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Winner, Midwest Fiction, National Indie Excellence Awards
Finalist, Historical Fiction, National Indie Excellence
Awards
Longlisted, Best Indie Book 2023, Shelf Unbound
Silver Medal, Plains Fiction, Independent Publisher Book
Awards
Honorable Mention, Historical Fiction, The Eric Hoffer Book
Award
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INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY
Neither a rich man’s wife nor a rich man’s daughter, Eliza
Haycraft lived in a turbulent era very like our own. An
illiterate, penniless beauty, she used sex and secrets to
carve her own path in the frontier boom town of antebellum
St. Louis.
I first heard her name in November 2014. My husband and I
were visiting dear friends in St. Louis for Thanksgiving
week, as we often do, and went to see a Missouri History
Museum exhibit commemorating the city’s founding two hundred
fifty years before. Fifty St. Louisans were profiled. Eliza
was one.
Her display included no image, for none was known to exist,
and the write-up was brief. It included the phrase: “a
rags-to-riches story unparalleled in St. Louis history.” I
had published eight novels by that time, none historical,
yet the bare bones of Eliza’s extraordinary tale captured my
writer’s mind. I took a photo of the exhibit, though I
needn’t have, for I was not going to forget Eliza Haycraft.
I doubt I will ever again come upon such an exceptional true
story not yet fully told. And though I delved deeply into
her life and era, Eliza will always remain an enigma, for
she never learned to read or write and so left no letters or
papers. We can never know how she expressed herself or what
she believed. We can judge her only by her actions, as
revealed by public records and newspaper accounts.
I approached this novel with a guiding principle: I would
not contradict anything about Eliza that I knew or believed
to be true. Given how little about her can truly be known, I
was left with wonderful room for invention...
Here's a peak at chapter one …
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