I love Chrysteen Braun's covers. She's here to unveil her cover for her fourth book. Isn't it gorgeous?
Title The Maidservant in Cabin Number One: The Beginning (The Guest Book Trilogy 4)
Author Chrysteen Braun
Genre Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
Book Blurb
"Braun uses the mountainous area and cabins to her advantage in telling the stories of her characters. An exceptional plot. Her character development is outstanding."—Readers'Favorite
After her father’s death in 1923, when Ruth Ann Landry is just ten, she joins her mother as a maidservant for a wealthy Seattle family. The hours are long, the rules are strict, but she and her mother desperately need her wages to survive.
By the time she’s seventeen, they’ve moved into the house, and she’s become a mistress to her employer. While accompanying the family on vacation, she sees an opportunity to start a new life, and leaves. Ruth eventually finds solace in the mountain town of Lake Arrowhead, California, where she stays in one of the cabins owned by a man who becomes part of her future.
The Maidservant in Cabin Number One is the beginning of the story of The Guest Book Trilogy, and of Annie Parker who eventually comes to own the cabins where Ruth Landry stayed.
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
My father died when I was young, leaving me and my mother alone in a one-bedroom apartment, that even with my mother’s meager wages, they’d barely afforded. Mostly, her earnings helped pay for our heat, and now, with my father gone, we were often so cold, we sometimes wore three or four layers of clothing.
Weather in Seattle was always unpredictable; even during the dead of winter, it could be foggy and raining in the mornings and clear and sunny in the afternoons. I remember the skies were mostly gray. But maybe that was because of how we lived.
We originally came from rural Nashville, Tennessee, way before it became famous for country music. I was five, and I don’t recall much about our home there; but what I do remember was that my father was a drinker. When he was sober, he was my idol. He’d read to me at bedtime, and then when it was time for me to go to sleep, he’d tuck me in so snugly, he’d say “you’re snug as a bug.”
He was always coming up behind my mother while she was at the sink, giving her a hug, snuggling her neck, or grabbing her caboose, as he called it. During the day, he worked for the railway, and at the end of his long shift, he spent his nights drinking at the local bar. He called it is “winding down place.” My mother worked at the gunpowder plant.
After the 1918 train wreck, they laid my father off while the tracks could be repaired, and he took this as a premonition he would permanently lose his job. For months he hung around the house until one day, my mother pointed out that we needed his wages to survive and she suggested he look for a job at the powder plant where she worked. When she said this, I could see the wheels moving around in his head; he silently worked his mouth, chewing his cheek. Then he pushed his tongue around his teeth, pushing his upper lip out.
“I ain’t gonna work at some woman’s job,” he said, an edge rising in his voice...
That was the first time I remember him hauling off and hitting her. Eventually, they called him back to the railway, but by this time he’d been drinking so much, even I could smell the alcohol coming through his pores. The first day he went back, they fired him. My mother never said a word, but my father took that as a silent accusation of his failure, and he raised his arm to strike her. That was the second time he hit her.
Over the next few weeks, it got worse. One day, thinking I could stop him, I gallantly stood in front of my mother and acted as her shield.
“Get outta my way,” he yelled.
He pushed his mouth forward and pursed his lips before he backhanded me and knocked me down. I fell flat on my back and I instantly felt the wind leave my lungs. I couldn’t breathe and I thought for sure I was going to die. When my mother kneeled beside me, he kicked her, and when she tried to get up, he kicked her again.
After that, he was gone for two days, and when he returned, I stood in our doorway and said, “If you touch me or my mother again, I swear I’ll kill you in your sleep.”
“Shut up,” he said, pushing me down.
“We’re going to where I can find a better job.”
Buy Links
B&N Paperback: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-maidservant-in-cabin-number-one-chrysteen-braun/1145157824
B&N Hardcover: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-maidservant-in-cabin-number-one-chrysteen-braun/1145157824?ean=9781647048099
Amazon eBook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CYS2BCVZ
Google Play eBook: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=Z8r8EAAAQBAJ
iTunes eBook: http://books.apple.com/us/book/id6479916433
Goodreads: Coming soon
Author Biography
Chrysteen Braun is a California native, born and raised in Long Beach.
The mountains, where she and her husband had a second home, were the inspiration for her first three books, The Guest Book Trilogy. These fictional restored cabins from the late 1920s all had their own stories to tell.
Her writing crosses genres of Women’s Fiction with relationships, and a little mystery and intrigue. She’s published articles about her field of interior design and remodeling, both for trade publications and her local newspaper.
She lives in Coto de Caza, with her husband Larry and two Siamese cats.
Contact her at chrysteenbraun@gmail.com, or www.chrysteenbraun.com
Social Media Links
Website: www.chrysteenbraun.com
Newsletter: https://chrysteenbraun.com/newsletter/