OSKAR AWARD: Best 2019 Novel Written by Zina Abbott

I am now on the final day of my "Oskar Awards" for my 2019 books. Today, I am featuring five of my six books published last year.  I chose them, not based on my favorites, because I greatly enjoyed writing them all. I selected these mainly based on the reception to them I received from my readers. These are the top five books I wrote in 2019:

Diantha:
          A widow, Diantha runs her late husband's hotel she inherited and the post office until Hank Cauley shows up bearing the news that he has been awarded the postmaster's position in place of Diantha's late husband. In a secondary romance, Buck returns to Wildcat Ridge to see if there can be a serious relationship between him and Hilaina. If so, can he find enough paying work to someday ask her to marry him?

Virginia's Vocation:
          Unwilling to settle for the expected role of women, Virginia uses her talent for writing articles published in a political magazine of the day. When her older brother and guardian decides to move west to Kansas Territory, she chooses to attend Oberlin College. There she meets Avery, one of her instructors and an aspiring writer who is envious of the success of Virginia pseudonym.

Escape from Gold Mountain:
          Based on real events and people, this tale of the stagecoach abduction of a Chinese woman held for ransom for eight days was taken from newspaper accounts and local histories. Woven with fictional characters and events, it is an alternative history bordering on the truth. 

Two Sisters and the Christmas Groom:
          Annie comes to Jubilee Springs to work as a maid for her former employer's daughter. Kate writes to a miner in Jubilee Springs in her attempt to escape the dead-end poverty of lower east Manhattan. Michael has been selected to live in company housing provided by Prosperity Mine as soon as he marries. As he gets to know both sisters, which will he choose?

Nathan's Nurse:
          Nothing at home for her after the death of her father, Dahlia agrees to write to men for the intent of finding a husband. Nathan offers a company house provided by his employer, Prosperity Mine, as soon as the two are married. Just before Dahlia arrives, he is injured in a mining accident and ends up in a coma. Between his injuries and a questionable marriage by proxy, the future does not look promising for this couple. 


And my choice for my best novel for 2019 is:

Escape from Gold Mountain

Escape from Gold Mountain was not historical fiction as much as it was fictionalized history. I spent more time doing research for this book than any other to date. I read several fiction books set in the same era which were written by Chinese-American authors to get a feel for the Cantonese Chinese culture. This book was almost a three year project. It is my longest novel to date. 

In my opinion, it is my best work, not just for 2019, but to date. 

For the full book description and purchase link,

please CLICKHERE.

If you missed the Oskar Award for Zina Abbott's best 2019 hero post, CLICK HERE. 

If you missed the Oskar Award for Zina Abbott's best 2019 heroine post, CLICK HERE. 

If you missed the Oskar Award for Zina Abbott's best 2019 secondary male character post, CLICK HERE. 

If you missed the Oskar Award for Zina Abbott's best 2019 secondary female character post, CLICK HERE. 

If you missed the Oskar Award for Zina Abbott's best 2019 antagonist/villian post, CLICK HERE. 

 

OSKAR AWARD: Best Antagonist in Zina Abbott Books

Today on my "Oskar Awards" series of posts, I am featuring my best antagonists in my 2019 books. Who better to make a plot exciting and interesting than a good villain? Here are my top five choices:

Spotted Horse in Charlie's Choice:
          Spotted Horse is my heroine Meadowlark's father. He is not a villain, but he is an antagonist. He is part of the tradition Kansa (Kaw) faction that rejects any interaction and intermarriage with white Americans. He opposes Charlie Gray Cloud's request to marry Meadowlark.

Mortimer Crane in Diantha:
          Mortimer Crane is a villain. He is common to the entire Widows of Wildcat Ridge series. He is mean and self-serving, always trying to get the widows under his control.

Charley Jardine in Escape from Gold Mountain:
          Based on a real person, Charley Jardine had been in trouble with the law for years. He was a mean drunk known to attack anyone who rubbed him the wrong way when inebriated. He rustled cattle, planned the stagecoach abduction, hired Tex to do the abduction, and held Ling Loi for ransom.

Tex Wilson in Escape from Gold Mountain:
          Tex Wilson was known for cattle rustling and stagecoach robberies. Fresno County had a warrant out for his arrest. He carried out the stagecoach abduction. 

Herbert Price in Nathan's Nurse: 
          Herbert was more an antagonist than a villain with evil intent. He drank too much, was self-centered and disrespectful toward women, and resisted following rules. He caused continual trouble for his brother, Nathan.

And my choice for the best antagonist/villain is

Charley Jardine

In real life and in my book, Charley was an outlaw and a trouble-maker with complete disregard for the people around him. Although he worked as a miner, he felt no qualms about making extra money by any means--legal or illegal. He loved power and control. He had run with a rough crowd and terrorized the citizens of Lundy for years before the time this story takes place. Once the mines began to shut down there, he moved to Bodie, another rough and lawless town. In real life, between Charley (sometimes spelled Charlie) Jardine and Tex Wilson, which man took the prize for being the most lawless and violent, I don't know. However, in my book, it was Charley. I wrote it that way because local historians claimed he was the head of the gang that included Tex.

For the full book description and purchase link for Escape from Gold Mountain, 

please CLICK HERE.

If you missed the Oskar Award for Zina Abbott's best 2019 hero post, CLICK HERE. 
If you missed the Oskar Award for Zina Abbott's best 2019 heroine post, CLICK HERE. 
If you missed the Oskar Award for Zina Abbott's best 2019 secondary male character post, CLICK HERE. 
If you missed the Oskar Award for Zina Abbott's best 2019 secondary female character post, CLICK HERE. 

OSKAR AWARD: Best Secondary Female Character in Zina Abbott Books

This is day four of my "Oskar Awards" for different categories of characters in my own 2019 books. Today I am featuring the characters I consider to be my best secondary female characters in 2019:

Chases Quail in Charlie's Choice:
          Chases Quail, or She-who-chases-quail, is my heroine Meadowlark's aunt. She is known for being meddlesome and gossipy, but she looks out for the daughter of her deceased sister.  She stands up to Meadowlark's father who opposes Charlie Gray Cloud's request to marry his daughter.

Hilaina Dowd in Diantha: 
          Hilaina is actually a secondary heroine, since she played that role in the secondary romance in the novel. A chatterbox, she is a hard-working woman, fearless when standing up for what is right, a character who knows what she wants and goes after it. Once Buck returns to Wildcat Ridge, she wants him.

Drusilla Chilton in Virginia's Vocation:
          Drusilla is a middle-aged, busy-body boardinghouse owner who rules over her dining table and meddles in the lives of her boarders. Her curiosity drives her to follow Virginia and discover her secret vocation. As annoying as she can be, in the end, she helps Virginia not only succeed in her vocation, but she throws Virginia and Avery together to encourage the attraction she knows they feel toward each other.

Kate Flanagan in Two Sisters and the Christmas Groom:
          Kate signs up as a mail order bride as a means to get out of the dead-end poverty of the Irish sector in lower east Manhattan. After one potential groom chooses another woman, she submits to her sister's pleas to marry Michael, a miner in Jubilee Springs. She is also a secondary character in another of my novels, Nathan's Nurse.

Fiona Flanagan in Two Sisters and the Christmas Groom.
          The mother of both Annie and Kate, Fiona must deal with the poverty of lower east Manhattan, her husband's alcoholism, finding enough money beyond what her husband spends on his drinking to keep her family fed and educated. Although she is resigned to stay with her husband to the end, her goal is to get all of her children away from the greater New York area to a place where they can have a better life.

This was a tough decision for me. In so many respects, my secondary characters are what make my books. Chases Quail, although annoying, is admirable. "Salt of the earth" Hilaina I love. Mrs. Chilton was so effective with her meddling her character annoyed one my readers to the degree she quit reading the book and left me a terrible review. Because her choices will greatly affect others, Kate's must make some difficult decisions. Same with the character of her mother.

And my choice for my best secondary female character is:

Fiona Flanagan

          Where Kate is not staunch in her Catholic faith, Fiona is. Fiona is intent on her daughters marrying Catholic men. Although he is a less-than-admirable character, Fiona takes her marriage vows to her drunkard husband seriously. She will stay with him for better or worse, until death separates them. She struggles to find the means to educate her children so they can find work other than the poverty-level employment currently available to them, less and less however, since immigrating Italians and other minorities are competing for the same jobs. All the while, she scrambles to get her hands on enough money to keep everyone fed. She makes tough decisions to achieve her goal to help her children escape the dead-end poverty of lower east Manhattan.

To find the book description and purchase link,

please CLICK HERE.

Three reasons why Zina Abbott is skipping tomorrow for her series of "Oskar Awards" posts:

1.  It is Valentine's Day.
2.  I am featuring a guest author on my Zina Abbott Books blog on Valentine's Day.
3.  I will be gone on a day trip for Valentine's Day. My sweetheart and I are taking our box of See's Nuts and Chews and driving up to Sonora, a town that is 4-5 miles from Columbia and is a secondary locality in my latest book. It is time I peruse the Tuolumne County Historical Museum and other historical buildings in this early California gold rush community.

My Oskar Awards posts will continue on Saturday (in lieu of my Saturday Snippet) and conclude on the President's Day holiday, Monday, February 17th.

If you missed the Oskar Award for Zina Abbott's best 2019 hero post, CLICK HERE. 
If you missed the Oskar Award for Zina Abbott's best 2019 heroine post, CLICK HERE. 
If you missed the Oskar Award for Zina Abbott's best 2019 secondary male character post, CLICK HERE. 

OSKAR AWARD: Best Secondary Male in Zina Abbott Books

I am now into day 3 of my "Oskar Awards" for my 2019 books. Today, I am discussing some of my secondary characters who are male. This has been a difficult category. I could have added several more names to the list. These are the ones I chose:

Buck Kramer in Diantha:
          Buckley "Buck" Kramer is actually a secondary hero in Diantha due to there being two romances in the book. After the death of his parents, he was forced to farm himself out and ended up on the Grassy Forks Ranch. While in Wildcat Ridge for a horse auction in my first Widows of Wildcat Ridge, Nissa, he met Hilaina Dowd. In Diantha, unable to get her out of his mind. He returns to Wildcat Ridge to see if there is anything between the two of them.

Jefferson Atwell in Virginia's Vocation:
          Jefferson has been a secondary or tertiary character in all the Atwell Kin books. As Virginia's older brother and guardian prior to him moving the rest of his family to Kansas Territory, he plays a large role in Virginia's Vocation. He takes his role seriously, but ultimately comes around to supporting his sister in her vocational goals.

Ah Chin in Escape from Gold Mountain:
          Ah Chin is a tong hatchet man, one with a nasty disposition who was sent to manage the brothel and opium den in the rustic mining town of Lundy because the tong leaders in Chinatown do not want to deal with him. He hates being in Lundy, but guards his power jealously. He is particularly envious of Ling Loi's popularity and enjoys making life difficult for her. When she is returned to his brothel instead of continuing to his tong boss in Chinatown, he is enraged. In this work of "fictionalized history," he is a fictional character.

Sheriff C. F. McKinney in Escape from Gold Mountain:
          This character is based on a real person who was sheriff of Mono County at the time the stagecoach abduction happened. I believe local histories have not given him his due for his efforts to maintain law and order in raucous county towns like Lundy and Bodie. The scene of him being confronted by Tex Wilson's attorney and challenged to a fight is based on a real incident. I portrayed him as a proud member of law enforcement dedicated to his job in spite of the difficulties that arose, because I believe that is what he was in real life.

Charlie Brewster in Nathan's Nurse:
          Charlie is a middle-aged miner who lives in the single miners' boarding house and enjoys harassing those miners who are corresponding with potential brides. I first wrote about him in Cat's Meow, an earlier Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs book. In Nathan's Nurse, due her stationary smelling of "high-quality tobaccy," Charlie is convinced Dahlia smokes a pipe. 

And, my choice is for best secondary male character is...

Buck Kramer

Although the word was not used--it probably was not known at the time--Buck feels he is stupid because he has dyslexia and is unable to read or write. In reality, he is talented in construction. At the Grassy Fork Ranch, he worked mostly around the ranch buildings and as a wrangler since he was not the greatest at handling cattle. In Wildcat Ridge, he his hard-working as he hauls coal, wood, cargo, and does handyman work. He is dedicated to building a life so he can one day marry and provide for Hilaina. He comes into his own in this book.

For the full book description and purchase link,

please CLICK HERE.

If you missed the Oskar Award for Zina Abbott's best 2019 hero post, CLICK HERE. 
If you missed the Oskar Award for Zina Abbott's best 2019 heroine post, CLICK HERE.