What Heals the Heart
Cowbird Creek Book 1
by Karen A. Wyle
Genre: Western Historical Romance
Joshua Gibbs survived the Civil War, building on his wartime experiences to become a small town doctor. And if he wakes from nightmares more often than he would like, only his dog Major is there to know it.
Then two newcomers arrive in Cowbird Creek: Clara Brook, a plain-speaking and yet enigmatic farmer’s daughter, and Freida Blum, an elderly Jewish widow from New York. Freida knows just what Joshua needs: a bride. But it shouldn’t be Clara Brook!
Joshua tries everything he can think of to discourage Freida’s efforts, including a wager: if he can find Freida a husband, she’ll stop trying to find him a wife. Will either matchmaker succeed? Or is it Clara, despite her own scars, who can heal the doctor’s troubled heart?
Karen A. Wyle was born a Connecticut Yankee, but eventually settled in Bloomington, Indiana, home of Indiana University. She now considers herself a Hoosier. Wyle’s childhood ambition was to be the youngest ever published novelist. While writing her first novel at age 10, she was mortified to learn that some British upstart had beaten her to the goal at age 9.
Wyle is an appellate attorney, photographer, political junkie, and mother of two daughters. Her voice is the product of almost five decades of reading both literary and genre fiction. It is no doubt also influenced, although she hopes not fatally tainted, by her years of law practice. Her personal history has led her to focus on often-intertwined themes of family, communication, the impossibility of controlling events, and the persistence of unfinished business.
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I’d be happy to answer any questions.
Hi! Welcome to the Dragon’s Den! Do you have a favorite quote from the book you’d like to share?
Sorry it took me a few days to see this question! I’m bad at picking a favorite anything, but here are two of my favorites, one humorous and one more serious.
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“The moment the spoon clinked the bottom of the bowl, she grabbed the bowl and filled it back up to the brim. “Eat, eat!”
He was feeling full to the brim himself, but he thought it likely that if he dared to stop before the bowl was empty again, she would seize the spoon and feed him like an infant. He made his way manfully through.”
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“He had brought his bone saw in its leather case. And his white linen smock, the one he used to save his clothes when he had dirty work in store, and would have Li Chang wash and bleach after. An amputation would be the dirtiest work there was. He remembered the smocks the surgeons wore, layer on layer of red, dried blood darker under fresh red splashes, with the occasional white splinter of bone.
Joshua prayed as he rode, prayed hard and desperately, prayed that the smock in his bag would be clean and white when he turned homeward.”
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Thanks for asking!
I like both of those. I like how you describe the horror of medicine of the time without going into graphic details.