Five Facts Thursday - please welcome Lizzie Tremaine

Five facts about my writing

What do I hope the reader takes from my book?

First, I'm hoping they feel great for having a satisfying ending, and second, that they have learned more about the history of the Old West, the people from many backgrounds who made up the early American West: Indians, Scots, Poles, Russians, and about horses! I got the idea for the book after we'd just returned from Poland and was thinking of the Polish Immigrants as I researched one of my favourite things, the Pony Express and the history around the time it was running in America. Did you know the 'Pony', as it was called only lasted for eighteen months, and several of those months, it wasn't running at all because of the Indian attacks?

Have I always wanted to be a writer?

When I was seven, I decided to become an equine (horse) veterinarian. A little later, I heard one needed good grades for that… Sooooo…I stuck to it and made it happen, despite everything that came along! Writing? I've always liked writing, but it was mostly personal journals (I have one I've kept since I was 14…plenty of story material there!). After veterinary school, I wrote for horse magazines and veterinary journals. There were stories in me, but I was too busy to seriously contemplate them, being a solo mum of two with my own solo equine veterinary practice and a farm. Still have the rest, but they're older now, and after a serious injury, had to rethink my life. Now, I'm a writer… I take it seriously! I am just starting out, however, and must still feed my family until it takes off! Following an injury four years ago, I've limited my time in my equine veterinary dental specialty practice and I relief-teach chemistry, biology and physics at local colleges.

What inspired me to write A Long Trail Rolling?

My love for history, the Pony Express, the wilds of my country of origin, horses, adventure and veterinary medicine. When I was a young teen, I wanted to enter a long distance horse race running over the Pony Express Trail, from coast to coast. It didn't eventuate, but in A Long Trail Rolling, Aleksandra gets to do what I dreamed of doing.

Who is my literary hero?  

My three favourites have to be Laura Ingalls Wilder, for her stories gave me a real picture of what life was for a young girl growing up in the pioneer times of the American Midwest. They provided me with a sense of where I'd come from, a sense of place, and reinforced core values. We had a wonderful teacher named Mary Catherine Sears, who read the entire series to us every year.  Phillipa Gregory's Factual Fiction shows me just how much history can be learned from reading fiction. Bob Mayer has to be my biggest literary hero, for the tremendous work he does teaching so many writers how to self-publish and do a cracking job of it! Phenomenal.

What's next?
I'm working on the next two books of my Long Trail Series, a quadrilogy of historical adventure sagas following my characters from the wilderness of 1860 Utah to Colonial New Zealand. The Hills of Gold Unchanging is the second. The third, A Sea of Green Unfolding, will follow and research is in progress for the fourth, A Bold Country Evolving. They are factual adventure fiction stories, rich in historical detail, following the escapades of Aleksandra and Xavier as they travel through the1860's. Some would call the first two Westerns, featuring 1860's Utah desert, the Pony Express, the Virginia City Comstock Lode and California Malakoff Diggins. The third details history of Redwood City and La Honda, CA and 1863 New Zealand, at the start of the Waikato Wars, and the fourth continues in New Zealand as war continues to wrack the young nation.

See my webpage for details!  http://lizzitremayne.com/the-long-trails-series/

Buy Link: http://lizzitremayne.com/store/

Website: www.lizzitremayne.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LizziTremayne/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Long-Trail-Rolling/588148927951917

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LizziTremayneWriter 

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/lizzitremayne/

Twitter address  https://twitter.com/LizziTremayne/

About Me: http://about.me/Lizzi_Tremayne

Blurb: 

She didn’t expect to become a target, but she is one now!

It might have been the mare that did it, stopping dead in her tracks, nearly dropping Aleksandra over her shoulder, or maybe it was the flies that buzzed around the blood pooling beneath the butchered man in the Pony Express station doorway. Whichever it was, it got her full attention.

Seventeen year old Aleksandra, trained in the Cossack arts from infancy by her father, finds herself alone and running to prevent her Pa's killer from obtaining a secret coveted by the Russian Czar, one which could alter the forces of power in Europe. Disguised as a Pony Express rider in 1860's Utah Territory, she finds herself in even deeper trouble when she rides full speed into the middle of the Indian Paiute Wars. Her Californio boss Xavier has a strength to match her own, but can they overcome their differences before the ever-increasing odds overtake them?

With this debut Western Historical Adventure, Lizzi Tremayne won the 2014 RWNZ Pacific Hearts Award and was a finalist in the 2013 Great Beginnings. A saga of the Old West with a multicultural cast of those who make up America, it would interest readers who enjoy Westerns, horses, American Indians, immigrants, and the Pony Express. It has a capable heroine, strong historical detail, period veterinary treatment and frontier-pushing characters. It has been compared to the work of Phillipa Gregory, Diana Gabaldon and Jean Auel, with a little Laura Ingalls Wilder thrown in.

The Series:       This novel is the first in The Long Trail quadrilogy of historical adventure sagas 
following Aleksandra and Xavier from the wilderness of 1860 Utah to Colonial New Zealand. 

Excerpt

Lookout Pass, she reminded herself as she neared the summit. Glancing north to the distant white tops of the Onaqui Mountains, she swallowed hard as she thought again of her papa and the fossil he'd fossicked for her from its rocky ledges.

The spotted pony broke into a lope over the crest of the hill and began the mile-long descent. Aleksandra's thoughts filled with memories, she was absentmindedly fingering the fossil inside the medicine bag hung about her neck when she felt the first arrow whizz past her head.

Her heart stopped in its tracks and she flung herself to the left side of the Palouse's neck in a Cossack hang, lying flat against his side.

'Yah! Yah! Let's go, Scout!' she shouted, throwing the reins at him.

He needed little urging to run full tilt down the steep and treacherously rocky trail as the yells of Indian warriors echoed through the narrow valley. The arrows came hard and fast from the southwest, screaming like a mad bunch of hornets.

Smart. Her lips curved in the hint of a wry grin.

The Indians had placed themselves between the trail and the setting sun, so Aleksandra couldn't see her attackers in the glimpses she stole,from beneath Scout's neck, of the world whizzing past. With the ground only three feet from her head, the scent of sage filled her nostrils when Scout crashed through a clump of brush. Briefly considering letting go of one of her death-grip holds onto the racing horse to pull a gun from her holster, something akin to suicide, she tightened her lip in a grimace and stayed put, trusting far more in the Palouse's speed and handiness to save them. Knowing her weight hanging off to one side had to put him off his best, she tried to stay out of his way, keeping as still as possible, tucked down on the side of the skidding and leaping beast. Praying the cinch would hold, she sent fervent thanks to the pony selectors for their choice of horses.

How I'd love to have my bow and arrows, but I only need to get us through to Doc Faust at Rush—

The Palouse interrupted her musings as he threw up his head and reared, angrily trumpeting and shaking his head for a moment, nearly dropping Aleksandra, then resumed his headlong rush down the hill. When he carried on, she heard whistling sounds with every breath and turned her face forward to see where the noise was coming from.

Then she saw the arrow.