Intersection Column | Researching for a Novel

How research can guide and change the book you have in your head

by Mary Connealy

When I started out to write the Golden State Treasure series, I didn’t really know it was going to go in such interesting directions. For me though, the historical research just often ends up being a gold mine. My Treasure Hunt series was no exception.

I started the series thinking of lost treasure, or a lost mine, in the Rocky Mountains, similar to The Lost Dutchmen’s Mine.

The Lost Dutchman’s mine . . . the story goes a man comes stumbling out of the mountains in Arizona with gold in his saddlebags. He was dying. (I can’t remember exactly the story, and rather than look it up, I’ll do my best to repeat it. After all, isn’t that how all wild tales of lost gold go?)

With his last breath, this old miner raved about his gold mine, then he died.

Thus began a wild search for this gold mine, using the man’s location, the nearby mountains, and the man’s ravings as clues. No gold mine was ever found. But there was the gold in his saddlebags so it had to be true, right? I actually talked to someone who was near the area the miner died and they said the story is still alive and well today.

It’s said the West was full of such stories so I thought, why not write my own?

A garbled journal with dubious clues—this was surprisingly hard to write. I mean . . . clues? What kind of clues? I usually just have people start shooting for some reason and my heroes and heroines must track them down. But clues?

Those were tricky.

I have an obsessed man who ruined his family by abandoning them to search. Two of his three children are caught by the thrill of this treasure hunt.

And my first book, Whispers of Fortune, begins when that third child, an older brother, bitter about his father’s abandonment and determined to save his brothers from the same obsession, catches up with his treasure-mad little brothers. In book #1, we find out that there is something out there. The journal, vague and hard to decipher, is definitely a guide to something. Now, mainly because he can’t control his brothers, the older brother agrees to join in the hunt.

The thing about the research is that it starts to turn up very cool historical facts that can weave their way into my book—and there were some really interesting things going on historically at this time and in this place. Or before, which explains the gold.

This is Josh and Tilda’s story. Tilda came West searching for the same boys the older brother was looking for, because they lied their way onto an orphan train she oversaw (they weren’t orphans, for heaven’s sake), then ran away from the train, leaving her in a bad position with her employers . . . We can’t just lose children, Tilda.

So here she is, rediscovering knowledge she has about old California and the history of Conquistadors that explored the California coast. Why is it so fascinating to her?

Here is where my book kind of went off the rails. But who needs rails, huh?

I’d been discovering all kinds of interesting facts about the California coast, and how the explorers missed San Francisco because it was always shrouded in fog. They missed it for one hundred years.

So my explorer Captain Cabrilla didn’t come ashore there. But what if? 

“What if” is really where the fun begins.

What if, in this little armada of ships, there was a storm?

What if one of those ships got blown into the fog?

What if, inside that fog, they find a river going inland and decide to explore?

There is absolutely no proof such a thing happened. But what if they never got back? And what if a few of them had gold doubloons, and my treasure hunters find them and clues about maybe more?

Meanwhile, poor Tilda is waiting. Her old boss at the orphanage in New York City is insistent that she come back. The same old boss who’d been on the verge of firing her. And what if—

Well, you get the idea. So much to read about and research and love. I get sucked in, and it’s a wonder I can get a book written. Unexpected discoveries about times and places are their own kind of treasure!

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About the Author

Mary Connealy writes “romantic comedies with cowboys” and is celebrated for her fun, zany, action-packed style. She has sold over 1.5 million books and is the author of the popular series A Western Light. Mary lives on a ranch in Nebraska with her very own romantic cowboy hero. Visit MaryConnealy.com.

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About the Book

Tilda Muirhead's life takes an unexpected twist when she accepts a teaching position for two brothers obsessed with a treasure map left by their grandfather. When a young man arrives claiming to be her long-lost brother, rancher Josh Hart suggests Tilda and the young MacKenzie boys set off on a quest with him that aims to protect Tilda while unearthing the map's secrets.