Author Interview and Giveaway – His Prairie Sweetheart – Erica Vetsch

I had fun being in a collection with Erica Vetsch and invited her to come share about her new release!

Minnesota , 1880s , 1880-1900 (US Turn of Century) , Law Enforcement , Teacher , Natural Disasters , Vetsch-Erica

His Prairie Sweetheart

After being jilted at the altar, Southern belle Savannah Cox seeks a fresh start out West and accepts a teaching position in Minnesota. But between her students’ lack of English, the rough surroundings and sheriff Elias Parker’s doubts and distrust, Savannah’s unprepared for both the job and the climate. However, she’s determined to prove she can handle anything her new town throws her way.

Elias gives it a week—or less—before the pretty schoolteacher packs her dainty dresses and hightails it back home. But no matter how many mishaps he has to rescue her from, Savannah doesn’t give up. Yet the real test is to come—a brutal blizzard that could finally drive her away, taking his heart with her…

Erica’s Website

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Questions about Erica’s Story

What inspired your story?

My story was inspired by reading the accounts of the snowstorm of January 12th, 1888 commonly referred to as ‘The Children’s Blizzard.’ The storm hit in the Dakotas and western Minnesota at about the time that most schools were dismissing for the day. As a consequence, many children were caught in the blizzard on the way home. A story of one teacher who kept her students alive in the school inspired His Prairie Sweetheart.

What character in your book turned out to be your favorite?

This might seem strange, but the hero in this story has a collie named Captain that I really came to enjoy. He is friendly and canny, and he plays a role in my heroine’s biggest disaster in the book, as well as part of the rescue of her and the children during the storm.

What research did you have to look up to make your character’s professional decisions authentic?

I did quite a bit of research into the responsibilities and requirements of a frontier teacher. The list of rules and responsibilities was daunting! Everything from teaching multiple grades in multiple subjects to sweeping and mopping the floors and seeing that the fire was properly lit and fueled throughout the day. She had social requirements as well, visiting her students’ families, attending church, not being seen hanging about the ice cream parlors downtown, and maintaining a ladylike demeanor at all times.

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Questions about Erica’s Reading

What other Christian Historical Novels are similar to yours in setting or storyline?

I would have to hark back to an oldie but a goodie, When Calls the Heart by Janette Oke. Both of our stories feature ‘fish out of water’ teachers who go to the frontier and encounter the hardships of landing in a different culture and climate, as well as a dashing hero who is sure she isn’t cut out for the hard life of frontier teaching.

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If your job was to sell one author’s historical fiction (besides your own) which author’s wares would you want to peddle?

Mary Connealy’s, hands down. She is so funny and such a good writer! Her stories barrel along at breakneck speed with action, humor, and wit! Not to mention what a great person she is, too!

Erica is giving away a copy of her book (Paperback or Ebook – US only) and I’m giving away winner’s choice of ebook of either of the books mentioned above. (GET MARY’S NOW – IT’S FREE!) Enter the Rafflecopter below!

**If you don’t want to enter Rafflecopter, tell me in a comment below: “I’m not entering the rafflecopter, but please throw me in the hat” so I can manually put you in there for a chance.**

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58 Comments

Spanish seems to be the second language of the USA right now but I’d love to learn American Sign Language if that could be considered as a “language”. It is so beautiful done in church to praise songs!

Gail, I just saw a promo for a pair of graduate students who have created gloves that translate ASL into speech. It was fascinating! And I agree, ASL is so expressive, and worship music is a great avenue for it!

I was in my churches signing choir until my disability got in the way. I loved it! Most of us just learned the signs to the lyrics of the songs we performed, some knew actual sign language and would correct us if we got a little too creative with some words. There were time when we were doing new praise songs my hands new the words before my mouth did.

I love that! What a great way of saying it…my hands knew the words before my mouth did…

ASL is definitely a language, it has it’s own grammar (Signed English isn’t since it’s simply signing the English words using English’s grammar) so ASL totally counts! I know Signed English mostly, it certainly comes in handy when I want to get on to my kids or talk to my hubby across a full room and not yell. You can tell your kids what to do from the choir loft without opening your mouth. Very handy indeed. 🙂

I love the French language but I would probably choose to learn Spanish because of the practicality. We have more and more Spanish speaking people in our area.

Connie, we’re getting more and more Spanish-speaking newcomers to Minnesota all the time. Of course, I live in Rochester, MN, the home of the Mayo Clinic, so we have people from all over the world coming to our city. Walking through the first floor of the Mayo Clinic is like walking through the United Nations! 🙂

I took French in high school .Would love to expand my knowledge of the language due to my being part French. Spanish is of course more valuable in the wold today.
Joan

Joan, I love that you studied French and that it’s a part of your heritage. I would need to study Gaelic, since I’m English and Scots. My husband is Swiss, from the Germanic-speaking part of Switzerland, and my children both took German in high school. I’m not sure which language is the most important to know in the world beyond English. Arguments could be made for Arabic and Chinese, I suppose.

Spanish would be my choice of language to learn as there are many Spanish speaking people moving into our area.
My second choice would be Chinese. I have always been fascinated with
their language both spoken and written.

I love the look of Chinese writing, too! I enjoy art exhibits of silk tapestries with Chinese characters!

I would learn how to speak Spanish. Spanish is like a second language in the US because there are so many Spanish speaking people here.

It’s amazing how polyglot our society has become, isn’t it? I live not far from the Twin Cities, and in one section of St. Paul, (Frogtown) there are something like 68 nationalities represented. Amazingly rich culture!

I would LOVE to learn Norwegian as I am half Norwegian! My Dad and his family spoke it but I only know a few words.

wfnren at aol dot com

Wendy, if you ever get a chance to visit Decorah, Iowa, in the northeast corner of the state, I highly recommend seeing Vesterheim (Norwegian for Western Home) the museum of Norwegians in America. It is fascinating, and a beautiful place!

I took three years of German in High School but sadly remember very little of it. I wish like anything I had taken Spanish. If I had only been able to see into my future and know how much easier life would be if I knew Spanish. I have tried learning it as an adult but have not had much luck.

I took Spanish in high school, and I can sing a couple of songs in Spanish and that’s about it. My children took German in high school using Rosetta Stone, which they both seemed to like well enough. They’re not fluent, but they do remember more than I do!

I’d learn German!

Hi, Joan! Are you of German heritage, or have you been to Germany? My father was stationed in Germany in the 60’s, but I have never been there.

Sign language or something hardy like Russian or German, obviously I could never decide 😉

Beth, I don’t know if I could decide either. I guess I don’t have a burning reason, like going to live in a foreign country, to motivate me. German always sounds so harsh to me! I love the sound of Norwegian spoken. 🙂

German may sound harsh, but it sure is fun to sing in high school choirs since you can have a fun excuse for spitting on each other. 🙂 Have you seen the youtube video comparing German to other languages, it’s exaggerated, but really hilarious…..Let me see if I can pull up the link…Found it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41lZmGcRWHU

That’s hilarious! 🙂

I took two years of German in college, but it didn’t take, maybe because I had no opportunity to use it. Reading German was easier. I wish I was fluent now with all the research I do.

Terri, my sister took German in college, too, and I don’t know if she’s fluent anymore. As you say, there’s not much retention if we aren’t called upon to use a skill. What sort of research are you doing that calls for being fluent in German?

I would probably try to learn spanish.

That is a popular choice these days! 🙂

Living in Texas I should have taken Spanish in school. I lived in Germany for 3 years but only learned very basic German.

I have never been out of the country, though the plan is to remedy that this fall. 🙂 I might try to learn a little French before then! 🙂

I took French in high school but I would like to learn Spanish.

I wonder how much crossover there is between French and Spanish….they’re both romance languages, right?

I taught ESL for years and have a degree in language acquisition so I think I can help. 🙂 They are both romance languages, but though they branched off from the same root language, they aren’t necessarily easy to go from one to the other and little crossover between those two.

In my experience, I speak Spanish. A friend of mine speaks Italian and French. For fun when we worked in a bookstore, we’d talk to each other in a language other than English. When he spoke Italian, he and I could carry on a decent conversation in Italian and Spanish and we knew what we were talking about or asking each other to do even if we didn’t understand everything. When he spoke French…..yeah, I told him to speak Italian again, couldn’t understand hardly anything.

If you can speak Spanish, you can read Portuguese decently enough to get the gist, however listening to someone speak Portuguese is a total different story. So, as a Spanish speaker, If I found myself in Portugal, I’d ask for them to write stuff down, if in Italy, I think I could understand them enough to figure out what way the bathroom was. 🙂 And if in Spain, I think I’d be able to converse all right through I speak more of the Latin American variety.

However, even the smaller SA and LA countries have groups that can’t understand each other even though they all speak Spanish. One day in my class, I had this Argentinian student ask me what a particular word was in English. I had no idea, and instead of looking in the dictionary, it was easier to ask the others in the room who spoke Spanish. I had a Guatemalan, Several Mexicans from different areas, Bolivian, and a Puerto Rican. None of them knew what it was. After doing some drawing we figured out she was asking to know what the word for “Cigarette lighter” was, and guess what? Each one of my kids had a different word for cigarette lighter! My Argentinian kids dialect was far different than the other one’s and me and the other students often had a hard time understanding them.

You probably didn’t want to know all that info, but there it is….

I’m still enthralled that you worked in a bookstore and spoke Spanish and Italian while you worked! There’s got to be a story in there somewhere…a novella maybe???

It was really fun. The working in a bookstore and the languages. 🙂

I think Spanish would be very useful. I can recognize a few French words, but high school French was a long time ago.

Maybe it depends on the part of the country where you live. Here in Rochester, I sometimes wish I spoke Arabic, since we have a large Arabic-speaking population. They have trouble at the bank and restaurants and doctor’s office making themselves understood, and I often wish I could translate for them.

Although I took Spanish in high school, I have only retained a little. Since my husband is Puerto Rican and fluent in Spanish, i would most like to re-learn and retain Spanish.

Congrats on the new release and your first LI book, Erica. I’ve been waiting for it.

P.S. I did the rafflecopter, but accidentally pressed enter on my twitter response. My twitter name is @RosadoTerrill

Thanks for letting me know, I’ll fix that in Rafflecopter. 🙂

One fun way I like to work on language learning with my kids is to play board games they already understand but speak in Spanish. Maybe if you and hubby are card or board game players, if he spoke in Spanish while playing, that would be one way to learn some vocabulary and grammar pretty painlessly. 🙂

I love the idea of playing board games or doing something familiar to learn another language. And you hit the nail on the head…retention! I’m pretty good if I only have to remember something for a little while, but getting it to stick is another matter!

I often wonder if the language they teach us in school is useful at all in the real world. I learned Castillian Spanish in school, but I’m told that’s only spoken by a few people groups in pockets in Spain. I probably wouldn’t be understood in Mexico City. 🙂

Any language acquisition helps you learn your own grammar better, and makes further language acquisition easier. I learned Spanish in high school and college. When I went to China, I had Chinese classes and though neither English or Spanish is anything like Chinese, I could use my knowledge of grammar and how different languages were put together to gain Chinese far faster than my other classmates.

Of course, there is a talent involved. Language acquisition when you’re not young has a giftedness component (I’m blanking on the actual word I want to use) Like some are talented at dance because they are rhythmically gifted, and others are talented at mechanics or art because they are spatially gifted, language acquisition is easier or harder for some depending on their giftedness.

I would learn Swahili. A family from our church is now full-time missionaries in Tanzania, East Africa. They have been there for about 12 years. I have already been once to visit and join them in ministry for a short-term missions trip. I would love to learn the language and be able to go back and be able to talk with the people.

Swahili! That’s a new one for this list. 🙂 And what a fabulous reason to learn it! I have never been to Africa, but I would love to visit!

I have to know several languages at work and use them daily. I would love to learn Japanese.

How wonderful that you get to be multi-lingual in your workplace! I bet you are a real asset to your employers and a help to the people you work with!

I would learn German. I took German in high school and loved it. Then in the last few years, while researching our family history, I found strong German roots. Would love to speak German fluently as well as visit Germamy!

Holly, that’s a great reason to learn a language, to preserve some family history. I hope you get to visit Germany soon! I would love to take one of those riverboat cruises and see all the castles!

Hebrew.

Kathy, lately I have been wanting to learn Hebrew, too. And Greek, so I can study the Bible better.

I’d like to learn American sign language or French

Leanna, I love watching someone speak ASL. It’s so expressive!

I’m not entering the rafflecopter, but please throw me in the hat. Thank you so much.

This book sounds really cute ! I know you might be thinking cuut rreally! Yes I can see it being something I would enjoy and learn from , dogs,children,teacher, hero why not!! I also know about the weather in Minnesota My husband is from there as well as Two Organ Transplasnys done there! Thank you for this opportunity

I took Spanish back in high school but very little stayed, I love reading Amish stories so learning some Dutch would be cool.

Would like to relearn Spanish enough to be able to converse in it, with so many Spanish speaking families moving into our community. It would be fun to learn French too, so we could travel to Montreal or Quebec someday. Thanks for doing a giveaway!

I would probably learn Spanish due to the high usage here locally. But if I was able to choose, I want to learn ASL.

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Author Interview and Giveaway – His Prairie Sweetheart – Erica Vetsch