Writing – Page 2 – D.S.Dehel

A Silver Dagger Tour

She went back in time to rescue him.

She never counted on falling in love…

I’m fortunate enough to know this AH-MAZING author and to have read bits of this book, and y’all are in for a treat. Thunder Bear is 🔥🔥

Blurb

Alma Whitecrow prefers hunting and fishing with men, not romancing them. But hearing about the roguishly handsome coureur de bois, who saved her sister from the Dakota, haunts her thoughts and dreams. Well-versed in surviving the wilds, Alma resolves to travel to the mid-eighteenth century, as her sister once did, to save the man from impending death.

Charlot Baudelaire thumbs his nose at society’s expectations, content living as a loner, trading with people he calls the Saulters. If he needs a woman for the night, there is always a willing maiden. What he doesn’t expect is a spunky and stubborn female warrior to challenge him.

Charlot is not the man Alma dreamed about, and Alma is not the kind of woman Charlot pursues. But the longer they are together, the more drawn to each other they become, until Alma faces the biggest decision of her life. Stay with a man who may never reciprocate her love, or return to her Ojibway home and bland existence.

Maggie gives us the history of the setting…

While growing up as a little girl, my family was involved in baseball, so we’d head for the local baseball diamond at The Point (a peninsula on the lake). While my mother sat in the stands to watch, and my father coached the team, me, along with my brother and sisters, along with our cousins, would tear off to the replica fort situated right beside the baseball game happening.

I had no idea at the time that the fort was once a trading post during the fur trade in Canada. Nor did I realize where we played was a big gathering spot for my Ojibway ancestors to meet in the spring to celebrate the Midewiwin. From what I researched, over a thousand of them would gather there to celebrate “seeking the good life.”

I also didn’t understand that the waterways were the “roads” for my people to travel. Most people associate Indigenous people with horses and teepees. That is not so for the Woodlands people who were all about the wigwam and canoe. The French fur traders, and eventually the Voyageurs also traveled these waterways. The lake and river were part of The Voyageurs Highway.

The first explorer through my land was Jacques de Noyon who travelled these waterways as far back as 1688. Then there was Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye who established the first fort in my area (the local hospital is named after him). The replica fort came afterward and was rechristened “Fort Frances” after Lady Frances Simpson, the wife of the Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, George Simpson.

So yes, writing about this area came naturally to me for the Maizemerized series. I wanted to explore my homeland from the Rainy Lake and Rainy River to Lake of the Woods.

And we get an excerpt!

Thunder Bear nodded. “Fire Woman. Is it not an appropriate name? The flames did not burn you. Fire is your friend. Your spirit guide.”

“I want to be honest.” She wet her plush mouth with the color riper than raspberries. “I have been educated in the ways of the white men. Where I come from, we live like white men.”

“I know you do. It is in your speech, your movement, your behavior.” He reached out and touched her bare arm that possessed delicate strength beneath the smooth flesh he palmed. “You are here to become what you are meant to truly be. We will teach you, if you are willing.”

“I am more than willing. In the white man’s world, I am learning everything about the People. I have studied the People ever since I was a little girl.”

“I know you have. It is why you came.” He could not resist letting his palm move along her arm. Beneath the skin he stroked, her slight muscle flexed.

She wet her lips.

The urge to claim her mouth was a test of his restraint. They’d only met this morning, and he must go slow. To slide his mouth over hers after just meeting was not how a warrior conducted himself. Yet, the way she’d drew her tongue along her lower lip was caressing and licking him beneath his breechclout. Her innocent gesture might as well have been her nails raking his backside, her hands boldly exploring his arms, and her breasts melting against his chest.

She was aptly named, because a fire danced in her sparkling dark eyes. A fire of desire. A fire of need. A fire flickering with mesmerization in her gaze touching his face.

He stifled the groan aching to leave his throat.

She seemed to drag her gaze to the dark water. If where they stood was better lit, he’d probably witness redness on her cheeks.

“What is it?”

Again, she wet her lips. “I… Maybe I should go back?”

A punch seemed to knock his gut. “Return? Now?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I mean the wigwam. Not the…the…”

“The dancing flames?”

She nodded.

Relief loosened the knots of his shoulder muscles. He didn’t believe in restraining any maiden, but if she had dared to run for where she had come from, he probably would have tossed her over his shoulder and carted her back to the camp. Now that he had found what he’d waited twelve years to capture, he wasn’t letting her go.

Somehow, he had to help her find her courage to survive with them. She was destined to be here.

So how do you buy this book??

Book Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FYR2YQWF/

Apple: https://books.apple.com/ca/book/born-like-this/id6754779332

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/born-like-this-maggie-blackbird/1148648985?ean=2940182602631

Indigo: https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/born-like-this-maizemerized-2/bc03c982-9d06-34f6-9923-17ec5f92ffa7.html

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/born-like-this-1

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/born-like-this-by-maggie-blackbird

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/243417458-born-like-this

And if you like Born Like This, you’ll also like Born for This.

About Maggie

About the Author

An Ojibway from Northwestern Ontario, Maggie resides in the country with her husband and their fur babies, two beautiful Alaskan Malamutes. When she’s not writing, she can be found pulling weeds in the flower beds, mowing the huge lawn, walking the Mals deep in the bush, teeing up a ball at the golf course, fishing in the boat for walleye, or sitting on the deck at her sister’s house, making more wonderful memories with the people she loves most.

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