Depression Era Books and Giveaways!

 

Last October I published Perspective, a middle grade novel set in Duluth and Isle Royale during the Great Depression.

It's the story of a twelve year old girl who wants to grow up to be an artist. Genevieve lives a comfortable and quiet life with her mother, a high school English teacher. Their Duluth apartment isn't fancy, but it has all the modern comforts made possible by electrification and indoor plumbing.

When Genevieve's mother dies of lung cancer, her whole world comes apart. She is sent to live with her Aunt Gertrude, Uncle Edwin, and their two spoiled sons, and in spite the fact that Uncle Edwin drives a fine DeSoto and Aunt Gertrude wears a mink coat, they announce that they simply cannot keep Genevieve once they discover that they will not be able to put their fingers on her money. Aunt Gertrude buys her niece a one way ticket to Isle Royale, where she is to live with the father she's never known.

Genevieve must adapt to a much more rustic way of life. She learns to appreciate the beauty of the island even if she finds its seclusion difficult at times. But just as she's finally beginning to understand what destroyed her parent's relationship, she discovers that she may have to leave Isle Royale.
Genevieve must learn that perspective is not just a theory in art, but a way of seeing the world through the lens of forgiveness and patience.

Once Perspective was published, I intended to give away some related books. Some were resources I used while writing my own books. Others are books I came across and set aside because I thought they were similar to mine and would be of interest to my readers. 

But I forgot. Don't ask me how. Just recently I looked at one of my bookshelves and there were the books I'd intended to give away.

So here I am, months later, offering books related to the Great Depression and Isle Royale. Leave a note in the comments if you'd like me to send you one of them. And if you'd like a copy of Perspective, I can offer that, too!

Not Lucille by Mike Steele (published by Creative James Media, June 24, 2025, EAN/UPC 9781965648070) 

Ten-year-old Lucy Contento can't seem to control her impulsive behavior, blurting out in the classroom and doing things without thinking. When she's assigned to the rigid disciplinarian Miss Gillingham's Fifth Grade Class, it seems she's destined to spend every afternoon in after school detention, sitting with the teacher who insists on calling her Lucille and making her write with her right hand even though she's a Leftie. One afternoon she sneaks onto the campus of the Deefies, what the neighborhood kids disparagingly call a nearby school for the Deaf, and makes a friend of Florence, a profoundly deaf girl who doesn't mind Lucy's flaws. From there, the story of friendship and acceptance blooms. Lucy learns to advocate for both herself and for Florence as she comes to terms with the quirks that everyone has, even the straight-laced Miss Gillingham and her grumpy neighbor Mrs. Ricci. This is a sweet and empowering book that will melt your heart and give you hope. The author provides an afterword that helps today’s readers understand how very different the world was in the 1930s. The Wind Called My Name by Mary Louise Sanchez (published by Tu Books, October 30, 2018, EAN/UPC 9781620147801) Ten-year-old Margaríta Sandoval's family leaves New Mexico, where they have deep and traditional roots, to move to Fort Steele, Wyoming when her father finds a job with the railroad. She misses living among Hispanics, especially her beloved Abuelita, and feels so rootless that she fears the wind might blow her away. Margaríta meets Evangeline and is pleased to have a friend her own age, but soon encounters prejudice and misunderstanding. Things get really tense when the Sandovals learn that Abuelita might lose her land and the family's ancestral home unless they can pay off her tax bill. This lovely, gentle story is sprinkled with Spanish dichos, wise sayings that will ring true in any language. It teaches about a culture that few understand was here and thriving for centuries, and continues today. Diaries of an Isle Royale Fisherman by Elling Seglem (Published by Isle Royale Natural History Association, November 15, 2002, ISBN-13: 978-0935289138) Elling Seglem was a Norwegian immigrant, who lived in Chicago, where he worked as a photographer during the winter. He had a summer home on Isle Royale and each summer between 1920 and 1932 he fished the waters of Lake Superior. This book has reproductions of his journals, in which he tells of the hard work and simple pleasures of island living. It also includes his correspondence, much of it in newspaper-format letters sent home to his family in Chicago. Seglem's sense of humor and attention to detail make his writing a delight to read, and the drawings, cartoons and historic photographs really add to our understanding of what life was like for him and the other people who lived on the island. Diaries of an Isle Royale School Teacher by Dorothy Simonson (Published by Book Concern Printers, December 1996, ISBN: 0-9352289-02) In 1932, Dorothy Simonson got a job teaching the six children of the Johnsons, a family who lived on Isle Royale. Her students were between 18 and 5, and she taught them in the school house in which she and her young son, Bob, also lived. This book is the transcribed diary of heer eight months on the Island, and in it she shows how she faced both the joys and the hardships of an isolated winter with honesty and humor. A lot of the details in Perspective—things like the name of the boat on which my character travels and how long it took, what people ate and what they missed from the mainland—come from this book.  Island Folk: The People of Isle Royale by Peter Oikarinen (Published by University of Minnesota Press, 2008, ISBN: 978-0816653362) This book is a collection of stories and photographs about the people who made a life on Isle Royale, both before it became a National Park and after. These interviews share the voice and recalled memories of the people who've lived and worked in a beautiful and sometimes deadly environment.

Sheet Pan Eggs

 Often my husband and I don't have time to make breakfast, but we want a good, filling, high protein meal without all the additives that come with prepackaged food. For instance, we usually start Tuesdays with a swim. The public pool opens at 6 am, and it takes 45 minutes to drive there. We don't eat before we leave, and when we return home, we are famished and want food immediately. 

That's when meals like Sheet Pan Eggs come in very handy. I make up a batch the night before and store it in the refrigerator. When I want to eat, a short wait as it microwaves is all it takes to have a hot, healthy meal.

Sheet Pan Eggs are great to make if you're serving brunch for a crowd, or it's a good way to stock up your freezer with healthy breakfasts. Plus, the recipe is adaptable so you'll be able to vary it to your own tastes, provide variety to your meals, or use up leftovers. 

Sheet Pan Eggs

Preheat oven to 350° Grease a large rimmed baking sheet.

The Winding Road to Wallace and other Clean Romance ARCs Available

 

The Art of Cookery: Not so Plain and Easy

This Christmas, one of my sons gave me a new, very old cookbook.

It was a very welcome gift for several reasons. First, I love books! They are the best gift I could hope to receive because they are entertaining and enlightening, giving me many pleasurable hours while teaching me things I don't know. (and learning new things brings me huge joy.)

Second, I love anything that puts history and the past into focus. I can often use tidbits I read in books such as these in my own books, making my writing more true to the spirit of the age.

The Art of Cookery was a landmark book. Published in 1747, it 

contained 972 recipes, covering everything from Yorkshire puddings and pies to cheesecakes and jellies, and was the first cookbook ever to give a recipe for mashed potatoes. It was one of the first designed for normal people, for servants, and middle-class cooks, and its easy-to-read conversational style made it a bestseller in both Britain and America for over a hundred years.

In addition to traditional dishes, The Art of Cookery introduced new ones like curry and piccalilli, making it a key text for understanding the changing tastes of the 18th-century as Great Britain became a world power and colonialized distant lands. 
 

 Despite its origins in England, the cookbook remained popular in America. A New York memoir from the 1840s declared that "We had emancipated ourselves from the sceptre of King George, but that of Hannah Glasse was extended without challenge over our fire-sides and dinner-tables, with a sway far more imperative and absolute". The first American edition of The Art of Cookery, published in 1805, included two recipes for "Indian pudding" as well as "Several New Receipts adapted to the American Mode of Cooking", such as "Pumpkin Pie", "Cranberry Tarts" and "Maple Sugar". George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned copies, and while he was in France between 1776 and 1785, Benjamin Franklin, hungry for good English/American cooking, translated some of the recipes into French.

The first edition of the book was published by Glasse herself, funded by subscription, and sold, to non-subscribers, at Mrs. Ashburn's China Shop. At least 40 editions followed. Despite its popularity, no one was sure who authored this book for quite a while. The book did not reveal its authorship, except with the signature ‘By a Lady’. Even that attribution was questioned. Many people, including Samuel Johnson, could not believe that a woman could write a book, even a cookbook.

Even to those who accepted that the author could be a female, Hannah Glasse was an unlikely candidate. Born on March 28, 1708, in St Andrews, Holborn, London, she was the illegitimate of a landed, though not noble man named Isaac Allgood. She grew up in Allgood’s home at Simonburn near the Northumbrian town of Hexham. Despite of being an unwelcome presence in her father’s home, she witnessed good living and gained a taste for good food. When she was 16, her father and his wife died, leaving her alone and without support. She married a soldier of fortune named John Glasse, with whom she had 10 children. She wrote The Art of Cookery to help raise money to feed her family.

The subtitle of The Art of Cookery is Made Plain and Easy. Glasse explains in her note "To the Reader" that she has written simply, "for my Intention is to instruct the lower Sort." Either even the lower sort was more literate than I am, or cooking and its vocabulary have changed much in 300 years, for I found myself confounded as I read through this book's pages. Consider her directions for making a trifle, and English dessert that remains popular today: 

COVER the bottom of your dish or bowl with Naples biscuits broke in pieces, mackeroons broke in halves, and ratafia cakes. Just wet them all through with sack, then make a good boiled custard not too thick, and when cold pour it over it, then put a syllabub over that. You may garnish it with ratafia cakes, currant jelly, and flowers.

Naples biscuits? Ratafia cakes? Sack? And making a good boiled custard? All this is beyond me.

Luckily, we have Jon Townsend, a living historian, YouTuber, and the manager of Jas. Townsend & Son Inc., a company founded in 1973 by his father, James. The company sells 18th- and 19th-century clothing, tools, and, most notably, food items for reenactors, and Jon hosts a popular YouTube channel named Townsends Journal. It features historical cooking, recipes, and insights into 18th-century daily life and has frequently discussed Glasse's recipes. 

The Art of Cookery made Glasse a very wealthy woman. Her success, alas, was not to last. She declared bankrupt and was sent to debtors’ prison. Before she was incarcerated, she sold the copyright of The Art of Cooking. After she was released, Glasse published two more books: The Servants’ Directory and The Compleat Confectioner. Neither attained the popularity of her first book. Hannah Glasse died in 1770 at the age of 62, but her book keeps her memory alive.

Cover Reveal for The Winding Road to Wallace

 Here it is! 

The cover for The Winding Road to Wallace, 

my Old Western Romance set in New Mexico Territory!

Prudence Baker is chasing the man who disappeared after cheating her father out of his money and leaving him to die. Then her mule collapses, leaving her and her six-year-old brother stranded on the edge of a mountain precipice in New Mexico Territory, Prudence pleads for divine intervention. Surely the disheveled and dirty man who arrives singing a bar-room drinking song is not the angel of mercy she'd begged God for!

On the run from the Silver Lakes gang, Thomas Johnson is riding hard to reach the protection of his family at the Flying J Ranch. He can’t afford to spend time rescuing a damsel in distress. But the cowboy code of honor demands he set aside his own safety to help the woman stranded along the winding road, especially when he learns what she intends to do in the violent new railroad town of Wallace.

The Winding Road to Wallace is a thrilling and heartfelt historical romance that blends classic Western adventure with a compelling love story. It draws readers into the rugged New Mexico Territory, where danger, honor, and unexpected romance collide, offering an immersive experience of grit, courage, and heart.

Advanced Reader Copies (which do not have this cover) are available in ebook and in a limited paperback edition. If you would like the ebook, apply here. If you would like a paperback, email me at jennifer.bohnhoff@gmail.com.

This book will be published on May 1, 2026. You can preorder the ebook here at the special introductory price of $1.99, a savings of $3 over the publication price. It will automatically show up on your device on May 1. 

Or preorder a paperback direct from the author here, and get a signed copy and a bookmark, plus an additional western book by another author, free! Preorder Special BOGO free! Go to the Winding Road to Wallace Page on this website, choose a title from another western writer, and write that title into your order form in the box for dedications. Quantities are limited, and books are offered first come, first served. I will ship out your order as soon as possible, maybe even before May 1!