Things I googled while writing SEEKING HOME

I’ve written in several genres, but this one has been the most satisfying for me. One of the reasons I love writing historical fiction is that I just love to learn. All the time. If it were financially possible, I would simply go to college forever, racking up the degrees.

Though I have done a lot of reading and research about the time period I am writing about, with every single book there is some new detail I need to confirm or educate myself on.

For my recent release, SEEKING HOME, here’s a partial list of things I googled while I was writing:

— How was chocolate eaten in 1850?: The thing about the year that these Oregon Trail novels take place, is that it is right at the end of the Industrial Revolution, so while a lot of technology and inventions had sprouted up, a lot of times I just have to guess whether or not said inventions would have made it to my characters in their small farming town in upstate New York yet. I found this article about chocolate in the early 1800s so interesting.

— What is a quilting bee?: This search was mostly because I had the phrase in my mind and wanted to make sure I was using it correctly. One of the things I love about reading historical fiction is learning about cultural things like this that we have now lost.

– When was knitting sweaters invented?: I saw one article that attributed the pattern for cable knit sweaters to the twentieth century, so wanted to make sure my characters could still knit some other kind of sweater in 1850. This is one of those details that I could have probably guessed correctly, but I feel better checking.

– What common stimulants were prescribed in 1840s?: In another historical fiction novel I’ve read a few times, one of the characters is served white pepper tea as a pick-me-up, and I honestly think about that scene a lot. What does that even taste like? So when one of my characters needed a little something, I asked google.

I’ve bought a couple research books lately, that I’m eager to dive in to. But if you have any recommendations for where I can learn more about life on the frontier in 1850, please send them my way!

If you haven’t read it yet, you can download SEEKING HOME on Kindle or Kindle Unlimited here: https://amzn.to/3xocjMS