Amidst the backdrop of the great Western migration, Auspicious Dreams knits the lives of three spirited youths whose government promises "a glorious future where contented settlers can select a quiet, cheerful spot for their abode and beneath perpetual sunny skies pass life happily away." The insatiable greed that left women, Native Americans, Blacks, Spaniards, and Mexicans scavenging for equality in a white male-dominated society threatens to rip their relationships apart. Roy Caldwell jeopardizes his dream for that happy life in a valiant effort to secure the dreams of the liberated love of his life, Sarah Margaret Lovelace; the Native American, Wahniki Wanshee Umatah, his childhood best friend and confidant; and even the wealthy Spanish Grandee, Emilio Santiago, their mentor and ally. Auspicious Dreams is filled with delightful, disturbing, and intimate stories of young love and strong passions that reveal both the delicate and sometimes disgraceful side of Frontier America.
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Shelia was raised in the tropical paradise of Miami, Florida in the wonderful years after World War II. Besides being the Florida State Champ in the standing broad jump in junior high, Shelia's claim to fame is her forty-five year career nursing sick, injured, and abused infants and children half way around the world and back. With no offspring of her own, Shelia has mothered thousands of children in the nine institutions gracious enough to embrace and appreciate her desire to help and heal.
Writing came as a surprise. While living in Wyoming, Shelia became interested in The Oregon Trail. Both she and her artist/writer husband, Bud, had seen and read about much of the overland trail, but Shelia wondered about the children. What did they see? How did they feel about trekking across the entire country until the soles of their shoes wore away? Some of the women's journals gave glimpses, and using her imagination, Shelia created three frontier children, each with a storybook of their own--the first as a journal, the second as a collection of letters, and the last as a novella. The dolls and their computer-printed books sold in gift shops and craft galleries in Wyoming, Idaho, and California.
Coincidentally, hundreds of miles away, another woman had a similar idea--Pleasant T. Rowland. She also wanted to make history accessible and she created The American Girl line of historical dolls and books.
With the local success of Shelia's dolls and books, she set out to write her first novel--a story based on her life, "Child of My Heart." A few weeks before the book went to press in 2003, Alice McDermott, an already award winning author, released her second novel with the same title, "Child of My Heart." Shelia reluctantly chose to change the title of her book to "Precious Children, Coveted Child," even though Ms. McDermott graciously suggested they share the original title.
Since leaving Wyoming, Shelia and Bud lived in Eureka, California and Wilmington, North Carolina before settling and retiring in Pittsboro, North Carolina in 2007. Shelia has moved twenty-six times in her life. It must be because of that sand she got in her shoes in paradise.
Shelia is also the author of, "Auspicious Dreams," "Baggage," and the forthcoming, "Transmutare."
Writing came as a surprise. While living in Wyoming, Shelia became interested in The Oregon Trail. Both she and her artist/writer husband, Bud, had seen and read about much of the overland trail, but Shelia wondered about the children. What did they see? How did they feel about trekking across the entire country until the soles of their shoes wore away? Some of the women's journals gave glimpses, and using her imagination, Shelia created three frontier children, each with a storybook of their own--the first as a journal, the second as a collection of letters, and the last as a novella. The dolls and their computer-printed books sold in gift shops and craft galleries in Wyoming, Idaho, and California.
Coincidentally, hundreds of miles away, another woman had a similar idea--Pleasant T. Rowland. She also wanted to make history accessible and she created The American Girl line of historical dolls and books.
With the local success of Shelia's dolls and books, she set out to write her first novel--a story based on her life, "Child of My Heart." A few weeks before the book went to press in 2003, Alice McDermott, an already award winning author, released her second novel with the same title, "Child of My Heart." Shelia reluctantly chose to change the title of her book to "Precious Children, Coveted Child," even though Ms. McDermott graciously suggested they share the original title.
Since leaving Wyoming, Shelia and Bud lived in Eureka, California and Wilmington, North Carolina before settling and retiring in Pittsboro, North Carolina in 2007. Shelia has moved twenty-six times in her life. It must be because of that sand she got in her shoes in paradise.
Shelia is also the author of, "Auspicious Dreams," "Baggage," and the forthcoming, "Transmutare."
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Strong passions, courage, and relentless oppression,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Auspicious Dreams (Paperback)
Set in the mid-1800's America, Auspicious Dreams is a novel about three high-spirited young people who pin their hopes on the promise of the government urging them to settle the West. Yet the savage greed of a white, male-dominated society that relegates women, Native Americans, Blacks, Spaniards, and Mexicans to second-class citizenship at best threatens to tear each of the youth's lives and hopes apart. Strong passions, courage, and relentless oppression fill the pages of this tautly written saga, that unashamedly reveals the dishonorable side of Frontier America as surely as the patriotic side presented all too blandly in school textbooks.
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