The Bad Guy

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Anita Perez Ferguson

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Golden Secrets

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synopsis

Synopsis
Alicia Ortega, a 14-year-old Mexican girl, struggles to protect her father’s land when she and her older sisters are aggressively courted by land-hungry Yankees and rough-cut fur traders in the Spanish colony. It’s up to Alicia, her sister Clara, and their Chumash friend Nina to shoulder the responsibility of caring for the Ortega home and business. When Alicia’s oldest sister is sent to finishing school in Texas for protection and refinement, the remaining younger sisters must run the rancho alone. Dangers on all sides begin to descend as the sisters are pursued by Yankee immigrant merchants and sailors hoping to cash in on rich lands and access to Pacific ports. Alicia is trying her best to keep her family’s home and business afloat and thankfully, her companion, Nina is there to help. But as an indigenous girl, Nina is valuable to traders, trappers, and surveyors for her knowledge of the Californian terrain and her network of tribal relations. However, she won’t always be there to help Alicia’s family, especially since she has problems of her own. The Franciscan Mission is pressuring her family to convert to Catholicism, a charming trader is courting her, and, worse of all, their tribal territory and tribal ways are vanishing. The girls struggle to protect the Ortega family’s land and black market dock from conniving suitors, but tough family secrets are threatening everything, and Alicia doesn’t know if they’ll be able to survive until her parents return.

bio

Author Biography

Dr. Perez Ferguson is a cross-cultural educator and consultant. Her fiction brings to life the voices of California inhabitants living 200 years ago. She has twice won the Best YA Fiction Award from the San Francisco Writers Conference, 2021 and 2022.

Regarding Broken Promises:

"The tightly wound plot flows effortlessly from one moment to the next.... readers will find themselves inspired by the future Sparrow creates for herself and those around her." — Kirkus Reviews

Her non-fiction promotes the voices of under-represented communities in the twenty-first century. This earned her the 2014 Lacayo Lifetime Achievement Award from the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute. She is an Advisor and Former Chair for the InterAmerican Foundation and a former Visiting Lecturer for the Council for Independent Colleges. She enjoys living and writing on the Pacific coast.

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Author Insight

The Bad Guy

Every story needs a bad guy. Have you ever read a story where the main character had no problems whatsoever? Such stories are rare for two reasons; characters without any challenges are boring, and almost everyone has experienced problems in real life. Golden Secrets is a historic adventure with enough problems to keep you reading and wondering how things will turn out in the end of the story. Just as in real life, we never know what is coming next. Will the bad guy succeed? "Probably not," you say. Will you join me and find out just how he gets outsmarted at his own game? Golden Secrets is the second book in the Mission Bells Trilogy. It can be read separately or paired with book one, Twisted Cross.

Book Excerpt

Golden Secrets

On the same day that Mama and Papa took Dolores away, Captain Harris and other grubby buccaneers off-loaded black-market goods at Papa’s dock, Refugio.
            “No taxes here, mates, and the bonus is that the harbor master has three daughters! This place is a gold mine.” Harris hummed to himself, straightening his tattered coat and turning to the hacienda on the bluff.
            Safe from the Spanish harbor taxes of 1805, the wharf was not truly a secret to anyone. Even some of the Mission padres used the dock to bargain for linens, silks, and ornaments.
            “Finish unloading the merchandise while I patrol up the hill and inspect Papa’s little treasures.” Captain Harris reached the veranda steps at the hacienda and announced, “I can help Clara run the dock if you let me.” He slid his muddy boot close to wedge the door open. Too close.
            Alicia saw him approach and leaned against the other side of the door. She and Harris were only inches apart and she studied his face.
            “You should not be here,” Alicia cried out. “Dolores is not here. Mama and Papa are gone too.” No one entered the house when her parents were away, especially not sailors.
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Anita Perez Ferguson

Golden Secrets

Synopsis

Author Biography

Author Insight

Book Excerpt

Golden Secrets

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