Thumb Fire Desire

                                                            Thumb Fire Desire

by Carol Nickles

 

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GENRE: Historical Romance

 

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BLURB:

 

In the Spring of 1881, indigent seamstress Ginny Dahlke arrives in one of the earliest Polish American settlements-Parisville, Michigan. Deemed charmless and awkward by her mean-spirited sister-in-law, Ginny disparages her chance of securing love. But sought-after widowed farmer Peter Nickles is enamored by Ginny's perseverance, her pioneer spirit and, her inclusive acceptance of the indigenous peoples of Michigan. The seductiveness of a buxom heiress, a twisted story of an old-country betrothal, and the largest natural disaster in Michigan's history-The Great Thumb Fire of September 5, 1881, challenge their fledgling attraction and ultimate committal.

 

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EXCERPT

 

“Watch your step. Watch your step, please,” the steward beckoned from his place on the platform, offering his arm to leave-taking passengers. Ginny stepped down. The heel of her kid leather pump caught in the juncture of the aisle floor and the train ladder’s top step. The blankets in her arms dropped onto the backs of the descending nuns. Her valise—weighted with a treasured book collection, conveyed from her father’s study, and two pounds of beef jerky wrapped in butcher’s paper—whacked the starched veil of the woman who spoke on her behalf. The target’s knees buckled. The nun tumbled face down on the back of her traveling sister.

 

Ginny toppled next. Mark Twain’s bestseller, the Dahlke family Bible, and a cracked leather-bound copy of Aesop’s Fables fluttered open and sailed into the congregation of the fallen.

 

From behind them, platform-roosting farmers rushed to retrieve the books, the butcher paper, and the integrity of three ladies.

 

A man resembling her father’s daguerreotype tugged Ginny by the shoulders and plucked her from the rubble. She clasped his neck and crushed her bonnet against his cheek. “Joseph,” she whispered, kissing a prickly cheek and whiffing aromatic cedar. She sneezed.

 

“Ginny, so glad you made it safely, even though the very last step of the journey is a sure-as-hell chance you’re going to Purgatory.” Her brother laughed, claiming her. “I mean, Ginny, you almost killed some nuns—nuns, for God’s sake,” he whispered as he tipped his hat to the black-and-white-clad women scurrying to a waiting wagon.

A Word With the Author:

What are you working on now?

Currently under contract with The Wild Rose Press is a sweet holiday romance featuring students who meet at a Santa School.  And yes, readers, Santa Schools do exist!  

Beards, Brunscrackers, and Snowflake Kisses, a novella-length story, part of The Wild Rose Press’s Holiday Cookies series, is expected to release in Fall 2022.

 

 

Also in the works is Past Preserve Us set in 1968 on a major Michigan University campus.  Thirty-four-year-old widow and single mother to five-year-old Joey, Jeannie Parks presides over the Historic Textile Collections at Five Lakes University.  As a member of the Search Committee for Museum faculty, she reviews the vita of Dr. Nicholas Bailey, an applicant for the Museum Mammalogist position.

On an already hectic Spring morning, Jeannie hurries across campus. She comes perilously close to a collision between an errant male jogger clad in tight-gray shorts and a bicycle-riding student. She admonishes the runner for what was an avoidable collision.  The jogger resumes his wayward path. 

Three hours later, the jogger appears before Jeannie as candidate Dr. Nicholas Bailey.  Expertly clad in tailored clothing, he turns the head of textile aficionado Jeannie. Nicholas is hired. 

As colleagues, Jeannie and Nick are brought together on several occasions. They serve on the same committees.  They work in the physical structure of the Five Lakes Exhibit Museum.  They mingle at faculty and staff events.  Each one recognizes a romantic attraction to the other.  But Nicholas is engaged, and Jeannie is a grieving widow, reluctant to invest in love again.   

In northern Michigan, a private benefactor donates his vast collection of Michigan historical artifacts to Five Lakes University. Jeannie and Nick travel six hours and spend several days overseeing the acquisition transfer. A box labeled Viola Smith, Camp Cook holds a diary and a stack of unopened letters from the 1930s. The letters reveal a forty-year-old secret hidden from a young man, named John, who served in the Civilian Conservation Corps on Isle Royale. Jeannie is intrigued.

During their stay, Nick and Jeannie join the local museum staff in celebrating Heikki Lunta, the Finnish snow god. They mingle with a raucous crowd at a community bar and let their hair down. On their way home, they encounter an epic snowstorm. Forced to stay in a secluded, one-bedroom, fire-lit cabin, they succumb to their passions. 

Once home, the new lovers are besieged with work chores and second-guessing the romantic element of their relationship. Jeannie determines to reunite the letter-writing lovers so cruelly kept apart decades ago.  She tracks down John, the Civilian Corps worker, and tells him about the box of letters he never received.  Meanwhile, another colleague finds the letter writer, Margie, and gives John her phone number.  

On a star-studded night on the Five Lakes University campus, Nick and Jeannie step out in star-studded clothing to hail the opening of the Michigan Nightlife Exhibit.  Jeannie’s crew has prepared a stellar presentation of costumes depicting sleeping, night work, and social activities of Michigan natives, among them—long-john pajamas, nursing scrubs, and gowns worn by Detroit Motown performers. On the mammalogy end, Nick and his students constructed scenes of nocturnal mammals with dazzling displays of nighttime vision and camouflaged nests.  

At the party, Nick’s fianceé, the bombshell heiress Elizabeth Harcourt grips his arm like a kudzu vine and scans the scene like a redtail hawk.  She flags the intended covert gazes shared between Nick and Jeannie.  Then, recognizing an opportunity, Elizabeth follows Jeannie into the lady’s room and disperses unwarranted detail about Nick’s romantic prowess and the benefits Nick’s beloved endangered animals will receive from her father’s financial gifts once they are married.  Stricken and shaken, Jeannie retreats.  

The barometric changes in Nick and Jeannie’s relationship continue until one night, Jeannie calls Nick in despair.  Gunther, Joey’s puppy, is grievously ill.  Can he help? Nick hurries to Jeannie’s home, administers emergency measures, and rushes the near-death puppy to the veterinarian.  The puppy survives, and in their shared relief, Jeannie and Nick realize they want to make a life together with Joey and Gunther. 

Reunited by determined museum staff,  lovers John and Margie bask in their lives’ unexpected turn of events.  Margie introduces Daniel to his father, John. John and Margie marry. Newlyweds Nicholas and Jeannie, their son Joey and the northern Michigan museum staff, attend the wedding. The celebration rivals the festive winter commemoration of Heikki Lunta.

Although not yet contracted, Past Preserve Us garnered a finalist ranking in the 2022 Florida West Coast Writers Contest.  

 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

Carol Nickles is the sixth generation of a German textile aficionado family.  In 1881, her great-great-great-grandfather founded Yale Woolen Mill—the longest-lasting of Michigan’s once twenty-nine woolen mills.  Carol earned a Master’s degree in Historic Clothing & Textiles at Michigan State University.  Her thesis is a narrative of the Yale Woolen Mill. She held faculty positions at both Utah and Michigan State universities. She lives in West Michigan and enjoys spinning a tale, weaving a story, and threading a luring hook. 

 

Website: www.carolnicklesauthor.com

Email:  carolnickleswriting@gmail.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Author-Carol-Nickles-102231548918144

Tik Tok:  @authornickles

Twitter:  @CarolNickles

 

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION 

Carol Nickles will be awarding a $50 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway