This week I’m hosting Janet Lee Barton with The Mistletoe Kiss (US and Canada only) and Tanya Stowe with The Evergreen Wreath (Kindle version worldwide). If you want to enter the drawings for any of these books, please leave a comment on your post with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (November 29th) evening.
Interview with the hero from The Evergreen Wreath by Tanya Stowe
1. Levi Harper, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
I don’t suppose there’s too much interesting about me. I’m just like everyone else, trying to carve a living out of this new land. But I do have a vision of what this land will look like. I know what it can be…if we can stick it out. But that remains to be seen.
2. What do you do for fun?
There’s not much fun up here on the mountain, especially for my younger brother’s and sisters. I try real hard to let them have free time, to play games…just to be children. Most of the time, I join in…just to get the game going, of course.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
Working in the mine. I hate it but it’s how I make our living. Pa was certain there’s a big find someone where in that hole and made me promise to find it. Getting rich quick was his dream. Not mine. I just need to keep my family fed.
4. What are you afraid of most in life?
Losing my two brothers and two sisters. They’re all I have left. I lost Pa and my older brother to a mine cave in and then our Ma to pneumonia. I don’t think I could take losing another family member.
5. What do you want out of life?
I just want be happy, to find my fortune in the mine and take care of my family…and maybe to love the woman I’ve sent for. I’ll be glad for a helpmate. That’s most important but I’d like to care for her too, and for her to care fo rme. That’s my prayer, that we can find some measure of contentment and peace in this mail-order thing.
6. What is the most important thing to you?
Taking care of the young ones. Not just watching over them but giving them a good life, the kind of life we would have had if we hadn’t lost our parents. I promised our Ma…
7. Do you read books? If so, what is your favorite type of book?
Ma was a schoolteacher. Reading was real important to her so I’m teaching the little ones too. There’s only two books we brought out west. Mostly we read the Bible…that and Pa’s favorite book, The Count of Monte Cristo. Pa wouldn’t leave it behind. He’d read it over and over again to us kids. Sometimes I think it was that book that gave Pa the need for fancy living. He needed a fortune in gold so he could give Ma all the things he read about. But it didn’t work out that way.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I don’t know. I guess maybe I’d like to be more strict with the children…especially with my youngest brother, Seth. He’s gotten down right ornery, but every time I try, I think about all they’ve lost and I can find it in me. I have to do something though. Seth’s starting to be a real trouble maker.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
No pets. I don’t have time for animals. It’s all I can do to keep my family fed and clothed. We have our horses, of course, and most of their care falls to Ben, my next oldest brother. But I’d like to have a dog, the little ones need a pet. I just can’t get my way clear to finding one.
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
The moment the mine started to cave in on my Pa and Jack Jr. If I’d acted more quickly, pulled them clear…maybe they’d still be here today.
