Highlander of Mine (32 page)
THE END
A note about
Highlander of Mine
I
abided by a promise to a Scottish friend of mine and did not write one contraction as “donna, couldna,”
etc.
I dinna do it!
My love of Highlanders came long before I researched for this book. There are so many Highlander novels I’ve come to love through the years, but when I finally decided to write my own, I turned to my training and found Dr. Colin Calloway whose research of early America, Native Americans, and Highlanders is unprecedented. It was thanks to his research, I wrote this book as well as several of my more academic papers. My hope is several more historians will follow his steps in this oft-neglected field of research.
This book was quite possibly the toughest manuscript to finish for me but so rewarding. Researching early America, the Highlands, and Cromwell’s reign amazed me. Of course, I loved the history, but some aspects of this story broke my heart.
Please give generously to the American Breast Cancer Society, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, or your favorite breast cancer research organization. Breast cancer has been present since Greek physicians have been writing prescriptions. For thousands of years, women and men have fought for a cure. I pray we find it. Soon.
I love writing about men, exploring their masculinity and humanity. But one of the best stories about men is from author and inspirational speaker Brene Brown. At a book signing, a man asked her why she didn’t write more extensively about males, since she’s widely known for her research regarding women and shame and vulnerability. As a woman, she commented that she didn’t study men. The guy said, “Well, that’s convenient.
We [men] have shame, we have deep shame, but when we reach out and tell our stories, we get the emotional [bleep] beat out of us...my wife and three daughters, the ones who you just signed the books for, they had rather see me die on top of my white horse than have to watch me fall off." —
http://www.onbeing.org/program/transcript/4932
With this in mind, all of my heroes find heroines who are strong enough to handle when they climb off their white horses and live an authentic life. After all, we are just humans being human.
Lastly, I’d like to acknowledge . . .
All
Apple®
products, especially the
iPod® and iPhone®
Adidas
®
CamelBak
®
All
Back to the Future
movies
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
All Disney animates movies
Brene Brown
Gary B. Nash
Colin Calloway
Lana Williams
Nhys Glover
And so many more people! Thank you!
A Note about the Glimpse Time-Travel Series
O
ften, history is taught with a clear beginning and end. In a class titled, The History of Western Civilization, it would usually begin with Homer and might have an ending around the Industrial Revolution. It is almost always taught with linear projections—you learn about events in a certain year, work your way forward, then end so many years in the future.
It wasn’t until I was in graduate school that I began to learn history by skipping around, much like a time-traveler would. In order to understand why the Highland Guard in South Carolina fought so urgently
for
their British monarch in 1776, one needed to understand why they fought so bravely
against
that similar monarchy in the Battle of Culloden just thirty years before. I’d never had more fun than when I bounced through time, absorbing an event in a particular era to see it shine through a hundred years later, or understanding one happening, only to reexamine it through another aspect of time.
When we are taught history with a linear projection, we see it through the lens of the latter era. I know I did. I often saw the Enlightenment period through the optics of the Victorian. But they were vastly different phases of time, often having varying roles for women, men, and children as well as diverse social mores. It is when we prance about in time, I believe, that we can see history more clearly for what it is.
The
Glimpse
Time-Travel series will jump, dance, and sprint through different eras of time. My greatest desire is to entertain you, so you feel a resonating similarity with my characters, and in the end maybe come away from the experience thinking no matter what the time, no matter the individuals involved, people have more similarities than differences, more hope than despair, and more love than hate.
I love hearing from my readers, so feel free to drop by
www.redljameson.com
For the women in my life who taught me strength and vulnerability: My mother, a physician despite being a woman, despite her own father telling her she was taking the place of a good man—miss you so much, Mom! My sister, without her, I wouldn’t know what generosity was. My friends, who picked me up time and time again. I am humbled and so grateful to have all of you in my life!
