending, but that is all I will say about that, so that you can enjoy The Wharton Plot yourself when it is released in January 2024!

Curious about what else I'm reading? Join me on Goodreads or see what other books I have reviewed here on my blog.

Falling for Autumn

One of the first people I asked to read Plantagenet Princess Tudor Queen before it was published pointed out some of my Americanisms that needed to go. The one I remember most vividly was referring to autumn as fall. Upon thinking about it, I agreed that autumn does sound so much nicer, and I've tried to get into the habit of referring to this beautiful, chilly season by the term favored on the other side of the pond.

In October 2019, I was in Ottawa, Illinois, doing research for the book that would become Luminous. I hadn't decided on a title yet, but I was completely drawn into Catherine Donohue's story and felt so honored to walk the streets she had walked and go to Sunday morning worship at her church. Starved Rock was and is a gorgeous place for an autumn hike, so I did, imagining Catherine doing the same all the while.

In Luminous, it is during a trip to Starved Rock that Catherine and Charlotte first encounter a little bird that they would meet several times through their tragic journey. This element of the story was taken from a newspaper article in which a descendent of Charlotte's mentioned that she would say a little bird was a visit from Catherine long after her friend had died of radium poisoning. I decided this little bird deserved its own place in the story and called it Hope.

The following October, in 2020, I was on a rather different trip. Along with my husband and youngest son, I toured the old Northern Michigan Asylum in Traverse City. Now called the Village at Grand Traverse Commons, this lovely old place is partly renovated shops and housing and part dilapidated ruins that get a creative mind churning. At the time though, I couldn't think of what exactly to do with this amazing setting.

A few months later, I was approached about writing a ghost story for Historical Writers Forum, and I knew just where mine would take place. Besides the breathtaking views of trees and surrounding lakes, the old asylum has tunnels that used to serve as its heating system. An Edith Wharton style ghost story started forming in my mind and eventually was published in the Hauntings anthology.

My story was titled Among the Lost, and since I had recently published Luminous, I decided to set it during the same time, 1927, and give a nod to my Ottawa ladies in a glow-in-the-dark painting owned by one of the asylum residents. I also couldn't resist having another patient who loudly and randomly quoted Dante, which gave me the title. If you've already read Hauntings, you know what is discovered within the tunnels of the asylum.

Living in Michigan, I have a love-hate relationship with autumn. It's absolutely gorgeous, and I love the onset of sweatshirt weather, going on hikes, and trying to take photos that capture nature's majesty. However, Michigan's seasons aren't as balanced as they should be, and that crisp wonderfulness quickly devolves into cold, wet, snowy bleakness. If we could just get more than a couple weeks of perfect pumpkin spice fall...

This October, I am working on two James A Hamilton projects, neither autumn themed I am sad to say, but one that will be available to my dear readers soon. You probably already know that I am working on a biography for Pen & Sword that is scheduled for publication January 2025, but if you've been enjoying my posts about James and would like something sooner, you're in luck! This year's Historical Writers Forum anthology contains short stories based on works of art, and I decided that mine would be the marble statue of Alexander Hamilton that was destroyed in New York's Great Fire of 1835. In this short story, James reflects on his life and ponders if he has honored his father's legacy. Masterworks is available now for only 99c and is free with Kindle Unlimited.

One more little bit of news before I go. In response to requests for signed copies of my books and for those who prefer to "shop small" rather than through Amazon, I have opened up a little online bookshop. Orders here will be filled directly from my home to yours, so I can sign books and will include little bonuses like stickers and bookmarks. Please keep small businesses, and especially independent writers, in mind as you consider your Christmas shopping this year. 

Enjoy this fantastic season while it lasts, and happy reading!

All photos taken by me at Starved Rock State Park, the Village at Grand Traverse Commons, and around my home in southwest Michigan. If you enjoy my photos and writing/research updates, please follow me on Instagram or Facebook.

Dancing in the Ring

Good morning, dear readers!

As a Michigander myself, I jumped at the chance to welcome a fellow writer from our Great Lakes state to the blog today. Susan Sage has published three novels: Insominy (2015), A Mentor and Her Muse (2017), and Dancing in the Ring (2023), from which she shares an excerpt with us today. This story takes place in the tumultuous years between World Wars, so if you loved Luminous, check it out!

~ Samantha

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An Excerpt from Dancing in the Ring

Guest Post by Susan Sage 

“Robert, dear, your pacing is riling up our dead,” his mother said, referring to their lost loved ones. She often made similar comments: “Your cursing is waking up our dead,” or “Your bad mood is disturbing our dead.” It was a way to manipulate his behavior, and it wasn’t unusual for her to converse with them — especially when she thought he might be listening.

“Ma, for the love of Pete, will you please stop with the blarney? Catherine’s over an hour late and I can’t wait forever. If you recall, I’ve got a big match tomorrow.”

“Of course, I remember, Bobby,” she said, softening her tone. Ever since she’d been home from the hospital, she’d seemed more forgetful. “But I don’t see why you can’t open a law book without her at your side. How are you ever going to be a lawyer if you don’t put in the work?”

“Don’t you worry about that, Ma,

I’ve always done okay in school, or did you forget that, too?”

She looked as if she’d been slapped.

“Now, Robert Edwardo, you know I think there’s no one smarter than my sons, but time to wind your neck in,” she said, rising with some difficulty from her overstuffed chair.

Catherine once asked him why Nana had chosen ‘Edwardo’ as his middle name and he shrugged, saying he had no idea, though his mother had always gotten a secretive little smile on her lips when asked. No doubt an actor’s name, as Nana had always loved the stage.

READ MORE OF DANCING IN THE RING:

Detroit in the 1920s proved to be the Paris of the West for many – including Catherine McIntosh and Robert Sage. These two law school students become as passionate about each other as they are their dreams.

From a poor family in the Detroit neighborhood of Corktown, Catherine learned early on, the necessity of being resilient. She becomes one of the first women in Detroit to obtain a law degree. Bob, the ‘battling barrister,’ boxes in order to pay for law school. Despite his gruff and tough - boy personality, my great uncle Bob was a friend to all: judges, cops, and even a couple members of the notorious Purple Gang. The couple becomes legendary in legal circles for their commitment to social justice causes – as well as notorious in the local speakeasies and dancehalls.

At first, their optimism seems boundless, as it had for so many following an era of trauma and challenges that include the 1918 flu pandemic. It isn’t long before their passionate courtship turns into a tempestuous marriage. Then the Great Depression hits and their lives are forever changed.

Get your copy of Dancing in the Ring - read it for FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

The Eisenhower Chronicles

I am pleased to welcome M.B. Zucker to my blog today. As a fellow biographical fiction writer, Zucker has taken on a fascinating historical figure. In his Eisenhower Chronicles, readers will experience some of the most exciting moments of the 20th century.

Welcome, Mr Zucker!

~ Samantha

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Eisenhower Chronicles: An Excerpt

Guest Post by Michael Zucker

It is early 1942. America has entered WWII following the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Ike has become a protege to Army Chief of Staff George Marshall. He is in charge of the War Department's War Plans Division. He contemplates the state of the war and discusses an interesting proposal for the first time...

Ike concentrated on a logic tree of wartime priorities he was drawing for the Combined Chiefs while hunched over his office desk. The fall of Britain, or Russia, or India will give the Axis a greater industrial output than the Allies. That can’t be allowed to happen. Our industrial power is the key to victory.

He glanced at a map that hung on the wall. Ike envisioned recent events in his head, picturing the ultimate nightmare if fortune did not reverse and the Axis maintained its momentum.

The Axis currently controls about one-third of the Earth’s surface. Nazi U-boats dominate the Atlantic. We’re losing dozens and dozens of ships per month. Hundreds of thousands of tons of material. Even our sea lanes to South America are at risk of being cut off. But the situation in the Eastern Hemisphere is infinitely worse. The Nazis are poised to overrun the Soviets in the Caucasus Mountains and Rommel’s pushing back the Brits in Egypt. Those two German thrusts can link up in the Middle East and quickly overrun that region. U-boats could then cross the Red Sea and enter the Indian Ocean. The Japanese, meanwhile, are overrunning the Dutch East Indies and could push through Burma and into India. The Nazis and Japanese could then link up near the Himalaya Mountains. And that would be it. The joining of the Axis armies would mark the entire Hemisphere’s fall to totalitarianism. Russia and China will be defeated and forced to surrender. Churchill will probably get thrown out of office with a No Confidence vote and Britain will make a deal with Hitler to avoid total destruction. Before too long the Axis will turn its attention to our Hemisphere. And America, with all its might, won’t be able to resist the combined strength of the entire rest of the world, no matter what Lincoln said. Americans will lose their freedoms. Freedom of speech. Right to a fair trial. Everything. We’ll all be Hitler’s slaves. The whole world.

That’s why I don’t get what’s wrong with this country. Why wasn’t it ready? My countrymen aren’t stupid. They must have seen what was at stake when Hitler took one country after another. And how could the Navy be caught with its pants down at Pearl Harbor? Because of that Japan has conquered half of the Pacific. How are so many people messing up this badly with this much at stake? What is wrong with people? And the Navy is still messing up. And MacArthur. And…

I need to calm down. We have a lot of smart people here. They’re getting a lot of the big decisions right. Like choosing to prioritize Germany over Japan. Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Combined Chiefs were right about that. I was wrong to question them. Yes, military doctrine says to target the weaker enemy first. But in this situation, that’s Germany. The Germans have more of their firepower pinned down fighting the British and the Soviets than the Japanese do in the Pacific. And besides, defeating Japan would do nothing to help Stalin. Our top priority needs to be to keep Russia in the war. Especially when there are rumors that Stalin has been asking Hitler for peace terms. If only there was some way to relieve pressure on the Russians.

Ike looked at the map. The Allies needed to slow the Axis advance. But more importantly, they needed to destroy the German Army. The German Army was Hitler’s center of gravity. Destroying it would force Germany’s surrender. That was the only way to win the war. But how would the Allies do that? Germany ruled the continent. The Allies had no way to even reach the German Army and fight it in a capacity large enough to destroy it.

The British are fighting Rommel in Egypt, but the Afrika Korps is a fraction of the entire German Army. The Soviets are fighting a huge portion of it, but they lack our industrial power and are taking excessive casualties. We need somewhere we can engage the bulk of the German Army and defeat it. I feel like that keeps leading me back to…

Ike turned to General Clark, one of his oldest friends in the Army.

“Can I talk to you?” Ike asked.

“Of course,” Clark replied. “What is it?”

“I think I know how we’re going to win the war in Europe.”

Clark froze. He turned away from his own desk to listen to Ike. A two-star general knew how to beat Hitler?

“Let’s hear it,” Clark said.

Ike hesitated.

“I think we need to cross the English Channel and invade the coast of France.” He had goosebumps saying it out loud for the first time.

Clark’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“Ike, there hasn’t been a successful cross-channel attack since William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings in 1066. And there’s never, in the history of warfare, been a successful attack from England and into France. What you’re talking about is without any precedence in military history. And against the toughest enemy imaginable.”

“Hear me out, Mark. When I served in Panama under Conner, he made me study the Civil War in extreme detail. Every general, every strategy. What worked and what didn’t. And you know what I learned? That Ulysses Grant was the best general we ever produced. He defeated Lee and saved the Union.”

“Which he did through brute force. Grant was a butcher.”

“No, he wasn’t. His casualties were lower than Lee’s. Grant did it by systematically destroying Lee’s Army. Not by taking Richmond, the Confederate capital. Not with some special maneuver like outflanking the Confederates. He did it through attrition. He targeted Lee’s Army, like Clausewitz wrote about in On War, and he destroyed it. That forced Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. There’s no special button we can press to defeat the Third Reich. I want us to do to Hitler what Grant did to Lee.”

“And we’d have to invade France to do that?”

“It’s the only land area large enough to engage the German Army on a large scale and defeat it decisively.”

“North Africa’s obviously not large enough. And there’s not enough of the German Army there to fight. What about the Russian front? We could put forces there and help Stalin defeat the German Army there.”

“Our lines of approach would be too long.”

“We could go through Murmansk from the north or from the Persian Gulf via the Cape of Good Hope from the south. We’re already sending the Russians war material that way.”

“I don’t think we could send millions of soldiers as well. Besides, I don’t see Roosevelt and Marshall wanting to rely on Stalin that much. I see them agreeing to a cross-channel attack before they’d ever make that deal with Stalin.”

“What about going through Norway?”

“It’s not large enough for the type of ground campaign we’d need to defeat the German Army.”

“Portugal? Spain? We wouldn’t have to go through the Atlantic Wall.”

“Maybe. But France is closer to Germany, so it would be closer to the heart of Hitler’s empire and engage the German Army faster. Plus, it wouldn’t pull Franco into the war.”

Clark nodded, persuaded.

“What timeline are you thinking?”

“If Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Combined Chiefs get on board with this now, we can invade France by early next year. The Brits would have to take the lead, since we’d still be building up our military.”

“Did you think of this just now?”

“I actually thought of it last September. But the more I think about grand strategy, the more I’m convinced that that’s the only way to beat Hitler.”

It’s strange. I’ve spent every day thinking about Hitler since November 1938. How he’s putting his own selfish interests over his duty to humanity, the threat he poses, how to stop him, how to defeat him. But he’s never heard of me. Doesn’t know I exist. Life is odd.

The Eisenhower Chronicles by M.B. Zucker

In 1938 he was a lieutenant colonel stationed in the Philippines; by 1945 the world proclaimed him its savior. From leading the forces of liberal democracy against history’s most evil tyrant to the presidency, Dwight D. Eisenhower fought for and kept the peace during the most dangerous era in history.

The Eisenhower Chronicles dramatizes Ike’s life, portraying his epic journey from unknown soldier to global hero as only a novel could. He is shown working with icons such as FDR, Winston Churchill, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and confronting challenges like D-Day, the Little Rock Crisis, and Sputnik.

Eisenhower’s legacy is grounded in defending the world from fascism, communism, and nuclear weapons. This novel shows how he accomplished it all and takes readers into his mind and soul, grounding the history in the man who made it.

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, and Kobo.

Connect with M.B. Zucker

M. B. Zucker has been interested in storytelling for as long as he can remember. He discovered his love of history at fifteen and studied Dwight Eisenhower for over ten years. Mr. Zucker earned his B.A. at Occidental College and his J.D. at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He lives in Virginia with his wife.

Connect with him through his website or on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Amazon Author Page, and Goodreads. 

On Bur Oak Ridge by Jenny Knipfer

 

It is my pleasure to welcome Jenny Knipfer as my guest today with an excerpt from her new book. If you loved Luminous, you might consider On Bur Oak Ridge for your next read.

Welcome, Jenny!

~ Samantha

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Excerpt from On Bur Oak Ridge

Guest Post by Jenny Knipfer

Molly - Late September 1919

I see him, but I can’t move. I stand rooted in place like a tree with my arms outstretched.

“Momma!” he giggles with glee, and he runs toward me, dangerously close to the vat of boiling water.

Water vapor rises from the vat and hangs suspended in the air in a slow, surreal way. Some soap bubbles float large and free, growing until they burst, appearing like a shimmer of glitter around the halo of Lonny’s blond ringlets.

My frozen-in-place arms strain to rescue him, but they are immovable. I’m helpless to prevent what’s coming next—what I’ve seen over and over and over again. The vat supports creak and groan, the mechanism tips, and Lonny is lost in a sea of boiling water and bedsheets. Next, I feel the hiss and pain. My hands fly to my face, where the burning-hot, carbolic water sears my skin. My voice strains to scream, but no sound issues from my wide-open jaws…

“Molly? Molly!”

It takes me some seconds to realize that Mabel’s form hovers over me, grooves edged on her face, set deeper in the faint glow of the candle she holds in one hand.

“You must have been dreaming,” she says, somewhat breathlessly, and she sits on the side of the bed next to me.

I blink my eyes several times and try to make sense of her words.

Her eyes, flecked with questions, reflect the flame. “We heard you moaning.”

She reaches out and smooths some hair away from my face.

I’m grateful she doesn’t inquire about the origin of my dream. I push up on my elbows and raise myself into a sitting position, working to calm my breathing.

“I’m sorry I’ve disturbed you,” I growl out, my throat dry.

She sets the candle on the nightstand. “There’s no need to apologize.” Turning back, she asks, “Do you want to tell me about it?”

How do I explain?

Swallowing, I begin, “I was dreaming about...my son.”

One of her brows hunches lower. “It must not have been a pleasant dream.”

She tilts her head, waiting. Patient as ever.

“No.” I pause and search her eyes in the candlelight. “Did...Robin tell you about the accident?”

She nods. “Some. I know you got burned, but I didn’t know your son was also involved.” She shakes her head. “Well, I know you had a son, but Robin didn’t say how he...” She lets her explanation hang and squints her eyes. “What did happen?”

I don’t want to talk about it now. It’s not that I don’t trust Mabel, but I don’t want to relive it again, not twice in one night.

“I think I need to rest. Do you mind if I tell you the whole story another time?” I plead.

She stands. “Of course. I...shouldn’t have asked.”

I intercept her hand as she reaches for the candle. “I want you to know the truth, Mabel, but I just can’t bear thinking about it anymore tonight.”

She nods and barely smiles.

Linc appears in the open doorway to my bedroom, his hair on end and his eyes droopy. “Is everything all right?”

Guilt pricks at me for interrupting my hosts ’sleep.

Mabel steps close to her husband, a confident tone to her words. “Nothing we can’t handle.”

I value my friend’s loyalty and protection so much.

“Nothing but a dream,” I say and moisten my dry lips with my tongue.

But dreams have more substance than nothing. At times, they seem like my reality and the life I lead upon this Earth a woeful, fictional tale.

“Good, good.” Linc runs a hand through his hair and yawns. “Tomorrow comes early. Let’s get back to our rest.”

Mabel steps through the doorway, offering a consoling lift of her lips to me before disappearing into the hallway. Linc nods once more, steps back, and closes the door behind him.

I lean my head on the metal bedframe, close my eyes, and breathe—in...and...out. Several bouts of this rhythm help quiet my yet pounding heart.

That particular type of dream hasn’t manifested in some time; they sporadically reoccur. I tire of the burden and wish to have them as aptly erased as rubber erases lead off paper. But their stain remains, in my mind, on my body, and forever within my heart.

I lie back on my pillow in the darkness and pray quietly for peace.

“God, You’ve helped me again and again through my struggles. You never relinquished me to the darkness of my own thoughts or dreams but called me into the light. When my heart broke from grief, you comforted me with the thought that I will see my son again and that You are with him. I like to envision him picking daisies in a wide-open field with other small children while You watch. Your word says that Your eyes are ever on Your children."

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“The plot has its twists and turns to keep readers intrigued…to the very end. A great comfort read that will soothe the spirit with renewed hope and faith.” Readers’ Favorite five-star review

A HISTORICAL NOVEL OF FINDING HEALING AND A SECOND CHANCE AT LOVE

In the early 1900s, quiet and reserved Molly Lund finds refuge from her past at the Nelsons ’farm in Minnesota. In an attempt to turn a new page in her life, Molly works at making peace with her losses and coming to terms with the disfiguring burns on her face.

Samuel Woodson, the Nelsons ’hired hand, carries his own cares. Split from his family and bearing a burden of misplaced guilt for an act that haunts him, Samuel–seeing past Molly’s scars–draws her out of her self-protective shell.

Molly and Samuel form a friendship, but just as their hearts lead them deeper, an unexpected guest comes calling, demanding what’s his.

Will Molly and Samuel find a way to be together or will they be separated, due to impediments beyond their control? Can they trust in God’s plan and travel a path that heals the hurts of the past?

Readers of historical fiction, Christian historical fiction, and Christian historical romance will delight in this beautifully wrought story of the healing power of love.

“A heartwarming story of healing from external and internal scars. Through some of life’s harder lessons the characters learn to trust, forgive, and find second chances out of the ashes of pain and loss.” Anne Perreault, author of eighteen inspirational novels, including the Yellowstone series

Trigger Warnings: Grief, trauma from burns, accidental death, time in an insane asylum

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Connect with Jenny

Jenny lives in Wisconsin with her husband, Ken, and their pet Yorkie, Ruby. She is also a mom and loves being a grandma. She enjoys many creative pursuits but finds writing the most fulfilling.

Spending many years as a librarian in a local public library, Jenny recently switched to using her skills as a floral designer in a retail flower shop. She is now retired from work due to dis-ability. Her education background stems from psychology, music, and cultural missions.

All of Jenny’s books have earned five-star reviews from Readers’ Favorite, a book review and award contest company. She holds membership in the: Midwest Independent Booksellers As-sociation, Wisconsin Writers Association, Christian Indie Publishing Association, and Inde-pendent Book Publishers Association.

Jenny’s favorite place to relax is by the western shore of Lake Superior, where her novel series, By The Light of the Moon, is set.

She deems a cup of tea and a good book an essential part of every day. When not writing, Jenny can be found reading, tending to her many houseplants, or piecing quilt blocks at her sewing machine.

Her new historical fiction, four-part series entitled, Sheltering Trees, is set in the area Jenny grew up in, where she currently lives, and places along Minnesota’s Northern Shore, where she loves to visit. She is currently writing a four-part novella series entitled: Botanical Seasons and a three-part fantasy series entitled: Retold Fairy Tales.

Connect with Jenny on her website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, BookBub, Amazon Author Page, and Goodreads.

 

My readers will know that I have recently immersed myself in American history, so I am excited to welcome Tammy Pasterick to the blog today with some insight into America in the 1910s. 

Welcome, Tammy!

~ Samantha

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America in the 1910s

Guest Post by Tammy Pasterick

When I decided to write a novel set in 1910s Pittsburgh, I knew a little about the time period, largely due to a genealogy project I had been working on for months. My research into the lives of my Eastern European great-grandparents had uncovered many fascinating details about immigrants coming to the United States in the early twentieth century. I had a solid understanding of their living and working conditions as well as the societal challenges they faced. However, I needed to learn so much more about the world outside my great-grandparents’ close-knit ethnic community in order to create an authentic story world for my novel. Below are some of the interesting facts my research revealed. 

During the 1910s, America evolved into an urban nation. Young people left rural areas and farms to settle in the cities to work in the steel, textile, railroad, and food production industries. Cities also expanded due to the ease of travel provided by automobiles, buses, and streetcars while American factories grew larger and more capable of producing a variety of goods. As a result, people stopped making their own clothes, food, and household goods and began shopping at local retailers and in the catalogs of Sears, Roebuck, and Co. and L.L. Bean.

As people moved closer to one another in urban and suburban neighborhoods, they became more fashion and lifestyle conscious. Fashion became more functional, and people avoided clothing that restricted movement. Magazines like

Vogue and McCall’s featured the latest in women’s clothing, hairstyles, and makeup. And as jobs outside the home became more available to women, they became enthusiastic consumers and spent their hard-earned wages. Manufacturers started producing products specifically designed for them.Automobiles such as the Ford Model T and the Cadillac Touring Edition began to take on a stylish look as did buildings. Architects experimented with new modern designs, and an increasing number of skyscrapers were built. The Woolworth Building was completed in New York City in 1913, which was the tallest building in the world until 1930 when the Chrysler building was erected. Pennsylvania Station opened in New York City in 1910, and the Hallidie Building was completed in San Francisco in 1918. It was the first glass curtain wall building in the country.

Throughout the decade, several segments of society continued to be outsiders. By 1914, every southern state and many northern cities had Jim Crow laws that discriminated against Black Americans. But despite their mistreatment, most African Americans approached World War I with courage and patriotism. Approximately 370,000 Black soldiers served during the war, including about 1,400 officers. 

Certain immigrant groups, such as those from Southern and Eastern Europe, were also isolated and viewed negatively by the mainstream. By 1910, they made up 70 percent of the immigrants entering the country. That same year, an estimated three-quarters of New York City’s population consisted of new immigrants and first-generation Americans. But sadly, their presence was not always welcome. The rapidly changing demographics of the country frightened and angered some native-born Americans>—many of Northern and Western European descent—and they deeply resented these impoverished newcomers. As a result, there was intense pressure on immigrants to assimilate and speak English in public. Many even felt compelled to change their last names to hide their ethnic origins. As America was about to enter World War I, anti-immigration sentiment peaked, and the Immigration Act of 1917 was passed. It established a literacy requirement for immigrants entering the country and stopped immigration from most Asian countries.

The reasons these new immigrant groups poured into the country were essentially the same as their predecessors. They wanted to escape religious, racial, and political persecution in their homelands or seek better economic opportunities. Italian and Greek laborers were often enticed to come with the promise of contract labor agreements known as padrones, while Hungarians, Poles, Slovaks, and Bohemians went to work in the coal mines and steel mills. They were hoping for a better life, but working conditions in the steel and coal industries were brutal. Accidents in the mills and mines were common, and injured workers were often let go and forced to pay their own medical bills. The dead were easily replaced by the countless immigrants arriving at Ellis Island every day. But the onset of World War I did provide some temporary victories for the labor movement as worker shortages gave unions leverage in bargaining with companies for higher wages and safer working conditions.

The 1910s were a period of transition in America. The rapid urbanization of the country and new technological developments rearranged people’s priorities and drastically changed the way they lived, shopped, and commuted to work. Changing demographics and the great war in Europe led to increased societal conflict, a rise in xenophobia, and modest advances in the labor movement. It was a decade of transformation—a decade that would spark the imagination of any author. When I completed my research, I had a wealth of ideas for bringing the world of my great-grandparents to life in

Beneath the Veil of Smoke and Ash. 

 

It’s Pittsburgh, 1910—the golden age of steel in the land of opportunity. Eastern European immigrants Janos and Karina Kovac should be prospering, but their American dream is fading faster than the colors on the sun-drenched flag of their adopted country. Janos is exhausted from a decade of twelve-hour shifts, seven days per week, at the local mill. Karina, meanwhile, thinks she has found an escape from their run-down ethnic neighborhood in the modern home of a mill manager—until she discovers she is expected to perform the duties of both housekeeper and mistress. Though she resents her employer’s advances, they are more tolerable than being groped by drunks at the town’s boarding house.

​When Janos witnesses a gruesome accident at his furnace on the same day Karina learns she will lose her job, the Kovac family begins to unravel. Janos learns there are people at the mill who pose a greater risk to his life than the work itself, while Karina—panicked by the thought of returning to work at the boarding house—becomes unhinged and wreaks a path of destruction so wide that her children are swept up in the storm. In the aftermath, Janos must rebuild his shattered family—with the help of an unlikely ally.

Impeccably researched and deeply human, Beneath the Veil of Smoke and Ash delivers a timeless message about mental illness while paying tribute to the sacrifices America's immigrant ancestors made.

Available now wherever you buy books! 
Amazon UK   AmazonUS   Amazon CA   AmazonAU   Barnesand Noble   iBooks   Bookshop.org   Books-A-Million   IndieBound.org 

 

Connect with Tammy:

A native of Western Pennsylvania, Tammy Pasterick grew up in a family of steelworkers, coal miners, and Eastern European immigrants. She began her career as an investigator with the National Labor Relations Board and later worked as a paralegal and German teacher. She holds degrees in labor and industrial relations from Penn State University and German language and literature from the University of Delaware. She currently lives on Maryland's Eastern Shore with her husband, two children, and chocolate Labrador retriever.

Connect with Tammy 

on her website, 

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, BookBub, 

AmazonAuthor Page, and Goodreads. 

Society of the Living Dead

 

In the years following World War I, Radium Dial was one of the best places for working-class girls of Ottawa, Illinois to earn good wages to help support their family or set savings aside for when they were married. Little did those girls know that the material they used to paint watch and instrument dials was slowly poisoning them. Even when realization dawned, they were faced with opposition from the radium industry, which did not wish to see their profits disappear, and the medical community, which had been using radium as a miracle cure. One group of dial painters decided they did not want to see future workers suffer their fate, so they decided to form the Society of the Living Dead.

Pearl Payne took the lead on forming the shockingly named organization. She worked at Radium Dial for less than a year, but she suffered health problems for the rest of her life that were attributed to radium poisoning. Along with coworkers, Catherine Donohue, Marie Rossiter, and Charlotte Purcell, Pearl convinced their lawyer, Leonard Grossman, that they needed to do more than win their own case against Radium Dial. They wanted to “band together, secure legal aid and in general use our organized presence to simplify, promote, and improve the laws relative to those who are maimed due to occupational hazards.”

The called themselves the Society of the Living Dead because some victims of radium poisoning had the eerie appearance of walking corpses. Charlotte Purcell had an arm amputated, and Catherine Donohue’s body wasted away to less than half of her healthy weight. Other women grew giant tumors or had their jaws and noses rot away. The varied symptoms of radium poisoning was one of the factors that made it difficult to diagnose and hold employers responsible.

The Society got the attention of the press and used it to spread awareness of the struggle of the “radium girls,” as they came to be known. Even the women who did not enjoy being the center attention allowed media photos of their emaciated bodies and underdeveloped children to increase sympathy and action. The news stories requested that readers send funds to help support the disabled workers whose families were struggling with medical bills and loss of wages.

Leonard Grossman was vital to the success of the women’s legal cases and the Society’s success at raising awareness. “You hear the voice of the Society of the Living Dead. That is the voice of the ghost women speaking not only here in this room but to the world. This voice is going to strike the shackles off the industrial slaves of America,” he stated in one interview. The women could not have succeeded without his tireless efforts and countless hours of free legal work.

As the former dial painters sickened and died, Radium Dial and other companies in the radium industry fought to deny liability or even the idea that radium might be causing their health problems. Without the work of the Society of the Living Dead, the fight to see radium poisoning recognized as an occupational hazard might have taken years longer. These women’s quest to protect others from the harm they had suffered saved countless lives, even as they lost their own.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My book, Luminous, tells the story of Catherine Donohue, one of the key members of the Society of the Living Dead. Photos of her shrinking frame and her tiny children inspired sympathy and increased awareness across the country, but there is much more to her than those media photos and news stories. Her private struggle is what I strive to capture in Luminous. What did it feel like to fight for your life when even the medical community seemed to be an enemy? How did she cope with watching her health fail at the time of her life that should have been filled with health and happiness? How did a quiet Catholic girl stand up to the might of the radium industry? Find out in Luminous: The Story of a Radium Girl.

Enjoy other articles in the Historical Writers Forum's American History Blog Hop!

 

 

In our not so distant past, women could be institutionalized based on nothing more than the word of their husband. Asylums were a convenient place to dispose of an inconvenient wife. Author AB Michaels is here today with more insight into how easily a woman might find themselves labeled 'crazy' in the early 20th century. I think it might surprise you!

~ Samantha

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Asylums: Enough to Drive Women Crazy

Guest Post by AB Michaels

We all know that women’s rights have been late to the party. State laws didn’t start allowing us to control our own earnings until the mid-nineteenth century, and in many states, women couldn’t manage their own property after they were married. Laws prohibited women from doing things that men took for granted (like smoking in public or using contraception) on the pretext of “protecting women’s health.” Divorce, extremely difficult to obtain, was fraught with social and financial peril (Today’s “no fault” variety didn’t come into play until the 1960’s!). Children were the “property” of the husband, not the wife—she had no right to them if she left her marriage, no matter how disastrous it turned out to be. And of course, we didn’t get to vote in federal elections until 1920, fifty years after the Fifteenth Amendment granted that right to men regardless of color (although it took nearly a century for that right to be solidified without prejudice).

So, it isn’t surprising that when progressive ideas about treating the mentally ill led to the construction of state mental hospitals across the country, many of these institutions were used to keep women in their place. In researching my latest novel, The Madness of Mrs. Whittaker, I came across several cases where women were unjustly committed to such asylums under the guise of treating them for some form of “neurasthenia.”

Neurasthenia, which emerged in the 1830’s, was made popular by the neurologist George Beard in 1869. The diagnosis was used to describe a broad range of maladies that seemed to afflict primarily the middle and upper classes during the late nineteenth-early twentieth century. According to Beard and countless physicians who followed him, these patients were suffering from the “stress” of modern American life. Symptoms included headaches, rashes, painful menstrual periods, and melancholy, all the way up to overly sexual behavior (deemed “lasciviousness”), excessive anger, alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicidal thoughts—in short, any behavior that was not in line with the societal dictates of the time.

I explore how men were treated for neurasthenia in my novel The Price of Compassion (Book Four of “The Golden City” series). The main character, Dr. Tom Justice, has gone through a traumatic experience that results in a physical impairment. The prescription for men back then was action a la Teddy Roosevelt (who was said to suffer from neurasthenia himself). Rigorous physical activity was supposed to get rid of the stress—not a bad idea!

Charlotte Perkins Gillman

Unfortunately, the opposite was true for women. Doctors (overwhelmingly male) told them the cure for their emotion-driven ailment, no matter what it was, was complete removal from the stress of everyday life. They were to have as little stimulus as possible in the hope that their “nervous disorder” would calm down and go away.

To get a sense of what women suffered through during this period, check out the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gillman in 1892. You can download it here.

I won’t reveal anything about the piece except to say it was often categorized as a horror story!

Such a treatment plan was made to order for asylums. Originally such institutions were designed to proactively treat patients with kindness and modern therapeutic techniques. Unfortunately, as soon as the mental hospitals were built, they were filled to excess capacity, leading to overcrowded conditions and a business model that paid more attention to maintenance than therapy.

Thus, if you were a woman who didn’t know your place, and you had a spouse or family member who wanted you out of the picture, it didn’t take much to have you committed against your will so that you could “relearn” what it meant to be an acceptable female in society.

I came across a newspaper article from 1903 in which this happened, and I used it as the historical seed from which my novel grew. A young mother who happened to believe in Spiritualism (a phenomenon I also cover in the book) was accused of being crazy by her mother and sister and was committed against her will to an asylum in South Dakota. How she dealt with her situation inspired me to write my own version, and The Madness of Mrs. Whittaker is the result.

Elizabeth Parson Ware Packard

But a more notorious example can be found from the mid-nineteenth century and has been written about by Barbara Sapinsley in her history, The Private War of Mrs. Packard. Elizabeth Parson Ware Packard, married to a minister, had six children and was active in her husband’s church—until she began teaching principles that he and the church elders disagreed with. She and her husband clashed on theology as well as child-rearing, finances—even the issue of slavery. If ever a marriage was destined to fail, this was it! One argument led to another until Elizabeth’s spouse was angry enough to have her committed to an asylum in Jacksonville, Illinois because she was “a little insane.”

Illinois law in 1860 said that a public hearing had to be held before a woman could be committed—the exception was that a woman’s husband could commit his wife without a hearing and without his wife’s permission! Needless to say, Mrs. Packard was pissed and spent the next three years working to get herself released. Eventually her children pressured the asylum’s doctors enough to release her and they did so—after pronouncing her “incurable.” When she returned home, her husband locked her in an upstairs room and nailed the window shut but she was able to get a message to a friend, who helped her escape and arranged for a hearing at which she was finally pronounced sane—after hearing from male witnesses, by the way, who agreed that it didn’t make a woman insane just because she disagreed with you!

In the meantime, her estranged husband had left the state, taking the children with him; it took several more years for her to right that particular wrong. During that decade and beyond, she worked tirelessly, through speaking, writing and petitioning state legislatures, to get laws passed that protected women from the horrors she’d experienced.

We have come a long, long way from those trying times, and we have strong-minded and strong-willed women like Elizabeth Packard to thank for many of the rights we take for granted today.

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While exploring the remote possibility of contacting her dead husband through a spirit medium, a young widow is pronounced insane and committed to an asylum against her will. As she struggles to escape the nightmare she’s been thrust into, she is stripped of everything she holds dear, including her identity and her reason to live. The fight to reclaim what is rightfully hers will test every aspect of her being, up to and including her sanity. Is she up to the task, or has her grip on reality already slipped away?

Book Six of The Golden City series, The Madness of Mrs. Whittaker explores two major forces of early twentieth century America: the religious movement called Spiritualism and treatment of the mentally ill. Like all of A.B. Michaels ’novels, it is a stand-alone read.

Get it now on Amazon.

Connect with AB Michaels

A native of California, A.B. Michaels holds masters ’degrees in history (UCLA) and broadcasting (San Francisco State University). After working for many years as a promotional writer and editor, she turned to writing fiction, which is the hardest thing she's ever done besides raise two boys. She lives with her husband and two spoiled dogs in Boise, Idaho, where she is often distracted by playing darts and bocce and trying to hit a golf ball more than fifty yards. Reading, quilt-making and travel figure into the mix as well, leading her to hope that sometime soon, someone invents a 25+ hour day.

Connect with AB Michaels on her Website, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Book Bub, Amazon Author Page, or Goodreads. 

The Golden City Series

The Art of Love

The Depth of Beauty 

The Promise 

The Price of Compassion 

Josephine’s Daughter 

The Madness of Mrs Whittaker