Praise for the novels of Susan Wiggs
âSusan Wiggs paints the details of
human relationships with the finesse of a master.â
âJodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author
âWiggs provides a delicious story for us to savor.â
âOakland Press on The Mistress
âSusan Wiggs delves deeply into her charactersâ
hearts and motivations to touch our own.â
âRT Book Reviews on The Mistress
âOnce more, Ms. Wiggs demonstrates her ability
to bring readers a story to savor that has them impatiently awaiting each new novel.â
âRT Book Reviews on The Hostage
âA quiet page-turner that will hold readers
spellbound as the relationships, characters and story unfold. Fans of historical romances will naturally flock to this skillfully executed trilogy, and general womenâs fiction readers should find this story enchanting as well.â
âPublishers Weekly on The Firebrand
âWiggs is one of our best observers
of stories of the heart. Maybe that is because she knows how to capture emotion on virtually every page of every book.â
âSalem Statesman-Journal
âSusan Wiggs writes with bright assurance,
humor and compassion.â
âLuanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author
To my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Marge Green,
who taught me cursive writing and told me the story of Mrs. OâLearyâs cow.
Thanks to Joyce, Betty and Barb, for favors too numerous to count; to friends near and far, including Jamie for brainstorming a trading scam, and Jodi for therapeutic e-mail conversations; thanks to Jill for the Bunco book, and to the wonderful Martha Keenan, who always edits above and beyond the call of duty.
Special thanks to the Chicago Historical Society, one of the richest resources ever to make itself available to a writer.
Contemporary Romances
HOME BEFORE DARK
THE OCEAN BETWEEN US SUMMER BY THE SEA TABLE FOR FIVE LAKESIDE COTTAGE JUST BREATHE
The Lakeshore Chronicles
SUMMER AT WILLOW LAKE
THE WINTER LODGE DOCKSIDE SNOWFALL AT WILLOW LAKE FIRESIDE LAKESHORE CHRISTMAS THE SUMMER HIDEAWAY
Historical Romances
THE LIGHTKEEPER
THE DRIFTER
The Tudor Rose Trilogy
AT THE KINGâS COMMAND
THE MAIDENâS HAND
AT THE QUEENâS SUMMONS
Chicago Fire Trilogy
THE HOSTAGE
THE MISTRESS
THE FIREBRAND
Calhoun Chronicles
THE CHARM SCHOOL
THE HORSEMASTERâS DAUGHTER HALFWAY TO HEAVEN ENCHANTED AFTERNOON A SUMMER AFFAIR
One dark night,â
when people were in bed, Old Mrs. Leary lit a lantern in her shed; The cow kicked it over, winked its eye and saidâThereâll be a hot time in the old town tonight.â
~Anon.,
quoted in the Chicago Evening Post
The Contact
What is the chief end of man?
âto get rich.
In what way?
âdishonestly if we can; honestly if we must.
Mark Twain, 1871
The Setup
It was beautiful and simple
as all truly great swindles are.
~O. Henry
Annual income twenty pounds,
annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness.
~Charles Dickens
Chicago
October 8, 1871
She looked older than her years from a lifetime of toil. The routine struggles of making her way in the world wore on her like the fading dye of her dimity dress. Up at dawn for the milking, feeding the hungry mouths that depended on her for every breath they took, keeping house, seeing to the livestock and navigating the unseen reefs and rocky shoals of everyday living had stolen her youth.
On a hot October night following a hot October day, Catherine OâLeary put the children down early. She washed up after supper, plunging her chapped and chafed hands into the tepid water. A high prairie wind roared through the shantytown that comprised her small world, across the river from the quiet, stately mansions of the grain barons and merchant princes. Her children had learned to sleep despite the boisterous, frequent celebrations of the McLaughlins next door. The neighbors were welcoming a cousin newly arrived from Ireland, and the thin, lively whine of fiddle music flooded through the open windows, causing the walls to vibrate. As she washed, Catherine tapped her sore, bare foot to match the rhythm of hobnail boots on plank floors emanating from the adjacent cottage.
Shadows deepened across the beaten-earth yard leading to the cow barn that housed the source of the familyâs livelihood. Her husband was out back now, feeding and watering the animals. The dry, blowing heat caused brown leaves to erupt in restless swirls through the air. The wind picked up, sounding like the chug of a locomotive coming on fast.
Catherine dried her hands on her apron as Patrick returned from the barn, his shoulders bowed with exhaustion. She saw a flicker in the sky, a star winking its eye perhaps, but her attention was all for her husband. This week he had worked hard, laying in supplies for the winterâthree tons of timothy hay, another two tons of coal, wood shavings for kindling from Batehamâs Planing Mill. Baking in the arid heat, the shavings curled and rustled when the aggressive wind stirred them. In this heat it was hard to imagine that winter was only weeks away.