Jack the Ripper in St Louis -- and a Contest!

Note: "Fedora Amis" is a long-time friend of mine. I read Jack the Ripper in St. Louis a while back and loved it! You will, too. Here we learn about Fedora and her love for all things old and cool! -- Joanna

 By Fedora Amis

Ads from the past...

Call me strange, but I like to read newspaper advertisements--from 1897.  For a mere three cents, I can paper shop to my heart’s content.  A fine pair of Storm Queen winter boots cost $1.37.  I could buy a living room sofa for $7.75 or have my hernia repaired for under $20.

With no Truth in Advertising laws,  companies offered miracle products. One boasted it would cure a cold in a single day.  Dr. Dromgule’s Female Bitters promised to cure any and every female complaint. These nostrums didn’t really cure anything, but the consumer would feel better after taking a big swig. Most contained equal amounts of molasses, water and whiskey.

Fedora Amis loves reading and writing about the past.

Recipes for cosmetics...

Before Revlon and Maybelline, ladies had to make their own cosmetics. Here are two recipes--which I beg you never to use.

     For women’s hair: Was no oftener than every three weeks using egg yolk and cold water.

     For men’s baldness: Rub scalp with parafin. Stay away from fire.

     For the lady’s  face: Wash face seldom, and then with milk or salad oil.  Sleep with cloth soaked in strong lead lotion laid across the nose.   

     Thank heavens we now know that lead collects in the body.  Lead poisoning leads to pain, confusion, headache, seizures, coma and death. Suffering for beauty may be one thing--but this is definitely going too far.

Dangers lurked...

With no pure food or drug laws, candy makers used arsenic to color their confections green Morphine was the key ingredient used to calm tots in Winslow’s Baby Syrup and Kopp’s Baby Friend. I’ll bet it worked wonders on fussy babies--and opened many to lives of addiction. Drugstores sold paregoric and other opiates over the counter--as they did a variety of poisons.

The late Victorian era was a time when the earliest child labor laws reduced the working day for children under twelve years of age to a mere 10 hours a day. Smoke from coal-fired factories so blackened the air that buildings near the riverfront had to use artificial light at high noon even on a sunny day.  Local streets were flowing or rutted mud for three-fourths of every year. Shopgirls made 6 cents an hour. Trousers were called “unwhisperables.” Dr. John Harvey Kellogg of Battle Creek, Michigan, invented cornflakes in 1896 because he believed that a bland diet would reduce unhealthy sexual desire. 

I revel in the delicious irony of those times. Atlanta druggist John Pemberton cooked up a blend of cocaine and Kola nut in 1886. He called it the great National Temperance Drink. Substitute addiction to cocaine for addiction to liquor--what a concept! That’s why I love to read old newspapers.

I like nothing better than to discover odd bits of pop culture from the 19th century and to use them in writing my humorous Victorian whodunits

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

"Fedora Amis," author of Jack the Ripper in St. Louis, is the winner of the Mayhaven Award for fiction, now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other fine booksellers.

Visit Fedora's website at Fedoraamis.com and follow her on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/Fedoraamisauthor

Also online is a new interview   http://stlsinc.blogspot.com/

CONTEST:

Fedora has kindly agreed to give away one copy of Jack the Ripper in St. Louis to a lucky commenter. Add your comment and we'll choose a winner! 

DEADLINE: 

You have until Sunday, September 8 at midnight to make a comment. We'll choose one lucky commenter at random. The winner will be announced on Monday, September 9.

The Highway by CJ Box -- Win Your Copy!

Note: Every Wednesday, Sally and I hope to feature a book that one of us is reading--or a piece from my own writing. We'll also be giving away a book or two or a box of them!

THE HIGHWAY by CJ Box
Purchased at Murder on the Beach, Delray Beach, FL

I will never ever stop at a truck stop again. Nope. No way. Not after reading THE HIGHWAY by CJ Box. And what's so weird is that I've met CJ--we were guests at Murder and Mayhem in Muskego--and he seemed like such a sweet man. How could he have thought up such a horrifying plot?

Sigh.

I guess there was a lot of angst brewing under that big cowboy hat.

BACK COVER COPY for THE HIGHWAY:

When two sisters set out across a remote stretch of Montana road to visit their friend, little do they know it will be the last time anyone might ever hear from them. The girls--and their car--simply disappear.

Former police investigator Cody Hoyt has just lost his job and has fallen off the wagon after a long stretch of sobriety. Convinced by his son and his former rookie partner, Cassie Dewell, to conduct a search, he begins the drive south to the girls' last known location. As Cody makes his way to the lonely stretch of Montana highway where they were missing, Cassie discovers that Gracie and Danielle Sullivan aren't the first girls who have disappeared in this area. This majestic landscape is tha hunting ground for a killer who viciousness is outmatched only by his intelligence. And he might not be working alone.

Time is running out for Gracie and Danielle. Can Cassie overcome her doubts and lack of experience and use her innate skill? Can Cody Hoyt battle his own demons and stop this killer before another victim vanishes on THE HIGHWAY?

CONTEST:

Tell us what book scared the bejeebers out of you! You have until midnight, Sunday, September 1. We'll use the random number generator and pick a commenter to win Joanna's autographed copy of THE HIGHWAY. (I think there's a smudge of blueberry jam on one page and one corner is dented because I was juggling too much stuff and dropped the book. Otherwise, it's pristine!)