Welcome Guest Blogger Shirley Tallman!!!

Happy Monday. I hope everyone had a fabulous Easter!!

Today we’re joined by Shirley Tallman. Rather than have me try to describe Shirley and her work she’s going to take the reigns. So with out further ado here’s Shirley.

Hi Romance Junkies! 

What a delight it is to visit the Romance Junkies website! I’ve been a member for nearly two years now, but this is the first time I’ve been invited to address my fellow members personally. 

I guess I should start by introducing myself. My name is Shirley Tallman and I write the Sarah Woolson historical mystery series set in 1880s San Francisco: MURDER ON NOB HILL, THE RUSSIAN HILL MURDERS and THE CLIFF HOUSE STRANGLER. 

Our feisty heroine, Sarah Woolson, is a young woman with a dream – more than anything she longs to be an attorney. But in those days it took a lot of chutzpah to take on the exclusive all-male legal establishment. For one thing, very few law schools accepted women students – those girls who did manage to get a legal education, still had to fight to be accepted into their state’s Bar Association. The main obstacle to pursuing this profession, however, was that society expected women to stay in the home and tend to their knitting (and husband and children, of course); after all, everyone knew it was against God’s will for women to have a career!  

That pretty much explains why Sarah has vowed not to marry. In order to retain her independence, and achieve her goal of providing equal justice for all, she must remain single. As a married woman she would be under her husband’s control; he would manage her finances, decide where they would live, how their children were to be raised, even which church they would join. 

The problem, of course, is that Sarah is not only intelligent and determined, she’s also a beautiful and desirable young woman. Men are attracted to her and, as much as she tries to ignore her feelings, she is attracted to them. Especially Pierce Godfrey, whom Sarah is forced to admit in THE RUSSIAN HILL MURDERS is the most handsome man she has ever met. As my niece Melody is fond of saying, “Aunt Shirley, how can she possibly resist him?” 

But there’s more than one man in Sarah’s life, whether she cares to admit it or not. Her gruff and opinionated friend and former colleague, Robert Campbell, shows every sign of becoming very fond of Sarah, despite what he refers to as her “pigheaded obstinacy.”  

Sarah’s way of dealing with this prickly problem, is to immerse herself in her work. In THE CLIFF HOUSE STRANGLER – book #3 in the series – Sarah and Robert attend a séance at San Francisco’s famed Cliff House, only to find one of the guests has been strangled – under their very noses! Before Sarah knows it, she finds herself at the center of a complicated murder plot involving ghosts, gypsies and City Hall, all the while facing off with Robert in a volatile legal battle.  

But how long can she bury her head in the sand? Sooner or later, Sarah’s going to have to listen to her heart, isn’t she? The question is, what will her heart tell her to do? 

Sorry Melody, but you’re going to have to read the next book in the Sarah Woolson series to find out.