Book: A Not So Peaceful Journey
Author: Sandra Merville Hart
Genre: Christian Historical Romance
Release date: June 13, 2023
Dreams of adventure send him across the country. She prefers to keep her feet firmly planted in Ohio.
Rennie Hill has no illusions about the hardships in life, which is why it’s so important her beau, John Welch, keeps his secure job with the newspaper. Though he hopes to write fiction, the unsteady pay would mean an end to their plans, wouldn’t it?
John Welch dreams of adventure worthy of storybooks, like Mark Twain, and when two of his short stories are published, he sees it as a sign of future success. But while he’s dreaming big with his head in the clouds, his girl has her feet firmly planted, and he can’t help wondering if she really believes in him.
When Rennie must escort a little girl to her parents’ home in San Francisco, John is forced to alter his plans to travel across the country with them. But the journey proves far more adventurous than either of them expect.
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Sandra Merville Hart, award-winning and Amazon bestselling author of inspirational historical romances, loves to discover little-known yet fascinating facts from American history to include in her stories. Her desire is to transport her readers back in time. She is also a blogger, speaker, and conference teacher. Connect with Sandra on her blog, https://sandramervillehart.wordpress.com/.
More from Sandra
It was fun to invite readers on this book’s journey!
To those who lived in the 1880s, venturing into this newly-settled and largely-unsettled West had become much safer—though not without danger—with the system of railroads already in place. I enjoyed taking readers to Chicago, Omaha, Oakland, Ogden, and Sacramento, as well as frontier towns along the journey such as Cheyenne.
Our heroine is a telegraph operator. She temporarily leaves her job to escort a little girl to her ailing mother in San Francisco.
My research about telegraph jobs taught me quite a bit of terminology.
For example, a clatter arises when another operator “calls.” The call begins with something like “B m—X n”, which means the B m is the station receiving the call and X n is the caller.
B m must signal a reply that she’s ready to receive the call.
The Sounder receives sounds of the alphabet in dots and dashes. Some operators sent messages too rapidly to understand. When this occurs, the receiving operating asks for it again with a Break (she opens her “key” to break the circuit) and interrupts with “Please repeat.”
“G.A. the—” means “Go ahead” and “the” was the last word she understood.
Operators end every message with his/her own private “call” as well as the office’s call and “O.K.” at the end of each message.
Wired Love, which was written by telegraph operator Ella Cheever Thayer in 1879, provided many insights about the job’s daily tasks.
One of them was the lack of privacy on the lines. She can hear the messages sent to other wires but only offices on the same wire. In Wired Love, operators heard messages sent to and from twenty offices.
By the way, the public grew so fascinated with the role of women in telegraphy that it became the topic of romance novels and short stories, creating a new genre called “telegraphic romance” in the latter 1800s. That’s a little-known fun fact for you!
I enjoyed writing this series. I invite you to read the whole “Second Chances” series beginning with A Not So Convenient Marriage, Book 1, A Not So Persistent Suitor, Book 2, and A Not So Peaceful Journey, Book 3.
lakesidelivingsite, June 14
Alena Mentink, June 14
Betti Mace, June 15
Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, June 16
Texas Book-aholic, June 17
Karen Baney Reviews, June 17
Connie’s History Classroom, June 18
Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, June 19
For Him and My Family, June 20
Lily’s Book Reviews, June 20
Locks, Hooks and Books, June 21
Babbling Becky L’s Book Impressions , June 22
Mary Hake, June 22
Happily Managing a Household of Boys, June 23
Blogging With Carol, June 24
Blossoms and Blessings, June 24
Simple Harvest Reads, June 25 (Guest Review from Donna Cline)
Cover Lover Book Review, June 26
Pause for Tales, June 27
Holly’s Book Corner, June 27
To celebrate her tour, Sandra is giving away the grand prize of a $50 Amazon gift card!!
Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.
https://promosimple.com/ps/2658b/a-not-so-peaceful-journey-celebration-tour-giveaway
8 comments:
Sounds like a book I will enjoy.
@Rita Wray Thank you very much, Rita! Hope you enjoy the journey with John and Rennie.
@traciem Tracie, my inspiration comes in various ways. A comment, a photo, a trip, research--so many things have inspired book ideas.
Good luck on your tour!
Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for sharing your wonderful review of A Not So Peaceful Journey, this sounds like a must read book and series for me
This sounds good!
Reading this book would be a wonderful way to pass a very rainy day. I could imagine I'm traveling with Rennie and John.
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