Jennifer Uhlarik is our guest today.

She wrote a book called Sand Creek Serenade.

Today, Jennifer is here to share the story behind her story.

Dr. Sadie Hoppner is no stranger to adversity. She’s fought to be taken seriously since childhood, when her father began training her in the healing arts. Finding acceptance and respect proves especially difficult at Fort Lyon, where she’s come to practice medicine under her brother’s watchful eye.

Cheyenne brave Five Kills wouldn’t knowingly jeopardize the peace treaty recently negotiated between his people and the Army. But a chance encounter with the female doctor ignites memories of his upbringing among the whites. Too intrigued to stay away, tension erupts with the soldiers, and Five Kills is injured.

As he recuperates under the tender care of the pretty healer, an unlikely bond forms. However, their fledgling love is put to the test when each realizes that a much greater danger awaits—a danger they are wholly unable to stop, and one which neither may survive.

Learn more and purchase a copy.

What inspired you to write this story?

When the idea for Sand Creek Serenade came to me, it was meant to be a novella for a collection about women doing men’s jobs. My initial thought was a doctor working around the mining camps after the 1859 Colorado Gold Rush. However, as I researched to discover a good catastrophe for my heroine, Sadie Hoppner, to attend to, I read about the Sand Creek Massacre. The entire novella suddenly morphed into a novel—with a completely different plot.

The Sand Creek Massacre occurred on November 29, 1864, in the southeast corner of Colorado. After promising a peace treaty to end the brewing trouble between the Cheyenne and the US Army, Colonel John Chivington rode through the night with 700 soldiers to attack a sleeping camp comprised mostly of women, children, and elderly Indians. Chief Black Kettle had done exactly as he’d been told—camp beside Sand Creek and fly an American flag and a white flag over his lodge. Yet just before dawn, the Army unloaded their guns on the sleepy encampment.

Historical accounts vary as to the number of dead on the Indian side, but it was anywhere between 70 and 160. Many more were wounded. The Army, thirsty for blood, committed many vile acts against the Indians. History says that the soldiers took their foes’ body parts as trophies, used small children for target practice, and cut unborn children from their mothers’ wombs. Thankfully, Colonel Chivington’s actions were not received well. As word came out about the massacre, it reached Washington, D.C., and an investigation was opened. Where Chivington expected glory for his actions, he was reviled. Unfortunately, the massacre touched off a long series of retaliatory attacks that lasted decades beyond.

Of course, in Sand Creek Serenade, Sadie is asked by one of the survivors of the attack—a Cheyenne Brave named Five Kills—if she will help heal the members of his tribe. I hope you’ll pick up a copy and see how their story turns out!

Wow! What a story! Thanks for sharing.

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born.

Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has finaled and won in numerous writing competitions, and been on the ECPA best-seller list numerous times.

In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers and lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association.

She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, college-aged son, and four fur children.

Follow Jennifer on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Website

Jennifer is giving away a copy of Sand Creek Serenade. Follow the directions below to enter the book giveaway contest.