The Vicky Series: Book 1: Chasing a Dream

Notes and Acknowledgements

* Nominated for 2017 Literary Award!
* Cover photos background and foreground unknown--google image search
* Above: Organ Mountain taken from Las Cruces, NM

ABOUT THE VICKY TRILOGY:
Everyone has secrets. Some are pretty big. Other secrets are minor but pretty surprising. This Trilogy is about Victoria E. Bradley. In telling her story, you also get to meet her first love: Jeremy Kelley and his best friend: Captain Q. E. McClintock (Quin).

This is a historical fiction. I first got the idea to write it when my second husband took me to visit a tiny historical town (Mesilla) near Las Cruces, NM. I walked around the town square which wasn't much bigger than a small parking lot and it was surrounded on all four sides by long connected buildings that made up the town center.

I saw a Butterfield stage coach stop and a sign saying that Billy the Kid was jailed and tried there. Another sign declared it was the Capital of the Confederate Arizona and New Mexico Territory. I saw a bar that belonged to Judge Roy Bean's (the hanging judge) brother Sam. The Gadsen Purchase was signed there. And one building had two unsolved murders.

The thing that got to me was that all of that happened in such a small space...physically...but also it all happened in 50 years...IN ONE PERSON'S LIFETIME. That got me to wondering what it must have been like to live there during all of that...

And so the idea gave way to research and the original story took me ten years to complete. I never dreamed it would ever see the light of day until my sister @Hunnyhays introduced me to Wattpad. So the book was revised and broken into three books in an effort to make it easier for E-readers.

The first book is about Vicky as she travels west in disguise. She's a debutante leaving the social set of the East and traveling as a boy to teach in the untamed West. The reader is along for the ride as she's chasing a dream and learning all of life's toughest lessons.

The second book is about Jeremy, Vicky's first love. It's about his growth and sacrifice as he is saving the Union against secrets and spies. He's doing it to save his family and in doing so he's saving a dream.

The third book is the story of Quin, Vicky's second love and Jeremy's best friend. It's about how he comes to see that there is more to life than duty. As he fights against incredible odds, home and family seem like a distant dream. If he survives the war, then he'll be living a dream.