Friday, March 7, 2025

Penelope and Me



Good Morning Everyone!

 

I want you to meet my friend, Penelope Marzec. She is an author with a staggering amount of novels to her credit.

Penny and I have never met face to face, but we are long-term friends. We met in 2012, when our publisher published my first book, and Penny was already an experienced novelist with the same company.

We have a lot in common. We are about the same age, and we both have been married to our husbands for years. We each gave birth to three daughters.

In a few ways, we are different. She is a devout Catholic, and I’m a dedicated Baptist, but we are both committed Christians.  She is a Democrat, and I am a Republican, but we respect each other, and we can talk about our differences without anger or insinuations.

Penny’s latest book, Love’s Gift, is another book to interest and enlighten you. She writes about the Transcontinental Railroad.  I asked her how she came up with that idea, and here’s what she said.




“The idea of the Chinese orphans came to me due to my husband’s fascination with trains.

From him, I learned about the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. Chinese laborers were recruited to come to this country to help build the railroad. They were given lower wages than the whites plus their work in tunneling through the Sierra Nevada Mountains was the most

dangerous. Yet, they were excluded from the famous photograph that marked the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in Utah, which was celebrated by the hammering of the Golden Spike.

 Unfortunately, the Chinese became victims of racial prejudice and in 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act banned Chinese laborers from entering the United States. The Chinese already in this country were not allowed to become citizens. In fact, Chinese people in this country needed

to carry residency papers with them at all times. Otherwise, they could be sent to China. It’s a sad part of our country’s history, but my heroine perseveres helped by her faith.”

This is a wonderful book, and I hope you will buy it and leave a review!

I'm published a video about Penny and this book. Perhaps you'd like to see it. 

Gay on YouTube




 

 

1 comment:

  1. Gay,
    Thanks so much for posting this!
    Penny

    ReplyDelete

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