"Once Again" and "Only One Way Home" by Deborah Heal

My guest author today is Deborah Heal. She has visited with me before. She has a new book out and wants to share it with all of you. Make sure you keep reading all the way to the bottom where there's a link to enter a raffle and win some great prizes!

There were several things I really liked about these books, one of which was the history element. My parents instilled a love of history and me that I have yet to outgrow. In both of these books historical facts abound.

Meredith Randall is a history professor with a secret weapon. A computer program, gone awry, allows her to witness history firsthand and she brings the reader right along with her. However, Meredith get so excited about her fines, that she has trouble not letting others know exactly how she got her info on Illinois history and genealogical history for her clients.

One of her clients, Brett Garrison, is interested in winning history, but must tread lightly around his fellow professor. He has a feeling she has a secret of her own that she has no desire to reveal.

Merrideth Randall’s day job is teaching history at McKendree College. But after hours she turns to her first love, historical research. And she has a tool other historians can only dream of—a computer program that rewinds time!

 Merrideth makes a virtual visit to the 1780s, hoping to be the first to locate Fort Piggot. Along the way, she gets a first-hand look at the lives of the courageous pioneers of the Illinois Country, who withstood Indian attacks, hardship, and loneliness to settle the rich land.

One of the settlers is James Garretson, who risks his life to take the Gospel to the very tribe that wreaked havoc on his family. Merrideth is amazed that he could forgive a crime so huge. Hero or fool, James Garretson is the ancestor of her colleague Brett, a physics professor at McKendree College.

With her findings, Merrideth is able to help Brett with his genealogy, but she can’t tell him everything she learned—like that he inherited his black hair and green eyes from James Garretson, or that his aunt’s poetry is eerily similar to the verse Garretson’s wife Isabelle used to compose at her spinning wheel.

Brett has rock-star status on campus, but amazingly enough, he seems to be pursuing Merrideth—in spite of her firm policy against dating co-workers. She would love to tell him about her amazing program, but discretion is not his strong suite. She has secrets about herself that she’d just as soon he didn’t find out either. But one virtue Brett does have is patience, and he’s quite willing to wait for Merrideth to figure things out.

Professor Merrideth Randall’s latest after-hours genealogy consulting gig takes her and friends Abby and John to the small southern Illinois town of Golconda on the Ohio River. She expects to have to research the old-fashioned way at the courthouse. But thankfully, her client’s ancestor Matthias Frailey once hung out in Golconda’s ancient Ferry House Inn, and that means Beautiful Houses, Merrideth’s time-rewinding software, will work after all.

It doesn’t take Merrideth and her friends long to time-surf back to find out what they need to know about Matthias Frailey and his family. But when they become eyewitnesses to the arrival of the Cherokee on the Golconda Ferry on December 3, 1838, they cannot tear their eyes away from the tragedy that unfolds—nor from Matthias Frailey’s heroic response to it. The people are herded down Main Street on their Trail of Tears, bound for the Oklahoma Country, while the townsfolk only watch, or even cheer. But not Matthias Frailey. He does what he can to help them, especially a very spirited—and very pregnant—woman named White Dove who insists on walking so others may ride in the wagons.

Spending so much time inside Matthias’ head, Merrideth has no doubt that he is the kind, selfless man he appears to be. It’s impossible not to fall a little in love with him—despite the fact that he lived in another century. Meanwhile, in the here and now, handsome Golconda historian Aaron Landis is doggedly pursuing her. And back home her McKendree College colleague Brett Garrison keeps calling while he waits for her return. But are they—or any man—worthy of her trust? Too bad there isn’t a way to time-surf in their heads. Now that would be a dating tool she could really put to good use.



If these books sound like something you would enjoy, click on the covers to go to Amazon to make your purchase.


Connect with Deborah

Website: http://www.deborahheal.com
Facebook Author Page: http://www.deborahheal.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DeborahHeal

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