.com Review Q&A with Alexis Harrington Question: Many of your books are set in the Old West. What intrigues you about that period? Alexis Harrington: To be frank, cowboys are sexy. I’m sure we view the West through a filter of romantic nostalgia. The truth is that life was uncertain, people could be killed or die more easily, and it was a lawless, free-for-all place. As far as I can tell, the shootout at the OK Corral was nothing more than a turf dispute between two rival gangs who differed only in the flimsy fact that the Earps had badges. Still, some people endured incredible hardships and survived. I think that’s the appeal for me, aside from the sexy cowboys: self-reliance; the cowboy code of honor; strong, enterprising women. There’s a lot to work with here. Q: The influenza epidemic of 1918 was such a dramatic, high-stakes race against the clock. Why did you settle on this particular event for your novel? AH: Using the 1918 pandemic as a backdrop came to me about 10 to 12 years ago. No one was discussing it at the time, even though it killed millions of people. Then scientists and the National Institutes of Health began muttering about the next possible pandemic, the avian flu. I was spurred to action, and I was amazed by some of the things I learned. This is the only time when the subject came first, and then I had to create characters to fit it. I usually do just the opposite when I create the bones for a story. Q: Readers and reviewers talk about how realistic your novels’ historical settings are. How do you achieve this? AH: This is so critical to me. As authors, we don’t have the visual advantage that movies do, so careful, judicious description is a must. Of course, I must be correct about any historical props I use, too. But with description, I want my reader to be right there with the characters. What’s the weather doing? Is the wind blowing? Then you can hear it in the trees. If it’s blowing over tall grass, the blades flash in the light to show their silvery undersides. It’s really a matter of the author putting herself and the reader in that moment. Q: How did Cole and Jess’s story change from the first draft to the one? AH: That book went through so many incarnations, even I can’t remember them all! In one version, Jessica stopped in Powell Springs to attend the wedding of Cole and Amy that she was paying for. In several versions, I killed Amy with the flu--but that made her a martyr, and I didn’t want that. For a while, I considered letting Cole and Jess leave together to start a new life somewhere else, but I abandoned that and made her realize she couldn’t run away again. Q: Are there other time periods you’d love to focus on in your writing? AH: I have one contemporary that is almost finished that’s been sitting around for a while. And I have an idea for a dystopian story based on an old rock song that I’ve been meaning to make into a story for the past 20 years. Q: Fast-forward 50 years from the book’s setting. How are Jess and Cole faring in 1968? AH: Wow. That’s something I’ve never done. In 1968, they’d be about 80. Of course, they’re still together and have grown children and grandchildren. That’s what the happily-ever-after ending is all about. Read more Review “Brave. Heartfelt. Incredible...an emotional story filled with honest, raw characters, biting treachery, and abiding love. I couldn’t put it down.” --Lisa Jackson, #1 New York Times best-selling author Read more See all Editorial Reviews
T**M
Masterfully done. You will love this story!
It's been a long time since I read a romance with as interesting a premise as Alexis Harrington's Home by Morning. I saw this book on a review site, and the cover art and blurb sucked me in instantly. I downloaded the sample read from Amazon, was so entranced by the story and the strong characterization that I had to buy the book. I read it in a day and a half (okay, I was a vendor at a craft show and read between customers), but when I got home I had to read the rest.I was not disappointed.This is a book considered unsaleable by New York publishers, so Ms. Harrington offered it as a Kindle read (and at a very attractive price!) What was the problem? Ms. Harrington chose to set her story during the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic! (As one whose great aunt perished during this time, I was drawn like steel to a magnet.) I find the period refreshing, fascinating and unique-at least in romance fiction. Here we have a world balancing between tradition and modernism, and with the onset of WWI, a cataclysm that changed the world utterly.Home by Morning is the story of Dr. Jessica Layton who is enroute from New York to take up a research position at a Seattle hospital and stops off in her hometown of Powell Springs, Oregon...and lands smack into the middle of the influenza epidemic. Daughter of the town's deceased practitioner, Jessica left to study medicine in the East, and remained, leaving behind her childhood love, Cole Braddock. Cole ranches and runs the town's smithy, and he is courting Jessica's younger sister Amy.Jessica is pressed into service since the town is desperate and the new doctor hasn't yet arrived. But there are conflicts and misunderstandings that make Jess' position difficult in every way.The story has three threads that author Harrington skillfully weaves into a cohesive tapestry. And she has created secondary and tertiary characters who are not what they seem. Cole's brother is near the Argonne, fighting in the trenches, his wife takes care of the ranch, while Cole, his arthritic father and a hired hand ship horses to the front. In between this is the devastation of influenza in the community, the heartbreak of lost lives and the gut-wrenching futility of trying to deal with a disease for which they have no cure. I won't expose the ending, but it will surprise you. Many times while reading, I had a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.Ms. Harrington is a masterful storyteller, using skillful writing, great dialogue and wonderful imagery. This is a must-read book and an informative look into a period in history that seems glossed over. Brava Ms. Harrington for sharing your enormous talent in this superb story. A strong five stars.
R**I
Pretty Darn Good
Set in 1918, Jessica Layton is struggling to prove knowledgeable women are competent enough to do a 'man's job'. As a physician, her struggles through the doctoring world haunt her, worsening as she stops in Powell Springs for a visit while on her way to a prestigious job offer in Seattle. The town is overtaken by the Spanish Influenza, and being the only Doctor around, she has more patients than she can handle. Not to mention, the small town drama that comes with it. The story is riddled with secrets, war, betrayal, love, and more as Jessica faces her true enemy: Herself.Alexis Harrington does a great job with the characters, especially the antagonists. (Seriously, I was gritting my teeth at every mention of the pompous jerks.) The protagonists were well rounded, interesting, and easy to like although I was frustrated by something Jessica did near the end of the book.Overall, I bounced between three to four stars. Home By Morning has a good plotline, interesting characters, and is a quick and easy read. Alexis Harrington does a good job of leading into her next novel, which I am on the fence about purchasing. Maybe sometime in the future?
A**E
More historical fiction with romance than historical romance
Jessica Layton, our heroine grew up as the older daughter of a small town physician. Her vision of her future was to become a physician like her father and after archiving this goal to return to her hometown and marry her high school sweetheart, Cole. Her father supports her goals, at least, with regards to education however, he does not actively discourage her personal goal. He does send her away to college after he learns that his daughter and Cole were almost intimate. However, since she had to go to college anyway, one can't say one way or the other if he liked Cole as a future son-in-law.Jessica goes away to college leaving Cole behind. Cole is a blacksmith and the younger son of horse breeder who supplies horses for the army. From college Jessica goes to New York to work, still with an understanding that she and Cole will eventually marry. A telegraph from Cole demanding her return changes that all.When Cole receives a telegraph from Jessica that she will not return, he is devastated. At the same time, he older brother, Riley is drafted into the army and leaves for France, leaving Cole, his father and his wife, Susannah behind.The story begins when Jessica returns home for a short visit to her new job in Seattle. It is near the end of WW1, the small is holding a parade for one of their own who is supposed to be deployed to Europe. She returned to see her younger and has severe misgivings about being in her home town. Cole, shortly after breaking it off, has started to court her sister, Amy and there are expectations that he will propose sooner than later.The parade also is the start of the Spanish Influenza which we now know killed more people than the war. Jessica is essentially drafted to work as the town's doctor until the doctor the town is expecting will arrive.Her office happens to be next door to Cole's smithy and in a building his family owns. They are thrown together by circumstance and strangely enough by her sister. Jessica acquires an unwanted suitor who complicates her life but his actions also galvanize Cole into action. He has never gotten over Jessica and he knows he does not love Amy and actually berates himself several times: everyone loves Amy why can't he?The reader will know sooner than either Jessica or Cole who orchestrated the events leading to their breakup and when they finally realize it, they do take action.However, against the backdrop of discrimination of female physicians and of small town morality, Jessica sees no future for them and leaves again.I loved the secondary characters, the author described them well, the slightly overbearing father of the hero, re-living heroic deeds through the letters Riley sends his wife, never realizing that he causes Susannah grief or makes Cole feel less important, the town's mayor who is overwhelmed by his responsibilities especially after personal tragedy strikes, the town's self-styled healer, the self-righteous preacher (I did not see his fall from grace coming), the sly sister and even the town's whore.The chapter's dealing with Riley in French trenches seem unnecessary long and too many. I understand the author is setting his book up and we get a hint as to the core of the story. And I have to admit, thinking about Home by Nightfall, that I do not like books which constantly go back and forth in time, so maybe it was all for the better to give us the current history on Riley and let his book also stand in the presence with only his and presumably his family's memories giving us background.Overall, I would categorize this novel more historical fiction with romance than historical romance. The author vividly shows us how life is in small towns, for immigrants to the New World, for women in traditional men's position towards the end of WW1.
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