Daisy Barry appears in my novel Master of the Night, but Calico Queen is her story. In the previous book, she was a naïve, despicable individual who didn't have many redeeming qualities. However, because of what happened in that first book, she had to learn that her values were not well grounded. She had a choice whether to continue to live as she had as a young child or be a contributing, helpful member of society. She chose to turn her life around and has been a schoolteacher in Cairo, Illinois for a number of years. With spinsterhood fast approaching and the area becoming more and more populated, her wanderlust has pushed her to spread her wings. Thus, starts her trip to Fort Benton, Montana Territory to be a schoolteacher and introduce education to that faraway land.

Having traveled to Montana several times, I was, at first, surprised to see how many times we crossed the Missouri River. On further investigation, the fact finally soaked in that the Missouri was actually much longer than the Mississippi and very instrumental in settling of the American West. Therefore, the rivers, the Mississippi and Missouri seemed to be the best way to get Daisy from Cairo, Illinois to Fort Benton. Since her brother-in-law, Wray, from the first book owned a fleet of paddlewheels, this became her mode of transportation. Although Wray had normally sent his boats no further north than St. Louis, this gave him an opportunity to explore the Missouri that he'd been thinking about but had never done.

To write this novel, I had to do a great deal of research, not only through books, but also in museums. I visited Herman, Missouri where the old schoolhouse museum had many displays having to do with riverboats on the Missouri River. I also read several books on paddlewheels and their history in the United States. I hit the University of Illinois library for historical information about every state between Missouri and Montana where the Missouri River flows. I was well into the writing when we visited Fort Benton, Montana and I learned that the first paddlewheel had not made it there until the late 1870s. With this in mind, I had to change some of the events that my hero and heroine encountered. A tornado in the plains, that happens frequently, provides a way to move from the riverboat to another mode of transportation.

I also had to learn about St. Louis at this time in history. Here again I used books, but also knowledge I had obtained while living in the city many years ago. Trying to authenticate the travel was not easy. My people were going to stop off in Bismark, North Dakota Territory when I learned that the town did not exist at the time of their travel.

Reviewers criticized the book by saying that Daisy put herself into harms way when she should have known better. Maybe they are right. I later learned that a "Calico Queen" on the frontier was actually a prostitute. Daisy has this title because she was the queen of the riverboat, the Calico Belle.

I liked writing this because Daisy and Drake are older than other people I've written about, although Daisy, has the naivete in some ways of a very young woman. Trying to bring out that contrast in her personality was a challenge. I especially liked writing the character Brutus, the huge man with a gentle nature who became Daisy's first student on the riverboat. To me, he's the kind of person I would like to meet and make my friend.

This is the first book in which I've included Native Americans, on purpose. I feel that for the most part they are not portrayed accurately in literature and I have not wanted to do that. Therefore, the situations in which Daisy finds herself are mostly of her own doing along with the youthfulness of the young men who find her and hastily corrected when she is brought into the presence of the rest of the natives.

I hope you will enjoy reading this, the second in the Barry sisters trilogy.