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Tales of Chetzemoka
​Sarah's historical fiction--
And links to the stories behind the stories!

​Interview by The Edinburgh Book Review
​ 

The Books

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

To read about the exhaustive research that goes into each book and see little vignettes from the stories, click on their "Learn More" buttons!

First Wheel in Town:
A Victorian Cycling Club Romance​​
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Love Will Find A Wheel:
A Victorian Cycling Club Romance
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A Rapping At The Door:
A Victorian Cycling Club Suspense Story
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Delivery Delayed:
A Victorian Cycling Club Romance
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A Trip and a Tumble:
A Victorian Cycling Club Story
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Three Women Awheel:
A Victorian Cycling Club Story
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Spark's Press
Book VII in the Tales of Chetzemoka

A Bumpy Road to Marriage
Book VIII in the Tales of Chetzemoka

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​The Town

The town of Chetzemoka is fictitious, but it owes a lot to the real city of Port Townsend in Washington state.  Founded in 1851, Port Townsend experienced a boom in the 1880s.  A great deal of beautiful architecture still survives here and draws people to a town which prides itself on being a Victorian seaport.  In the late nineteenth-century there was an actual dressmaker named Pussy Butler with a shop in downtown Port Townsend; and the schoolteacher's name was Lizzie Bray, just like in the series.  Their names are all I borrowed though: the characters in the stories are fictitious.  (Once in a while I'll let a historic personage make a cameo appearance, but all the detailed characters who drive the action of the stories are created entirely out of my own imagination.) 

The name Chetzemoka is an homage to the chief of the Clallam tribe.  Many American cities are named after local tribes or their leaders: Seattle (named after a Duwamish chief) is a great example. 
​
I created the fictitious city of Chetzemoka (rather than setting the tale in historic Port Townsend) to give myself leeway to make a few changes for dramatic purposes.  For example, the Hastings Building already appears in the series in 1881, although the its historic namesake wasn't built until 1889.  Similarly, the fire bell tower appears in the first (1881) story, although factually it wouldn't be built until 1890.  Visitors to modern Port Townsend will see a paper mill (built in the 1920s) in the precise location where I placed Chetzemoka's sawmill.  (Chetzemoka's sawmill is based on Port Gamble, twenty-seven miles away.)  Such are the liberties one takes in fiction.  

​The Characters

Sometimes I start out with a photo to use as inspiration for certain characters.  Other times, Gabriel helps me search through thousands of antique photographs to find just the right image to use as inspiration.  It's fairly magical when, after examining thousands of different pictures, a face pops out who looks exactly like I'd pictured one of my fictional friends.  In those cases there is an "Aha!" moment when, after inspecting countless pictures Gabriel and I will turn to each other and suddenly exclaim, "Oh, THAT'S ________ !"  

The Cycles

(Image credits for the slideshow of cycles are at the bottom of this page
​—scroll down for links of the sources.)
More images of tandems and sociables
​

Anatomy of an Ordinary bicycle

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First Wheel in Town  ​(Book I)

     In the summer of 1881, a Pacific Northwest town is buzzing with curiosity over a mysterious package received by handsome young Dr. Brown. Kitty Butler, the town dressmaker, is as curious as anyone else. She only knows one thing about that crate in the post office: everyone else's guesses about its contents are all wrong. 
     When Dr. Brown unpacks the crate and reveals the first bicycle the town has ever seen, he wants to share his enthusiasm for this revolutionary new piece of technology —but encounters overwhelming hostility instead of the excitement he'd expected. The only one who seems positively interested is the pretty young widow Kitty Butler, and Dr. Brown soon realizes how much he needs her support…

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Love Will Find A Wheel   ​(Book II)

      "I'm sure he'll be glad you're here —once he gets used to it." 
            When Jacob Simmons arrives in Washington Territory in the summer of 1882 and receives a glacial reception from his uncle Silas, he appreciates Dr. Brown's encouraging prediction but doesn't have much faith in it.  Jacob's not even sure Silas will have time to get used to his presence, let alone consider him welcome.  If the young man can't meet the draconian requirements of a contract with his business investors, he'll face exile and financial ruin, thus fulfilling old Silas' prediction that he would be just as dismal a failure as his father.  His whole future rests on finding a market for a remarkable new machine —and he'll need help selling them.
            Addie Kellam is an incredibly lonely young woman.  She's more comfortable with books than with other people, yet she longs for the sort of romance she reads about in stories.  It's something she fears she'll never experience herself, since even friendship seems elusive.  She envies the cameraderie her brother finds in his cycling club, but the only bicycles in the town of Chetzemoka are specifically designed for men.  There aren't any wheels for women anywhere —are there?

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A Rapping At the Door  (Book III)

When the delivery of a mysterious letter to Silas Hayes' mansion is followed by the arrival of a beautiful young woman who claims she can communicate with the dead, Nurse McCoy sniffs trouble in the wind. It's obvious to her that the newcomer is after Silas' fortune, but he is helplessly in awe of the medium's eerily intimate knowledge of his past and her seemingly supernatural abilities. Meanwhile, Kitty Brown's yearning to reach out to the departed spirit of her first love is making her push away her new husband, just when she needs him the most. The whole situation is a dreadful mess, and McCoy's got to straighten it all out before Silas' nephew and his bride come back from their honeymoon. Honestly, she doesn't know how any of the fools in this world would get along without her…

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Delivery Delayed:
A Victorian Cycling Club Romance
​(Book IV)

     It's obvious to everyone in the Chetzemoka cycling club that Lizzie and Isaac could make each other very happy —but does anyone really listen to their friends about affairs of the heart?  A prim schoolmarm and a stoic steamship captain are hardly the people to discuss their sentiments, especially with each other.  The smallest challenges seem like huge obstacles, even with everyone else trying their best to bring them together.  When progress finally seems possible, a well-intentioned little girl steps in with the kind of help they'd be better off without.  Will the situation be resolved in time, or will Isaac ship out for good?
​

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A Trip and a Tumble:
A Victorian Cycling Club Story
Time for a vacation —step right up!  When Felix's newspaper sends him up to Victoria, B.C. to report on a visiting circus Ken inevitably tags along, "like a dutiful puppy", as Addie says.  Meanwhile, Jacob's sent north to Victoria as well, as an ambassador for the cycling company he represents.  Addie tells him to keep an eye on the chums, but no one ever could keep Ken and Felix from stumbling into scrapes.  When a vivacious high-society belle and a surprisingly timid circus bicyclist enter the picture, things heat up quickly. 
Be prepared for a grand circus pageant —let the show begin!​
​

Three Women Awheel:
A Victorian Cycling Club Story
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In the springtime of 1886, three women leave their comfortable homes and head out for a mountain retreat, bound for adventure and self-discovery. Addie's old friend Ethel has been away at the Territorial University of Washington for the past four years, earning her Bachelor of Science degree. So much has happened in that time, they scarcely know each other any more. When Ethel proposes a trip to a hot spring on Mt. Rainier that the other students raved about, it seems like a perfect opportunity to re-build old bonds and create new ones. Addie invites her friend Lizzie along, sure that the trip will become a golden memory for all of them. But as they head out to the mountain together, each woman carries the problems of home with her. On the eve of their departure, Addie makes a discovery that shakes her faith in her perfect marriage to its very core. Lizzie can't stop thinking about her own failure to realize her ultimate dream, and Ethel wonders if she'll ever work out what, exactly, it means to be a woman. Their journey together presents its own challenges, not the least of which begin when Ethel adopts an orphaned owl chick and decides to bring it along with them. Before they can all go home again, each of the three women will have to look to her friends for advice on dealing with life's difficult issues, and at the same time look within herself to find her own definition of womanhood.

Spark's Press
Book VII in the Tales of Chetzemoka
Felix Halloway is fed up with yellow journalism. He's fed up with seeing the truth twisted by editors pushing unsavory agendas, he's fed up with sensationalist headlines, and most of all he's fed up with seeing his honest reporting perverted into such overblown hyperbole that he doesn't even recognize his own work any more. His whole life's dream has been to enoble the profession of journalism, and every day he remains on the staff of the Chezemoka Leader he sees that goal crushed more and more thoroughly past all recognition. But it's the only newspaper in town and as he tells his chum Ken, besides his goal of enobling journalism he also has a lifelong ambition not to starve to death. It's starting to feel like the only way to maintain his integrity and still keep making a living will be to leave the place that's become his home and the friends that have become his family. In 1889, a year which sees Seattle burn to the ground and Washington Territory achieve statehood, Felix will be forced to make some tough decisions about how to stay true to himself in a corrupt world.

A Bumpy Road to Marriage
Book VIII in the Tales of Chetzemoka
We all have dreams we never really expect to come to pass, but sometimes there's one we want so badly that we just have to try for it against all odds. For Fred Hooker (a.k.a. "Bumps), the science-loving, sharp shooting heiress Ethel Hauser is just such a dream. But what could a woman like her ever see in a shy photographer who makes his living from light and shadows?
Ethel, for her part, is too focused on dealing with a decidedly unwanted house guest to spare much thought for romance, and in any case her previous attempts at it had always been such disappointing mismatches that she's more or less resigned herself to loneliness.
With the help of their friends in the cycling club these two might just get together, but even if they can overcome their own awkwardness they've still got more troubles to contend with. Between a shrewish and overbearing chaperone, cycle crashes, a dark threat to the town, and a rather frightful poodle, Fred and Ethel are going to find themselves on a very bumpy road to marriage.

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Victorian Cycles
Hand-built 1890's-style bicycles
Interested in a real time machine?  Commission one of our 1890s-style custom bicycles!  Custom, hand-made steel frames with wooden fenders and chainguards, leather saddles and cork grips.  Whether you are interested in a roadster or a racer, we can build you the period bicycle of your dreams. 

Image credits:

Cycle slideshow:
Columbia bicycle, 1881: http://www.vintagecolumbiabikes.com/id94.html
​Coventry bicycle: ​http://cmc-anwb.coventry-machinists-co.british-ordinary-bicycles.ordinary-bicycles.antique-bicycles.net  [Note the bicycle in the photograph is basic black.  Jacob's bike in the stories is fully nickel-plated —an optional upgrade.  For Jacob's bike, picture the same silhouette but gleaming silver.]
Cheylesmore tricycle: The Tricyclists Indispensable Annual and Handbook, p. 206.
Cheylesmore Sociable tricycle: The Tricyclist's Indispensable Annual and Handbook, p. 155


Historic images:
University of Washington Digital Collections: 
Saloon:
digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/wastate/id/495/rec/18
Mercantile store:
digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/wastate/id/575/rec/39
Downtown with steam and sailing ships:
http://www.palacehotelpt.com/construction.jpg
​Ships at dock:
http://www.palacehotelpt.com/phototour.html
"Lumbering in Washington Territory" line drawing in logging slideshow: Scanned from a September, 1870, Harper's​ Magazine in our private collection.  (To see more images scanned from our private collection, go to: Historical Images)

Artifact location credits:
Sawmill equipment, picture of "Bill Clapper", picture of men with sawmill equipment: Port Gamble Historic Museum, WA
Newspaper office​ and newspaper office furniture: Port Gamble Historic Museum, WA  
​

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