"Stormy Hawkins" by Ana Morgan

My guest today is Ana Morgan whose debut novel Stormy Hawkins was published yesterday.

When she was small, Ana's dream was to know something about everything. She has studiously waitressed, driven a school bus, run craft service on indie film sets, milked cows, wandered through European castles, wired a house, married a Marine, canned vegetables, and studied the stars. She knows how to change a flat tire but prefers a gallant, handsome stranger who strips off his jacket and spins the lug nuts for her.

She began her writing career with essays about living on an organic farm and raising vegetables for a 100-member CSA. Now, in addition to writing sensual historical romances, she is the current president of From the Heart Romance Writers and an editor for The Talking Stick, a regional literary publication.

Today she tells us about the research she did for her novel: 

A poet-friend confessed recently, when I showed her the cover for my debut romance, Stormy Hawkins, that she had the start of a western romance buried under her bed. But she’d never write it because the research would be too demanding, and take too long.

I was surprised. I love the research aspect of writing stories set in unfamiliar times and places. Maybe this stems from my life-long goal to know something about as many things as possible.

Stormy Hawkins is set on a cattle ranch in 1890 southeast South Dakota. I live on a farm in north central Minnesota, so I had a leg up on some essential aspects of the story. I’ve driven through both North and South Dakota with a husband who provides running commentary about the geological and agricultural history of every small town and continental divide, and who will slam on the brakes to read a historical marker.

We moved to our then-rundown farm in March 1972. The “house” was a roof over three pushed-together hunting shacks. We had running water but no bathroom. The outhouse was a two-seater. My grandmother was the first relative to visit. She bit her tongue and bought for me a wringer washing machine, which I filled using a hose that attached to the kitchen faucet.

My eager hubby went to the local sale barn and bought a Jersey milk cow. She gave birth to twin heifers, and we learned to milk her by hand. Soon we were in the cattle business.

So, I had some first-hand knowledge of what daily life might look, feel and smell like on an 1890’s ranch. Act 1 of my story was research-lite. In Act 2, the heroine Stormy pursues the hero Blade Masters onto a Missouri River steamboat. I needed to research that.

I ordered books from the local library on steamboats. I bought used books—hardcovers with oodles of pictures—from ABE Books (a fantastic resource). I searched historical society websites for riverboat arrival and departure schedules from St. Louis, MO (my hero’s intended destination) to Yankton, SD., and found first-hand accounts of riverboat boiler explosions (frighteningly common) and boat sinkings due to hitting snags (trees submerged under the Missouri River’s surface).

I knew how the characters would dress on the ranch, but made sure to check when jeans were invented. I took a fascinating workshop on the history of clothing so I would envision correctly the fancy dress that Blade orders for Stormy as a ploy to win her father’s trust. (Blade wants to buy their ranch.)

Barbed wire, too. I couldn’t have the characters erect a fence before barbed wire was invented. That detail, and the history of the army forts established along the Missouri River to protect settlers from Indian attack, set the exact date for the story.

My editor at SoulMate Publishing checked on—and correctly called me out on—the dates when double hung windows came into use. She googled the French brandy in the story to see if it could have been imported. (I invented the brand, so yes, it could have.)

The research I gathered to write Stormy Hawkins will be useful as I write the next book in the Prairie Heart series. Book 2 will propel Blade’s sister, Mary, on a Missouri riverboat and port hopping search for her missing fiancé. But, I will have to pull out the picture books. Passenger riverboats were grand conveyances with stately dining rooms, gambling, and promenades—if you had money. Steerage passengers slept beside stacks of cargo and ate what they brought aboard.

Stormy Hawkins

Blade Masters has finally spotted his ideal Dakota Territory ranch, where he can live alone, forget his cheating ex-fiancée, and bury the shards of his shattered heart. All he needs to do is sweet-talk the ailing owner, and his spitfire daughter, into retiring.

If she weren’t desperate, Stormy would never hire a cowhand. She’s learned the hard way that she’s happier working her family’s ranch alone. But, the greedy banker who holds their mortgage just demanded payment in full—or her hand in marriage.

Will this handsome drifter protect her? Or does he have designs of his own?

Available from Amazon