PEACE LOVE & JOY DISCOUNT ON THE SANDOVAL SISTERS

As many of you know, the last few months have been rough on my family with two funerals, lots of travel, and a crushing workload for which we've had to play catch-up. There have been some high notes for me which have helped me keep my focus. The reviews for The Sandoval Sisters continue to be outstanding, and I want to share my good fortune with you.

Books make great presents. My gift to you is a special discount for the paperback version of The Sandoval Sisters’ Secret of Old Blood. $7.99 through the end of December. Go here to purchase: http://bit.ly/16J3A47

Be sure to enter this special discount code when you check out: UV8WT22L  

Peace, Joy, Love

Love During the Conquest

"Highly recommended, especially for those who love a good family saga! ”*

Arranged marriages

A runaway bride

Sisters  

Adultery

Witchcraft

A woman doctor

Secrets  

The Sandoval diaries

"I really liked this story. There were certain parts that were just so real when I read them that it was hard to not get involved with the Sandoval sisters."*

Santa Fe was the first foreign capital captured by the U.S. An unbelievable influx of men occurred, but nary a word has been written about how that affected the New Mexican women. Until now.

I grew up in Santa Fe and spent summers in Texas, but now make my home in Los Angeles with my husband, two sons, a dog, a cat and two quarrelsome parakeets.  

• Cast of Characters:
• Oratoria Sandoval: "I first entered the Sandoval compound a barefoot slave . . . Estevan had traded for me—a bag of flour for a ragged peasant girl of five—after I had been captured by Apaches in Mexico. He brought me to this high mountain desert, to Santa Fé, the City of Holy Faith, as a wedding present for his bride. I became doña Teresa’s favorite, who was sixteen and far from her family in Mexico City. She taught me to read and to cook, and christened me Oratoria because of my skill with languages. 
• Alma Sandoval: "I’d been in the grip of ancient memories, reciting a list of family secrets that stretched back for centuries. I’d developed an eccentric reputation in Santa Fé, even for a Sandoval. I wasn’t sure if the memories were from an unknown part of my mind, or if they came from reading Sandoval diaries when I was much too young."
• Pilar Sandoval: "I’d read a few . . . Bunch of whiners and schemers, if you ask me. I like creatures who are half this and half that, in myth's and biblical stories, not in my flesh and blood relatives."
• Geraldo Quintana: “I’m no saint,” he said. “I loved my wives, but I was a young man, selfish and uninformed. Penetration, the young man’s dream, is not all there is to lovemaking.”
• Consuelo Benavides: “You Sandovals think you can take everything. You’ll suffer. I’ll make you pay for what you’ve stolen from me!”
• L.B.: “Mexes ain’t too poplah round here, but I guess you knows it already . . . you as white as B.B., Miz Alma. You could pass fa her daughter. Make the most of it, girl. Passin’ is good.”

The first chapter can be found here and here.

"This is a book about personal power and what women achieved because they were willing to "speak their truth". This is a book that every parent should give to their daughters, regardless of whether their daughter are 15 or 65."*

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1 THE SECRETS 1

2 A DANGEROUS TIME FOR GRINGOS 9

3 SPANISH LESSONS 13

4 CHILD’S PLAY 24

5 A SISTER FOR A SISTER 29

6 THE BACK ROAD TO TEXAS 38

7 HALF-BREEDS AND PEDIGREES 45

8 PASSING GOOD 57

9 THE FOURTH WIFE 63

10 SUMMER’S KISS, WINTER’S EMBRACE 66

11 POLLARD’S CORNER 70

12 DREAMWIFE 82

13 HOMECOMING 90

14 OF NUNS 96

15 JEZEBEL 105

16 THE DEMIMONDE 111

17 LA SOLTERA 118

18 HISTORY LESSONS 126

19 FRIENDS AND LOVERS 136

20 A WOMAN DOCTOR 144

21 SEÑORA SANDOVAL 148

22 THE FIRST WHITE WOMAN 161

23 SONS AND LOVERS 173

24 THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER 180

25 AT THE PLAZA 187

26 PESTILENCE 201

27 ABOGADO 220

28 THE SANDOVAL WIDOWS 230

29 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE ON THE FRONTIER 250

30 THE SECRETS FORETOLD 258

A complete list of my published work is at www.thesandovalsisters.com

I love stories that have the multiple main characters, separated into individual stories, before they're finally all brought to together again. *

The sequel to The Sandoval Sisters' will follow the next generation of this uniquely blended family into the 20th century. An excerpt from the first chapter is at the end of the book.

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*A few of the 5-star reviews from Amazon.

Short reviews of The Sandoval Sisters' Secret of Old Blood

Linda Quinn and I each had a story in Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery.  She recently posted this review of The Sandoval Sisters' Secret of Old Blood:  

This is a fascinating family saga from the viewpoint of the sisters of the Sandoval family who live in New Mexico. The story is one of survival in a time in history when New Mexico is struggling for its independence, and the sisters are doing the same. Women at that time had nothing but marriage and raising children as an option in their lives, but these women go their own way and succeed while incorporating the past (curandismo and diaries of past Sandoval women) into their futures. A very GoodRead.

From Amazon:

Everything you could want from historical fiction - a largely unexplored part of Mexican/American history, the spectacular vistas of New Mexico, a well researched, finely tuned plot, a dynastic family with not one but three incredibly distinct, sensual, powerful female voices. Mystical like Garcia-Marquez, spanning centuries of family lore like Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches, this novel answers the question "What would life have been like for educated, intelligent, empowered women in the 1800s?". When the story ends, you miss the characters ... and you want to know what happens next to Oratoria, Alma and Pilar. CindyD 

What surprised me about this book, besides the feisty female characters and multi-generational saga, is that I realized I've never read a fictional account of the war that brought New Mexico into the United States and what it meant for the people who had lived in New Mexico before the Anglos arrived. The description of the arrival of the long line of stagecoaches after statehood was declared and the assumption of a superior culture was visually striking and thought provoking. Anyone who is curious about this under examined part of our history that is the Mexican-American War if 1844 to 1846 should pick this one up. Marianne Cotter

More short reviews Here

Artist Alfred Kubin did the piece posted above.