Victorian bicycle specialist Gabriel Chrisman is now offering custom-built 1890's-style bicycles! Also available: cycling caps, ties, and socks. Please help spread the word about Victorian Cycles by sharing this link. ♥
https://www.victoriancycles.com/

Backpacking in the Hoh Rainforest over Labor Day weekend.  The woods around the town of Chetzemoka in my historical fiction series would have looked a lot like this, with even bigger trees!

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Author reading!
On Sunday, September 15th at 2 p.m., I'll be at the Kingfisher Bookstore in Coupeville, WA, reading from my latest novel, Three Women Awheel. 
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Painting by Brunner František Dvořák

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A lovely piece about us appeared in a recent issue of Vintage Life.  Enjoy!
Get your copy of Vintage Life by clicking on the link below:

Vintage Life, Uppercase Encyclopedia of Inspiration, Volume V

Three Women Awheel
A Victorian Cycling Club Story
Book VI in the Tales of Chetzemoka
Buy it on Amazon!

Thank you so much to the kind fans who take the time to write such beautiful reviews of my work.  It means the world to me!

Another lovely historical fiction from Sarah Chrisman!
brooksiesgal
Another lovely story in the Tales of Chetzemoka series. This one is mainly ladies and deals with some more tender subjects that, while set in a historic context, are certainly relatable to a modern audience. Once again I found myself whisked along on a well-wheeled journey in history in this novel that I can share with my daughter and my grandmother alike. Good clean fiction that's easy to read and hard to put down.
 
 
Obviously a labor of love.
Soup Girl
Sarah Chrisman has done it again, bringing us a delightful exploration of factual history seamlessly woven into a sweet story that shows how 19th century relationships have a lot more in common with our modern lives than we might think. Her characters are well developed and relatable. Her details of late 19th century life are highly entertaining, a product of her extensive research and experiential living. Sarah’s love of this historical time period is obvious throughout the book. I look forward to the next installment with impatient curiosity.

Exciting news!!!
Three Women Awheel, book VI in my Tales of Chetzemoka, is now available!

Three Women Awheel
A Victorian Cycling Club Story
Book VI in the Tales of Chetzemoka

Buy it on Amazon

Addie

Lizzie

Ethel

Chelesmore tricycle
(Catalog illustration of Addie and Lizzie's tricycles.)

Rotary Roadster
(Catalog Illustration of Ethel's tricycle.)

A few excerpts from the book to whet your appetite…

Image courtesy https://photographymag.tn/animals/baby-animals/baby-animals-baby-northern-saw-whet-owl/amp/

Antique Victorian playing cards, from our private collection.  Get them printed on bags and other merchandise here!

"…Ethel adjusted her spectacles, then looked up from a page filled with complicated mathematical equations.  She had been amusing herself by drawing random cards from a deck she'd brought with her and then calculating the probabilities of the hands she'd dealt herself…"
--Three Women Awheel, chapter VI

Images courtesy UW Special Collections

"…Ethel realized that Addie and Lizzie were looking at her impatiently, waiting for the rest of the story.
            She went on: "He could have easily taken his pick from the lady students, but instead he set his eye on the one and only choice who outclassed all of us —and not just us, but himself as well.  Our Latin and Greek teacher, Professor Hansee."…"
--Three Women Awheel, chapter VII

Image courtesy https://unblinkingeye.com/Guns/Colt1877DA/colt1877da.html

"…"Is this a Peacemaker?"
            Ethel shook her head.  "Rainmaker.  Different grip."
            He nodded, re-examining the curved birds-head grip.  He checked that the piece was loaded, then looked at the firing mechanism.  "This is a fancy sleeve for a lady to be carrying through the woods."…"
--Three Women Awheel, chapter XX

Image courtesy https://www.oldoregonphotos.com/longmire-springs-the-first-hotel-at-mt-rainier-c-1895.html

"…A large wooden structure matched the picture of the hotel which had been on the advertising flyer.  A small outbuilding stood to one side of the hotel; a barn was at the edge of the alpine glen; and construction had just begun on another building.  Everything was simply made of cedar clapboards and shingles without any architectural frills, but they all looked sturdy enough to withstand a harsh mountain winter.
            Addie stretched her stiff limbs and draped her mule's reins across its back.  "You two rest for a minute," she told Lizzie and Ethel.  "I'll let them know we're here."…"
--Three Women Awheel, chapter XV

"…Her thoughts wandered back home again, to the meringued coffee she liked to make for Jacob.  Strong coffee, with sugar, hot milk and whipped cream.  She'd found the recipe in one of her cookbooks, and Jacob always said that it was the most romantic way to make coffee that he'd ever encountered.  He said that having it on their breakfast table was like having a touch of Vienna or Paris magically transported to the American West."…"
--Three Women Awheel, chapter XV

A 19th-century recipe for meringued coffee appears at the end of the book!

Slideshow: Wrappers advertised in the 1886 Bloomingdale's catalog
" "—And it's not the only thing.  At least we're all wearing wrappers."
            Lizzie sighed and nodded but Ethel asked curiously, "Why does that signify?"…"
--Three Women Awheel, chapter XXIV

"…"Can we start with that breakfast dish you tried to show me before?"
            …"Eggs on foam?"
       --Three Women Awheel, chapter XXIV

A 19th-century recipe for eggs on foam appears at the end of the book!

Image courtesy https://www.antiquetypewriters.com/typewriter/crandall-1-typewriter/

"…As for the sound of Ethel's typewriter, it always drew Athena like a siren's call…"
--Three Women Awheel, chapter XXIX

Don't forget to look for fabulous Tales of Chetzemoka merchandise —book bags, mugs, and more, on Zazzle!

Get the Tales of Chetzemoka books on Amazon.

In a seaport town in the late 19th-century Pacific Northwest, a group of friends find themselves drawn together —by chance, by love, and by the marvelous changes their world is undergoing.  In the process, they learn that the family we choose can be just as important as the ones we're born into.  Join their adventures in
The Tales of Chetzemoka

First Wheel in Town A Rapping At The Door

Love Will Find A Wheel Delivery Delayed

"Marriage is the holiest relation into which two beings can enter.  It is a solemn step, but when taken with a correct appreciation of its duties, and a determination to fulfill its obligations, it seldom fails to confer happiness.  Though cynics sneer, and point to the fast-multiplying records of unhappy unions, the fact still remains that the number of marriages that are blessed of heaven, is countless.  It is only the loathsome debris of misery that is cast up on the surface.  The calm, majestic river flows on, and bears blessings unnumbered in its train."
—Mrs. Annie Randall White, 1891.
Polite Society at Home and Abroad, 1891. p. 346.

Love's Messenger
A Choice Collection of 
Victorian Love Poetry
The verses embraced within these pages have been kissed awake after a long slumber.  Copied from the fragile pages of nineteenth-century books and magazines, they are the whispers of lovers long entranced.  In this beautifully diverse collection of Victorian love poetry high-born ladies and their eloquent beaux keep company with simple maids whose sweethearts pledge their love in simpler —and often much funnier— terms.  Prepare for your happy sighs to be joined by occasional giggles while you hold this book close to your heart.
 
Compiled, edited and introduced by Sarah A. Chrisman, author of the charming Tales of Chetzemoka historical fiction series, This Victorian Life, Victorian Secrets, and others.

Victorian Images of Love & Romance
"Love is the golden key that unlocks all souls."—A.D. Mayo, 1872.

Painting by Charles West Cope, 1873.

​"What won me a little, too, was the fact that the scene she was reciting…was secretly my favorite among all the sketches from my pen…  I never said so, but it was; and I had always felt a wondering annoyance that the…public, while kindly praising beyond their worth other attempts of mine, had never noticed the higher purpose of this little shaft, aimed not at the balconies and lighted windows of society, but straight up towards the distant stars."
—Constance Fenimore Woolson, 1880.
"Miss Grief." Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, May, 1880, p. 576. 

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