PRAIRIE TRUTH - Marilyn Bay - One Free Book

Welcome, Marilyn. Tell us how much of yourself you write into your characters.

All fiction begins with some element of truth. My fiction is heavily researched and highly accurate. Many of my characters are based on someone I know or an amalgamation of several people. In Prairie Grace, Georgia is much like my mother, who bucked her mother’s Southern plantation upbringing and propriety. Caroline in Prairie Truth, like her mother, is a horse trainer, and that is me. Although, I was never the rebel that Caroline is, some of my relationship story is written into hers. All We Like Sheep: Lessons from the Sheepfold, is a devotional-type set of stories of experiences raising sheep. My mother and I co-wrote this non-fiction book.

What is the quirkiest thing you have ever done?

Oh boy, there are too many stories from which to choose. Among them is a decision to stay as a guest at the home of a woman I met on a ship. What made it quirky— maybe stupid or scary is a better description—is that it was a home in mainland China in the 1980s. She served hard-boiled, unrefrigerated pigeon eggs for the three days I was there, along with some other less notable foods. She lived two hours by car from Shanghai. I spoke Mandarin and was able to learn what life was life for this woman and her family.

I think that sounds wonderful, maybe except for the eggs. I’ve traveled to Mexico several times and stayed with a friend there most of the times. I love learning about other cultures. When did you first discover that you were a writer?

I loved to write stories since I could write. I got a degree in journalism, and writing has always been a part of my career. I have always loved storytelling through the written and spoken word. I used to travel across the prairie with my parents, see an old decaying house and wonder what life had been like for the people who lived there. Stories emanated from there. Prairie Grace stems from a Thanksgiving story I wrote in elementary school about a dying Indian boy dropped on the stoop of a settler family’s home. They nursed him back to health, and he later came back to save them from starvation. I still have the hand-written story!

I love the San Luis Valley of Colorado where Prairie Truth is set. When we drove through the valley as a child and young adult, I always had stories percolating in my head. The hard thing is getting the stories researched, fleshed out and down on paper.

Tell us the range of the kinds of books you enjoy reading.

I love Lynn Austin’s historical fiction. It is educational and never predictable. Sandra Dallas is a secular historical fiction writer I enjoy as well. Her stories are mostly set in Colorado mountain towns. CJ Box is another favorite. His writing is modern, action/suspense set in Wyoming. I also read non-fiction, but given the choice, I will usually go for good fiction. Fiction must be hard to put down or it’s just not worth the time.

How do you keep your sanity in our run, run, run world?

I recently moved back to the farming community in which I was raised. Severing all activities from my former community, although they were fulfilling, made me be much more intentional about the commitments I now make. Nonetheless, it is difficult to balance a career that pays the bills with my small sheep raising operation, my author career, and family. My daughters are both adults and on their own. Living rural I don’t hear and see traffic, which does bring calm to my soul. I can’t imagine how young women today handle family, career, and other commitments.

How do you choose your characters’ names?

My maternal grandmother’s name was Georgiana, so that is where I got Georgia in Prairie Grace. Since I’m writing historical fiction, I always do research to make sure that name was used during the time period. For Prairie Truth, I used historical documents for surnames of people who were early settlers to the San Luis Valley. (Lead characters) Caroline or Carolina was my choice, because it is used both in English and Spanish. Mauricio is the name of the son of a family I lived with in Costa Rica. I used Mauricio because it isn’t the common, stereotypical Spanish given name for a man.

What is the accomplishment that you are most proud of?

Hands down, it is raising two amazing daughters. Kelly and Shannon are kind, morally grounded, sweet young ladies. I could not be any prouder of them!

If you were an animal, which one would you be, and why?

No question, I would be a horse. I raise sheep and have cats and dogs I like very much, but the horse is beautiful, strong, and true. I’ve owned, bred, and trained several horses throughout my life. They always teach me patience and how to be their leader. The horse training pieces in both Prairie Grace and Prairie Truth are my own experience.

What is your favorite food?

I love pulling a bison steak or roast from my freezer and preparing it with fresh veggies and herbs from my garden. I do a lot of gardening, freezing, and canning food from what it produces. We enjoy eating this throughout the year. As for ethnic cuisines, I love Thai, Indian, and Mexican (or is Mexican now more “American” than meat and potatoes?)

I live in Texas, and we eat TexMex. What is the problem with writing that was your greatest roadblock, and how did you overcome it?

Time is always the giant I must slay. My journalist training and experience has given me the ability to sit and write. I don’t have to get “inspired” or warmed up. I wrote much of Prairie Grace in 2012 on my laptop while waiting for my daughter at her choir practice.

Tell us about the featured book.

Prairie Truth, the sequel to Prairie Grace, is set in the San Luis Valley of Colorado in 1888 when 23-year-old Caroline seeks acceptance in a region of Colorado settled three decades earlier by Mexicans. Caroline’s mixed white-Indian heritage makes acceptance by either group difficult, as does her choice to excel as a horse trainer rather than to pursue more domestic, traditionally female work.

Caroline has a traumatizing childhood experience when she is first welcomed and later shunned at a nearby prairie schoolhouse. Her desire to fit in sends her to Denver as a young woman, but she finds Denverites to be even more disdainful of her Indian heritage than the settlers on the prairie where she grew up. Disappointed, Caroline’s attention is piqued by a comment from Lucy, an old friend of Caroline’s mother that Caroline could pass for a Mexican señorita.

Caroline flees to the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado where she learns Spanish and enough of the culture to pass for a Mexican señorita, trying to appear as someone she is not disquiets her spirit and causes her other problems. Her failed marriage officially ends when her pompous mother-in-law learns Caroline’s true identity. Again, she must flee into anonymity. This time she settles in the town of San Luis, Colorado’s oldest (European) town.

Caroline is assisted in her struggle to assimilate by Mauricio Cordoba, whose family of humble means prospered as ranchers in the San Luis Valley until the death of Mauricio’s father.  Mauricio’s own disastrous marriage and the influx of Anglo settlers into the San Luis Valley changed the economic climate and sent Mauricio looking for work with another ranch. Mauricio, a masterful leader of his crew of vaqueros and a talented businessman, must earn enough silver to sustain his own ranch, so that he can return home.

Mauricio Cordoba is intrigued by Caroline and knows she is running from something, but even he does not guess her true heritage. They part early in the story, but circumstances bring them back together in the town of San Luis.

Please give us the first page of the book.

Sanchez Estate, San Luis Valley, Colorado

Spring, 1886

Caroline kicked the statue of St. Jude, Señora Sanchez’s favorite saint, tugging her bulging saddlebags up and onto her right shoulder as she raced down the steps of the sprawling adobe estate house. Her brief marriage to Carlos had been a disaster in more ways than one.

“You may take a carpet bag of clothing, acquired during your marriage, no mas, and the lazy horse, saddle, and bridle you rode in here with when you presented yourself as a senorita,” Señora Sanchez bellowed after Caroline signed the annulment papers. “You’re nothing more than a half-breed!”

Caroline sprinted to the barn. What an ignorant woman her mother-in-law, now ex-mother-in-law, was to call her horse “lazy.” The woman knew nothing of horses. The bay mare did exactly what she was bred and trained to do. She worked hard, could pull down any steer and stood still as a rock when that was required of her. She was no high-stepping parade horse, but ranches needed strong, good-minded horses, and the bay was that indeed. Had Mrs. Sanchez told Caroline she couldn’t take the bay mare with her, the woman would have had a fight on her hands. Caroline’s ma had given the bay mare to her for her sixteenth birthday.

“I spec it’ll be one of the last my sorrel mare Cheyenne will birth. I want you to have her,” her ma had said. “Train her like I taught you, and she’ll serve you well. When you find the right stallion, you can raise a string of fine cattle horses.”

Caroline had left home two years later, the bay filly in tow. She had been such a fool, but she couldn’t wait to get away from her parents’ ranch in the Bijou Basin, a two-day ride southeast of Denver.

She jerked open the barn door, nearly pulling it from its hinges. “Azucar.”  Caroline called to the bay mare as she stepped into the tack room to fetch her saddle, saddle blanket, bridle and grooming tools. She had named the mare Sugar, Azucar in Spanish, shortly after she started training her because the young filly loved the lumps of sugar Caroline fed her. The mare nickered, swinging her head toward Caroline. How long had it been since Caroline had groomed her mare? Much too long. The Sanchez’s groom placed little value on grooming a horse, other than when it would be on display, such as when it made a trip to town or during festival days when the Hispanos paraded their high-stepping horses down the main street. Caroline would have been glad to groom Azucar or the other horses, for that matter, but Mrs. Sanchez insisted it was not fitting for a woman of her standing.

Not only had Azucar been neglected, Caroline felt the sting of Señora Sanchez’s unsuccessful attempt to transform her into a dutiful daughter-in-law. For her mother-in-law, a proper woman excelled in embroidery, discarded her personal opinions and rode only when required and only side saddle while wearing a full skirt. It was “unladylike” for a woman to ride astride, according to the señora.

Caroline had tried in the beginning. She really had. Her ma had taught her the basics of sewing. She could hem a dress or sew on a button, but it was beyond her why every towel and handkerchief had to be stitched with ornate designs. Had she known being married would require her to become someone she was not, she would never have agreed to marry Carlos. It was just one of the reasons she regretted marrying the spoiled mama’s boy.

As she brushed and saddled Azucar, she wished she had left the dress she was wearing in the house. Trousers and shirts were so much easier for riding and working. And, she would have enjoyed her mother-in-law’s outrage at seeing her former daughter-in-law ride down the lane at a gallop in men’s trousers. At least she had the presence of mind to pull on her sturdy leather boots before Señora Sanchez had thrown her out.

How can readers find you on the Internet?

www.marilynbay.com

https://www.facebook.com/MarilynBayAuthor/

https://twitter.com/Marilyn_Bay

Thank you for sharing your book with us. I’m very intrigued by your story.

Readers, here are links to the book.

Prairie Truth : A Novel - Paperback
Prairie Truth: A Novel - Kindle

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