It’s Friday the 13th and I’m celebrating with a Lucky Number 7 publishing anniversary (for the month of November book sale) by joining a friend’s 10-year writing anniversary!
Seven years ago on Nov 16, 2013, I self-published my first book, Adella’s Enemy. The inspirational nudge for creating this book (and joining the self-published world) was the invite to join a shared-world writing project with fellow Romance Writers of America® Golden Heart® award finalists Elisabeth (E.E.) Burke and Jennifer Jakes.
Here’s the story inspiration page that I included in Adella’s Enemy…
Have you watched the TV series Hell on Wheels? Would you like to write a railroad romance with a race for riches? Those were the questions asked by Elisabeth Burke and Jennifer Jakes. Without them, Adella’s Enemy would never have been written.
Post-Civil War America was a time of great tension and transition but also incredible opportunities for prosperity—if you played your cards right. Instead of weeks or months to cross America, when its transcontinental railroad was completed in May 1869, the journey was reduced to less than a week. The railroad builders’ and camp followers’ journeys (and fates and fortunes) made Hell on Wheels.
Time is money for travelers and builders—from the worker laying track to the smooth-talking promoter overseeing construction and the proposed route. The proximity of a railroad could make or break a town’s future and a speculator’s fortune. The entire endeavor often became a cutthroat race for riches.
In Adella and Cormac’s story, I like to think their race for revenge, forgiveness and, above all, love provided the greatest riches of all.
The Steam! Romance and Rails series started with three stories that not only shared a unique setting, time, and plot (Kansas 1870 during a cutthroat railroad race for riches) but characters as well…
Adella’s Enemy by me 🙂 Jacqui Nelson
Eden’s Sin by Jennifer Jakes
Kate’s Outlaw by E.E. Burke
For the month of November, you can download these three eBooks (plus three more by Elisabeth) for only 99 cents each.
To read Adella’s Enemy’s blurb and excerpt, click here.
To read more about Elisabeth’s 10-year writing anniversary (and all of her books in the Steam! Romance and Rails world), visit Elisabeth’s blog.
