NETTIE'S LOVE - Patricia Pacjac Carroll - One Free Ebook

Dear Readers, Patricia Pacjac Carroll is a dear friend. She’s been a member of the Lena Nelson Dooley Critique Group for a number of years. I’ve watched her writing grow and develop, and now she’s a very successful Indie author. She’s often on Amazon bestseller lists and on Amazon’s Most Popular Author lists. If you’ve never read any of her books, now’s the time to start.

Welcome back, Patricia. What are some of the spiritual themes you like to write about?

I love to write about forgiveness and redemption. The world is full of so many broken people that I want them to know there is a way back.

What other books of yours are coming out soon?

I have Nettie’s Love releasing on Aug. 6th. And then I have a logjam of stories I am working on. Some are in Boxed collections that will be available in October. A very special secret project that will be available Dec. 15. And then who knows : )  Just last night a story attacked me, so you just might see it in the near future.

If you could spend an evening with one contemporary person (not a family member of yours), who would it be and why?

These questions are always hard for me. I love my family and friends and enjoy spending time with them. As far as a famous person? Hmm, I guess I would have to say that I want my heart open to the Lord to see who HE would put in my path. Everyone is valuable in His sight.

What historical person would you like to meet (besides Jesus) and why?

Ah, here’s another one of those. : )  I’ll pick Lewis and Clark. I am adventurer at heart and can’t think of anything more fascinating than traveling and exploring over the next hill.

How can you encourage authors who have been receiving only rejections from publishers?

Learn the craft. Don’t be discouraged because we are in the age of author freedom. Once you have a good handle on crafting sentences and stories, go Indie. Amazon has given the opportunity for anyone to publish a book and it doesn’t have to cost you anything. The biggest thing to do is to write and write often. Find someone that can critique your work and then write some more.

Tell us about the featured book. 

My newest is the first in a series set in Texas. Nettie’s Love is about a 40-year-old spinster in Minnesota. She’s known only life on the farm and now that her father has died, everything is sold out from under her and she’s to live with her brothers and their families.

In the 1867, many states reserved virtually no protection for women. They couldn’t own land. Sad but true. Texas and California were different because of their Spanish heritage. But for Nettie, she had nothing but the promise of more back-breaking work.

She finds an ad in the paper for a sheriff wanting a mail-order bride in her forties. He’s 45, and the town is retiring him. Reed Andrews doesn’t like the idea of retiring but has little choice. To make it tolerable, he sent off an ad for a mail-order bride, holding little hope of a woman wanting to come to Bluebonnet, Texas.

I think you’ll enjoy the story. There is sweet romance, a mystery, and wild west adventure as Nettie and Reed fall in love and set up Misfit Ranch in Bluebonnet, Texas, where in later books, Reed will help misfits find themselves and Nettie will find them brides.

I can’t wait until I can get my copy of the book.  It will go to the top of my to-be-read pile. Please give us the first page of the book.

Minnesota, 1867

Nettie Wellesley picked up a handful of the dark, rich soil and let it fall through her fingers to her father’s casket. He’d loved the land. More than her mother, her brothers, or her. Arnold Wellesley had been a farmer first. Now, he was gone and in the soil that he’d loved so dearly.

The spring wind blew against her face as she gazed at her brothers and their families. She was alone. She always had been. The only girl. Even her mother sided with the boys. It was as if at birth, Nettie, formally Annette, Wellesley was born to serve.

A worker bee. She did the dishes. Milked the cows. Collected eggs. Helped make dinner. Harvested the crops. Yes, the boys worked hard, too. It was a farm. All of them worked sunup to sundown. Nettie shoved aside the nagging sense of duty to milk the cows, reminding herself the barn was now empty.

The brothers had seen to it that as soon as Pa was in the ground, the farm changed hands. They’d arranged to sell everything out from under her sleeping father. Stroke, the doctor had said. After slumbering for a week, he’d slipped into the next world and the farm into the hands of strangers.

She accepted the pastor’s condolences and well-meaning words from neighbors who couldn’t even look her in the eye. Seems they had all profited on the demise of her farm. Her brothers had their own places. She, the only daughter and her father’s caretaker, was left with nothing and nowhere to go.

David rested his big hand on her shoulder. “Nettie, we, Jack, Bill, and I, decided you would come and live with me first.”

She stared into the image of her father in his younger years. David, the first-born. The dutiful son. With nothing of her own but the few clothes in her satchel, she nodded. They had decided. No one had seen fit to ask. Nor had any of the funds from the sale made it into her hands.

David shrugged uncomfortably. “It’s the way of the law, of family. We promised Pa to take care of you.”

She de-petaled a rose and threw the stem to the ground. “Of course. When do we go?”

He stared back to his family. Or more specifically to Annie, his wife. She stood with arms folded and lips set in a stern line on her already unfriendly face.

David turned back to face Nettie. “When you’re ready, we have a room for you. Off to the side.”

Wooden. It’s how she felt. As if she were already in her coffin and unable to stretch, breathe, or live. He wanted her to accept her fate graciously. Truth was, after taking care of an invalid mother for ten years, the farm, and then her father, she was just, God forgive her, plum out of grace.

“We’ll be at the wagon. Come when you’re ready.” He left her.

She could feel his relief at leaving. She’d felt it years ago when he’d married and taken over his wife’s family farm. And one by one, the brothers left her. No one came to her rescue. No man found her interesting.

Oh, there’d been that salesman, but father had chased him away with the old shotgun. Told her all the jasper wanted was her female prize, and when she later heard what happened to Lola Prater, she had to admit her father had been right.

How can readers find you on the Internet?

You can find my books on Amazon:

Patricia PacJac Carroll http://www.amazon.com/Patricia-PacJac-Carroll/e/B008R9JCN2/

FB https://www.facebook.com/patriciapacjaccarroll

Blog : http://patriciapacjaccarroll.blogspot.com/

~Please sign up for my Newsletter and get updates about my new releases: PacJac News

Oh, my goodness, Patricia. I’m going to love this new series. Thank you for sharing it with us. I've loved all your books.

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