Return to a New Adventure with Bestselling Author E.E. Burke

Seven years ago, I started out to tell a love story featuring two of America's most notable childhood sweethearts, Tom and Becky. What I imagined to be a simple enough story turned into a expedition with many twists and turns--wandering, exploring, discovering, with lots of crying and laughing and pulling my hair out when I struggled to put on the page what was in my heart. As I reach the end, I can say without reservation it has been one of the most exciting and fulfilling journeys I've ever taken, and I don't regret one minute of it. I learned a lot about writing and about myself while working on this book. I hope I've done Tom and Becky proud. However its received, I've done the best I can do. That's all we can ever do, right?

In the Afterword of the original Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain wrote: 

Some day it may seem worthwhile to take up the story of the younger ones again and see what sort of men and women they turned out to be. 

The great author never did revisit his characters as adults. As I read and re-read these books over the years, I couldn't stop asking, what happened? I would not be satisfied until I had an answer.

Tom Sawyer Returns picks up more than a decade after we left him as a carefree lad in a sleepy town on the Mississippi River. It made sense that Tom would eventually leave to seek adventures. History provided a desperate event that would bring him home, determined to be a hero.

Numerous incidents in Tom Sawyer Returns are based on historical reports, one of which alludes to a shadowy conspiracy by Confederate sympathizers to seize control of the Mississippi River. 

Put Tom in the middle of a deadly scheme, having to solve a mystery without crucial memories, and you have an exciting plot. But a love story requires more.

In Twain’s book, the character of Becky Thatcher fits the traditional stereotype of the Victorian female: beautiful, helpless, idealized...quite frankly, boring. I wondered, what would a girl like that do when faced with adversity if she were made of more than fluff? 

The Becky Thatcher who sprang to life on these pages surprised me with her cleverness, compassion, courage and sense of adventure. She’d shown something of her spunk in choosing Tom in the first place, and seeing her develop into a multi-faceted, independent woman, was pure delight. 

You'll meet other characters featured in Twain's stories, such as Tom's half-brother Sid, Becky's cousin Jeff, Judge Thatcher, Tom's former girlfriend Amy Lawrence, and Alfred Temple, who is still competing with Tom for Becky's affections. They all had bit parts in Twain's original tale. I thoroughly enjoyed expanding on these secondary characters, delving into backstories, and exploring their relationships with Tom and Becky. 

See more sneak peek info on my blog and website: www. eeburke.com 

August 1864

The country is at war, Missouri languishes under martial law, and a once-peaceful river town throngs with soldiers, spies, and sedition. 

Caught in the middle is Becky Thatcher. Once a pampered only child, she has lost nearly everything, including her faith in love. When her father is jailed for treason and their very survival depends on her, the last person in the world she wants to rely on is her faithless first beau, Tom Sawyer. 

 

Tom has no problem remembering the mistakes he made concerning Becky, but is she the reason he returned home after so many years? Upon awakening without crucial memories after someone tried to kill him, the undercover spy can’t recall his mission and dares not trust anyone — not even his childhood sweetheart.

Purchase in eBook or Paperback formats: books2read.com/NewAdventure2

Have you read Twain's classics? What do you remember best about the stories or characters?  

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E.E. Burke On The Journey: an inspiring love story

Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century. ~ Mark Twain, Notebook, 1894

Sam and Livy: A Love Story

By E.E. Burke

(Pictured above: Sam and his Livy.)

As a romance writer, I’m always on the look-out for great love stories. One of the most poignant is the romance between Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) and Olivia Langdon. What an unlikely pair they were. Olivia, known as Livy, had a proper Eastern upbringing in a family of high social standing. Sam was a westerner with many rough edges. He grew up poor and left school at age 12. In contrast to Livy’s even temperament and piety, Sam had explosive bouts of anger; he smoked, drank and could out-swear a sailor. Nevertheless, these two found in each other a love that only deepened over the years.

Clemens reported that he fell in love with Olivia when he first saw her in an ivory miniature on board a ship with her brother in 1867. He met her the following December, 1868.

He later wrote in The Autobiography of Mark Twain: “She was slender and beautiful and girlish–she was both girl and woman. She remained both girl and woman to the last day of her life.”

Within days of meeting Livy. he proposed marriage. She refused. It took real determination to convince her to marry him–more than 180 letters over 17 months.

He later wrote: “She said she never could or would love me – but she set herself the task of making a Christian of me. I said she would succeed, but that in the meantime, she would unwittingly dig a matrimonial pit and end by tumbling into it.”

She did indeed take the tumble and loved Sam for 34 years until the day of her death in 1904.

This poignant recollection from Twain’s autobiography gives some insight into one of the reasons he loved his Livy so faithfully and passionately. “She poured out her prodigal affection in kisses and caresses, and in a vocabulary of endearments whose profusion was always an astonishment to me.”

Sadly, the devoted couple experienced heartbreaking loss. Their first child, Langdon, died of diphtheria before he reached his second year. They lost daughter Susy, 24, to meningitis, and Jean died from epilepsy at 29. Clara was estranged from her father for many years although they reconciled before his death. Clara lived to age 88, but left no children.

Sam and Livy’s love story is, in part, what inspired me to write love stories for the beloved characters Mark Twain created. I like to think Sam would appreciate the difficulties both Tom and Huck face when they fall in love.

~~~

I noticed some pieces of limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling of bark; so I knowed the river had begun to rise. ~ Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Life On The Big Muddy

This year, those of us in the Midwest have been reminded of the Missouri River’s power and unpredictability. But the Big Muddy has always been a dangerous river.

Ever Changing Channels: The Missouri River has never liked to stay in predictable channels. According the Mark Twain’s writings, 19th century pilots on the Mississippi River could memorize that river enough to run at night. But steamboats on the Missouri River would only travel during the day when the pilots could actually observe the river because it changed so often. The course they took on the trip upriver could be entirely different from the one they encountered coming back downriver.

Spilling over its banks: This aerial photo from KMBC-News in Kansas City shows historic flooding in Platte County, MO (about a half hour north of where I live). While doing research for Taming Huck Finn, I read about a famed Mississippi River steamboat pilot who made one journey up the Missouri River in the early 1870s, and declared he would never do it again. He said only a madman would attempt to pilot such a wild, unpredictable river. It sounded to me like the kind the river that would appeal to Huck Finn.

If you’d like to check out my novel Taming Huck Finn, download a free first chapter. Or use this universal link to purchase: books2read.com/huckfinn

This article originally appeared in the first edition of newsletter On The Journey. Would you like to have it personally delivered to your email? This brief informational e-newsletter is sent out only once a month to my subscribers. Here’s where to sign up: www.eeburke.com/newsletter.

*Train photography in newsletter banner by Matthew Malkiewicz. See more of his lovely photography at www.losttracksoftime.com.

Is there a real life love story that has inspired you? If so, tell me about it. 

I'll draw a random winner from comments for a copy of Taming Huck Finn. (Leave your email address if you want to be entered).